Christmas At Copper Mountain (A Copper Mountain Christmas) (5 page)

His dark gaze shot past her to the dimly lit house.
“Here?”

“Yes,
Mr. Sheenan. They arrived this evening around eleven, while you were out.”

“At the house?”

“Yes. They’re upstairs sleeping now. I fed them dinner and put them to bed.”

“Huh,” he grunted, stepping around her to enter the house. Make
that,
push
his way into the house.

Just as Molly had when she’d arrived.

Harley bit her lip, thinking that Mack might have inherited his dad’s dark good looks, but Molly had his personality and temper. She followed him into the kitchen where he dropped his damp felt hat on the counter and tugged off his leather work gloves. Melting snow dripped from the hem of his chaps.

His gaze was fixed on the hall with the view of the staircase.
“Sleeping, you said?”

She battled her temper, closing the kitchen door and locking it with the dead bolt.
“I hope they’re sleeping. It’s almost one in the morning.”

He said nothing to this, crossing to the fireplace to sit down in the rocking chair she’d just vacated.
He worked one wet boot off, and then another. The kitchen’s lights were turned low and the kitchen was shadowy, save for the red glow of the fire which still burned with a good-sized log. “You kept the fire burning,” he said.

“You weren’t home,” she answered, standing next to the counter, watching him, thinking that everything had changed.
Her feelings about being here had changed. She didn’t want to be here anymore.

For a moment there was just silence and she curled her fingers into the edge of her fuzzy sleeve, making fists out of her curled fingers.

She should just go to bed right now, before anything else was said.

She should just go to bed before she said something she’d regret.

But she couldn’t make herself walk out. Couldn’t leave. She was still too upset. Too shocked. Too worried.

Brock
Sheenan was a widower, with kids, and his kids were good kids but they were lonely and homesick and being raised with a lot of tough love. Harley came from a strict Dutch family. She understood rules and order but she’d also been raised with plenty of affection, and laughter, and fun.

After sitting with Mack and Molly while they wolfed down their grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, Harley wasn’t sure the twins had known a lot of hugs and kisses and laughter.

And that ate at her.

It ate at her after they’d gone to sleep.
It ate at her as she sat in the rocking chair. It ate at her now.

Brock leaned back in the rocking chair, his big shoulders filling the entire space, his chest so broad it made the oversized rocking chair look small.
“Spit it out,” he said.

Harley’s fists squeezed tighter.
“Spit it out?”

His dark head inclined.
“You’re obviously dying to say something. So say it. I’m tired. Hungry. I want to eat and go to bed.”

She drew a breath and fought for calm.
She had to be calm. Men didn’t like hysterical women. “You didn’t mention them, Mr. Sheenan.”

The rocking chair tipped back.
He looked at her from under very dark lashes, his dark gaze almost black in the shadowy kitchen. “I didn’t know they were coming.”

“But you never mentioned them.”

“So?”

“So?
I’d think you’d mention it when applying for a housekeeper. The agency never mentioned kids. You never mentioned kids. But you have kids, two of them, and they’re here for the holidays.”

His brow lowered.
“They shouldn’t be here yet.” He paused, thought. “What is the date?”

“December 8
th
. It’s a Sunday.”

He said nothing.

She swallowed her impatience. “I arrived a week ago today, on the first. I’ve been here a week.”

Frowning, he gazed at the fire.
“They weren’t supposed to be here until the nineteenth. That’s when school gets out for the holidays,” he added, half under his breath.

“Does it not... worry... you that they’re here?” she asked.
She waited for him to say something. He seemed in no hurry to speak, so she pressed on. “Does it not trouble you that two eleven-year-olds, who go to school in
New York
, are on your doorstep in
Montana
at eleven at night?”

“It most definitely concerns me,” he said finally, looking at her.
He rubbed a hand slowly across his bristled jaw. “But you said they were asleep. What do you want me do? Go haul them out of bed and interrogate them in the middle of the night?”

Her eyes burned and she looked away, staring into the glowing embers of the fire.
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be part of this. She didn’t want children or Christmas or a pirate for a boss.

“No, of course not,” she said, her voice dropping, deepening.
“I just... don’t understand. How you could not know the kids were missing from school. Shouldn’t the school have called you? Shouldn’t you have been on a plane the moment you heard that no one could find your twins?”

He closed his eyes, grimaced.
“The school probably did call. I’m sure if I checked my phone there would be messages. But I rarely keep it on me as it doesn’t work in the back country so no, I don’t pay much attention to it.”

Or your kids
, she wanted to add.

She didn’t.

Her fingers twisted, tugging on the fuzzy sweater sleeve. “But why would you never mention them to me? Why would you never once mention that those two guest rooms were actually your children’s rooms and you expected your kids home on the nineteenth for their school holiday?”

He shrugged.
“I didn’t think it mattered.”

