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Authors: Stella Bagwell

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BOOK: Millionaire on Her Doorstep
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Adam had the strongest urge to lean forward and press his lips to her cheeks and nose, to taste each little brown Beck. “I'm not angry anymore.”
The huskiness of his voice lifted her eyes to his, and in that moment Maureen knew he was seeing her not as a co-worker, but as a woman. The idea was both terrifying and thrilling.
She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I'm glad. But I'm still not sure....”
“How are you moving your things up from Houston? Or have you already?”
She shook her head. “I sold some of my furniture. What's left I'm going to have shipped with my clothes, household goods and other items in a moving van. As soon as the paperwork on the house is finalized,” she added.
His expression turned incredulous. “The house! You mean you've already bought a house?”
Maureen refused to be chagrined. “Yes. I found one yesterday. Of course, it'll be at least a couple of weeks before the abstract can be read by a lawyer and everything can be signed.”
“All I can say is, you don't waste time, lady.”
She'd wasted...no, she swiftly corrected herself, she'd
lost
the past ten years of her life. She hadn't wasted them. But things were going to be different now. Last night, she'd vowed to put her ex-husband and their dead baby behind her once and for all. She was going to move into her new house, focus on building herself a different life and forgetting everything that she'd lost.
“I can't afford to waste time.”
One brow arched curiously at her remark. “You have a date to keep?”
Her face grew stiff and devoid of emotion. “I don't have dates.”
His slow perusal of her brought a tinge of color to
her cheeks. Adam didn't let her discomfiture stop him. “You'll probably think I'm impertinent,” he said. “But I'm going to ask why anyway.”
She turned her head away, but not before Adam spotted the faintest tremble at the corner of her lips. “You
are
being impertinent, and my personal life—or lack of one—is none of your business.”
Yesterday, her clipped words would have put a smug smile on his face. He would have found enjoyment in the knowledge that she could be wounded. But today, all he could feel was an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her.
“You're right,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “It is none of my business. So let's get back to the initial question. Would you like to come stay at the ranch?”
She glanced at him, and for a split second he saw a flash of raw hunger in her eyes. The brief sight of it stabbed him right in the breastbone.
“It is tempting. I hate motel rooms.”
Latching onto the uncertainty in her voice, he said, “The Bar M is beautiful. We have a swimming pool, there's always plenty of good food to eat, and you'd have a room off to yourself. You wouldn't have to see me or anyone else, unless you wanted to.”
She did want to see him. That was the whole problem. But it wasn't as if she was going to throw herself into Adam Sanders's arms. Since David had walked out on her, she'd developed a willpower as strong as steel. She could resist any man.
“You make it sound very appealing.” She looked at him with sudden resolution. “I think I'll accept your invitation, Adam.”
He didn't know which pleased him more—her calling him by his first name or the fact that he'd won her over and she was going to be staying on the ranch.
Resisting the urge to grab her hand and smother the back of it with kisses, he said, “Good. After work this evening, I'll help you get your things from the motel and then you can follow me home.”
Follow me home
.
As Maureen watched him leave the lab, she tried her best not to take his words literally. This brief stay on the Bar M with Adam and his family would only be a glimpse of what she would never have.
The more she reminded herself of that fact, the safer her heart would be.
Chapter Three
A
dam glanced in his rearview mirror. She was back there. Just as she'd been when he'd checked five minutes ago.
He'd really done it this time! What the hell had he been thinking? It would have made much more sense to simply reimburse Maureen for her motel expenses instead of inviting her to the ranch.
But that was the whole problem, he argued with himself. The Bar M was only his temporary home. He had to consider his parents' feelings in the matter. And he knew how pleased they would be that he'd been able to persuade Maureen to stay the next few weeks with them.
Chloe and Wyatt had always been generous people. Not just with their money or the things it could afford them to give, but generous of themselves. Adam had long wished he possessed at least a fraction of their generosity.
But now as Maureen followed him closely up the
pine-lined lane to the ranch, he wished when he'd looked into Maureen's warm brown eyes this morning, he'd been a bit stingier with his hospitality. In spite of the physical attraction he felt for her, he didn't want to get involved with her. Or any woman. And he was going to make damn sure he didn't.
Circling behind the house, Maureen parked beside Adam's truck, then joined him at the back of the vehicles. Shading her eyes from the late-evening glare, she took in the massive barns and cattle lots, the long white stables and the blue-green mountains rising up behind it all.
“When you said ranch, I didn't realize you meant a place of this magnitude,” she told him, her voice filled with awe.
His wry grin was full of pride as he pulled down the tailgate on Maureen's pickup. “I told you it was beautiful.”
