The Rival's Heir

by Joss Wood

“And she’s your boss.”

  “No. Actually, you are my boss.”

  “If I let you stay.” His half smile encouraged her.

  And enticed her.

  She hugged her towel tighter around herself. “We can debate the details later. Right now, it seems there are more pressing matters at hand. Such as caring for the dog and finding dry clothes.” She held up a conciliatory hand between them. “Can we please table this discussion until we’re both in dry clothes?”

  His eyes flashed with heat again, just a hint, that awareness staying in the respectful realm while still flattering. “Fair enough.” He nodded toward the door. “Follow me and I’ll show you to a guest suite. I assume since you planned to stay, you have a suitcase.”

  “I do.” She rushed to add, “And please don’t insist on getting it. It won’t look good on my résumé if you break your other arm.”

  He chuckled, but his jaw had a stubborn set. “If I let you carry your own luggage, I’ll have to surrender rights to my Stetson. You can hold Nugget while I get your things out of your car.”

  He passed the dog to her. Without another word, he disappeared outside in his wet clothes. She cuddled the little dog—some kind of tiny terrier—close. Her boss was a stubborn one, all right. She would do well to remember that and tread warily. Surrendering on the suitcase issue seemed wise. She secured the towel around the shivering dog and cradled him like a baby.

  Working for anyone in the oil-rich Steele family would prove to be a boon in more ways than one. She could pad her résumé in a way her previous jobs hadn’t provided. And being with the Steele family could give her the opportunity to somehow make peace with her past. She desperately needed to find resolution for how the long-ago tragedy in Marshall’s life had eventually led to her own father’s suicide. He’d been her last living relative, other than a newborn baby she’d given up the next year.

  How surreal that her life, her past, was so entwined with this man’s. Not that he or his family even knew who she was. And she preferred to keep it that way for now. As far as they knew, she was just the temporary maid service.

  But she was also the daughter of the drunk airplane mechanic responsible for the death of Marshall’s mother and sister.

  * * *

  “Nugget, it appears our quiet bachelor-pad lifestyle has suffered an invasion,” Marshall Steele said to his scrappy little mutt, currently sprawled on the bathroom floor, clearly savoring the heated tiles.

  Easing the arm of a T-shirt over his cast, Marshall couldn’t stop thinking about the new cleaning lady who would be living under his roof for the next six weeks.

  He preferred the solitude of his ranch home, or of recreational time spent riding and reading. Solitude was something the rest of his overlarge family didn’t seem to understand. The cleaning lady was the latest in their well-meaning attempts to help him. He’d thought their insisting on the holiday charity fund-raiser being held at his house was a rather heavy-handed way of interfering with his social life. But sending a sexy woman to live in his house for the next six weeks was definitely going overboard.

  And yes, he was grouchy as hell after taking a tumble at the end of a rodeo ten days ago, breaking his dominant arm in two places. The cast and sling left him barely able to dress himself. He was stuck wearing shirts a size too large so he could wedge his cast through. Thanks to one ill-timed kick from a horse, he couldn’t even manage to save a ten-pound mutt from a paddle in a pool.

  A mutt currently drifting off to sleep, unimpressed with anything Marshall had to say.

  He worked the button fly on his jeans, trying to keep his mind off images of his new housekeeper in her suite changing into dry clothes, too. Images of her sleeping under his roof at night.

  Having her work days here helping prepare for the upcoming fund-raiser to be held at his home would have been somewhat simpler to manage than having her be his damn babysitter. But it wasn’t fair to penalize her for his family’s overreach.

  Which left him with a dilemma.

  He believed her when she said she’d sublet her place to save money. And she was correct that his stepmother—and therefore his father, too—would be upset if Marshall rejected help recovering. But Tally was a significant distraction.

  He kept a rigid control over his world now, a far cry from his partying years full-time on the rodeo circuit. He’d played hard—drunk hard. Too hard. He’d been sober now for four years. Not a minute of it easy, but then taking it one day at a time was part of the program.

  He should have known better than to step back into the rodeo ring, even for a onetime special show. For an instant, he’d been distracted by demons from the past, and now he had a broken arm to show for it.

