Kitabı oku: «The Christmas Baby Bonus»

One

There, let that be the last tartan bow to be tied, Faye begged silently as she stood back and eyed the turned-wood balustrade that led to the upstairs gallery of the lodge. Swags of Christmas ribbon looped up the stairs, with a large tartan bow at each peak.

Not for the first time, she cursed the bad luck that had seen her boss’s usual decorator fall off a ladder and dislocate her shoulder a week before Piers was due to arrive at his holiday home here in Wyoming for his annual Christmas retreat and weeklong house party.

Faye had suggested he go with a minimalistic look for the festive season this year, but, no, he’d been adamant. Tradition, he’d called it. A pain in the butt, she’d called it. Either way, she’d been forced out of her warm sunny home in Santa Monica and onto an airplane, only to arrive in Jackson Hole to discover weather better suited to a polar bear than a person. So, here she was. Six days away from Christmas, decorating a house for a bunch of people who probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Except for her boss, of course. He loved this time of year with a childlike passion, right down to the snow.

She hated snow, but not as much as she hated Christmas.

She turned slowly and surveyed the main hall of the lodge. Even her late mother would have been proud, Faye thought with a sharp pang in her chest, before she pushed that thought very firmly away. The entire house looked disgustingly festive. It was enough to make a sane person want to hurl, she told herself firmly, clinging to her hatred of the season of goodwill. There was no reason to be sad about being alone for the holidays when she hated the holidays with a passion, right?

At least her task was over and she could head back to the sun, where she could hide in her perfectly climate-controlled apartment and lose herself in her annual tradition of binge-watching every Predator movie made, followed by every Alien DVD in her collection, followed by any other sci-fi horror flick that was as disassociated from Christmas as it was from reality.

She moved toward the front door where her compact carry-on bag was already packed and waiting for her retreat to normality and a world without decorations or Christmas carols or—

The front door swung open and swirl of frigid air preceded the arrival of her boss, Piers Luckman. Lucky by name and luckier by nature, they said. Only she knew what a hard worker he was beneath that handsome playboy exterior. She’d worked for him for the past three years and had the utmost respect for him as a businessman. And as a man...? A tiny curl of something unfurled deep inside her. Something forbidden. Something that in another person could resemble a hint of longing, of desire. Something she clamped down on with her usual resolute ferocity. No. She didn’t go there.

Piers stomped the snow off his feet on the porch outside then stepped into the lobby and unslung his battered leather computer satchel from one shoulder.

“Good flight?” she asked, knowing he’d probably piloted the company jet himself for the journey from LA to Jackson Hole.

He had no luggage because he always kept a full wardrobe at each of his homes peppered around the world.

“Merry Christmas!” Piers greeted her as he saw her standing there and unzipped his down-filled puffer jacket.

Oh, dear mother of God, what on earth was he wearing underneath it?

“Weren’t you supposed arrive on Saturday, the day before your party? You’re four days early,” she commented, ignoring his festive greeting. “And what, by all that’s holy, is that?”

She pointed at the gaudy hand-knitted sweater he wore. The reindeer’s eyes were lopsided, his antlers crooked and...his nose? Well, suffice to say the red woolen pompom was very...bright.

A breathtaking grin spread across Piers’s face.

Faye focused her gaze slightly off center so she wouldn’t be tempted to stare or smile in return. The man was far too good-looking, and she only remained immune to his charms because of her personal vow to remain single and childless. That aside, she loved her job and getting a crush on her boss would be a surefire way to the unemployment office.

After all, wasn’t that what had happened to a long line of her predecessors? It wasn’t like he could help it if personal assistants, who had an excuse to spend so much time with him, often found him incredibly appealing. He was charming, intelligent, handsome and, even though he’d been born with a silver spoon lodged very firmly in that beautiful mouth, he wasn’t averse to working hard, overseeing his empire with confidence and charisma. The only time Faye had ever seen him shaken had been last January, when his twin brother had died in a sky-diving accident. Since then he’d been somewhat quieter, more reflective than usual.

