A Fairytale Christmas

A Baby Beneath The Christmas Tree


Excerpt

Chapter 1
For as long as Gwendolyn MacKenzie could remember the old timers in the tiny town of Towering Pines, West Virginia had whispered that Teaberry Christmas Tree Farm was enchanted. The rumor was that if you touched one of the Teaberry trees while wishing, your wish would come true.

Driving up the fir-lined mountain road that took her to the farm, Gwen glanced around in amazement, understanding why the legend had formed. Majestic evergreens punched into a vast indigo sky. Fat fluffy white snowflakes pirouetted around the green pine branches, falling heavily, like frosting on sugar cookies, creating a magical world.

But when she reached Teaberry mansion, Gwen’s mouth dropped open in dismay. Two rows of tall windows with thin black shutters dominated the huge red brick home, but the shutters tilted drunkenly from age and neglect. The Teaberry family hadn’t even visited for at least a decade. It didn’t surprise her that the house was in disrepair. But she’d thought Andrew Teaberry, her new boss, would have called ahead to have the place prepared to be used. If the house was this bad on the outside, she feared it would be worse on the inside.

Still, a wisp of smoke rose from the red brick chimney, disappearing into the inky sky, proof that the caretaker, Max Peabody, had started a fire in preparation for the owner’s return. At least she and her daughter wouldn’t spend their time shivering, while they waited for Drew Teaberry to arrive.

She got out of her beat up little red car and opened the back door, reaching in to unbuckle the car seat of her three-month-old baby. When she’d gotten pregnant by a boyfriend who’d bolted the very second she told him, Gwen and her twin sister Gill had both worried that she might fall into the same trap their mom had. Ginger MacKenzie had married the man who had gotten her pregnant. But when twins were born, he’d panicked, saying one baby was difficult enough to handle, two was impossible, and he’d left town. Leaving Ginger to raise the girls alone, watching out the window, longing for him to come home.

Six months after her mom’s sudden death, finding herself in a position very close to Ginger’s, Gwen had quickly shaped up. She didn’t want to be one of those women who wasted her entire life pining after a man who didn’t want her. She stopped believing in miracles. She stopped believing wishes came true. She packed her dreamy side away. And she now only dealt in facts.

Which was why she was at this rundown old house, about to start a job as the assistant for a man she’d never met. She had to pay her own way, support a child and finish her degree. This job might be temporary, but it paid enough money that if she watched how she spent, she could keep herself and Claire through her last semester of university.

“Hey, Claire-bear,” she said, lifting the little girl and rubbing noses. Bundled in her thick pink snowsuit, with the white fur of the hood framing her face, chubby, happy Claire really did look something like a stuffed pink bear.

Using the key sent to her by Andrew Teaberry, Gwen unlocked the front door and stepped inside. A huge curving mahogany staircase greeted her and Claire. But so did cobwebs. A layer of dust coated the banister and the stairs.

“Wow. We could be in big trouble, Claire-bear.”

Walking from room to room, her dismay grew. Though the lights worked, the sinks had water and the kitchen appliances had been plugged into electrical outlets and hummed with life, the house was filthy. Drew Teaberry might have instructed the caretaker to get the utilities turned on and the furnace working, but he’d forgotten about cleaning.

Discovering a suite in the back that had probably at one time been maid’s quarters, Gwen set Claire’s baby carrier on the dusty bare mattress of the single bed but lifted it back up again. She’d arrived an hour early, hoping to make a good impression but Drew Teaberry hadn’t yet arrived. If she hurried, she could race home for a vacuum cleaner, mop, broom, soap and dust cloths, and still have time to clean this suite enough that Claire could sleep here.


Two hours later, Andrew Teaberry pulled his shiny black SUV into the circular driveway in front of his family’s old homestead and his face fell in disgust. Pressed for time on this spur-of-the moment trip, he’d thought ahead enough to hire an assistant and have the caretaker open the place, but he hadn’t considered that Teaberry mansion might not be habitable.

“So this is the fabulous Teaberry Farm.” In the passenger’s seat of the SUV, Drew’s sixteen-year-old son Brody glanced around and snorted with derision. “Looks like a rat hole to me.”

Drew nearly squeezed his eye shut in frustration. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he had to move into this old monstrosity while he negotiated the purchase of a local manufacturing company, his ex-wife decided to get remarried, forcing Drew to keep their son for the entire month of her honeymoon. So while he negotiated to buy the business of crusty old Jimmy Lane, a West Virginia entrepreneur who only wanted to sell his business to someone who lived in West Virginia, he was saddled with a sassy sixteen-year-old.

Inserting the key into the back door lock, he glanced behind him at Brody, who was so engrossed in whatever he was doing with his cell phone that he didn’t even watch where he walked. Wearing a black knit cap over his yellow hair and a thick parka that seemed to swallow him whole, Brody was the complete opposite of his dark-haired, dark-eyed, always observant dad. The kid was going to step into traffic one day.

