Maid Under The Mistletoe. Maureen Child

Sam told her.

      Holly’s face fell and Joy gave him a stony glare. He could be as nasty and unfriendly with her as he wanted to be. But he wouldn’t be mean to her daughter. “He means he’s never seen any fairies, sweetie.”

      “Oh.” The little girl’s smile lit up her face. “Me either. But maybe I can sometime, Mommy says.”

      With a single look, Joy silently dared the man to pop her daughter’s balloon again. But he didn’t.

      “Then you’ll have to look harder, won’t you?” he said instead, then lifted his gaze to Joy’s. With what looked like regret glittering in his eyes, he added, “You’ll have a whole month to look for them.”

Two

      A few hours in the workshop didn’t improve Sam’s mood. Not a big surprise. How the hell could he clear his mind when it was full of images of Joy Curran and her daughter?

      As her name floated through his mind again, Sam deliberately pushed it away, though he knew damn well she’d be sliding back in. Slowly, methodically, he ran the hand sander across the top of the table he was currently building. The satin feel of the wood beneath his hands fed the artist inside him as nothing else could.

      It had been six years since he’d picked up a paintbrush, faced a blank canvas and brought the images in his mind to life. And even now, that loss tore at him and his fingers wanted to curl around a slim wand of walnut and surround himself with the familiar scents of turpentine and linseed oil. He wouldn’t—but the desire was always there, humming through his blood, through his dreams.

      But though he couldn’t paint, he also couldn’t simply sit in the big house staring out windows, either.

      So he’d turned his need for creativity, for creation, toward the woodworking that had always been a hobby. In this workshop, he built tables, chairs, small whimsical backyard lawn ornaments, and lost himself in the doing. He didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to remember.

      Yet, today, his mind continuously drifted from the project at hand to the main house, where the woman was. It had been a long time since he’d had an attractive woman around for longer than an evening. And the prospect of Joy being in his house for the next month didn’t make Sam happy. But damned if he could think of a way out of it. Sure, he could toss her and the girl out, but then what?

      Memories of last December when he’d been on his own and damn near starved to death rushed into his brain. He didn’t want to repeat that, but could he stand having a kid around all the time?

      That thought brought him up short. He dropped the block sander onto the table, turned and looked out the nearest window to the house. The lights in the kitchen were on and he caught a quick glimpse of Joy moving through the room. Joy. Even her name went against everything he’d become. She was too much, he thought. Too beautiful. Too cheerful. Too tempting.

      Well, hell. Recognizing the temptation she represented was only half the issue. Resisting her and what she made him want was the other half. She’d be right there, in his house, for a month. And he was still feeling that buzz of desire that had pumped into him from the moment he first saw her getting out of her car. He didn’t want that buzz but couldn’t ignore it, either.

      When his cell phone rang, he dug it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. His mother. “Perfect. This day just keeps getting better.”

      Sam thought about not answering it, but he knew that Catherine Henry wouldn’t be put off for long. She’d simply keep calling until he answered. Might as well get it over with.

      “Hi, Mom.”

      “There’s my favorite son,” she said.

      “Your only son,” he pointed out.

      “Hence the favorite,” his mother countered. “You didn’t want to answer, did you?”

      He smiled to himself. The woman was practically psychic. Leaning one hip against the workbench, he said, “I did, though, didn’t I?”

      “Only because you knew I’d harangue you.”

      He rolled his eyes and started sanding again, slowly, carefully moving along the grain. “What’s up, Mom?”

      “Kaye texted me to say she was off on her trip,” his mother said. “And I wanted to see if Joy and Holly arrived all right.”

      He stopped, dropped the sander and stared out at the house where the woman and her daughter were busily taking over. “You knew?”

      “Well, of course I knew,” Catherine said with a laugh. “Kaye keeps me up to date on what’s happening there since my favorite son tends to be a hermit and uncommunicative.”

      He took a deep breath and told himself that temper would be wasted on his mother. It would roll right on by, so there was no point in it. “You should have warned me.”

      “About what? Joy? Kaye tells me she’s wonderful.”

      “About her daughter,” he ground out, reminding himself to keep it calm and cool. He felt a sting of betrayal because his mother should have understood how having a child around would affect him.

      There was a long pause before his mother said, “Honey, you can’t avoid all children for the rest of your life.”

      He flinched at the direct hit. “I didn’t say I was.”

      “Sweetie, you didn’t have to. I know it’s hard, but Holly isn’t Eli.”

      He winced at the sound of the name he never allowed himself to so much as think. His hand tightened around the phone as if it were a lifeline. “I know that.”

      “Good.” Her voice was brisk again, with that clipped tone that told him she was arranging everything in her mind. “Now that that’s settled, you be nice. Kaye and I think you and Joy will get along very well.”

      He went completely still. “Is that right?”

      “Joy’s very independent and according to Kaye, she’s friendly, outgoing—just what you need, sweetie. Someone to wake you up again.”

      Sam smelled a setup. Every instinct he possessed jumped up and shouted a warning even though it was too late to avoid what was already happening. Scraping one hand down his face, he shook his head and told himself he should have been expecting this. For years now, his mother had been nagging at him to move on. To accept the pain and to pick up the threads of his life.

      She wanted him happy, and he understood that. What she didn’t understand was that he’d already lost his shot at happiness. “I’m not interested, Mom.”

      “Sure you are, you just don’t know it,” his mother said in her crisp, no-nonsense tone. “And it’s not like I’ve booked a church or expect you to sweep Joy off her feet, for heaven’s sake. But would it kill you to be nice? Honestly, sweetie, you’ve become a hermit, and that’s just not healthy.”

      Sam sighed heavily as his anger drained away. He didn’t like knowing that his family was worried about him. The last few years had been hard. On everyone. And he knew they’d all feel better about him if he could just pick up the threads of his life and get back to some sort of “normal.” But a magical wave of his hands wasn’t going to accomplish that.

      The best he could do was try to convince his mother to leave him be. To let him deal with his own past in his own way. The chances of that, though, were slim. That was the burden of family. When you tried to keep them at bay for their own sake, they simply refused to go. Evidence: she and Kaye trying to play matchmaker.

      But just because they thought they were setting him up with Joy didn’t mean he had to go along. Which he wouldn’t. Sure, he remembered that instant attraction he’d felt for Joy. That slam of heat, lust, that let him know he was alive even when he hated to acknowledge it. But it didn’t change anything.