She bundled her arms across her chest, cold, so cold.
“How could they not matter?”

He leaned forward, his dark gaze skewering her. “I did not say
they
didn’t matter. I said I didn’t think it mattered if
you
knew.” His jaw hardened and a small muscle popped in his square jaw, near his ear. “And don’t do that again. Put words in my mouth. I may not be president of the PTA, but I love my kids.”

“Then why don’t you have any pictures of them?
Why don’t you have any of their artwork framed? Where are their books and toys—”

“I don’t like clutter.”

“What about them? What about what they like?”

“Pardon me?”
He was on his feet, towering over her.

Her heart raced, blood roaring in her ears.
He didn’t just look like a savage with the fire’s flickering flames casting a glow over his hard features, he sounded like a savage, too. But she wasn’t intimidated. She’d been through far too much in life to be intimidated by an eccentric mountain man. “You never once mentioned them to me in a week of working here. I had no idea that those two bedrooms I was dusting every day were your children’s rooms. I had no idea that two eleven-year-olds would be showing up here on the nineteenth for their Christmas holidays.”

“Clearly their arrival has upset you.”

Harley’s lips tightened. Her heart thudded uncomfortably hard. “No. They haven’t upset me. You have upset me.”

“Me?”

“Yes,
you
. You are painfully out of touch as a father, more worried about a young cow than your eleven-year-olds, who arrived in Marietta after an all-night Greyhound bus ride after a train ride, as well a lift from a local sheriff who found them at the bus station in downtown Marietta. He thought they were runaways, and then they told him they were yours.”

“Your point?”

“You should have known they’d left the school. You should have known they were missing and you should have been out there looking for them the way you were searching for that damn cow.” Her chin jerked up, her eyes stinging as she fought emotion she didn’t want to feel. “I don’t know why they came home early, only that they did, and they were desperate and determined to come home.” She blinked hard, trying to clear her eyes before tears welled. “And you should have been here, to greet them. You should have been the one at the door. Not another housekeeper.”

His gaze narrowed.
He studied her for a long moment, dark lashes lowered over penetrating eyes. “Quite the expert, aren’t you?”

His scathing tone wounded.
She winced, but wasn’t surprised he was angry. He was a man, a thirty-nine year old man, and of course he wouldn’t like being criticized.

“I don’t belong here,” she said, by way of an answer.
It wouldn’t serve to get into an argument. She’d leave, find another position. It was the only way. She couldn’t be here, with the kids, not like this. It’d tear her apart. Break her heart which was only starting to heal. “I’ll call the agency in the morning—”

“You dislike kids that much?” he interrupted harshly.

She flinched. “I don’t dislike kids.”

“Then why leave?
You told me just this afternoon you liked it here, you were happy here.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I knew about...” Her voice faded, she swallowed hard.
“The twins.”

“If you’d known about them... what?
You wouldn’t have taken the job here?”

She hesitated, knowing that the truth would damn her.

But the job was no longer the same position she’d accepted. She’d thought she’d left California and her family and their big Christmas to spend the holidays in the middle of nowhere Montana with a dour rancher and five surly ranch hands. That was the job she’d accepted, and wanted.

And she had loved being here this past week.
She loved the granite face of the mountain, the towering pine trees, the pastures tucked into the valleys, as well as the silence and freedom from everything she knew in Central California.

Harley drew a deep breath, aware that she hadn’t yet answered Brock
Sheenan’s question. “Probably not,” she whispered.

“
Seriously
?”

The harsh, incredulous note in his voice put a lump in her throat.
She bit her tongue to keep from saying more. She’d already said too much.

“You hate kids that much?” he demanded.

She looked away, pain rippling through her even as tension crackled in the kitchen. He didn’t understand and she wasn’t sure she could make him understand, not tonight. Not when she was so tired and barely keeping it together. But the austerity of life here on frigid Copper Mountain Ranch with its gusts of icy wind and blizzard-like storms had been good for her. It allowed her to work and not feel.

It was good not to feel.

It was even better not to want, or need.

“Miss
Diekerhoff?”

She turned her head, looked at him.
“I don’t hate them at all,” she said lowly. “I like children very much.”

“Then what are you saying?”

She stared at him, stomach churning, heart thudding, aching. “I’m saying that I don’t belong here, and that I didn’t understand the situation here—” she broke off, gulping air for courage, before pressing on, “—but now that I do, it’s better if I leave.”

“
What
?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m shocked. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe
you
.”

Harley couldn’t hold his gaze any longer.
The censure was too much. “I’ll call the agency first thing in the morning and they should be able to send out a temporary replacement that should get you through the weekend—”

He laughed, a dark low bitter laugh that silenced her.
“I see. I’ll get a temp for my temp? That’s great. That’s wonderful. Thank you, Miss Diekerhoff, for a fantastic week but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised you’re walking out on us. Deep down I knew you were too good to be true.”