Brushing up against one of the pine trees beside the kitchen door as he pulled the key out of the door lock, Drew prayed that they both survived this month. He pushed open the door, stepped into a kitchen that looked like something out of a horror movie and froze.

“Mr. Teaberry!” The woman standing by the dusty kitchen counter winced. “I’d say welcome home, but I’m not sure that’s exactly appropriate, given the condition of the place.”

Drew blinked at yet another surprise this morning. Unless she was Max Peabody, the caretaker, this had to be his temporary administrative assistant, Gwen MacKenzie. In their phone interview, she’d told him she had one more semester of university to finish, so he’d pictured her as being a petite blonde sprite, someone who’d look only a little older than his son. Instead, he’d hired a classically beautiful woman with thick dark hair and catlike green eyes, who was built like every man’s fantasy come to life. A bright red sweater accented her ample bosom. Dark, low riding jeans caressed her perfect bottom. Her shoulder-length hair swung gaily when she moved.

He slid his laptop to an available counter, glancing around at the nightmare of a kitchen. The oak cabinets were solid, but coated in dust, so were the kitchen table and the four chairs around it. But, like the cabinets, the furniture and the ceramic floor tiles looked to be in good shape. The house wasn’t really falling apart, just dirty.

“Good morning. Sorry we’re late. We couldn’t get on the road until hours after what we’d planned.”

She batted her hand in dismissal. “Not a problem.”

Brody pushed into the kitchen behind his dad, not caring that he’d bumped into him. “Hey, babe, thought for sure you’d have muffins and coffee waiting.”

Drew blanched at his son’s disrespect. “Not only is Gwen not our cook, but we don’t call employees babe.”

“All right. Great. No babe.” Brody pulled his sunglasses down his nose and peered over the rim at Gwen. “Sorry about that, sweetie.”

“We don’t call employees sweetie, either!” Drew said, his temperature rising. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the kid was deliberately antagonizing him. “How about an apology?”

Brody glared at his dad. “Fine. I’m sorry. Why don’t you just write a list of rules so I know what the hell I can and can’t say this next month!”

With that he stormed through the kitchen, all but knocking the swinging door off its hinges as he punched through it.

Though Drew knew he should go after him, he had no idea what to say to this new version of Brody. That was part of the problem. Sixteen years ago, when his ex had moved herself and their son to Colorado, two thousand miles away from Drew, he’d protested. But in the end she hadn’t budged and his visits with Brody became something like two-week vacations spent on tropical islands or ski resorts.

They’d always gotten along well. Until this trip. Now, Brody was suddenly obnoxious. Drew had absolutely no idea what the heck was he going to do with him for the entire month of December. One-on-one in a house so far out in the country that it didn’t get cable, they were going to be miserable. Especially since Drew wasn’t even sure when or why Brody had turned into such a mouthy kid or where to start with discipline.

He did, however, know exactly what to say to an embarrassed employee. He turned to Gwen. “I apologize for my son’s behavior.”

“Not a big deal,” she said with a laugh. “He’s what? Fifteen? Sixteen? He’s testing the water. All kids do it.”

A steamroller of relief rumbled through Drew. At least the relationship with his temporary administrative assistant would be normal. Then she smiled at him, her pretty green eyes shining, her full lips winging upward, and everything male inside of Drew responded. Her thick, shiny dark hair framed a heart-shaped face with bright eyes, a pert nose and generous lips made for kissing.

Involuntarily, his gaze swept down the red sweater and tight jeans. He rarely went out and, when he did, the women he dated were nothing like Gwen. They were tall, cool blondes. Sophisticates. Models. Starlets. But there was no denying that this gorgeous brunette ignited a spark inside him, made him wonder what it would be like to kiss her--

He groaned inwardly. He wanted a normal working relationship with this woman! Plus, even if he was the kind to dabble in affairs, she was too young for him and an employee. If those weren’t enough, he had responsibilities as the Chairman of the Board of his grandfather’s conglomerate. The pressure of holding the top position in a global company left him no time for anything but work. That was why he’d only spent vacations with Brody. Why Brody had had time to change without Drew even realizing. Why he had to figure out how he’d handle him for the four long weeks in December.

“I think I’ll grab Brody and get our bags.”

