Housekeeper Under the Mistletoe

by Cara Colter

  Jefferson did not mention that Mandy had told him that she was prepared to overlook the vast difference in their ages if he wanted to give it a try.

  He had escorted her to the door with a sense of urgency almost unparalleled in his life—and before finding out exactly what “it” meant.

  “The second one was also not mature. She had on too much mascara and her skirt was too short, and she seemed way too interested—”

  He stopped.

  “In you?” Brook asked quietly.

  He didn’t want to get into that. He was a small-town boy who had left here, made good of himself and then come home with a wife. He should have figured out, before he took his request to Maggie, that now that Hailey had been dead over three years, he would be perceived, by the good and simple people of his hometown, as a rather tragic figure. Which was nothing new. He’d come to live with his grandparents when he was six, after his parents had died. He sometimes wondered why he had come back here, to this place where he had been and always would be the little orphan.

  And now a widower, seen by one and all as much more in need of a new wife than a housekeeper.

  “You don’t have to worry about that with me,” Brook piped up. “I have no romantic inclinations at all. None.”

  Brook seemed too young to have developed a truly jaundiced attitude toward romance, and Jefferson remembered housekeeper number two’s rather frightening avarice.

  He focused on her work performance flaws instead of telling Brook the full truth. “She also said youse instead of you. Do youse want the toilet seat left up or down?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that with me, either,” Brook rushed to assure him. “There are few things I love as much as the English language and its correct usage.”

  “Hmm. That is not adding up to housekeeper, really. A true housekeeper might have been more concerned about the toilet seat and its correct usage.”

  A delicate blush crept up her cheeks.

  “I’m a student,” she said, “desperate for a summer job.”

  The desperate part was true enough, he could see that. But her eyes had done a slow slide to the right when she had said she was a student.

  “My third housekeeper was Clementine.” Clementine had been sent after he’d gone back down to the Emporium and read Maggie the riot act.

  “She was certainly more suitable in the mature department. She’d actually been a friend of my grandmother’s. But Clementine started talking the second she got in the door and did not stop, ever.”

  Jefferson remembered how even the lock on his office had not stopped her. “She stood outside my office while mopping the floor and polishing the door handle, chattering about her Sam. Husband. Mickey and Dorian. Children. Sylvester and Tweety. Bird and cat.”

  Suddenly it occurred to Jefferson, he was being the chatty one. This stranger standing at his door—whom he had absolutely no intention of hiring—certainly did not need all of this information.

  Maybe it was a sign of too much time alone—three failed housekeepers not withstanding—that he just kept talking.

  “I barricaded myself inside my office for three days, but Clem showed no sign of moving on to other parts of the house. To avoid discussion, I finally shot a generous check and a nice note about how I really didn’t need her anymore under the door. It achieved exactly what I hoped—blessed silence.”

  He had managed to stop talking before he revealed Clementine’s real fatal flaw. She had one divorced stepdaughter and three single nieces, all of whom she thought he should meet.

  Brook’s lips twitched. That hint of a smile deepened Jefferson’s awareness of her as what he wanted least in his house: the distraction of an attractive woman. But that tentative smile also made him aware of the fine lines of tension in her—around her shoulders and neck, around her eyes, around her lips.

  “It must have been hard to fire a friend of your grandmother’s.”

  “You have no idea,” he said.

  But, looking at her, he had the uneasy feeling she did have an idea.

  “Why the sudden search for a housekeeper? Are you replacing a housekeeper you were quite satisfied with?”

  He scowled at her. Who was interviewing whom, here?

  “No, I’ve never felt the need of one before.”

  “And now?”

  He sighed. “In a moment of weakness, I agreed to allow an architectural magazine to photograph the house.”

  She glanced past him. “A moment of weakness? The house is extraordinary. You must be very honored at their interest.”

  “I may have been when it was all just an idea. But as soon as a date was set, I realized the house would need attention, which, six weeks later, I am no closer to giving it.”

  “When is the photo session scheduled?”

  “Two weeks.” He was aware he was engaging with her, and it didn’t seem to be bringing him any closer to getting rid of her.

  “I can have your place completely ready for a photo shoot in two weeks. I promise.”

  Jefferson contemplated that. It was a weakness to contemplate it. But he did need someone to get the place ready, and the date of the photo shoot was creeping up far more rapidly than he could have believed. And he suspected, from the lack of applicants now, that word had spread far and wide through this tight-knit region of the Kootenays that he was impossible to work for.

  So, the young woman in front of him could be considered a godsend, if one was inclined to think that way, which Jefferson Stone most definitely was not.

  No, Nelson Brook, or Brook Nelson, or whatever her name was, just wasn’t going to work out, despite the fact no one else had responded to his blunt posting that had laid out exactly what he needed. He would just have to postpone Architecture Now indefinitely. He was aware of feeling relieved at that possibility.

