A Cowboy For Christmas. Rachel Lee

good. I may...”

      She heard a phone beep and he fell silent as he pulled a cell from his pocket. “Stella,” he said with distaste. “Sorry. Give me a minute.”

      He walked out, leaving her alone in the kitchen again. For a guy who didn’t want to be bothered, he was being bothered rather soon. She seemed to recall from her brief research on him that Stella was his ex. She still called him? Her own ex, Porter, hadn’t spared a word for her since the divorce.

      Fifteen minutes passed. She considered bringing out the salad she had prepared earlier, then decided it was too soon. Should she set places for both of them in here? Or maybe he’d want to eat alone in his fancy dining room.

      Dang, there seemed to be more questions than answers with this job. He made it sound so easy, but as she was rapidly discovering a lack of guidance was anything but easy.

      At long last she heard the unmistakable steps of his boots.

      “Well,” he said, “your job just got more complicated.”

      She whirled to look at him. “Yes?”

      “That was my ex. I’ll be leaving tomorrow to go pick up my daughter. It seems she’s too much for Stella.”

      Abby could barely keep herself from gaping. “Too much?”

      “Running off nannies constantly. Stella’s too busy to deal with it.” Rory astonished her with a big smile. “Hot damn,” he said. “I’m getting my daughter! And not just for Christmas.”

      Abby felt her heart sink and the early stirrings of panic even as she appreciated the joy reflected in his smile. And what a smile it was, nearly depriving her of breath. The guy was clearly thrilled about seeing his daughter. That should have touched her.

      Instead, the gnawing worry about how to handle this inchoate job burst out of her before she knew the words were coming. “I wasn’t hired to be a babysitter.”

      His smile faded a bit. “I’m not asking you to. Regina’s ten. I’m her father. Let me do my job and you do yours.” Then he turned and left. Moments later she heard him head out the back door.

      She hurried back to her suite and saw him walking toward the barn.

      “Idiot,” she said aloud to herself. What had possessed her to say that when the man was so clearly thrilled? What kind of selfish shrew was she becoming?

      But a girl who was driving away her nannies?

      All of a sudden this job seemed more complicated that she could have begun to imagine.

       Chapter Two

      Abby didn’t see Rory again before he left the following morning. She tried to tell herself he was just being the hermit he had warned her he was going to be, but guilt rode her hard anyway. This was his house, and she’d had the nerve to let him know that she wasn’t thrilled about the arrival of his daughter.

      She’d be lucky if he didn’t fire her when he got back. But the truth was, she hadn’t been hired to be a babysitter, she knew next to nothing about kids and a troubled one would be more than she could adequately handle. Maybe she should have waited to bring it up, but concern had pushed the words out of her mouth at the worst possible time.

      She wanted to bang her head on something. Porter’s cheating and desertion weren’t that far in the past, and she often felt she was turning into a person she didn’t know and one she didn’t especially like. Bitterness rose often, anger even more often, and resentment was one big mountain inside her.

      Maybe worst of all was feeling like an utter failure. She hadn’t been woman enough to keep a husband for two whole years. That meant there was something wrong with her. Right?

      Fear, betrayal, failure—they’d become her constant companions. Now she had proved how they were twisting her by reacting to her boss’s joy about his daughter with the most selfish response she could have voiced.

      Maybe this wasn’t a new version of her. Maybe this was what she had been all along without realizing it. If she’d been treating Porter the way she had treated Rory, why wouldn’t he leave her?

      Everything inside her felt so miserably mixed up she couldn’t figure out up and down anymore. That certainly made her incapable of looking after a child, but she could have been more diplomatic.

      Frustrated with herself, she cleaned the whole house again. There were four elaborate guest rooms upstairs, each with its own color theme, but no way to figure out which one Regina might get. Nothing she could do about that.

      She peeked into the master suite, a bright sunny room decorated in blues and browns that indelibly stamped it as masculine. She dusted it thoroughly, cleaned the bathroom until it shone, changed the sheets, then left the sanctuary otherwise untouched.

      She drove into town to the library to get some books to read, then found herself unable to concentrate on them. She’d done something stupid, and she wasn’t going to know the outcome until Rory returned. If she had a chance, she ought to apologize. Not for refusing to be a babysitter. She knew she wasn’t adequate for that. But for the way she had said it. For her timing.

      Except the truth stared her in the face. She hadn’t been hired to care for a child, and if that had been mentioned before she accepted the position, she might have looked for something else. As if jobs grew on trees.

      She groaned, being honest with herself. Working at the truck stop hadn’t been quite enough to meet her bills, and soon she would have had no place to go. This job was an unexpected godsend.

      She didn’t have anything against kids. It was just that she didn’t feel adequate to taking care of one, beyond maybe cooking and cleaning. She’d never had a younger sister or brother to practice on. She’d never babysat anybody, because she’d always had a job after school. Inadequate, that was what she was, but why should that surprise her?

      On the other hand, she knew perfectly well she couldn’t find another job that paid as well as this one. A generous salary with room and board included. If she could hang on for a year, she’d be able to save enough to resume her college education.

      But instead of thinking of that, she’d had an utterly selfish and ugly reaction to a man’s joy. Job or no job, she needed to straighten that out as soon as he came back.

      Two days later the hour of her reckoning arrived. Rory called, saying they were at the airport but were going to stop at the grocery. Did she need anything?

      A polite, courteous call, utterly unnecessary. She didn’t know how to judge this man at all. “I’m fine. Just whatever you and Regina need.”

      “Okay. I hope you don’t have a problem with dogs.”

      “Dogs?”

      “Regina brought her Great Dane with her. Thank goodness he’s a good flier is all I have to say.”

      “A Great Dane?” She almost squeaked.

      “Yup. I figure I need to buy all the dog food at the feed store before we come back.” Then he surprised her with a laugh. “Don’t panic, he’s a gentle giant.”

      A dog and a kid. After hanging up the phone, Abby sat at the table. A huge dog and a troublesome kid. Oh, this could get interesting.

      A couple of hours later, she found out. The truck pulled up and almost instantly a coltish girl with her father’s dark hair and blue eyes bounded out of the passenger side, and right after came a dog that was bigger than she was. A Harlequin Great Dane, Abby guessed, given that he was white with black spots. Beautiful.

      Big.

      Regina went tearing off over the open landscape, the dog racing along with her. Rory stood watching for a minute, then went to the back of the truck and began unloading.

      Abby