Coming in July 2010...MAID FOR THE MILLIONAIRE

MAID FOR THE MILLIONAIRE

Chapter 1
Pink underwear?
Cain Nestor tossed his formerly white cotton briefs into the washer and slammed the door closed. Damn it! He should have stopped at the mall the night before and bought new, but it had been late when his private plane finally landed in Miami. Besides, back in Kansas he had done his own laundry plenty of times. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten so much in twelve years that he’d end up with pink underwear, but apparently he had.
Tightening the knot of the towel at his waist, he stormed out of the laundry room and into the kitchen just as the back door opened. From the pretty yellow ruffled apron that was the trademark of Happy Maids, he knew that his personal assistant was one step ahead of him again. He’d been without a housekeeper since February 1 – three long weeks. Though Eva had interviewed, he’d found something wrong with every person she’d chosen – his maid lived in and a man couldn’t be too careful about whom he let stay in his home – but the lack of clean underwear had clearly proven he’d hit a wall.
Leave it to his assistant to think of the stopgap measure. She’d hired a cleaning service. Ready to make an apology for his appearance, Cain caught his once-a-week housekeeper’s gaze and his heart froze in his chest. His breathing stopped. His thigh muscles turned to rubber.
“Liz?”
Though her long black hair had been pulled into a severe bun at her nape and she’d lost a few pounds in the three years since he’d seen her, he’d know those catlike green eyes anywhere.
“Cain?”
A million questions danced through his head, but they were quickly replaced by recriminations. She’d quit a very good job in Philadelphia and moved with him to Miami when she’d married him. Now, she was a maid? Not even a permanently employed housekeeper. She was a fill-in. A stopgap measure.
And it was his fault.
He swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.”

Liz Harper blinked a few times, making sure her eyes were in focus and she really was seeing her ex-husband standing wrapped in only a towel in the kitchen of the house that was her first assignment for the day. He hadn’t changed a bit in three years. His onyx eyes still had the uncanny ability to make her feel he could see the whole way to her soul. He still wore his black hair short. And he still had incredible muscles that rippled when he moved. Broad shoulders. Defined pecs. And six-pack abs. All of which were on display at the moment.
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “You could start by saying, ‘Excuse my nakedness. I’ll just run upstairs and get a robe’.”
Remarkably, that made him laugh and myriad memories assaulted her…
The day they met on the flight from Dallas to Philadelphia…
How they’d exchanged business cards and he’d called her cell phone even before she was out of the airport...
How they’d had dinner that night, entered into a long-distance relationship, made love for the first time on the beach just beyond his beautiful Miami home, and married on the spur of the moment in Las Vegas.
And now she was his housekeeper.
Could a woman fall any farther?
Worse, she wasn’t in a position where she could turn down this job.
“Okay. I’ll just—“
“Do you think—“
They stopped. The scent of his soap drifted to her and she realized he hadn’t changed brands. More memories danced through her. The warmth of his touch. The seriousness of his kiss.
She cleared her throat. “You first.”
He shook his head. “No. Ladies first.”
“Okay.” She pulled in a breath. She didn’t have to tell him her secrets. Wouldn’t be so foolish again as to trust him with her dreams. If everything went well, she wouldn’t even have to see him. “Are you going to have a problem with this?”
He gripped his towel a little tighter. “You working for me or chatting about you working for me while I stand here just about naked?”
Her cheeks heated. The reminder that he was naked under one thin towel caused her blood to simmer with anticipation. For another two people that might be ridiculous three years after their divorce, but she and Cain had always had chemistry. Realistically, she knew it wouldn’t simply disappear. After all, it had been strong enough to coax a normally sensible Pennsylvania girl to quit her dream job and follow him to Miami, and strong enough that a typically reclusive entrepreneur had opened up and let her into his life.
“Me working here for you until you hire a new maid.” She motioned around the kitchen. The bronze and tan cut-glass backsplash accented tall cherry wood cabinets and bright stainless steel appliances. “Is that going to be a problem?”
He glanced at the ceramic tile floor then back up at her. “I’ve gotta be honest, Liz. It does make me feel uncomfortable.”
“Why? You’re not supposed to be here when I am. In fact, I was told you’re typically at the office by eight. It’s a fluke that we’ve even run into each other. And I need this job!”
“Which is exactly why I feel bad.”
That changed her blood from simmering with chemistry to boiling with fury. “You feel sorry for me?”
He winced. “Not sorry, per se—“
“Then sorry, per what?” But as the words tumbled out of her mouth she realized what was going on. Three steps got her to the big center island of his kitchen. “You think I fell apart when our marriage did and now I can only get a job as a maid?”
“Well—“
Three more steps had her standing in front of him. “Honey, I own this company. I am the original Happy Maid.”

THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS, EXCERPT

Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Magic of a Family Christmas
I thought it was very appropriate that my November release was titled THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS.

For me, the "holiday" season begins in November. It used to begin in August! Back when my kids were younger, I'd "layaway" everything they needed for Christmas and gave myself months to pay for it. By the time I picked it up, the gifts were even a surprise to me because I'd forgotten most of what I'd bought. LOL

But as my kids and I get older, I really don't begin preparations until November. If you start too early, you stretch the mood too thin. But, if you "open the season" in November, beginning with shopping for and preparing a wonderful Thanksgiving meal for family, you open a season that continues for the next four weeks with shopping, parties, wrapping gifts, attending parties, visiting and baking . . . and ends with a New Years Eve party!

You get six or so weeks of wonderful time with family and friends that really does feel like a holiday!

My mother hosts one of my favorite holiday traditions. The day after Thanksgiving when lots of my nieces and sisters are shopping for those Black Friday bargains, my mother hosts her grandkids and greatgrandkids in a cookie painting day.