  As well as the knowledge it could have been much worse if that hoof had caught him in the gut or head.

  He needed to get his focus back and his life reined in again. Holidays were difficult enough with the stress they brought, but with his recent accident... He was in a vulnerable place. He needed to steer clear of any temptations that could derail his sobriety.

  He picked up the phone and dialed his father. “Dad, you and I need to have a talk.”

  Jack Steele chuckled on the other end. “About what?”

  “I’m not sure what agenda you and Jeannie have going on, but it’s not going to work.” The two were inseparable. Marshall found it tough to believe his father wouldn’t know about the new employee. He snagged his socks from the top of his dresser and sat on his king-size bed.

  “You’ll have to give me more information. I’m in the dark.”

  Marshall thumbed the phone on speaker with a frustrated sigh so he could tug on his socks one-handed. “Just because so many of your kids are settling down doesn’t mean I’m interested in joining the ranks of the duly domesticated.”

  “So you keep telling us,” his father answered. “And what does this have to do with Jeannie?”

  “I agreed for her to hire a part-time housekeeper. Not a live-in Victoria’s Secret supermodel.”

  His dad laughed again, louder this time. “Son, I don’t see why the two are mutually exclusive. Seems that would be politically incorrect and downright wrong to factor looks into the hiring equation.”

  Something was up. He just didn’t know what. “Did Jeannie interview the prospects?”

  The line went silent.

  “My point exactly.”

  “So the housekeeper’s that attractive?”

  Understatement. Her red hair, perfect curves and personality full of grit had sparked a fire in him. “Well, it didn’t help that she was starring in a wet T-shirt contest when we met.”

  His father spluttered on the other end of the phone. “Run that by me again?”

  “I was in the pool fishing out Nugget—”

  “Whoa. Hold on. You were swimming with your cast on?”

  “The dog fell in, so to call my rescue efforts ‘swimming’ is a stretch. Besides, I kept my arm above the water.” He tugged on gym shoes. Even putting on his boots was an ordeal.

  “That was damn reckless,” his father said softly. “What if you’d reinjured yourself, worse this time?”

  “Then I would have gotten patched up again. I couldn’t let Nugget drown. You would have done the same.”

  A low grunt carried through the phone line. “True enough. How did the pup end up in the pool?”

  “We were coming in from a walk,” he said, casting an eye at the scraggly pup who had come into his life when a member of his AA group had moved to Europe, “and Nugget ran through the sunroom door full tilt straight into the water.”

  “Then the new hire showed up?”

  “Exactly. Tallulah Benson’s got spunk, I’ll give her that.” He couldn’t shake the memory of seeing her plunge into the water, determination firing in her hazel eyes. And for heaven’s sake, how was it he remembered her
eye color? “She jumped in, pushed right past me and scooped up Nugget.”

  “Ah, thus the wet T-shirt reference.”

  “Uh-huh.” The revived image of her soaking wet with all those curves on display threatened to steal his focus clean out from under him. “I was worried about her getting bitten since the mutt was so freaked out by this point. But she handled things with complete calm and competence.”

  “She’ll need it to deal with you.”

  “Are you insinuating I’m difficult?”

  “Not insinuating. I’m stating facts. You’re stubborn, which can be good when you have a task to accomplish and bad when it holds you back from asking for help.” He paused. “I’m concerned about you.”

  There was something in his father’s voice that gave Marshall pause. No one knew about his alcoholism. But had his dad somehow figured it out? Was the cleaning lady some kind of family spy to keep track of his sobriety?

  The thought felt paranoid, but there was something reserved about Tally’s sparkling hazel eyes, a hint of secrets...

  Although who was he to judge? He had secrets of his own to keep from her.

  “Dad, let’s just say the position of the live-in cleaning lady is contingent upon my say-so and leave it at that.”

  No matter how intense the draw of his housekeeper, he was going to table the attraction for as long as she was working for him.

  Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Mann

  ISBN-13: 9781488092404

  The Rival’s Heir

  Copyright © 2018 by Joss Wood

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