While Faye had often felt Piers had been a little on the cavalier side in his treatment of others—particularly his revolving door of girlfriends—he’d become more considerate over this past year. As if Quin’s death had reminded him just how fleeting life could be. Even Lydia, his latest girlfriend, had been on the scene far longer than was usual. Faye had even begun to wonder if Piers was contemplating making the relationship a permanent one, but then she’d received the memo to send his usual parting gift of an exquisite piece of jewelry in a signature pale blue box along with his handwritten card.

It was purely for reasons of self-preservation that she didn’t find him irresistible, and she was nothing if not good at self-preservation. Besides, if you didn’t have ridiculous dreams of happy-ever-after then you didn’t see them dashed, and you didn’t get hurt—and without all of that, you existed quite nicely, thank you.

“This?” he said, stroking a hand across the breadth of his chest and down over what she knew, from working with him at his place on the Côte D’Azur where swimwear replaced office wear, was a tautly ripped abdomen. “It’s my great-aunt Florence’s gift to me this year. I have a collection of them. Like it?”

“It’s hideous,” she said firmly. “Now you’re here, I can go. Is there anything else you need me to attend to when I get back to LA?”

* * *

Piers looked at his erstwhile PA. He’d never met anyone like Faye Darby, which was exactly why he kept her around. She intrigued him, and in his jaded world there weren’t many who still had that ability. Plus, she was ruthlessly capable, in a way he couldn’t help but admire. It might have been cruel to have sent her to decorate the house for him for the holidays—especially knowing she had such a deep dislike of the festive season—but it needed doing and, quite frankly, he didn’t trust anyone else to do it for him.

And as to the sweater, although his late great-aunt Florence had knitted him several equally jaw-droppingly hideous garments in the past, the truth was that he’d seen this one in the window of the thrift store during his morning run and he’d fallen in love with it instantly, knowing exactly how much Faye would hate it. The donation he’d made to the store in exchange for the sweater was well worth the look on Faye’s face when he’d revealed the masterpiece.

But now she was standing there, having asked him a question, and waiting for a response.

“I can’t think of anything at the moment. Did you send the thank-you gift to Lydia?” he asked.

Another thing he probably should have dealt with himself, but why not delegate when the person you delegated to was so incredibly competent? Besides, extricating himself from liaisons that showed every sign of getting complicated was something best left to an expert. And, goodness knew, Faye had gained more than sufficient experience in fare-welling his lady friends on his behalf.

To his delight, Faye rolled her eyes. Ah, she was so easy to tease—so very serious. Which only made him work that much harder to get a reaction out of her one way or another.

“Of course I did,” Faye responded icily. “She returned it, by the way. Do you want to know what she said?”

Piers had no doubt his latest love interest—make that ex-love interest—had been less than impressed to be dusted off with diamonds and had sent the bracelet and matching earrings back to the office with a very tersely worded note. Lydia had a knack for telling people exactly what she thought of them with very few words, and he would put money on her having told him exactly where he could put said items of jewelry.

He also had every belief that Faye agreed with Lydia’s stance. The two women had gotten on well. Perhaps a little too well. He cringed at the thought of the two of them ganging up on him. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. Either way, he would stick firm to his decision to cut her out of his life, although he’d had the sneaking suspicion that Lydia would not give up as easily as those who’d gone before her.

“No, it’s okay, I can guess,” he answered with a slight grimace.

“She isn’t going to give up,” Faye continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “She said she understands you’d be getting cold feet, given how much you mean to one another and your inability to commit.”

“My what?”

“She also said you can give the jewelry to her in person and suggested dinner at her favorite restaurant in the New Year. I’ve put it in your calendar.”

Piers groaned. “Fine, I’ll tell her to her face.”

“Good. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way.”

She was in an all-fired hurry to leave, wasn’t she? He’d told her she was welcome to stay for his annual holiday house party, but Faye had looked at him as if she’d rather gargle with shards of glass.

“No, nothing else. Take care on the road. The forecasted storm looks as if it’s blowing in early. It’s pretty gnarly out there. Will you be okay to drive?”

“Of course,” she said with an air of supreme confidence.

Beneath it, though, he got the impression that her attitude was one of bravado rather than self-assurance. He’d gotten to understand Faye’s little nuances pretty well in the time she’d worked for him. He wondered if she knew she had those little “tells.”

Faye continued, “The rental company assured me I have snow tires on the car and that it will handle the weather. They even supplied me with chains for the tires, which I fitted this morning.”