“That's an understatement. But I didn't expect it to be a...” She paused to wave a hand at the corrals where wranglers were spreading feed into long metal troughs for a herd of steers. “A working ranch.”
“Is there any other kind?”
She reached for two of her smaller cases. Adam jammed a duffel bag under one arm, then picked up two larger cases.
“Some people buy a house on an acre of land in the country and call it a ranch.”
He chuckled. “We measure the Bar M in sections rather than acres.”
“You sound like a genuine Texan now.”
“Well, the states do touch,” he said, excusing his comment.
She laughed, and Adam realized it was the first
time he'd heard the warm, rich sound or even seen her truly smile, for that matter. He thought he'd noticed everything about this woman. He'd thought her cool aloofness was because of her dislike of him. But he was beginning to think that wasn't the case at all. It wasn't him she was unhappy with. It was something inside her. Something she'd carried with her from Houston.
A man? he wondered, then groaned mockingly to himself. With a woman who looked like Maureen? Of course it was a man. And Adam hated him already.
 
Tossing the book onto the nightstand, Adam flopped back against the headboard and sighed. He didn't want to read. Watching TV was no option at all. Neither was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.
Absently, he rubbed a hand over his naked chest as his gaze drifted toward the door of his bedroom. Of all the rooms in this house, his mother had insisted on putting Maureen directly across the hall from him.
Whether she'd done it on purpose or not made little difference to Adam. He'd reasoned the whole thing out with himself. He was going to be polite and hospitable to Maureen. But he was also going to be very careful about keeping his distance. Why put himself through any more temptation than he had to?
Restlessly, he rose from the bed and walked over to a pair of sliding glass doors leading out to the courtyard. A few yards away, the water in the pool glistened beneath the moonlight. He'd forgone his swim tonight. The idea of parading around in a pair of swim trunks in front of Maureen wasn't all that appealing to him. Besides, if he'd gotten into the pool
earlier, his parents would surely have insisted on Maureen joining him.
Coward. Are you a man or a mouse?
The self-directed question brought a grim twist to Adam's lips. Whenever Maureen was near him, he was all too aware of which creature he was.
So what was the matter with him? It wasn't like him to run from a female. He loved women. Loved everything about them. Their softness and sweetness. Their scents and sighs and smiles.
He knew he had the reputation of a philanderer. But not one of his friends or his family really understood that deep down he was a one-woman man. And because he'd lost his one woman at the tender age of twenty-two, he refused to consider he might actually be able to find another.
Losing Susan had taught him that serious love could only lead to pain and loss. From then on, he'd closed his heart and decided that women were to be taken often and lightly.
In the last two years of college, he'd studied the female anatomy as much as he'd studied engineering, and he'd enjoyed every minute of it. But the older Adam had gotten, the stickier each relationship had become. He wanted no strings—whereas women wanted to tie him down with a damn lariat. And when they couldn't, there was always a flood of tears, the you-don't-love-me thrown in his face.
Hell! Of course he hadn't loved any of them. Where did they get the idea a little shared time and a few kisses meant a man was in love? As far as he was concerned, real love, the kind his parents shared, was very rare and even more difficult to keep. He'd lost his chance at real love when Susan's car had skidded
off a rain-slick mountain highway. At this point in his life, he simply wanted to concentrate on his career.
But if he was so sure of all of that, why was he hiding in his room? he asked himself. Why didn't he simply be the Adam Murdock Sanders he'd always been, the one who wasn't afraid to enjoy and appreciate a woman's company and to hell with their tears?
Slowly, a sly smile spread across his face, then he turned away from the glass doors and went in search of his swimming trunks.
 
Maureen was flipping through the channels on a small television in her bedroom when a soft knock sounded on the door. She quickly pushed the Off button on the remote and reached for her dressing gown.
“Just a moment,” she called.
Before opening the door, she tightened the sash at her waist and adjusted the overlap of material between her breast. A second later, she was glad she'd taken the time to cover herself. Adam was standing on the threshold with nothing on but a pair of swimming trunks and a devilish smile.
“How about a swim?”
Incredulous, she stared at him. “A swim?”
He put a shushing finger to his lips. “Yes. A swim. You know, me and you in the water. Staying afloat, cooling off.”
Maureen had to stifle the mocking burst of laughter rising up her throat. Cool off with Adam? She didn't think so.
“It's nearly time for bed,” she reasoned.
He glanced at the moon just then bursting over the ridge of mountains to the east. “This is the best time
of the day. Not too hot. Not too cool. And don't worry, the moonlight isn't bright enough to show off your cellulite.”
