Christmas Male (7 page)

"Maybe I should warn you about Pops's cooking," he said, escorting her from the room.

"No need," she said moving away from him, making it clear. She wanted to keep her distance, too. "I've already figured out John isn't the best cook. The smell wafting through the house is burned roast, isn't it?"

"I wish I could deny it, but I can't." Miles took a step back, feeling more comfortable now that was a lot of physical space between them. That was the way it was gonna stay.

Miles's stomach grumbled hungrily, but one look at the meal smoldering in platters and bowls told him supper was going to be unsatisfying (once again). He sat straight up in his chair, doing his best to ignore the woman across the dining room table.

"Tell us a little bit more about your plans, Miss Maggie," Pops said as he added several generous slices of scorched roast beef to a plate and handed it to her. "What are you gonna do now that Chester Collins turned out to be an ass?"

"Yes, it's not like you can marry him now," Pa added from the foot of the table, looking innocently devious. "You can stay here as long as you like, dear. You may need time to get over the emotional blow and decide what to do."

Heaven forbid, Miles thought, reaching for his napkin. Did his father think that all it would take was having a pretty woman around for his broken heart to mend? No, it would take a good deal more than that because him falling for another woman was never going to happen. Over his dead body. Women were too hard on a man's heart. He cleared his throat. "That's a generous offer, Pa, but not necessary. I'm sticking to the promise I made her. I'm sending Maggie home when the trains are running again. She needs her family right now."

"Son, that's
your
plan." Dark hazel eyes twinkled at him cheerily. "But have you asked Maggie what she wants? Maggie, I'm sorry about Miles. He forgets he doesn't run the world."

"I don't think that, and you know it." Miles rolled his eyes. Clearly Pa knew that too, but he was pulling out every argument he could think of to keep Maggie here. So wouldn't it be wise to get her out of this house fast? "If the storm is over by morning, I'll take her to the depot. Is that all right with you, Maggie?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I was hoping." She sounded like she was smiling warmly, but he didn't look up. He kept his gaze trained on Pops dishing up another plate with more charred and overcooked food. "I don't know what else to do but to go back home."

"You could stay here and work for us. I'd hire you." Pops added a good pile of charred roast beef slices to another plate and passed it down. "Laundry day's coming up soon and frankly, I could use help. A lot of help. I can't ask Winston to lend a hand. Son, remember the shirt you scorched with the iron?"

"How did I know it would burn the shirt if I left it on for too long?" Winston shrugged. "I know horses, I know law. I do not know laundry. All I can say is that I gave it a good try."

"Yes, you did. Miles can do it, but he won't." Pops winked at Maggie, friendly and charming, trying to soften her up to his employment offer.

"Why not?" Maggie's rosebud mouth twitched, and Miles cursed himself for noticing.

"Well, that would be all my fault," Pops confessed merrily. "He did just a spitfire job, and I made a comment that he was as good as any woman when it came to housework. I meant it as a compliment, but he took it the wrong way. He still hasn't forgiven me for it."

"That's right, and I won't." Miles took the full plate his grandfather passed to him and set it down in front of him. "Guess I could start and save you a few pennies."

"Well, that does appeal to me. I am thrifty." Pops dished up his own plate, considering. "A penny saved
is
a penny earned. Now if you and Winston both found wives, we wouldn’t need to worry about hiring someone."

"But a wife is more expensive than a maid," Miles pointed out, mouth curving into a sardonic twist as he took his knife to the roast slices on his plate. "Pops, if you're so bent on a wife around here, why don't you get one?"

"At my age? I wouldn’t know what to do with one." Pops winked merrily. "Well, maybe I could figure it out after all. There are some things a man never forgets."

"Stop right there. I don't want to hear it." Pa blushed, at his end of the table. "What will happen to you, Maggie? When you go home, will you be all right?"

"I've got my sisters. I'll be fine." She tentatively cut a small piece of charred beef, sawing away as if it were shoe leather. "Well, fine, except for having to find another job. My life will go back to the way it was. Maybe my pride will be a bit wounded."

"Wounded? I'd say it has to be more than just a bit hurt." John's weathered face crinkled up with sympathy, deep grooves bracketing his mouth and eyes as he cut a large chunk of meat on his plate. "My guess is you got your heart hurt pretty good. We all know what that's like."

"Oh, I'll recover." Her dainty chin went up, she sat a little straighter, spoke a little firmer. So much strength for such a fragile, dainty woman. Miles would almost have believed her except for the pain shining in her eyes, a pain that came straight from her soul. Deep it was, and true.

He felt another tug of empathy, and he told his dumb heart not to go caring about her, even the slightest bit. A man who let a woman into his heart was betting on trouble.

"It's the chance you take when you want to fall in love." Her chin didn't waver but her voice did, betraying her. "You have to put your heart at risk if you want a chance at the real thing. Otherwise, you'll never find it."

"Truer words were never said." Understanding deepened Grandpop's voice. He stared at his plate, at the burnt roast, at the lopsided, browned biscuits and the dried out green beans. "Truth is, Elma broke my heart into pieces twice in my life, never to be the same again. Once when she said no when I proposed to her and again when she died three days before our fiftieth wedding anniversary. I've never been the same, it cut me down to the quick. But I wouldn't have traded the years we had together for anything. Not anything."

"She must have really loved you." Maggie plopped the small bite of meat onto her tongue, ignoring the stringy, leathery taste as she chewed.

Tears flooded the older man's eyes and he blinked them away so fast, she would have missed that unveiled, revealing instant of pure emotion if she hadn't been watching. John smiled, as if his heart wasn't still broken.

