by Joan Hohl
Being inattentive, his conscience kicked into action.
What in hell am I doing here?
Marsh knew the answer—he simply didn’t want to look at it too closely. He had been hoping for a bed partner later in the evening, and Chandra had seemed a good choice. Now all he wanted was a bed to himself.
That wasn’t quite true, either.
In truth, he ached for one woman: Jennifer Dunning.
He had been in her company…how long? Not much more than an hour or so, total? It was ridiculous. Plus, she was now an employee, and he never fooled around with employees. Of course, other than the previous housekeeper, who was pushing fifty, he had never had an employee living in his home, either. What was it about her that got to him so strongly?
“…and I told him he could just go to hell.”
Marsh blinked himself back into the moment. “You did?” he asked, because Chandra had paused again and he knew he had to say something.
“Certainly,” Chandra declared. “The man insulted me by assuming I’d go to bed with him a few hours after meeting him.”
Marsh gave her a wry smile. “Yes, of course,” he agreed. “I don’t blame you in the least.” He almost added “the cad” but thought that might be a bit over the top.
“Ah, here’s dinner now,” she said, satisfaction curving her lips as the server placed their meals before them.
After dinner, Marsh drove Chandra straight home to her condo on the outskirts of the city. “You don’t need to get out,” she said, even though he hadn’t made a move to do so. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“Yes, I see the doorman,” he said, eyeing the burly uniformed man standing sentinel by the entrance.
“Thank you for a lovely dinner,” she said, as the doorman strolled forward to open the door for her.
“Thank you for joining me,” he answered, hoping his tone didn’t reveal his relief. He politely added, “I’m glad you were free for the evening.”
“And I.” She smiled with a tinge of disappointment, and slid from the seat.
Marsh never liked disappointing a lady—even one who seemed to have given him a line about not going to bed with a man hours after meeting him—but his mind was clearly elsewhere this evening. He’d put the Jag he kept in Houston into Drive before she’d reached the doorway, and Jen was back on his mind by the time he pulled into traffic.
Why the hell had he hired her?
Marsh sighed. He had hired Jen because he was getting desperate. She was intelligent, personable, fully qualified, friendly and willing to do the cooking.
Yet, he had to admit, she was the reason he had come to Houston. After meeting her, when the touch of her hand made his palm—and parts south—itch, and when that itch had swiftly turned into a familiar warmth that spread through his body, he knew he was in trouble.
He wanted her. He had wanted her within minutes of meeting her, and it had played hell with his normally sound judgment. So, afraid he’d do or say something unacceptable, he manufactured a business trip to put some distance between them, calling his friend Scott to set up a meeting in Houston. To his confused embarrassment, after sitting across the breakfast table from Jen that morning, he couldn’t get to the airstrip soon enough. He had arrived forty-five minutes earlier than he had asked his pilot to be there.
Marsh kept the plane primarily to get from his house in Dallas to the ranch in Colorado in a hurry if he needed to, but used it himself for quick trips like this one. Except that this trip had been unnecessary. He felt like an idiot, getting all hot and sweaty over a woman he had just met. Sure he had been all hot and sweaty over women before, like his previous wife, but he had been a lot younger then. And look where that had gotten him.
Well, the heat was gone now and so was the sweat. Marsh was resolved to revert to form—cool and aloof. He just had to remember that Jen was an employee, nothing more.
Cool and aloof, that would be his mantra.
Marsh could only hope.
* * *
Satisfyingly tired from the day spent cleaning the house, Jen lay curled up in bed, floating in the in-between world of wakefulness and sleep.
The growling sound of a vehicle jerked her awake. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand—it read 1:30 a.m. She heard the automatic garage door open, then slide shut again. Moments later she heard the kitchen door. She rolled onto her back, listening.
Although she would never have admitted it, Jen had not slept easily the previous two nights. She had wakened often, listening. She told herself it was just her new surroundings, that she wasn’t used to sleeping in the quiet hill country yet.
Yeah. Right.
A sigh whispered through her lips. Her eyelids grew heavy, slowly closing. Marsh was home. Too fuzzy-minded to question the comfort she drew from that thought, Jen drifted into a deep, restful sleep within seconds.
She woke the next morning feeling rested, and had breakfast ready when Marsh entered the kitchen at precisely six-thirty. She had wondered if he would make it after returning to the house so late, but there he was, wide-awake, alert and handsome as the rugged devil.
“Good morning.” She greeted him with a smile and a large plate in hand. He did not return her smile.
“Morning,” he said as he sat down and drew his napkin over his jean-clad knees. “Smells good.”
“Thanks,” she said, setting the plate of eggs, potatoes and a large steak in front of him. She turned back to the counter to get her own plate.
“Have a seat.” It wasn’t so much an invitation as an order.
But today, Jen didn’t mind. He was the boss, after all. They ate in silence again. Marsh didn’t say a word until after she had removed the plates and served the coffee.
“You cleaned the house.” His tone was hard.
“Yes.” She held his gaze, slowly arching one questioning brow.
“Why?”
Her other brow went up in surprise. “Because it needed cleaning.”
