Billionaire Boss (10 page)

Hazel chuckled. “Greenhorn,” was all she offered.

K
irsten was in her room packing when the knock came at her door. The champagne bottle was more than half-empty and the last of her cosmetics had been tucked into her rollaway bag.

“Well, it's you,” she announced, flinging the door wide-open to let Seth in.

“You act as if you were expecting me.” He didn't move from the hallway. Casually he leaned on the sinuous pine baluster behind him and surveyed her.

“I wasn't 'specting you, but since you're
here, c'mon in. I want to get a few things straight.” Her eyes read him, and she swore he smiled. It only made her madder.

“What's on your mind?” he baited, still not entering her room.

She hugged the doorway. “What's on my mind? Let me give you a piece of my mind,” she offered, her expression damning. “I, Mr. Morgan, am not the kind of woman who makes jewelry, okay?”

He looked appropriately confused. “What are you talking about?' he asked innocently—too innocently, by her mark.

“I said,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes, her broken heart buried deep for the moment, “I'm not the kind of woman who makes jewelry, and I don't tolerate mistresses. We, Mr. Morgan, if we had ever married, would never have a mistress, I can assure you.”

He took a step forward.

She held up her hand to say she wasn't finished.

“Now,” she pronounced. “I'm quitting. So goodbye and good luck. I'm outta here. Have a good life with Nikki, and I hope you live long enough to regret it.” She went to close the door.

He put his hand on the doorjamb.

She stared up at him.

This time he was only inches away.

“You want to talk about this, Miss Meadows?” he grunted, his eyes amused.

Disconcerted, she shook her head. “What's to talk about? I said I'd stay two weeks, and I can't. So what? Deal with it. Mary can handle all your plans. You don't need me. And if it's the pay you're worried about, hey, don't bother. I've got bigger things on the horizon. I don't need your measly paycheck, anyway.”

“You sound almost bitter, Miss Meadows.”

She snorted. “What gives you that idea?”

“I'd think a disenchanted employee might be a little defiant, but you sound as if there was more here. As if perhaps we were lovers and not just in a business relationship.”

The unshed tears froze in her eyes.

Quietly she said, “We were lovers. I know that, at least on my end.”

He uncurled his fingers from the doorjamb and entered the room.

“We are lovers, Kirsten.”

Her mind tried to parry his meaning. “If you're so delusional as to think we'll continue our relationship after you're married, you need a long rest at a mental institution.”

If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn he bit back a smile.

“Marriage doesn't have to exclude sex, Kirsten. I hear you can have both. It's not impossible.”

“Spoken just like your father,” she accused, her eyebrow rising.

“Touché,” he conceded.

Smugly she continued, “Thank you very much for the mistress position, Mr. Morgan, but I'll have to decline your offer.”

“Kirsten—” He tried to grab her.

She stepped away from him. The ice ball that was her heart was beginning to melt every second he was near, and she wanted him gone. She didn't want to lose control until she was out of the house and well on her way to her mother's.

“Why did you quit, anyway?” he asked, still keeping his respectful distance. “Come on, confess. It wasn't really the reason you gave, was it? When I hired you, you told me you needed this job. Then you bought your mother a house and couldn't see her going back to work until she was better—all that a fib, Miss Meadows?”

“Certainly not,” she defended.

His eyes narrowed. “It looks like it, because just when things get busy over here, you decide you'd rather fling it all to the wind and work at the Mystery Diner.”

Impassioned with fury, she almost struck him.
“My mother worked her tail off for Carrie and me there. And she does deserve a rest, and I'm going to give her one.”

“Then stay. No one can pay you as well as I can.” His gaze was riveted to hers.

She violently turned away from him. “Look, my mom may have had to waitress at the Mystery Diner, and I may have to do that, too, to keep things together. But you know what?” The tears began to melt. One slipped by, no matter how hard she tried to hold it back, and she cursed herself for it.

Damning him, she spat, “There isn't a person in Mystery who doesn't love my mom. Every customer was treated well, no matter how worn-out my mother was. And I guess that kind of stuff doesn't buy you jets and ranches, but I'd rather be loved at the Mystery Diner than live here without it.”

Finished, she zipped her suitcase, picked up her half-empty bottle of champagne and stood waiting for him to move from the door so she could leave.

He didn't budge.

She lifted the champagne bottle. “Sorry about this, but I thought a celebration was in order now that I'm leaving. Just deduct it from my last paycheck.”

He shrugged.

She waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally she dropped her suitcase on the floor with a thud.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she faced him. “Is there something more, Mr. Morgan? You look as if something's on your mind.”

“Something is on my mind, Kirsten.”

“And what is it?”

“Nikki,” he answered, his face revealing nothing.

Angry and depressed, Kirsten had had enough. She picked up her suitcase, planning to barge right through him if necessary.