“You know how to fit chains?” he asked and then mentally rolled his eyes. Of course she knew how to fit chains. She pretty much could do everything, couldn’t she?

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

While she didn’t ever seem to think anyone should worry about her, Piers was pretty certain he was the only person looking out for her. She had nobody else. Her background check had revealed her to be an orphan from the age of fifteen. Not even any extended family hidden in the nooks and crannies of the world.

What would it be like to be so completely alone? he wondered. Even though his twin brother had died suddenly last January, both his parents were still living and he had aunts and uncles and cousins too numerous to count—even if they weren’t the kinds of people he wanted to necessarily be around. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be so completely on your own.

She reached for her coat and Piers moved behind her to help her shrug it on, then Faye bent to lift her overnight case at the same time he did.

“I’ll take it,” she said firmly. “No point in you having to go back out in the cold.”

Her words made sense but grated on his sense of chivalry. In his world, no woman should ever have to lift a finger let alone her own case. But then again, Faye wasn’t of his world, was she? And she went to great pains to remind him of that. “Thanks for stepping into the breach and doing the house for me,” he said as they hesitated by the door.

Faye gave one last look at the fully decorated great hall—her eyes lingered on the stockings for Piers’s expected guests pinned over the fireplace, at the tree glittering with softly glowing lights and spun-glass ornaments—and actually shuddered.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said with obvious relief.

It was patently clear she couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Thanks, Faye. I do appreciate it.”

“You’d better,” she warned direly. “I’ve directed the payroll office to give me a large bonus for this one.”

“Double it, you’re worth it,” he countered with another one of his grins that usually turned women to putty in his hands no matter their age—women except for his PA, that was.

“Thank you,” Faye said tightly as she zipped up the front of her coat and pulled up her hood.

He watched as she lifted her overnight case and hoisted the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder.

Piers held the door open for her. “Take care on the driveway and watch out for the drop-off on the side. I know the surface has been graded recently but you can’t be too careful in this weather.”

“Trust me, careful is my middle name.”

“Why is that, Faye?”

She pretended she didn’t hear the question the same way he’d noticed she ignored all his questions that veered into personal territory.

“Enjoy yourself, see you next year,” she said and headed for the main stairs.

Piers watched her trudge down the stairs and across the driveway toward the garage, and closed the front door against the bitter-cold air that swirled around him. He turned and faced the interior of the house. Soon it would be filled with people—friends he’d invited for the holidays. But right now, with Faye gone, the place felt echoingly empty.

* * *

The wind had picked up outside in the past couple of hours and Faye bent over a little as she made her way toward the converted stables where she’d parked her rental SUV. Piers hadn’t seen fit to garage the Range Rover she’d had waiting for him at the airport, she noted with a frown, but had left the vehicle at the bottom of the stairs to the front door. Serve him right if he has to dig it out come morning, she thought.

It would especially serve him right for delivering that blasted megawatt smile in her direction not once but twice in a short space of time. She knew he used it like the weapon it truly was. No, it didn’t make her heart sing and, no, it didn’t do strange things to her downstairs, either. But it could, if she let it.

Faye blinked firmly, as if to rid herself of the mental image of him standing there looking far more tempting than any man should in such a truly awful sweater—good grief, was one sleeve really longer than the other?

Well, none of that mattered now. She was on her way to the airport and then to normality. A flurry of snow whipped against her, sticking wetly to any exposed patches of skin. Had she mentioned how much she hated snow? Faye gritted her teeth and pressed the remote in her pocket that opened the garage door. She scurried into the building that, despite being renovated into a six-stall garage, was still redolent with the lingering scents of hay and horses and a time when things around here were vastly different.

Across the garage she thought she saw a movement and stared into the dark recesses of the far bay before dismissing the notion as a figment of her imagination. Faye opened the trunk of the SUV and hefted her overnight bag into the voluminous space. A bit of a sad analogy for her life when she thought about it—a small, compact, cram-filled object inside an echoing, empty void. But she didn’t think about it. Well, hardly ever. Except at this time of year. Which was exactly why she hated it so much. No matter where she turned she couldn’t escape the pain she kept so conscientiously at bay the rest of the year.

