Millionaire on Her Doorstep

by Stella Bagwell

  “By the way,” Wyatt said to Adam, “do you know if Ms. York has a place to stay yet?”

  “She mentioned something about meeting with a real-estate agent this afternoon,” Adam told him. “I suppose for right now, she’s staying in a motel.”

  Wyatt gave his chin a thoughtful rub. “She’s taking on a major relocation to work for us. We really should invite her to stay on the ranch until she can find a more permanent place and get her things shipped up from Houston. What do you think?” He turned a questioning look on his wife.

  Chloe smiled agreeably. “We’ve had some of your other employees stay at the ranch before. As far as I’m concerned, Ms. York is certainly welcome.”

  Adam stared at the two of them in utter dismay. Normally, it wouldn’t make any difference to him who stayed on the Bar M. The ranch was his parents’ home. Adam had his own place. But this past month he’d temporarily moved back to the Bar M while a pair of carpenters renovated the inside of his house. If Maureen moved out to the Bar M, that meant he’d have to live with her, too!

  “You can’t be serious! She doesn’t need to be invited to the Bar M! No way! No how! Look, I may have to work with her, but that doesn’t mean I have to be in her company round the clock!”

  “Why, Adam,” Chloe scolded, taken aback by her son’s sudden outburst, “Ms. York wouldn’t necessarily be your guest. She’d be your dad’s and mine. What’s with all the uproar anyway? It’s not like you to be so petty and childish.”

  There wasn’t anything childish about the feelings Maureen York stirred up in him, and he was relieved that the shadows of the evening were settling over the restaurant’s outdoor patio; otherwise, his parents would see a blush pouring over his face.

  “Mother, I’m not being childish. The woman... well, we just rub each other the wrong way. Believe me, you don’t want that much friction in the house.”

  She studied him thoughtfully, and just when Adam was certain she was going to accuse him of behaving boorishly, she surprised him by saying, “All right, Adam, I’m sure your dad will agree that we don’t want to force the woman down your throat. If that’s the way you feel, we’ll let her stay in a motel and the company can reimburse her for her expenses.”

  “It’s the way I feel,” he clipped.

  Chloe and Wyatt rose to their feet, thanked him for the meal and bade him good-night. By the time they started to walk away from the table, Adam felt as if he’d shrunk to the height of two inches.

  “Wait a minute,” he called out to them.

  Both his parents paused and glanced back at him. “Was there something else you wanted to say about Ms. York?” Wyatt asked with an innocence that irked Adam.

  “Hell, yes! I’ll invite her out to the ranch myself! But don’t be surprised if she refuses to come. I think the woman would take particular pleasure in killing me.”

  Chloe smiled sweetly at her son. “Well, darling, I’m sure she’s not the first woman who’s wanted to kill you.”

  Maureen hated motel rooms. In the past nine or ten years, she’d spent many nights in the dreaded places. Some had been luxurious, others cheap. But no matter the price or how many of her personal things she had lying about, it was still a sterile room. Just a place to sleep, shower and dress.

  She snorted inwardly. Since when had her apartment in Houston ever been more than just a place to hang her clothes and lay her head? And what made her think things would be any different here in New Mexico?

  From the middle of the queen-size bed, Maureen aimed the remote at the television and smashed the Off button. For the past hour and a half, she’d been staring at the flickering screen, yet she didn’t have a clue as to what she’d been watching. Her mind had been on the place she’d left, this place she’d come to. And the man she was going to have to face in the morning.

  Adam Murdock Sanders. Who’d have ever thought she’d run into him again? That morning down in South America, she’d met him quite by chance. He’d been having coffee in the hotel restaurant with a tool pusher who worked for the same company as Maureen. He’d introduced her to Adam, and while the three of them had coffee, she’d learned his rented vehicle had quit and he needed to be at a rig site before noon.

  The town they’d been staying in was too small for a car rental agency or a mechanic who wasn’t already busy. Knowing all this, the tool pusher had urged Maureen into being a Good Samaritan and offering Adam a lift. Everything afterward had gone from bad to worse.

