“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his blue eyes harsh. His face was all bladed angles and planes, arrogant slashes that somehow fit together in a handsome, if savage, countenance. His hair was black and thick and there was still a small scar that bisected one of his eyebrows. And he was mad, so damned angry that his normally dark skin had reddened around his neck.
Her heart broke when she realized he didn’t remember her. But why would he? He must’ve been with a hundred girls—maybe two hundred—since they’d last seen each other in the middle of a sultry summer night.
“I was hired to be here,” she said, still unmoving. Her voice caught his attention and his eyes flickered with recognition.
“Hired?” he repeated skeptically, but his eyes narrowed and he studied her with such intensity that she nearly trembled. “By whom? Unless things have changed in the past four hours, this—” he motioned broadly with one arm “—is my house.”
“I know that, Hayden.”
He sucked in his breath and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “I’ll be damned.”
“No doubt.” Slowly, never moving her gaze from his reflection in the mirror, she turned off the water. Struggling to her feet, she was aware, as she turned to face him, that the front of her sweater and jeans were wet, her hair hidden, her face devoid of makeup. “What I’m doing is cleaning your bathtub,” she said calmly, though she was sure her eyes were spitting fire.
“That much I figured.” An old dog, golden and grizzled, sauntered into the room and growled lowly. “Enough, Leo,” Hayden commanded, and the retriever obeyed, dropping onto the floor near the duffel bag Hayden had apparently carried inside.
Hayden, satisfied that Leo wouldn’t give him any more trouble, swung all his attention back to the small woman who stood like a soldier in front of his tub. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Nadine?”
“In the flesh,” she quipped, though she didn’t smile.
“Why are you here?”
Her jaw slid to one side, as if she found him amusing—some kind of joke. “I was hired by William Bradworth to clean this place and—”
“Bradworth doesn’t own it,” he cut in, sick to death of the pushy attorney. “I should have been told. Oh, hell!” He shoved his hair from his eyes. “What I meant was—”
“Save it, Hayden,” she replied quickly. “I don’t care what you meant.” Her clear green eyes snapped in anger, but she didn’t back down. She looked ridiculous, really. The front of her clothes wet, an old bandanna wrapped around her head. Gloves, much too big, covered her hands and yet...despite the costume, she radiated that certain defiance that had first caught his attention all those years ago. She tipped her little chin upward. “Bradworth paid me to finish the job.”
“Consider it done.”
“No way. I realize this isn’t the way you do things, Hayden, but when I agree to do a job,” she assured him, those intense eyes snapping green flames, “I do it. Now, you can stand there and argue with me all day long, but I’m really busy and I’d like to finish this room before I go home.”
“You’re a maid?” he asked, and saw her cringe slightly.
“Among other things. And right now, I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me...” Quickly she leaned over the tub and twisted on the faucets again. Water rushed from the spigot and she swished the last of the scouring soap down the drain.
“What other things?” he asked as she turned off the faucet.
Sliding him a glance that was impossible to read, she explained, “Oh, I have many talents. Scrubbing tubs and waxing floors and setting mousetraps are just a few.” She yanked off her gloves, and this time she dropped them into an empty bucket. Bending her head, she untied her bandanna and unleashed a tangled mass of red-brown curls that fell past her shoulders and caused his gut to tighten in memory. “Now, I’ve got to get home, but I’ll be back in the morning.”
“You don’t have to do any more—”
“Oh, yes I do,” she said firmly, and the determined line of her jaw suggested she was carrying a sizable chip on her slim shoulders. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I never leave a job unfinished—no matter who’s paying the bill.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Figure it out, Hayden,” she said, as if she were harboring a grudge against him—as if he had done her a severe injustice when she had been the one who had used him.
Seethingly indignant, she grabbed her mops, pails and supplies and walked briskly past him. Her flaming hair swung down her back and her jeans hugged her behind tightly as she bustled out of the room and clomped noisily down the stairs. Hayden was left standing between the bathroom and bedroom to wonder if she was going home to a husband or boyfriend.
He heard the front door click shut and moved to the window, where he saw her load her supplies into a trashed-out old Chevy, slide behind the wheel and then, without so much as a look over her shoulder, tromp on the accelerator. The little car lurched forward, and with a spray of gravel from beneath its tires, disappeared through the trees.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered again.
Well, at least she was gone. For the time being. He should be grateful for that. He reached for his duffel bag and a flash of light, a sparkle on the rim of the tub, caught his eye. He moved closer to inspect the glitter and saw the ring that she’d obviously forgotten. Frowning, he walked into the bathroom and picked up the tiny band of gold. A single blue stone winked up at him. Simple and no-nonsense, like the woman who wore it.
He wondered if this were a wedding band or an engagement ring, and told himself it didn’t matter. He’d take the damned piece of jewelry back to her and write her a check for services rendered as well as those not rendered. He didn’t need a woman hanging around right now, especially not a woman who, with a single scalding look, could set his teeth on edge and his blood on fire.
* * *
HAYDEN MONROE! BACK in Gold Creek! Nadine couldn’t believe her bad luck. She never should have agreed to work for the bastard, and she had half a mind to wring Aunt Velma’s long neck! But she couldn’t afford to say no to the sum of money that attorney Bradworth had offered. And she’d never expected to come face-to-handsome-face with Hayden again. She’d known, of course, that someone would be staying in the house, but she thought it was probably going to be rented or sold. She hadn’t expected Hayden. The last she’d heard about him, he’d moved to Oregon and was estranged from his father.
Ben had been right about Hayden and his dad. They were both cut from the same cloth—dangerously handsome, extremely wealthy; men who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything or anyone. Just money. That’s all they cared about. What was the saying? Fast cars and faster women? Whatever money could buy.
Hands clenched over the steering wheel, she mentally kicked herself. It was all she could do not to take him up on his offer and quit. But, in good conscience, she couldn’t tell him to take his job and shove it, as she’d already spent a good part of the money. And she didn’t want her two sons to lose out on the best Christmas they’d had in years because of her own stupidity.
“Damn, damn, damn and double damn!” she swore, her little car hugging the corners as she headed back to town. She frowned as she guided the Chevy beneath the railroad trestle bridge that had been a Gold Creek landmark for over a hundred years. Hayden Monroe! As handsome as ever and twice as dangerous. She steered through the side streets of town and stopped at the Safeway store for groceries. Christmas trees were stacked in neat rows near the side entrance, fir and pine trees begging to be taken home, but she didn’t succumb. Not yet. Not with the windfall she’d so recently received. Just in case she never finished the job. The trees would go on sale later. She picked up a few groceries, then