  He reached for the door. He was going to gently shove on it until she moved her foot.

  But then a crow cawed loudly and raucously in the tree the prospective housekeeper had parked her car under. It dropped a pinecone out of its beak onto the roof of her car, and both sounds, the cawing and the sharp plunk of the cone on her car roof, were loud and unexpected in the drowsy quiet of the afternoon.

  She gasped and jumped forward, and she smashed against him. For the second time, in the space of just a few minutes, she was touching him.

  Only this time, it wasn’t her hands splayed across his chest, which had been disconcerting enough. This time he could feel the press of the entire length of her body against his, and he was acutely aware of the sweet softness of her. He was acutely aware of hesitating a fraction of a second too long before putting her away from him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she stammered, but he caught the look on her face as she swiveled her head and glanced over her shoulder. It was the frantic look of a deer being startled by wolves. When she turned back to him, despite the fact she was trying hard to school her features, he could see the pulse pounding in the hollow of her throat.

  Tension trembled in the air around her, and her muscles had gone taut. It made him notice there were shadows under her eyes and an edginess about her that was far from normal.

  Her car door, he noticed, looking beyond her, was open, as if she had planned what to do if she needed to make a quick getaway.

  Brook Nelson, or whoever she was, was terrified of something.

  What shocked Jefferson was how her fear pierced the armor around his heart. It was as if a little sliver of light found its way to a place that had been in total darkness.

  Inside himself was some nearly forgotten sense of decency, some sense of being connected to a human family he’d managed to ignore for three whole years, much to the dismay of the people of Anslow.

  Jefferson stood very still. For a moment, he thought of the grandparents who had
raised him, in a house not far from here. They had been old-fashioned people, who were decent to the core and kind to a fault. They would have never turned someone in need from their door, and no one had benefited from their generosity of spirit more than him. He could almost imagine the look of disapproval on both their faces if he shut the door now.

  Jefferson took a deep breath and looked into the pleading eyes of the woman who had landed, uninvited, on his doorstep.

  Was this who he had become? So embittered by the death of his wife, Hailey, that he could turn a woman, so obviously terrified, away from his door?

  “Jeez,” Jefferson muttered under his breath. He was a man who made decisions every day. That was what he did for a living. The decisions he made altered the courses of entire cities, impacted huge companies and global corporations. His decisions often had millions of dollars and the livelihoods of thousands of people riding on them.

  And yet, this decision, this split-second decision, about what kind of man he would be, felt bigger than all of those.

  Jefferson Stone stepped back marginally from his door.

  It was all Brook Nelson needed. She catapulted over his threshold and into his house.

  Into his life, he told himself grimly.

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “Nothing has been decided,” he told her gruffly, though somehow he knew it had been. And she knew it, too. She was beaming at him.

  “It’s not going to be a walk in the park,” he said. He was already annoyed that his decision had been based on a moment of pure emotion, not rationale. He had to get things back on track and make sure she was aware this was a professional arrangement. “The finer aspects of housekeeping have been neglected for a long time.”

  He fully intended to tell her that if she didn’t put them right he would not tolerate her presence any longer than he had her predecessors. But she spoke before he could get the grim warning out.

  “I could tell that from this door that things have been slightly neglected,” she said, tapping the front door. “It needs polishing. You probably use something special for it, do you?”

  “I have no idea. That’s your job, not mine.” He was trying to make up for his moment of weakness in letting her in, but she didn’t seem to notice uninviting his tone.

  “Do you have an internet connection here?”

  “Not one that housekeeper number one, Mandy, approved of, but my career is dependent on being connected.”

  “I’ll just look up online what to use on a door like that one. Is it stainless steel, like kitchen appliances?”

  He considered her question. She was focusing on the job at hand and not asking any personal questions about his career. Hopefully, that indicated a lack of nosiness. Hopefully, that indicated his impulsive decision to let her in was not going to lead to complete disaster. “Yes.”

  “I know I just use a few drops of vegetable oil on mine. At home.”

  So, there was a home, somewhere, and presumably a fairly nice one if it had stainless steel appliances in it.

  Despite his intention to keep everything professional, he smelled man problems in his new housekeeper’s personal life. She had already claimed she had no romantic notions, which basically meant burned by love. It would be nothing but good for him if she was sour on the whole relationship thing. It could be almost as good protection as mature and silent. And, despite the fact he had his own history that had turned his heart to the same stone as his name, he sensed a need to keep up his defenses and to demonstrate the same lack of nosiness that she was showing!

  Still, she wasn’t just having man problems. She was terrified.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JEFFERSON CONTEMPLATED HOW Brook’s obvious terror stirred an emotion in him that he did not feel ready to identify and, in fact, felt a need to distance himself from.

  He’d been living—despite the efforts of the townspeople—without the complication of untidy emotions for some time.