Her narrowed eyes warned him he was treading on dangerous ground. “What makes you think I have cellulite?”
A grin kept trying to tug at the corners of his mouth. It would have infuriated her on any other man. On Adam, she wanted to lean forward and taste it.
“Nothing. I just know how you women worry about such trivial things.”
Her brows arched at the word
trivial
. “So you don't mind if a woman has a few flaws?”
The grin appeared in full force as he shook his head. “No. I turn a blind eye to them. After all, a perfect woman would be...boring. If you ask me,” he added.
Maureen wished she hadn't asked. She also wished he wasn't looking at her as though he'd like to slip the blue cotton robe off her shoulders, then eat her for dessert.
“I guess we women are lucky there's no perfect men around to...bore us.”
Adam chuckled. “So are you coming with me or not?”
She spared him one last look before glancing over her shoulder at the bed. She wasn't ready for sleep. Certainly not now after he'd stirred her hormones to a heady boil. But was she ready for a moonlight swim with Adam?
“It's dangerous to swim alone,” he persisted.
“How do you know I can even swim?” she countered.
His gaze traveled lazily down the length of her.
“You don't look like you'd have any problem with the sport.”
The only problem she had was with him. Maybe it was time she showed him she was not a woman to be flirted with. Not by him or any man.
“I don't. So give me a couple of minutes to change and I'll meet you out in the courtyard,” she told him.
When Maureen appeared a few minutes later on the patio, Adam was stretched out on a chaise lounge. A tall pitcher of some sort of fruity-looking drink sat beside him on a low table. The two iced glasses next to it told Maureen he had been busy while she changed into her swimsuit.
“What's that?” she asked, inclining her head toward the pink drink.
“Some of my aunt Rose's special punch. She knows how much I like it, so whenever she makes a batch, she brings some by the ranch for me.”
“Do all the women around here spoil you?” Maureen slipped off her short cover-up and sat on the chaise next to Adam. Immediately, she could feel his eyes all over her loose hair and bare skin.
“Spoil me? What makes you think that?”
She made a sound of disbelief. “Your mother cooks you
chorizo
and eggs every morning. Your aunt makes you a special punch. That sounds like spoiling to me.”
Grinning, Adam leaned over in the chair, then poured both glasses full of punch. “What can I say? I'm a loved man.”
What must that feel like? Maureen wondered. After her grandmother died, there'd been no one to coddle or cluck over her. Just a list of foster parents who'd seen to her physical needs but hadn't come close to
meeting the emotional void left by her parents' and grandmother's deaths. She supposed that was the reason she'd clung to David for so long after their baby daughter had succumbed to crib death. She'd been devastated and desperately needed her husband's love to help her get past the loss of her baby. But his love, if he'd ever had any for her, had stopped after little Elizabeth had died. He'd blamed her for the death, then walked out on her.
Mentally shaking away the black memories, Maureen accepted the proffered glass from Adam's hand and took a careful sip. The concoction had the consistency of a milk shake. It tasted of strawberries and pineapple with a heavy dose of banana. “This is sinfully rich.”
“And very good.”
“And very good,” she agreed.
Several moments passed as they drank in silence. All the while, Maureen could feel his eyes studying her as though she were a test paper and he was trying to figure out the answers.
Placing her glass on the low table, she looked at him. “Have you found any yet?”
His forehead wrinkled with confusion. “Excuse me?”
“Cellulite. Do I have any? Or should I stand and let you inspect the back half of me?”
He didn't appear to be the least bit embarrassed. Amused was more like it
“You look...different without your clothes.” And oddly enough, he decided seeing her hair free from its braid and rippling to her hips was just as intimate a view as the upper swells of her beautiful bosom.
“Most of us do,” she said dryly.
Different was not the description he was actually thinking. Luscious was much closer. Her swimsuit was a white one piece with high-cut legs and a low-cut neck that showed a generous amount of cleavage. Her body was the same golden tan as her face. The image of a toasted marshmallow drifted into his mind and he wondered if the inside of her would be as soft and sweet.
“You still don't like me much, do you?”
His question had her reaching for her drink. She swallowed down a sip before she answered. “You're not bad. For a company man.”
She couldn't know how much Adam disliked that term. True, he was technically what people in the oil and gas business called “a company man.” But he knew a roughneck or driller or tool pusher classified him in the same loathsome way a private did his drill sergeant. Adam wasn't a man who necessarily needed or wanted that much authority. But it was something that went with the job.
“What made you want to be a geologist?” he asked curiously.
Leaning back in the chaise, she stretched her long legs out in front of her. The night air was balmy. Adam had been right. This was the best time of the day.
BOOK: Millionaire on Her Doorstep
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