“Maybe twice when Granddad lived here. Never, after he was gone. My mother hated the ranch. Any ranch. If we celebrated together, it was in Dallas. After Mom walked, we didn’t even come home for Christmas.”
“Zach—”
His jaw firmed and an eyebrow arched. She realized she should stop talking about his personal life. She shrugged and turned away, going back to work without saying anything else. He did the same and she fought the urge to stare at him. How could he spend Christmas all alone? She couldn’t imagine anyone doing that through choice.
They worked for the next hour and Zach stood, stretching again.
“Enough of this,” he said. “Let’s break. I’ll go lift weights and do what I can do without involving my foot. We have treadmills or the track. Or an exercise bicycle. Nigel will be there because if any of us lift weights, he appears. He doesn’t want us alone if we’re working out with weights. That’s a long-standing rule and he walks around the track, which is probably good for him. If you prefer, you can sit in the family room and have a lemonade or a cup of hot tea or anything else you want.”
“Enough choices,” she said, putting down a letter. “I’ll change quickly and get on a treadmill. I’d rather sit on the terrace after work.”
“Good enough. See you in the gym.”
She left him, hurrying upstairs to change.
If only Zach felt about holidays the way Nigel felt about working out. That one shouldn’t go it alone.
With Nigel walking on the indoor track, Zach hoisted a bar, lifting it high and lowering it slowly when he saw Emma enter the gym. He set the bar in place and wiped his forehead with a towel while watching her. She wore blue shorts and a blue T-shirt that revealed lush curves, a tiny waist and heart-stopping long legs.
She smiled and waved, going to a treadmill to start it.
He should have let her go back to Dallas. She was a great secretary, as well as pure trouble. Their kisses were dynamite and the last kiss—when she wanted to prove their kisses couldn’t be called casual—had ignited fires that still blazed. Her sudden kiss had shocked and electrified him. It had been a spunky, devil-may-care, I’ll-show-you challenge that he would never have expected from her. If he could have burned to cinders from a kiss, he would have with that one. His reaction had definitely not been casual and she knew it. She had more than proven her point. She had driven it home with a wrecking ball.
She had a backbone and he suspected she was as strong-willed as he. Not his kind of woman in any manner except physically. She had been aghast over his plans for a solitary Christmas. He would bet the ranch he hadn’t heard the last on that one. She would want to take him home with her for Christmas. The whole thing would be humorous and he could ignore it easily, except she was getting to him in a manner he hadn’t thought possible. The hot kisses he had labeled “casual” blasted his peaceful life with constant fantasies about holding her and making love to her.
He wasn’t concentrating well on his work. It took real effort to avoid eating lunch or dinner with her. He had offered this exercise time when he should have left the office, worked out with only Nigel and let her continue with her secretarial duties. Common sense said to either practice more self-control or get rid of her.
His lusty body just wanted to seduce her.
Frustrated, he returned to working out.
At one point he paused, glancing over to see Emma running on the treadmill. She was going at good clip, had an easy stride and looked as if she had done this before. She looked fit and tempting. The T-shirt clung, the blue darker where it was damp with perspiration. She had a sexy bounce as she ran and her long legs were as shapely as he had imagined.
With a groan, he returned to his weights. When he stopped, she had finished and had a towel around her neck as she stood talking to Nigel. He smiled, glancing at Zach who waved Nigel away as a signal he was leaving the gym. Since Zach was finished, Nigel headed for the door and, without a glance, Emma followed close behind.
Zach hung behind. He hobbled out of the gym, wanting his foot to heal so he could get back to normal. He went to shower, wrapping his foot in a plastic boot and keeping it out of the shower to avoid getting it wet.
He constantly thought about taking her out when his foot healed and taking her to bed even sooner. If he didn’t want to complicate his life, that would not happen. She definitely would have her heart in an affair, something he had always avoided. In spite of what he knew he should refrain from doing, he could not keep from wanting to be with her and fantasizing about it.
Heat climbed, erotic images of Emma in his arms tormenting him. She was getting to him in ways no other woman ever had. So far, her resistance had been almost nil until he offered to double her salary. He suspected they both had acted impulsively. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his excellent secretary and to be truthful to himself, he just didn’t want her to go out of his life yet. She hadn’t been able to resist because she was trying to save money to finish her college courses. Had part of her wanted to stay because of the attraction?
Out of the shower, he decided not to go back to the office. He could work somewhere else in the house the rest of the day and keep space between them.
He ate dinner alone as he had most nights of his adult life. He had had affairs, but they had usually been brief, casual, on-and-off relationships. His job added to his solitary life. Tonight, he was restless, still drowning in thoughts of Emma. Finally, he had enough of his own company and went to look for her, hoping she had not shut herself in her room for the night.
But she had. He had to remember it was for the best.
Monday, they returned to their regular work routine. Late that day local meteorologists began to warn of a large, early storm from the west predicted to reach Texas on Thursday or Friday. Each day they checked the weather, Emma surprised that Zach ate lunch and dinner with her, flirting, friendly and heightening desire with every encounter.
By Thursday, pictures were coming in from the west of all the snow. “We’re ready for the storm, here at the ranch,” Zach told Emma. “We have supplies of every sort and enough food for weeks. I think you’re stuck, Emma, unless you want to take off work and head to Dallas this afternoon.” They both listened as the TV weatherman showed a massive storm dumping twelve inches of snow in the mountains in New Mexico and blanketing Interstate 40, closing it down.
“Now they’re predicting it’ll come in here Friday,” Zach repeated. “If you beat the storm home, you’ll be stuck there, which is fine if you want to do that.”
“I can miss one weekend at home,” she said. “Actually, I can go ahead and work and get more of the letters read and go through things.”
“If you’re sure. I’ve told Nigel and Rosie the same thing. Rosie’s cooking up a storm herself, but if we get what they’re predicting, neither of them will come in. I’ve told them to stay home.”
“I’ll stay here, Zach. I don’t want to get caught in bad weather. From what they’re predicting, it will come and go and be clear for me to go home for Thanksgiving next week.”
“If you decide to stay, I’ll pay you overtime.”
“That isn’t necessary. I’m happy to be out of the storm. Mom’s already called worrying about me.”
“Call her so she can stop worrying.”
“Thanks, Zach.”
“I wish I could take you out dancing Saturday night, but that’s out because of the storm and my foot. We can have a steak dinner—I’ll cook. We can have our own party here.”
She laughed. “Sounds