  He’d give this woman—Brook Nelson, or whoever she was—a break. That didn’t mean he had to involve himself in her drama in any way. The house was ridiculously large. With the slightest effort, during the day he wouldn’t even know she was here.

  Though that might pose some challenges, because she was in his living room now, and despite the fact the windows let in all kinds of light, it was as if sunshine had poured into the room with her. She flounced into his living room, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

  “Wow,” she said.

  He thought she was referring to the architecture, which generally inspired awe, but she turned disapproving eyes to him. “Good grief, I can see neither Mandy nor Clementine got to this room. You mustn’t have allergies. How long since this has been dusted?”

  “A while,” he admitted, instead of never.

  “And I take it, it would have gone a while longer if it weren’t for the photo shoot?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You are a true bachelor, aren’t you? Why live in such a beautiful house if you aren’t going to take care of it?” she wailed with genuine frustration.

  “I’m a widower,” he said tersely.

  He was not sure why he had imparted that little piece of information. He hoped it wasn’t because he thought that would make her more sympathetic to his slovenliness than being a bachelor would.

  But, as soon as he saw the sympathy blaze in her eyes, he realized he did not want her sympathy. Arriving in Anslow as an orphan, losing his wife, Jefferson Stone had experienced enough sympathy to last him a lifetime. He did not want any more challenges to his armor. He realized he needed to be much more vigilant in his separation of the professional and personal.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice a low whisper that could make a man long for a bit of softness in his life.

  But he had had softness, Jefferson reminded himself, and had proved himself entirely unworthy of it.

  He lifted a shoulder in defense against the sympathy that blazed in her eyes. “My wife was the architect who designed the house.”

  “Ah, that explains a lot.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “You don’t really seem like the type of person who would be amenable to having your home photographed. You are honoring her. That’s nice.”

  Jefferson really didn’t want her to think he was nice, and he squinted dangerously at her.

  She got the message, because she moved over to an enlarged black-and-white photo on the wall.

  “Who is this?”

  The people responsible for the fact you haven’t been sent packing. “It’s me, with my grandparents, in front of the old house.”

  “It’s a very powerful photograph.”

  That’s what Hailey had said, too. She wasn’t into hanging family portraits, but she had unearthed this photo and had it enlarged to four feet by six feet and transferred to canvas.

  “How old are you in it?”

  “Six.”

  She turned and looked at him. “How come you look so sad?” she asked.

  He started. Hailey had never asked a single question about the photo. She had considered it an art piece. She had liked the composition, the logs of the old house, the dog on the porch, the hayfork leaning against the railing.

  This woman was looking at him as if all his losses were being laid out before her, and he hated it.

  “My parents had just died.” He kept his tone crisp, not inviting any comment, but he saw the stricken look on her face before she turned away from him and ran her finger along the bottom of the frame.

  She looked at her finger but didn’t say anything. Her expression said it all. She felt sorry for him. No, it was more than sorry. She was, he could tell, despite the lie about her name, the softhearted type. She didn’t just feel sorry
for him. Her heart was breaking for him. And he hated that.

  “This is a temporary position,” he said, his voice cold. “After the photo shoot, I’ll return to companionship of my dust bunnies. Maybe you want to consider if two weeks employment is what you are really looking for.”

  It was a last-ditch effort to let her know this position probably was not going to work for her. Or him.

  “Temporary works perfectly for me,” she said, as if that made it cosmically ordained. “Two weeks. I have a lot to do.”

  She had been careful not to express sympathy, and yet Jefferson felt her I have a lot to do could somehow mean rescuing him. Just a second. Wasn’t he rescuing her? And if she thought she was going to turn the tables on him, she was in for an ugly surprise.

  “We haven’t come to terms yet. What do you expect for remuneration?”

  “I haven’t passed the free-day test yet.”

  He looked at her face. The softness lingered, but he was willing to bet she was one of those overachiever types. He deduced if she set out to impress, he would be impressed.

  “Let’s assume,” he said drily.

  She named a figure that seemed criminally low. But then she added, “Plus room and board, of course.”

  Jefferson stared at her. Why was this coming as a surprise to him? Obviously, some fear had sent her down his driveway, and just as obviously she was not eager to go back to it.

  “I’m in the middle of relocating,” Brook said vaguely. Then, as if sensing how disconcerted he was, she added, “This looks like a huge place. There must be a spare bedroom? Or two? Or a dozen?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Besides, if I’m going to be a proper housekeeper, I should probably make you some meals. That would be easier to do in residence, don’t you think?”

  He saw it again. Behind her I’m-going-to-be-the-best-housekeeper-in-the-world bravado was terror.

  She wanted to stay here.

  Under his roof and his protection. He supposed if you were looking for a place to hide, the Stone House fit the bill quite nicely, as long as the things you were hiding from were outside of yourself.