  Adam had refused to wear his seat belt, complained about her fast, reckless driving, then went on to imply she’d be doing the world a much bigger favor if she would stay home to raise her “kids” rather than traipse around with a bunch of foul-mouthed oilmen.

  Well, he’d had the mouth for the business, all right. And she’d wanted to knock his head off his shoulders. But she’d truly never meant to hurt him. The dog had run into the narrow, graveled road without any warning, and Maureen had instinctively jerked the wheel to miss it. Adam had gone flying out the open door, landing on the shoulder of the road before rolling to the bottom of a steep bar ditch.

  At first, she’d been terrified she’d killed him. But to her amazement he’d managed, with her help, to make it up the embankment and into the Jeep. Maureen had driven him to the nearest hospital more than fifty miles away, then waited until a nurse had come to assure her he was fine and the doctor had already plastered his broken ankle.

  Maureen had asked to see him, but the nurse informed her he’d been sedated and was expected to sleep for several hours. She’d had no choice but to leave. The next day she’d been driving back to the hospital to see him when her boss from Houston had called and ordered her home immediately.

  Back in Texas, she’d reported the accident to her company so Adam’s medical bills would be rightly taken care of by insurance, then she’d tried to put the whole incident out of her mind. But forgetting the young company man hadn’t been that easy. She’d thought about him most every day since. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d been so shocked this morning when he’d walked into Wyatt Sanders’s office.

  With a troubled sigh, she left the bed, grabbed her keys from the built-in dresser and walked out the door. With no thought to the lateness of the hour, she climbed into her pickup truck and headed toward the main highway. For several minutes, she traveled west, up into the mountains, before eventually pulling onto a graveled road.

  The real-estate sign at the edge of the highway was already marked Sold. Maureen had only given the agent a verbal “I’ll take it,” but the flimsy commitment was enough to make her wonder if she was being a mite hasty. Or, even worse, going crazy.

  A mite hasty! Whom was she kidding? A normal person didn’t go out and buy the first house they looked at! And as for her going crazy, she had to be cracking up to think she could ever have a real home here in southern New Mexico or anywhere. When her husband had walked out on her, she’d seen the last of her hopes and dreams vanish. Since then, she’d finally come to the conclusion that it was foolish of her to ever plan on having a real home with a family.

  The long, graveled lane curved, then made one last switch back before the house came into view. The split-level structure had been built on a rough ledge of the mountain. There was hardly a yard to speak of. Unless you counted the rocks and clumps of sage clinging tenaciously to the ground sloping down to the driveway.

  Tall pine and aspen dappled the pink stucco walls and red tiled roof with gently moving shadows. The prickly beauty of blooming cholla cactus guarded the front entrance.

  Maureen parked the pickup on the graveled circle driveway and slipped quietly to the ground. The mountain air had already grown incredibly cool for midsummer and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill as she climbed a set of simple rock stepping stones up the sloping yard.

  This wasn’t Houston by any means. From now on she would have to remember she was seven thousand feet or more above sea level and needed to keep a jacket with her after da
rk. And compared to the busy, humid city, the quietness here on the mountaintop was nearly deafening. Other than the wind whispering through the pine boughs and rattling the aspen leaves, there were no other sounds.

  She smiled to herself as she imagined what her friends back in Houston would think about her buying such a secluded home. Probably that she was asking for trouble. And she doubted any of her female friends would have driven up here alone at this late hour. But Maureen wasn’t afraid.

  For nearly ten years she’d been on her own. Alone. Facing the world without her husband or her child. She couldn’t possibly be hurt any worse than when they’d gone out of her life.

  Maureen wandered around the house, studying its strong walls and gracefully arched windows trimmed with dark wood. It was a lovely structure, but the house or even the wild, beautiful tangle of forest growing around it was not the thing that had called to her when she’d first seen the place. Job or not. Family or not. She’d simply felt a deep intuition that here in New Mexico was where she belonged. And in spite of Adam Sanders, this was where she was going to stay.

