“I guess you could say I'm a...fast learner,” he drawled.
Noticing the line of his vision had strayed lower than her face, Maureen folded her arms back over her breasts and glared at him. “I can tell you right now, the only reason I'm going to stay with Sanders Exploration is your father. He's a man who's highly admired in this business, and now that I've met him, I can see why. I'm flattered to have the chance to work for him. And I've decided it would be foolish to throw it away just because he has a cocky, know-it-all son.”
His brows lifted as his lips spread into a devilish grin. “So this means we'll be working together?”
“Against my better judgment.”
It was certainly against Adam's judgment, too. But he wasn't a man to back away from a challenge. “My dad will be pleased to hear it.”
She smiled then. A sumptuous little movement of her lips that packed enough power to curl Adam's toes.
“You don't have to bother saying you're pleased, too.” she countered.
As if she considered their conversation closed, she walked over to the chair she'd been sitting in and picked up a leather purse. She pulled the strap onto her shoulder and started to the door. Adam's gaze followed the graceful swing of her hips.
“Do you need help finding a place around here?” he asked in afterthought.
She glanced at her wristwatch, then opened the door. “I'm meeting a real-estate agent in thirty minutes.”
“A real-estate agent! You mean you're planning to buy rather than rent?”
She smiled again. “You said Sanders Exploration sinks a lot of holesâwell, I plan to sink some roots.”
“Without a trial run?”
She nodded. “The moment I saw this area, I fell in love with it. In the past few minutes, I've decided that whatever I have to put up with on the job will be a small price to pay to make my home here.”
My home
. She'd told Adam she wasn't seeking a home in the traditional sense. So what
was
she looking for? And why did he keep picturing her as a wife and mother? She was a scientist. A woman who studied rocks and shale and sludge and seismographic charts.
“Then I hope you're not disappointed, Ms. York.”
“The only way I'll be disappointed is if you continue to call me Ms. York. My name is Maureen,” she said with a wry smile, then slipped past the door and out of Adam's sight.
Adam thrust a hand through his hair and let out a low groan. The woman was a walking piece of dynamite. Just looking at her was dangerous. And working with her? Well, he could already see the explosion coming.
Chapter Two
T
he sky was full of stars and a warm breeze carried the scent of sage and pine. The sweeter fragrance of petunias blooming close by mingled with the tangy smells of the high desert country.
It was a pleasant night to eat outdoors, and for the first time in ages, his parents had managed to find time in their busy schedules to meet him at this favorite mountainside restaurant.
Across the table, Chloe was finishing the last of her chocolate mousse while the two men sipped their coffee. “I know you're ready to go, darling,” she said to Wyatt. “But just give me time for a few more bites. It's rare I have a chance to eat a dessert I haven't made myself.”
Wyatt chuckled and patted his wife's hand. “I know, you're just a regular little slave. One of these days, I might let you out of your chains.”
A faint smile crossed Adam's face as he watched the teasing exchange between his parents. After
twenty-some years of marriage, the two of them were still very much in love and completely devoted to each other. The solidity of his family had always been reassuring to Adam. Yet now that he'd grown older, his parents' relationship oftentimes amazed him. And sometimes even saddened him. Because he knew he would never be blessed in such a way.
Chloe put down her spoon and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Okay, signal the waiter for the check and we'll get out of here,” she told her husband. “I need to get home anyway and check on that mare. If she doesn't foal tonight, she will tomorrow.”
Wyatt reached for his wallet and began to thumb through the bills inside. Across the table, Adam shook his head. “Forget the check,” he told the two of them. “I'm footing the bill.”
His mother frowned at him. “Adam, this is a celebration of sorts because you got your cast off. Your dad and I want to treat you.”
“Having your company was treat enough.”
Wyatt put his wallet away, then scraped back his chair and patted his nonexistent belly. “Well, I must admit this has been a good day. My son got his foot back, the company just hired the best damn geologist in the gas business, and now I've had a free meal to top it all off.”
“Well, if Miss Mighty Dash gives me the painted colt I want, then it will be a perfect day,” Chloe added as she fished her purse from beneath the chair.
“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.”
Â
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 dark. 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.
Â
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.”