Acting upon it was a completely different story.
She worked for him! He had a firmly held personal policy not to become entangled emotionally with the people who worked for him. He tried not to be cold or harsh about it, only resolute.
While he cared deeply for long-term employees like Sue and Jim, Louise, a few others in his trusted circle, he had learned not to combine romantic relationships and business. They created a toxic mix for everybody involved, as he had learned from bitter experience early on when a few overambitious women had tried to take advantage of him—including one miserable lawsuit he would prefer to forget.
Eliza worked for him, which automatically made her completely off-limits to anything like heated kisses in the early morning hours. Yes, her employment was temporary and maybe a bit unorthodox but that didn’t change the underlying philosophy.
Beyond that, Eliza was not his usual sort of woman. He typically was drawn to sophisticated, urbane women after the same sort of relationship he wanted—casual, easy, uncomplicated.
A young widow with a medically fragile child—however adorable Maddie might be—didn’t strike him as someone who would be amenable to a quick fling.
The reminder served as the same bracing shock he would have gotten from sticking his face in the snow.
So. Lesson learned. He had to avoid intimate conversations with her in seductively quiet rooms. He could do that. Now that he was aware of his attraction to her, he would just have to be careful to keep out of situations where it might become an issue.
He had always been able to compartmentalize easily and had learned to shove aside the unimportant in order to focus on higher priorities.
He knew people thought him cold and emotionless. Even his siblings accused him of it. He wasn’t. He felt things just as deeply as everyone else—maybe even more deeply—but his long and difficult grieving process after his mother’s death had one good side effect in that he had learned through it how to put aside fears and hurts and loss and distill his concentration toward meeting his goals.
He considered his single-minded focus one of his greatest strengths—and he would simply apply the same principle to the quandary of Eliza Hayward.
Forgetting that intense kiss wouldn’t be an easy task but he would just have to force himself to try in order to return things between them to a professional level.
She would only be here for a few weeks. How difficult would it be to shove down his inconvenient attraction for that time, especially since he would no doubt be distracted once his family arrived?
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t mind running to the grocery store for me, too?” Sue asked Friday.
Eliza shrugged into her coat. “Not at all. It’s right on my way after I pick up the new lamps.”
“I told you, Jim can do all of that for you. I’m not sure you should be carrying those big boxes to the car. I know you say you feel fine now but I still worry about you.”
The other woman’s concern warmed her heart. After several days of working closely with Sue, Eliza had come to consider her a dear friend.
“I’m perfectly fine, I promise.” She still had a lingering twinge in her wrist and shoulder but even that was fading. “I have to go to the pharmacy, anyway, for Maddie and to be honest, I’m looking forward to finally seeing a little more of Haven Point.”
The past week had been so busy, she hadn’t even had a chance to leave the ranch. It was hard to have cabin fever in a vast twelve-thousand-square-foot lodge complete with all the amenities of a small resort but a change of scenery would certainly be welcome.
“You said you needed cream of tartar?” she asked.
“That’s right. How can I make snickerdoodles without cream of tartar?”
“Excellent question. I’ll be happy to pick some up for you. How much do you need?”
“Better get me at least four of the biggest spice containers they have. Aidan has always loved my snickerdoodles and he assures me his family will, too.”
“Because you make the best snickerdoodles in the whole wide world,” Maddie declared from her elbow.
Sue smiled down at her, rubbing her head. The two of them had become fast friends, too, these last few days. Sue clearly adored Eliza’s daughter and treated her like a beloved granddaughter. Her quiet, darling husband did the same.
In their many conversations over the past few days, Eliza had learned that Sue and Jim had found each other late in life, too late to start a family. Sue had confessed that being with Maddie made her ache for the children and grandchildren she never had.
“Wait until you try my cut-out sugar cookies, darlin’,” she said now to Maddie. “I promise, you’ll be in cookie heaven.”
Maddie giggled. “There’s no such thing!”
“You say that because you haven’t tried my cookies yet.”
Eliza smiled. “Okay, cream of tartar. Anything else?”
“Let me check.”
Sue pulled down the notebook she used to organize menus and shopping lists for the party. “I think that should be everything. Aidan is supposed to be bringing some of the specialty items I can’t find locally.”
“And he’s coming home tonight?” she asked, trying for a casual tone even as her pulse hitched up a notch.
“Tonight or tomorrow. When he called this morning, he still didn’t know when his meetings would be done.”
Against her will, Eliza’s gaze shifted to the sofa in the kitchen sitting area, where they had shared that stunning kiss.
Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to shake the memory. She had started to avoid sitting down on that particular sofa because she could swear the clean, deliciously masculine scent of him still drifted in the air.
After six days she should be over this ridiculous and completely embarrassing crush she had developed—especially since she hadn’t even seen the man since that kiss.
The day after their early-morning conversation and embrace, he had made himself scarce, spending his time either outside helping Jim clear away the fresh snow or holed up in his office on phone calls. She knew, because every time she walked past his office toward the other rooms she was working on in that area of the house, the muted murmur of his voice through the closed door seemed to shiver through her as if he had trailed a finger down her spine.
The next morning, Tuesday, she found out after breakfast that he was gone, ostensibly to handle urgent, last-minute negotiations for a company Caine Tech wanted to acquire.
She was grateful he was gone, she told herself. Without his presence, some of the fine-edged tension under her skin seemed to dissipate and she could really go to work making his house into a warm and welcoming haven.
“Looks like we’re running low on baking powder,” Sue finally said. “Why don’t you pick up more of that and maybe some of that local artisanal cheese they carry in front of the store?”
“Got it. Cream of tartar, baking powder and cheese. Okay, find your coat, Mads.”
“Why don’t you leave the little one here?” Sue suggested. “I can sure use a little help decorating the sugar cookies.”
Maddie’s eyes widened. “Oh, can I, Mama? I want to decorate sugar cookies! You know I love putting on the sprinkles.”
She smiled. “That does sound like fun. You always have been an extrasprinkles girl, haven’t you?”