She bakes "shaped" sugar cookies and prepares different colored icings for the kids to paint onto the cookies. There's a segment about this in the back of THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS, including my mom's recipes for both the cookies and the icings.

Anyway, when the cookies are iced and cooled, they loop ribbons through them so they can be hung on her cookie and candy tree in the family room. It's a fabulous tradition that has become one of the most special memories for all my mother's kids, grandkids and great grandkids!

To me that's the real "magic" of Christmas. Don't get me wrong. I love a good gift! But the get togethers are more fun for me. The traditions that bring us back to our roots and reminds us of all the good things in our lives...the good things we've had for decades. So that we can appreciate them and each other.

That's why I was so thrilled with the title of my November release. THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS...I couldn't have said it better myself!

susan

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NOVEMBER WRITING TIP!

A few years ago, I wrote a workshop called, THIS IS THE YEAR YOU WRITE THAT BOOK! When I was looking through my writing material for something to share with you this month, I realized the first lesson COMMITTING, is actually a mini goal setting workshop. Because we're coming up on the beginning of a new year when many of you may want to set some new goals, I thought this might have some insights for you as you ponder new goals for 2010!

Enjoy!


Lesson One: Committing

The first step you must take to assure that this is the year you will write your book is to make a commitment. Believe it or not, you're already halfway there. How do I know that? Well, nearly all the pundits agree that there are seven steps to goal setting.

1. Decide what you really want
2. Write your goals out on paper
3. Determine the price you have to pay
4. Make a plan
5. Take action immediately
6. Do something every day that takes you to your goal
7. Resolve in advance that you will never quit.

When you signed up for this class, technically you were telling yourself that you wanted to write a novel, an entire novel, this year.

You did step 1. You…Decided what you wanted. Then you did step two. You wrote it out on paper (cyber paper when you signed up for this workshop). You determined the price by paying a workshop fee and recognizing that you were committing yourself to four weeks of lessons, as well as the price of one year's time. (To write your book!)

You're pretty much depending upon me for some assistance with number four - - the "plan" end of things, and I'm going to hold to my end of the bargain by giving you tons of information in the next seven lessons. You will get both motivational ideas and crafting tools that will enable you to create your plan to write a book this year.

But to cement your commitment, you need to finish the seven steps.

The three things left for you to do are:

5. Take action immediately
6. Do something everyday that takes you to your goal
7. Resolve in advance that you will never quit.

So, pause, raise your right hand and repeat after me. Today, I will take action immediately on my book. I also promise to do something everyday that will take me closer to my goal of completing a novel this year. And I also resolve, not promise, not hope, but resolve that I will never quit.

Put your hand down and realize that unless you intend to break another promise to the most important person in your world (you) you're going to write a book this year.

But before I tell you to get the heck off the Internet and start writing, let's talk a little bit about why I want you to promise me you will take some sort of action immediately, do something everyday that takes you another step closer to your goal and also to resolve in advance that you will never quit.

Why do I believe steps five through seven are the most important steps of goal setting?

Because anybody can know what they want, anybody can write out those goals on paper, anybody can determine the price he or she has to pay and anybody can make a plan. But not everybody can take action immediately, discipline himself to do something everyday and resolve in advance that he or she will never quit.

These last three steps, taking action, disciplining yourself to do something every day and resolving never to quit are the hardest part of any goal because they are the engine of the goal.

Let’s start by examining step five: Take action immediately.

Why is that so important? Why is that part of the engine of your goal setting process? Because, quite simply, by actually taking action on your goal, you physically say you are committed. You tell yourself you believe you can do this.

If you don’t take action immediately, there’s always a question mark. Sure, you said you could write your book this year, but you haven’t even turned on the computer, so do you really think that you can write a book this year? Or were you wishful thinking again? Do you really have faith in yourself? And if you don’t…why the heck did you torture yourself by making a promise you don't believe you can keep?

I think you know you can do this. I think you know it's physically possible to write a book in a year. After all, at one page a day, you would have 365 pages at the end of a year. That's not hard at all. It makes writing a book very doable.

Taking an action immediately is like saying: I know it's possible so I'm going to take the first step. I can do this.

So… Do it!

But there’s another reason to take action immediately. The beginning of any project is the hardest. Once you set your goal and then take action by doing something, the difficult hurdle of “beginning” is handled. Your goal no longer seems like something off in the distance. Instead, it’s something you’ve already started.

It becomes real, manageable, and you begin to feel the sense of ownership necessary to commit for the long haul.

Simply put, step five, take action immediately, speaks of self-confidence and commitment!

But so does Step six: Do something every day to take you closer to your goal. Except it doesn’t merely speak to commitment, it also has two other advantages.

First, doing something every day, a piece of your project every day, breaks your work down into manageable increments and pieces, and teaches you that any task can be completed when taken one step at a time.

Second, working on your goal every day keeps you involved in your goal. You can’t forget it. But more than that, you can’t fall behind. At least not so far behind that you feel overwhelmed. Working on your goal everyday keeps you active, involved and moving toward the prize.