"Oh, Elma had her doubts about me, and rightly so." He bent forward, cutting the slices of beef on his plate intently, as if the job required all of his concentration. "I was trouble."

"No, not you," she gently teased, even as her chest twisted tight with caring for this good man.

"I won't lie." He chuckled, sadness still resonating in his deep voice, and kept slicing away at the tough meat. "I had trouble growing up, accepting responsibility, settling down. You see, my father expected me to take over the family business—shipping. Well, I wasn't interested in any of that. I didn't care about shipping, I didn't want to be a businessman. I was having too much fun spending my father's money, living a life without responsibility."

"What changed your mind?" Maggie paused chewing, shifting the tough wad of meat around in her mouth, trying to find a better way to chew it.

"Elma's rejection. I worshiped her, I thought the world of her, and she kindly but firmly said no. That I wasn't the man she needed." John finished slicing blackened roast and glanced around his plate, perhaps needing to stay busy while he revealed his soul. "Hell, that broke me right then and there. I remember standing in shock as the rain pelted down all around the gazebo as she walked away from me for good. It was like every bone in me cracked in two. I was so hurt I couldn’t move. That's when I realized I had to change. So I did, and I never looked back. I embraced a man's life of commitment and responsibility. Good thing I did too, as she was carrying Winston but didn't tell me at the time."

"Pa, did you have to go and say that?" Winston dropped his fork on his plate with a
clink
and reached for his wine glass. Heat stained his face. "Nice little Maggie doesn't need to hear that. She doesn’t need to know I was almost a disgrace to my mother and her family."

"Ah, but I married her in time, and most folks didn't say a word." John waggled his brows, setting in to cut the overdone green beans into pieces as he'd done his meat. Pain and grief still hung in his voice. "'Course, most folks likely counted that it was eight months not nine after the wedding before you came along, but that wasn't my fault. Your mother was a very passionate woman."

"I don't need to hear
that
either." Winston blew out a breath, shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Maggie, but my father gets going with stories about my mother and he can't seem to stop himself."

"Or censor himself," Miles added dryly, chewing on a bite of tough roast.

"It's all right. I'm glad to know you had a loving marriage, John." Maggie blushed, a little uncomfortable. This was not a topic of conversation she was used to in polite company, but she understood what the older man was trying to say. "You had the real thing. True love."

"Yes, I did, missy." John blinked again, not looking up even after he sawed the last green bean in two. "That's the kind of happiness I wish for you."

"Enough on this topic," Miles said as he continued to chew. "There are things I don't want to know about Grandmother, and that's one of them, Pops."

"Now your grandmother knew how to cook." John cleared his throat and reached for his wine glass. "She could make a roast that would melt in your mouth. Don't know how she did it."

"I know." Maggie couldn’t help but speak up. How could she keep quiet and let these men keep eating atrocious pieces of meat whenever a housekeeper got married? "Try coating the top of the roast with butter, cover it and check on it every half hour. Try using more salt and pepper and take it out of the oven before it turns black."

"That's some good advice," John said, perking up, and he took a sip of wine. "I ought to write that down so I remember."

"I'll do it for you," Maggie volunteered. Oh, this was certainly a dire situation, and she was determined to rescue them. She'd been chewing the same piece of beef for at least fifty bites and she'd had no effect on it. It was still as tough as it had been when she'd popped it into her mouth. "I'll write down some recipes for you. My grandmother taught us how to cook when we lived with her. In fact, she would roll over in her grave if she knew I left here without sharing her cooking secrets."

"Well, that's a relief," Winston spoke up, taking up his knife and fork again, contemplating the badly cooked food on his plate. "Maybe we won't have to keep eating like this while we wait for the next housekeeper to come along, although I keep hoping you'll stay and save us, Maggie."

"Well, I—" It was tempting, but she'd come here to find love before it was too late. And while she needed a job, she wasn't sure she should try finding another husband through the newspaper. Maybe it was a sign she wasn't meant to marry or have children. Maybe it wasn't her destiny to have a family or to discover the joys of the marriage bed. And perhaps Chester's words had dug a little too deep—okay maybe a lot. She was desperate, and that had made her blind to a man and his lies. Maybe she was too emotional about the situation to make a good decision. "I really do want to go home."

"Well, now, I can't blame you for that." John's tone grew gentle with understanding as he spread butter on the potatoes steaming on his plate. "But would you consider letting us hire you to fill in until we get someone hired? We'd pay you well in the meantime and likely you'd be able to get home to your family in say, two or three weeks. Plus, you'd be helping us out too. What do you say, Maggie?"

"
No,"
Miles answered, booming like a thunderclap, leaving no doubt about his feelings. "We're not hiring her."

"Oh, Miles is right. I couldn't work here." Maggie studied him across the table—the invincible line of his shoulders, the stubborn, powerful clench of his square jaw. He looked formidable and fierce, but he wasn't angry. She could feel the force of his pain. His heart had been truly decimated and he'd never gotten over it. That touched her, it really did. The last thing she wanted was to cause him pain—even if she did like the job offer.

"Forget Miles," John said, waving one hand at Miles like he didn't matter. Twinkles of amusement brightened his hazel gaze. "Think of me. I wouldn't have to cook."

"Think of me," Winston chimed in warmly. "You'd be saving my stomach. We'd love to hire you, Maggie."

"And I would love that too." That was the simple truth, but across the table handsome, gorgeous, masculine Miles was smoldering. That left her only one choice. She had to say no. "But if I worked for such handsome men—excluding Miles of course—I'd just fall madly in love with you, John and you, Winston. I'd be destined to be alone for the rest of my life because I'd never find a man my age who could compare with either of you. Sorry, but I just can't stay."