An odd sound from inside the SUV made her stop in her tracks. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and Faye looked around carefully. She could see nothing out of order. No mass murderers loitering in the shadows. No extraterrestrial creatures poised to hunt her down and rip her spine out. Nothing. Correction, nothing but the sudden howl of a massive squall of wind and snow. She really needed to get going before the weather got too rough for her to reach the airport and the subsequent sanity her flight home promised.

Stepping around the SUV to the driver’s door, Faye realized something was perched on her seat. Strange. She didn’t remember leaving anything there when she’d pulled in two days ago, nor had she noticed anything amiss this morning when she’d come out to fit the chains on the tires in readiness to leave. Was this Piers’s idea of a joke? His joy in the festive season saw him insist every year on giving her a gift, which every year she refused to open.

She moved a little closer and realized there were, in fact, two objects. One on her passenger seat, which looked like a large tote of some kind, the other a blanket-covered something-or-other shaped suspiciously like a baby’s car seat. A trickle of foreboding sent a shiver down Faye’s spine.

At the end of the garage, a door to the outside opened and then slammed shut, making her jump. What was going on? Then, from the back of the building, she heard a vehicle start up and drive away. Fast. She raced to the doorway in time to see a flicker of taillights as a small hatchback gunned it down the driveway. What? Who?

From her SUV she heard another sound. One she had no difficulty recognizing. If there was anything that made her more antsy than the festive season, it was miniature people. The sound came again, this time louder and with a great deal more distress.

Even though she’d seen the hatchback leaving, she still looked around, waiting for whomever it was who’d thought it funny to leave a child here to spring out and yell, “Surprise!” But she, and the baby, were alone. “This isn’t funny anymore,” she muttered.

It wasn’t funny to start with, she reminded herself. The blanket covering the car seat began to move as if tiny fists and feet were waving beneath it. A slip of paper pinned to the blanket crackled with the movement. With her heart hammering in her chest, Faye gently tugged the blanket down.

The baby—a boy, she guessed by the blue knitted-woolen hat he wore and the tiny, puffy blue jacket that enveloped him—looked at her with startled eyes. He was completely silent for the length of about a split second before his little face scrunched up and he let loose a giant wail.

Nausea threatened to swamp her. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening. Every natural instinct in her body urged her to comfort the child, but fear held her back. The very thought of holding that small body to hers, of cupping that small head with the palm of her hand, of inhaling that sweet baby scent—no, she couldn’t do that again.

Faye thought quickly. She had to get the baby inside where it was warm. Babysitting might not be the holiday break Piers had been looking forward to, but he would just have to cope with it. She reached out to jiggle the car seat, hoping the movement might calm the baby down, but he wasn’t having it.

“Sorry, little man,” she said, flipping the blanket back over him to protect him from the elements outside. “But you’re going to have to go undercover until I can get you to the house.”

The paper on the blanket rustled and Faye took a second to rip it free and shove it in her pocket. She could read it later. Right now she had to get the baby where the temperature was not approaching subzero.

Again she wondered who had left the baby there. What kind of homicidal idiot did something like that? In these temperatures, he’d have died all too quickly. Another futile loss in a world full of losses, she thought bleakly. Whoever it was had waited until she’d showed, though, hadn’t they? What would they have done if she’d chosen to stay an extra night? Leave the child at the door and ring the doorbell before hightailing it down the driveway? Who would do something like that?

Whoever it was didn’t matter right now, she reminded herself. She had to get the baby to the house.

Swallowing back the queasiness that assailed her, Faye hooked the tote bag over one shoulder and then hugged the car seat close to her body, her arms wrapped firmly around the edges of the blanket so it wouldn’t fly away in the wind. She scurried across to the house, slipping a little on the driveway in shoes that were better suited to strolling the Santa Monica pier than battling winter in Wyoming, and staggered up the front stairs.

The baby didn’t let up his screaming for one darn second. She didn’t blame him. By the time she reached the front door, she felt like weeping herself. She dropped the tote at her feet and hammered on the thick wooden surface, relieved when the door swung open almost immediately.

“Car trouble?” Piers asked, filling the doorway before stepping aside and gesturing for her to enter.

“No,” she answered. “Baby trouble.”