And that usually ends procrastination. Do you know why? Because most of us procrastinate out of a feeling of overwhelm. Consistently and consciously doing something everyday that takes you toward your goal eliminates overwhelm. And if you're never overwhelmed you'll probably have no trouble getting yourself to sit down every day and write at least one page.

But if you begin talking yourself out of your daily portion, if you don't do something everyday, then that work begins to stack up. When you sit down to write, instead of having one page to write, your quota is now one page for today and one for yesterday. And then your portion doesn't seem so easy anymore, and then you might just blow off another day and another until you're so far behind you can't work at all. You're paralyzed. (Sound familiar?) Instead of floating along, maybe even getting ahead because some days you can write more than your quota, you find yourself in yet another uphill battle!

So the trick is…Do something every day to take you closer to your goal. Don't let yourself miss a day!

Step Seven: Resolve in advance never to quit. No matter how difficult things get.

This step is the best. The resolution to keep going, no matter how defeated you feel, no matter how far your faith has depreciated, will actually walk you through the hard times. It will get you through the times when you want to quit, when you feel like it’s pointless, when your back has been broken by criticism or a rejection.

Face it. You are going to have days when you don’t feel like doing your daily portion. You will have days when your plan seems insane. You will get rejections, hear of friends who sold or got agents, get poor critiques, lose contests and face every form of hurdle known to writerkind.

But… If you’ve made the vow that you will not quit, that you will stick it out for your year -- or until your book is written -- then you will see yourself not merely face, but also overcome (or outlast) hurdles that might have otherwise defeated you!

Truthfully, I face a "hard time" every week. Every darned week something potentially work stopping happens at my house!

For instance, my husband has so many vacation days that he surprises me by taking weeks off. Weeks. Entire weeks! Weeks when I have deadlines and don't want him under foot!

My children have gotten sick. Editors have quit. Manuscripts have gotten lost. Chapters haven't worked the way I thought they would. Endings have been wrong. Outlines haven't worked. But I didn't quit. (Otherwise, I wouldn't have over forty books published.) I had made a promise to myself years ago that I would provide my share of the income (in the form of the monthly mortgage) as a writer and I have done it by keeping that promise that I made to myself.

That's commitment. Doing what you say you are going to do. Keeping the promises you make. The funny thing is we CAN AND DO keep promises that we make to our kids, the PTO, our parents, our pastor, even the bank, but we don't follow through on things like watching our weight, taking vitamins, maintaining an exercise program, pursuing our art -- the very promises that should be the most important to us because they don't merely sustain our physical person, they also nurture our souls.

Then we wonder why we're tired, depressed, defeated.

If you do nothing else this year…for once…keep the promises you make to yourself.

And that takes us to today's assignment. Make your commitment to this book this year. Really make the commitment. Don't merely pay lip service. Realize that your goal of writing, revising, polishing your book is possible. It's not a stretch. It's an accomplishment, but you've got an entire year and you can break your project down whatever way it needs to be broken down, and work incrementally. Realize also that you are worth a couple of hours every day. You're worth the effort.

Take your first action toward the goals you’ve set. Make the initial calls, write the first few pages, start a synopsis, buy the crafting book, find the Internet sites for research…Take all those first steps.

Then resolve to continue to do something every day.

And then resolve never to quit.

Keep this promise you've made to yourself. Not for anybody but you. Not for any reason other than you count. So does your book. Somebody might be waiting for it.


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What you missed...


If you haven't been to susanmeier.com lately you missed...

A recipe from my sister at the Homecooking Blog...
As well as my "made up" Easy, Peasy Ham Pot Pie recipe...
The story of the sprinkle we gave for my mother...
A blog about eliminating writer's block...

The announcement that HER BABY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS tied for first place in the MORE THAN MAGIC CONTEST!

The announcement of my new 3-book contract.

My 2 new speaking engagements for next year...2010 Written in the Stars Conference in Louisiana March 5th and 6th and the WRW conference in April.

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CAT TAILS!!!

Last month the spotlight was on Sophia. Today, it's Fluffy's turn. Fluffy's real name is Fluffy Doodle...like Yankee Doodle, without the feather in the cap or the macaroni.

Sarah and I had both longed for a cat, but my husband didn't really like cats and he constantly vetoed us. Then a week after Sarah got her driver's license I sent her for tomato sauce and forty-five minutes later she hadn't returned. I'd promised to take her to the mall to get her new "cheerleading" shoes so I knew she wouldn't dilly dally.

I started calling the hospitals and we found Sarah at Conemaugh. Furious that no one had contacted us, we raced to the hospital where they told us we had to wait to see her. We sat for an hour, totally convinced by this time that she was dead or dying.

Finally, we ventured up to the nurses station and asked about Sarah and the nurse was surprised no one had called our names. We could go right back.

We were so relieved we raced back and when my husband saw Sarah he blurted, "Anything you want you can have it!" (Silly man.) Though she had a concussion and torn ligiments, Sarah had the presence of mind to say, "Can I have a cat?" And my husband was stuck!