“Yes, it did. But you weren’t hired to clean.”
“I cleaned the kitchen,” Jen shot back at him. “You didn’t object to that.”
“I hired you to cook,” he said, returning fire. “So of course I wouldn’t object to you cleaning the kitchen. That has nothing to do with the rest of the house.” He frowned, perplexed. “I don’t get it. Why would a woman like you even consider cooking and cleaning in any house?”
“What do you mean, a woman like me?”
“You’re from a rich family, dammit. And I didn’t mean ‘a woman like you’ as a slur, if that’s what you’re thinking. You don’t need to work at all, never mind cook and clean. It doesn’t make sense.”
Jen sighed, fully aware she should have expected this reaction from him. Before she could begin to explain, he tossed more at her.
“You come from a well-known, wealthy family, grew up in the lap of luxury in the highest social circles—”
“Hold it right there.” Jen cut him off. She shoved her chair back, scraping it over the floor tiles as she slapped her hands on her hips. He opened his mouth. “First and foremost, Mr. Grainger, I am not a member of any social circle. I am not a social butterfly. My parents are the socialites. I was practically raised by my parents’ housekeeper and chef, Ida and Tony.”
She paused for breath but rushed on before he could get a word out.
“They gave me a sense of being loved for myself, and taught me the value of honest work. Ida taught me how to take care of a beautiful house. Tony taught me how to prepare delicious meals. This is a beautiful house,” she continued. “It deserves to be kept that way. And yes, I’m used to well-prepared meals.”
Marsh was quiet for a moment, as if waiting to see if she was finished. When she didn’t speak, he said, “It will only get dusty again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then I’ll clean it again.”
“And what about the work you were hired to do?”
Jen made a quick study of his closed expression, trying to decide
if he was about to fire her from a job she hadn’t yet begun. At any other time in her life, she wouldn’t have cared. Now, for some strange reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, she did care. She wanted this job, cleaning and all.
She wanted to stay here with him.
“I’ll clean on Saturdays.” She again arched one brow. “Or were you thinking to have me work in the office on weekends, too?”
“No, of course not.” He heaved a sigh. “I’ll pay you for the cleaning.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at her victory. “I’ll get the breakfast things away so I can get started in the office.” To her surprise, he began clearing the table.
“I’ll help here,” he said, carrying dishes to the dishwasher. “The sooner we can get started, the better. I have a lot of work to do.” His voice was rough, as if he were embarrassed about helping with anything domestic.
Jen fought against a laugh. “Yes, sir.”
He sighed again. “I asked you not to call me ‘sir’.”
She nodded. “I know.”
She was really beginning to enjoy being with him. Was she nuts? He had barely been civil to her since she’d arrived at the house. How could she even think she was beginning to like the man?
Maybe she had been fawned over for too long, by her parents, and Ida and Tony.
Possibly, a man like Marshall Grainger was just what she needed. A no-nonsense, straight-talking man with a perfect smile and silver eyes.
No doubt about it, she thought. I am nuts.
Three
Marsh sat in front of the computer, a newer model than the one Jen had used at her previous job. She told him the machine was new to her, so he began with the basics. He had drawn another chair up to the desk next to him. They were so close that whenever he turned to explain something to her, or she leaned in to get a closer look at the data on the screen, their thighs briefly brushed against each other.
It was purely accidental and yet Jen felt a quiver of awareness when his hard thigh touched her soft one.
He smelled good, and not of the cologne she’d seen in his bedroom. Jen wished she had noticed the smell of his woodsy soap and his natural musky male scent earlier while they’d cleared away the breakfast things, so she could have been prepared. Now, here, sitting so close to him, his scent enveloped her. And it wasn’t a bad thing—not at all.
Yanking her mind away from Marsh and back to the business at hand, she reached across him with her right arm to point at data on the screen she didn’t understand. At the same time, he lifted his hand, his forearm brushing over her breast.
For an instant they both froze. She pulled her arm back, he dropped his hand. Jen tingled all the way down to her toenails.
“I—” he began.
“It’s all right.” She cut him off, her voice as cool and calm as she could manage. “I know it wasn’t deliberate.”
“That’s right, it wasn’t, but still—”
Again she interrupted him. “Let’s just get back to work. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, his tone rough-edged. “What was your question?”
Instead of reaching across him, she read the part she wasn’t sure of. The tension quivering between them still hovered as he explained.
They broke for lunch not much later. “I’m going to my office,” he said, starting for the room opposite hers. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
“I’ll start lunch,” she said. “Is a chef salad okay with you?”
His office door shut before he could give her an answer.
Jen went into the kitchen, threw the salad together and stood at the counter eating while getting the ingredients together for Yankee pot roast for dinner. She was peeling potatoes—trying to ignore the fact that her body was still tingling from Marsh’s touch—when he entered.
“Aren’t you going to sit down?” he asked, digging into his salad.
“I’m about finished,” Jen answered, popping the last forkful into her mouth as she slid the roast pan into the oven. The last thing she needed right now was to sit close to Marsh Grainger one second sooner than she had to.
They were back at her desk fifteen minutes later, both making sure to keep as much distance between them as possible. By midafternoon, Jen was up to speed.