  The next morning, Maureen was already at work when Adam arrived at Sanders Gas and Exploration. He found her in the small lab behind his office. She was standing at a cabinet counter, the sleeves of her blue striped shirt rolled above her elbows, a pair of gold-framed glasses on her nose. Once again her brown hair was braided. The single rope reached the waistband at the back of her jeans. He wondered how long her hair would be if she let it loose, or if she ever did.

  Hearing his step, Maureen glanced up from the seismographic chart she’d been studying and peered at him from behind the lenses of her glasses.

  “Good morning,” she said warmly.

  Encouraged by her greeting, he joined her at the counter. Just because the woman stirred his libido didn’t mean he lacked manners or enough sense to accomplish a day’s work, he assured himself. If she could be civil and productive, he certainly could.

  “Good morning,” he replied, then inclined his head toward the charts on the counter. “I see you’ve already found something to work on.”

  “These are the first tests from several sections of land in eastern Oklahoma.” She tapped a set of papers with her forefinger, then reached for another stack lying nearby. “These are from an area in northern New Mexico. Both I’d wager to produce gas. I just don’t know how much yet.”

  One corner of his mouth curved wryly. “Wager? You’re not here to make bets, Ms. York. You’re here to show us scientific evidence.”

  Maureen glanced at the small watch on her wrist. “I’ve been at work forty-five minutes. How quickly am I supposed to produce this scientific evidence? Within an hour? Or are you going to be considerate and give me until the end of the day?”

  He grinned slyly. “I’m not a patient man. I like things done yesterday. But since this is your first day here at Sanders, I’ll make allowances.”

  A closer look at his face told Maureen he was teasing, and that surprised her about the man. The only way she’d ever seen him was serious and driven. She’d expected his biting attitude of yesterday to be his usual disposition and she wasn’t sure this warmer, more congenial Adam was any easier to take than the infuriating man she’d confronted in Wyatt’s office.

  Pulling her glasses from her face, she placed them gently atop the charts. “Your father tells me several more seismograph holes are going to be shot this week on the Oklahoma land. He wants me to read those before we fly back there for a look.”

  “We” more than likely meant Adam and Maureen. He didn’t know how he was going to manage traveling with her. But he had to. It was a big part of their job going from one potential well site to the next. Hopefully, the strong reactions he had to her now would quickly fade. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, he’d be able to look at her and not wonder what it would be like to have her in his arms.

  “It’ll be rough, mountainous terrain. Have you been there before?”

  With a shake of her head, she moved away from him. “I’ve been mostly doing overseas or offshore work.”

  Adam watched her walk over to a long table and pick up a paper cup filled with coffee. From a paper sack on the counter, she pulled out a raspberry Danish.

  “There’s a doughnut left in the sack if you want it,” she offered as she took a seat on a folding metal chair.

  “Thanks, but I’ve already had breakfast.”

  No doubt, Maureen thought. He’d probably had a regular meal sitting in a kitchen or dining room. “I suppose you wouldn’t stoop to putting something like this in your system,” she said.

  A faint smile tilting his lips, he shook his head. “Not near enough grease to suit me. Give me chorizo or bacon and eggs.”

  “Surely you know that isn’t good for you,” she said, her gaze following him as he went over to the small coffeepot sitting on the cabinet counter. He was dressed not as a businessman who worked in oil, but as a rancher, in black boots and faded blue jeans that hugged his hips and thighs. A denim shirt of deep green covered his muscular torso. The rugged clothing emphasized his fitness and mocked the fact he didn’t eat health food. It also mocked Maureen’s vow never to look at another man in a purely physical way.

  “My mom tells me that very thing every morning,” Adam said, “but she cooks the stuff for me anyway.”

  The cup in her hand stopped midway to her lips. “You still live at home?”

  He grimaced as he poured himself a cup of the strong brew. “You make it sound like a crime.”