We got two cats, Fluffy and Basil. We had to put Basil to sleep a year or so later, but that's another Cat Tails.

Anyway, Fluffy is absolutely Sarah's best guy. He sleeps on the foot of her bed, waits by the door for her when it's time for her to come home and knows the sound of her car! It's amazing.

Fluffy is also the inspiration for Creamsickle, the cat with the bell in THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS.

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EXCERPT from THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Wendy Winston twisted the key to silence her small car and turned to the boy on the seat beside her. Six-year-old Harry Martin blinked at her from behind brown-framed glasses. A knit cap covered his short yellow hair. His blue eyes were far too serious to be those of a child. A thick winter coat swallowed his thin body. His mittened hand clutched a bag of toy soldiers. "I'm really sorry to have to bring you to work." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "S'okay." She wanted to say not really. It wasn't okay that he'd be forced to sit and play with his plastic soldiers for God only knew how long while she worked. It wasn't okay that he'd lost his mom. Or that Betsy's lawyer had been out of town when she'd died. It had been four weeks before Attorney Costello had finally called to tell Wendy that Betsy had granted her custody of Harry in her will, and another few days before social services could pull him out of his foster home and give Wendy custody—and then only temporarily.
Regardless of what Betsy's will said, Harry's biological father's rights superseded her custody bequest. But no one knew where Harry's dad was, so, for now, Wendy had a child who needed her, and, for the first time in two years, she had someone to anticipate Christmas with. Though social services was searching for Harry's dad, Wendy believed she and Harry could have as long as a month to shop, bake cookies and decorate. If it killed her she would make it the best month before Christmas this little boy had ever had.

She smiled. "I promise I'll make this up to you."

"Can we bake cookies?"

Her heart soared. It seemed that what he needed done for him was what she needed to do. They were the perfect combination. Maybe fate wasn't so despicable after all.

"You bet we can bake cookies. Any kind you want."

Wicked wind battered them with freezing rain as they raced across the icy parking lot to the executive entrance for Barrington Candies. Juggling her umbrella and her purse as they ran toward the door, she rummaged for her key, but before she found it, the right side of the glass double doors burst open.

Cullen Barrington stood in the entryway. Six foot three, with black hair and eyes every bit as dark, and wearing a pale-blue sweater that was probably cashmere, the owner of Barrington Candies was the consummate playboy. He was rich, handsome and rarely around, assigning her boss Paul McCoy the task of managing the day-to-day operations of the company while he handled the big-picture details from the comfort of his home in Miami. Cullen was also so tight with money that no one in the plant had gotten a raise since control of Barrington Candies had been handed to him by his mother.

Scrooge.

That's what she'd taken to calling the man who'd summoned her to work on a Saturday afternoon. Even though he'd surprised everyone with his offer to fill in for her boss so Mr. McCoy could take an extended Christmas vacation, Wendy wasn't fooled into thinking he'd changed his ways and become generous. Though he'd probably called her in today to prepare before he took over on Monday morning, he'd paid no thought to the fact that she would lose her day off. She'd lose precious minutes with Harry. She'd lose the chance for them to enjoy whatever time they had together, and maybe even the chance for her to show him life wasn't entirely bad, just parts of it.

Even if, some days, she didn't quite believe that herself.

Occupied with her thoughts, she slipped on the ice and plowed into Cullen. She braced her hand on his chest to stop her forward momentum and it sank into the downy cashmere covering the hard muscle of his chest. His body was like a rock.

Confused, because she thought all rich men were soft and pampered, she looked up. He glanced down. And everything inside Wendy stilled. She swore the world stopped revolving. As dark as moonless midnight, his eyes held hers. Her femininity stirred inside her.

That confused her even more. She hadn't felt anything for a man since her husband's death, and Cullen Barrington was the last man on the planet she wanted to be attracted to. A playboy from Miami? No thanks. She'd glimpsed him a time or two in the four years she'd been working for his company and never felt anything but distaste at the way he treated his employees. She had no idea what was going on with her hormones, but it had to be an aberration of some sort.

She stepped away, and as the door swung closed behind her a bell rang.

Funny, she didn't remember a bell being on that door.

She turned to investigate and sure enough someone had tied a bell to the spring mechanism at the top of the door.

Probably Wendell, the janitor, making sure he'd be alerted if one of the executives sneaked in to check up on him.

"Why did you bring your little boy?"

She pulled off her mittens. "Oh, I don't know. Because I wasn't supposed to be working today? Because it's such short notice that I couldn't get a sitter?" She shrugged. "Take your pick."

His gorgeous eyes narrowed. He obviously didn't like her speaking so freely with him.

Wendy almost groaned at her stupidity. A single woman who might get custody of a little boy couldn't afford to be fired!

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. It's just cold and I had things to do. So tell me what you want to work on and we can get started."

"I'd like to catch up on what's been going on, so I'll need production schedules and the financials. Once you help me find those, you can go home."

He didn't smile. Didn't give any reason at all for her heart to catch at the smooth baritone of his voice, but it did. Her entire body felt warm and soft, feminine in response to his masculinity.