“I think I can handle it now myself,” she said, aware that his scent was making her overwarm.
Marsh nodded. He pushed back the chair and glanced at his watch. “You can quit for the day, you’ve got a lot of data to mentally process. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Is six all right?”
“That’ll be fine.” His office door shut, but Jen stayed right where she was, needing a moment to gather herself together.
Working with Marsh Grainger was definitely going to be difficult if she couldn’t even handle accidental physical contact with the man.
Some employee she was going to be.
* * *
That night, Jen’s cell phone rang. She wasn’t surprised to see that it was her mother calling, wondering what had taken her so long. Jen sighed as she answered. “Hello, Mother.”
“Hello, Mother? Hello, Mother?” Celia Dunning came close to shouting, and Celia rarely shouted at anything. “You take off leaving only a note saying ‘I’m off to see the wizard,’ and all you say is ‘Hello, Mother’?”
“What else am I supposed to say?” Jen answered, gritting her teeth to hold her temper. “I left you a note. You couldn’t have been too perturbed—it’s been almost a week since I left.” Try as she might, Jen couldn’t ignore the hurt she felt over the fact that it had taken her mother so long to call.
“I’m sorry.” Celia now sounded contrite. “Your father decided on the spur of the moment Thursday evening that he felt lucky and wanted to fly to Las Vegas. He was right,” she went on. “He hit a winning streak at the tables.” She sighed. “We got back a little while ago. I just found your note.”
“Okay.” What else could she say?
“Where are you, Jennifer?” Celia’s voice was now tight with concern.
“I’m working for Marshall Grainger,” Jen said, warmth spreading over her as she said Marsh’s name out loud. She tried to snap herself out of it. “As I also wrote on my note.”
“Jennifer Dunning,” her mother said, sounding panicked, “I want to know exactly where you are living.”
Lifting the phone from her ear, Jen stared at it in astonishment. The sound of her mother’s obvious nervousness was shocking. Very little rattled her mother. She hesitated to reveal that she was living in Marsh’s home, afraid her mother would really freak out.
“I’m living in Mr. Grainger’s house,” she said as calmly as she could, steeling herself for the explosion.
There was a quiet pause, then Celia went off like a rocket. “In his house? What house—here in Dallas? Are you out of your mind? Good heavens, Jennifer, have you any idea of that man’s reputation?”
“I may not be socially inclined, Mother, but I’m not unconscious. Of course I’m aware of his reputation.” Jen answered with hard-fought calm. “But I am here in the capacity of his assistant, not his mistress. And I’m staying in the housekeeper’s quarters, in the back of the house,” she tacked on reassuringly.
“But you already have a position here in Dallas.”
Ignoring the sting of injured tears in her eyes, Jen said, “Mother, I quit my job over two weeks ago.” She didn’t add, And you never noticed.
“You did?”
Jen closed her eyes. “Yes, I did.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Celia demanded, her tone impatient.
“You were…busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt.” She cringed at the memory of discovering her parents’ secret.
“But still, Jennifer, you could have told me.”
Tears trickled down Jen’s face but she was damned if she would allow her distress to show in her voice. “Well, I’m here now and enjoying the work.”
“But where is here exactl
y?”
“Mr. Grainger’s home is near Fredericksburg.” There was no way Jen would reveal the location of the house, certain that if she did her mother would show up within a day or two.
“Jennifer.” Impatience was strong in Celia’s voice. “Where precisely—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jen interrupted her. “Mr. Grainger is calling. I have to go. We’re very busy.”
“But—”
Again Jen interrupted. “Mother, please, I must hang up now. You can call me again, or email me. Goodbye.” She gently pressed the off button.
Jen wiped the tears from her eyes, realizing in that moment just how deeply it affected her that it had taken her parents so long to realize she was gone. She had indeed shocked them with her actions, but at this point, her mother’s reaction felt like too little too late.
At some point, she would have to talk to them about what had happened. But she wasn’t going to be ready for that conversation anytime soon.
* * *
The rest of the week played out much the same as the first day in her office, except for one difference—and it was a big one.
On Tuesday, after serving dinner, Jen was about to take her meal up to her apartment when Marsh again asked her to join him. But this time, he actually started talking to her moments after she seated herself opposite him.
Of course, it was mainly talk about the ranch business, but that beat silence hands-down. She did have one problem, though—the quiet sound of his voice caused a quivery sensation inside her, and as if that wasn’t enough, there seemed to be a constant hum of energy flowing between them, not only at the table but whenever they were in the same room. But based on his attitude, it obviously didn’t mean a thing to him.
All in all, she’d become uneasy whenever he was around.
On the weekend, Jen barely saw anything of Marsh as she was busy cleaning and doing her laundry. A few times, when she was overheated, she had a swim before making a meal. She fell into a pattern of curling up with a book in the evening and ignoring her mother’s phone calls. Jen had nothing to say for now.
The time seemed to fly by. After several more weeks of work during which Jen saw very little of Marsh, it came as a surprise one Saturday morning when, after clearing away the breakfast things, he stopped her as she headed for the laundry room.