  She didn’t know where the defensive tone in his voice was coming from. She hadn’t accused him of being a pup still latched onto his mother’s teat.

  “Not at all.” She studied him carefully as he took a seat across from her. “I just thought...well, you seem like a man who wouldn’t want to be hampered by having...his parents around.”

  The idea that she thought he was a playboy who needed his privacy was more than amusing and took the sting out of the first impression he’d taken from her question.

  “Actually, I don’t normally live with my parents. I have a place of my own in the Hondo Valley. But at the moment, I’m having some remodeling done to the house. Mom and Dad’s ranch house is huge, so they urged me to stay with them until the work is finished. And it’s nice to spend a little time at home.”

  “I’m sure,” she murmured, then wondered if Adam knew what a precious thing a home really was. Had he ever known what it was like to be well and truly alone in the world? No. She didn’t think so. She figured the most Adam Sanders ever had to worry about was where to get his expensive shirts laundered or the color to choose for his next new vehicle.

  Not that Maureen resented the man’s wealth. Since she’d acquired her master’s degree in geology, she’d made a powerful salary. She could buy herself most anything she wanted. Yet she couldn’t buy what Adam had. No one could.

  “Do you have siblings?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “I have a twin sister, Anna. She got married a few weeks ago to the foreman on our ranch. She and Miguel live on the property, too. Then we have a younger sister, Ivy. She’s currently in medical school at the University of New Mexico.” He sipped his coffee, then casually studied her over the rim of the takeout cup. “What about you, Ms. York? Do you have parents or siblings?”

  Maureen’s gaze dropped to the half-eaten Danish in her hand. She’d been asked this question many times in the past. Normally, it never bothered her to answer. But this morning with Adam’s green eyes waiting, she’d rather have her hand chopped off.

  “First of all, I told you not to call me Ms. York.”

  The tips of his fingers unconsciously tapped the tabletop. The movement drew Maureen’s gaze to his hands. They were strong and square shaped, the backs sprinkled with dark hair. Faint scratch marks marred three of his knuckles, and from what she could see of his fingers, they were padded with calluses. He was a man who worked with his brain, but he obviously wasn’t afraid to use his hands, too.
She liked that about him. Liked it too much.

  “All right Maureen. Tell me about your family.”

  “I have no family,” she said bluntly, then took a bite of the Danish as if that was all there was to say.

  His brows arched upward in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding expression. “Surely you have an aunt or uncle or something somewhere. What happened to your parents?”

  Still avoiding his eyes, she said, “They were killed in a storm. We lived in a rural area of Texas where the nearest clinic was thirty miles away. My mother was expecting another baby any day, and thinking she’d gone into labor they decided they had no choice but to go to a doctor. The rain was blinding and part of the highway was flooded. Unseeing, they drove into the water and the swift current carried them away. I was four at the time.”

  She recited the story in a flat, factual voice as though she was talking about someone she hadn’t known. But then it quickly struck Adam that she’d been little more than a baby when her parents had died. She hadn’t known them in the sense he or any average person would know their parents.

  “You were their only child?”

  She nodded. “I went to live with my maternal grandmother after that. She was the only relative around who was willing to take me in. But she was elderly and she died by the time I was eight.”

  “What happened then?”

  She looked at him, her lips compressed to a thin, mocking line. “Foster homes.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the shock of her story robbing him of a better response.

  “Don’t be. I managed to grow up in spite of it all.” She rose to her feet and crossed the room to a small trash can. After tossing in the half-eaten Danish and last dregs of her coffee, she turned back to him. “Well, I don’t know what you plan to do with the rest of your day, but I’m going to get to work on these charts.”

  She’d lost her family, and if she had any distant relatives left, they obviously weren’t the kind you counted, he mused. It was difficult to imagine what growing up in that sort of environment had been like for her. He’d had two loving parents, aunts and uncles who adored him and two sisters who’d always put him up on a pedestal. He couldn’t imagine his life without any of them. And though she was trying to give him the impression that none of it had affected her that much, he knew better.