She stepped back. She did not want to be attracted to him. It had taken her two long, miserable years to get over Greg's death. And she refused to go through the misery of loss again by being attracted to a playboy who—as sure as the sun rises every day—would dump her.

Of course, she might not be attracted to Cullen as much as she was simply waking up from the sexual dead. It had been two years. And she had been feeling like her normal self for at least three months. Maybe this was just a stage?

She peeked at Cullen, knowing that beneath that soft sweater was a very hard male body. Something sweet and syrupy floated through her. Moving her gaze upward, she met his simmering dark eyes and knew she could get lost in them.

She swallowed. Nope. Not a stage. It was him. She was attracted to him.

He turned to walk back to the office. Following him, she caught Harry's hand and brought him along with her.

"As far as the financials go, I don't want those fancy reports that go out in the annual statement. I want the spreadsheets. The nuts and bolts."

She stopped with a frown. She had access to everything, but if he was looking for the whys behind the line entries, she couldn't help him. "Why didn't you call Nolan, the accountant?"

He faced her. "Are you saying you can't get me the financials?"

"No. I have them. Everything is in my filing cabinet. But—"

She stopped talking. First, his eyes were simmering sexily again and her whole body began to hum—which made her want to groan in frustration. Second, she was making this harder than it had to be. All she had to do was find a few documents for him. The faster she found them, the sooner she'd be at home making cookies.

She squeezed Harry's hand. "I can get you anything you need."

"Thank you."

Cullen turned and resumed his walk to the executive suite. Wendy and Harry scurried behind him.

In her office, she stripped off her coat and removed Harry's. Cullen stood patiently by her desk as she rummaged through her purse for the key to the filing cabinet. Walking over, she noticed the door to her boss's office was open. Papers were strewn across his desk.

"Oh, you're already working?"

Cullen nodded. "I typed a few letters. But there isn't a printer in the office. I'm guessing I have to send my things to a remote printer, but I'm not sure which one is which."

"E-mail them to me and I'll print them."

"Why don't you just come to the computer with me and show me which printer to send them to?"

Okay. So he didn't want her to see what he'd written. No big deal. Whatever he wanted to print was probably personal. Not her business. She not only got the message; she also agreed. The less she knew about this man and the faster she got away from him, the better.

She unlocked the cabinet, pulled out the accordion file that contained the backup documentation for the financials for the year that had passed and handed it to him.

He glanced at the packet, then back up at her. Her stomach flip-flopped. His eyes were incredible. Dark. Shiny. Sexy. And the perfect complement to his angular face. He had the look of a matador. Strong. Bold. Everything about him was dramatic, male.

"Is the forecast in here?"

With a quick shake of her head, she rid herself of those ridiculous thoughts, not sure where the heck they kept coming from but knowing they were absolutely wrong. She returned her attention to the open drawer and pulled the file folder for the five-year plan. "Here you go."

"Great."

Cullen took the folder from her hands and stepped back. He'd thought that bringing in Paul's administrative assistant would make his life easier, but this woman wasn't at all what he'd been expecting. For a widow, she was young and incredibly good-looking. Long, loosely curled red hair fell to the shoulders of her thick green cable-knit sweater. Her cheeks had become pink in the cold, accenting the green of her eyes. Low-riding jeans hugged a shapely bottom.

He wasn't sure what the heck had happened when she'd fallen into his arms after she'd slipped on the ice. Their eyes had met and he'd felt a jolt of something so foreign it had rendered him speechless. He couldn't blame it on the fact that she was attractive. He knew hundreds of gorgeous women. Women even prettier than she was....

MAID IN MONTANA June 2009

After checking to make sure Brady was in a deep sleep, she slid into her one-piece bathing suit and the matching terrycloth cover-up then grabbed the portable baby monitor from the bedside table and walked through the sitting room to the door of her suite. She opened it slowly, not wanting to run in to anyone since her cover-up was short and she felt uncomfortable walking around only half dressed.

Common sense told her she had no reason to fear. It was late. She was on the first floor. Her boss’s suite of rooms was on the second floor. Slim had a cabin behind the homestead. Only a few hands actually slept in the bunkhouse, but even they were so far from the house that no one would see her – if they were awake. She was perfectly safe.

She took a breath, stole down the short hall that led to the kitchen and then slipped into the family room with French doors that led to the pool. In another two steps, she was standing on the stone patio.

Silence descended on her like a warm blanket. The city always had sound. Background noise. A person might grow accustomed to it and not "hear" it, but it was always there. On this ranch, so far away from civilization, she learned the meaning of the word silence.

Removing her cover-up, she glanced around in awe. Except for dim lights illuminating the blue water of the pool, this world was also inky black. Remembering something about seeing stars in the country, she quickly glanced up and sighed.

"Oh, my gosh."

"Oh, my gosh what?"

On gasp, Sophie spun around to find Jeb walking out of the shadows behind her. Anger rose like hot lava in her veins and her first instinct was to turn and walk away. But the closer he got, the more her anger was replaced by confusion. Water flattened his thick black hair and droplets cascaded from his shoulders and down his broad chest, making trails through whorls of dark hair leading to six-pack abs. Wet black swimming trucks clung precariously to lean hips and a butt made for a woman to sink her fingernails into in the throes of passion.

Even as her mouth went dry, she groaned inwardly. How could she be attracted to the man who had just fired her?

"Oh, my gosh what?" He repeated his question as he walked over to her, stopping within arm's reach.

Awareness shimmied through her. With her cover-up in her hand and wearing only her bathing suit, she wasn't quite as naked as he was, but they were both scantily dressed, alone, in the darkness.

She pulled in a breath, reprimanding herself. Not only were they were both sufficiently covered, but also she was furious with him and he clearly didn't like her. She didn't intend to continue their argument, but she wouldn't cower from him either.

She forced herself to meet his gaze. "The stars. There are so many."

"You have big city syndrome," he growled, back to being the grouch boss. He looked up into the star spangled darkness and back at her. "The sky is always lit over a city, blocking one of nature's greatest gifts. A starry night."

He took another glance up at the sky and her gaze skimmed his broad chest and perfect tummy. He was, quite literally, the sexiest man she'd ever seen.

"Yeah. We certainly don't have stars like this in the city." She swallowed, desperately trying to will away her attraction. He was a self-centered grouch, who had fired her. He was the last person she wanted to feel anything for. But she couldn't deny that being this close to him, her whole body hummed. She told herself it was just plain foolish to be attracted to a man she didn't even like. Yet, here she stood, her breathing erratic, her nerve-endings on red alert, just from standing close to him.

"I’ll just go back to my room now."

He snatched a huge green towel from a nearby chaise. "No, I'll go. I'm done with my swim. In about ten seconds the patio will be all yours."

A nervous laugh bubbled up from her. There was no way she'd let him leave his own swimming pool on account of her. No way she'd give him another thing to complain about. "No. That's okay. You stay. I only came out here to get a breath of fresh air."

She watched his gaze move from her face, down her one-piece suit, pausing on the length of leg exposed beneath the high-cut bottom.

"If you only came out for fresh air, then why are you in a swim suit?"

Her breathing, which had been erratic, stalled in her chest. His voice might have been strong, detached, but the look he'd given her had been long and slow. He'd taken in every square inch of her and lingered on the part of her that usually drew a man – her legs.

She swallowed.

Not sure what to think, she tried to fall back on humor. "All right. You caught me. I'm guilty as charged. I wanted a quick swim, but I didn't realize you were using the pool or I wouldn't have come out."

He took a step closer. "I didn’t picture you as the one-piece suit type. I figured you more for a bikini girl."

Another nervous laugh escaped her. If he made a pass at her, she wasn't sure if she would melt or faint. They both knew she was leaving in three weeks. And maybe that was why he was suddenly behaving so different with her? If he made a pass at her, nothing would come of it but an affair.

She took a breath. One little look shouldn't have her automatically assuming he was after an affair! She had to stop jumping to conclusions. So far he hadn't said or done anything out of line. She might have even misinterpreted the look he'd given her. What if he wasn't attracted at all, but actually confused by her choice of swimwear?

"Why a bikini?"

"Don't you surf?"

"No."

"Hum. A California girl who doesn't surf. Another myth debunked."

Relief skittered through her. She had been correct. He wasn't attracted to her but confused by her. She could breathe again. "You think all California girls surf?"

He caught her gaze, his pale eyes soft and serious in the moonlight. "Yes."

Realization of how close they were slid over her. He was a very different man when he wasn't yelling at her. In fact, from the way he was looking at her she'd never guess he had a problem with her at all.

She licked her suddenly dry lips, feeling reactions and emotions that were more instinctive than conscious. Her eyes desperately wanted to move down again, soak in the beauty and masculinity of his chest, and she struggled to keep them locked with his. Her nerve endings sparkled like the stars overhead. Her breathing became forced, labored.

He stepped back, his gaze still locked with hers. "You'd do well to remember that I'm a grouch and check to make sure the pool isn't occupied the next time you want to swim."

Embarrassment poured through her in a rush of heat. Good grief! So much for him behaving differently! Why did she keep making mistakes with this guy? Normally, she was a better judge of character. Yet, this was the third time she'd totally misread him.

"I"m sorry. Next time I want to swim I'll ask."

"There's no reason to ask. Just remember that I swim every night around ten-thirty and don't come out and we'll be fine."

Though his words were appropriate, his voice went back to being soft, hypnotic, resurrecting the sprinkle of gooseflesh that covered her body. She peeked at him, confused again. What was going on here?

She took a breath, reminding herself it didn't matter. She'd be gone in three weeks. Dropping her cover-up to the chaise, she turned to the pool. Before she dove in, she glanced over her shoulder and saw him walking toward the French doors. Her sigh of relief was swallowed up by the splash she made when she plunged into the water.