But his arms went around her and stopped her.

“Kirsten, don't leave,” he whispered, a strange emotion in his eyes.

She looked at him, at his handsome face she'd grown to love, and the wound in her heart broke open. She began to weep, and quickly the tears flowed like the champagne growing flat in the bottle.

Gently he pulled her in to his chest.

She thought to fight the gesture, but there was no better place to weep than against the security
of his hard chest. It was too much to resist when she was exhausted and without hope.

“Baby, don't cry,” he said against her hair.

“What's not to cry about?” She sniffed, unable to get control of herself long enough to shrug off his embrace. “You won't let me leave, and the only thing on your mind is your fiancée.”

He kissed her temple. “She's not my fiancée any longer. I called it off.”

Maybe the champagne had really gone to her head, but for some crazy reason Kirsten thought he'd said he'd called it off.

“What?” she demanded, looking up at him.

He smiled. “I called it off. The reason she's on my mind is that I owe her a big apology—maybe even a Lamborghini. I should never have used her like I did, but Hazel said I had to settle down to keep the ranch, and I'm keeping the ranch, Kirsten. I'm not leaving Mystery.”

She tried to absorb what he was saying, but none of it made sense. “I don't understand any of this. Just keep the darn ranch. What's it to Hazel or Nikki?”

Pulling her closer, he placed a tender kiss on her lips. “None of this concerns them—just you and me.” His expression softened. “When I met you, Kirsten, I was convinced you were just an
other gold digger. It didn't bother me, because I knew all about those kinds of women. My own mother was one. You know that. So when that's all you know, that's all you expect and it doesn't bother you. Hell, I even figured I'd probably marry one of them one day just like my dad.”

Watching the emotion in his eyes go from shielded to yearning, she wondered if she was living a dream.

He continued.

“But everything you said, everything you did, went against my prejudice. Even what James said about you— I wanted to believe you were a conniving social climber, but I couldn't match up what I was thinking to what I was seeing and feeling.”

Tipping her face upward, he stared down at her, a new kind of hesitation in his eyes. “Don't leave me, Kirsten. Nothing in this world will be the same if you leave me.”

She let the words sink into her mind and heart. For several long moments she still couldn't believe what she was hearing, but then a new reality engulfed her, and she knew she had to be cautious.

“Seth,” she whispered, her voice still deep with tears, “I can't stay here and work for you
any longer whether you're married or not. It just won't work. I just can't do it.”

“What's changed?” he prodded, his tone gentle.

“I—I—” She closed her mouth and refused to say it. If she had any shred of dignity left, she had to leave without confessing her love. To do so and then find herself just another employee in the morning would kill her.

“You love me?” he asked, his stare dark and probing. “I hope so. Because I love you, Kirsten. I love you and I don't ever want another day to pass where you're not in my arms and in my bed.”

She locked gazes with him, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Will you marry me, Kirsten?”

The words lodged in her throat where the tears had once been.

“Will you?”

“Yes,” she gasped, tears springing forth anew, but this time tears of joy. “Yes, I will marry you, Seth Morgan. But not for your ranch, and not for your money.” Her voice shook from the emotion. “I'll marry you because you kissed me in the cold brook, and made me feel like a woman. And lastly, I'll marry you because you're more of a man than anyone else sees. I
want kindness and a warm hearth and children. Those things seem so within reach, and yet only you can bring them to me. And it will take much more than a bank account to do it.” She laughed and wept at the same time.

Slowly his mouth crushed down on hers in a long, soul-clawing kiss that tasted of tears and champagne.

Inside she melted. Her heart leaped, but she still worried that it wasn't real, that in a moment it would all be taken away and she would wake as if in a dream.

“I love you, Kirsten, and I'm going to make you my wife if I have to sell everything and live in a shack with you and our twelve children.”

She suddenly laughed.

After those absurd words, all of a sudden she believed.

H
azel looked out over her beautiful Montana valley through the window of her parlor. Her face was placid, her eyes twinkling with mischief, even though Jenn Meadows's words were full of anxiety.

“It's not like her to just call me and say she's going away for a few days.” Jenn nervously sipped on a hot cup of tea that Hazel had slipped some whiskey into.

“She's an adult, dear. She has a right to take a few days off.” Hazel sat down next to her. “Besides, maybe that boss of hers sent her on an errand to Paris, or such.”

Jenn shook her head. “No, she'd tell me. Besides—” her face took on a more troubled cast “—I think there's something going on with that boss of hers. She hasn't said anything, but I do hope they're not fooling around with each other.” Her eyes darkened. “I'd hate for her to have to go through what I've gone through—”

“And that reminds me, dear. Have you met Jim, Seth's ranch manager? I know the girls have really enjoyed riding up there. Why don't we have him plan one of those old-fashioned hayrides for us? We'll take along a little supper and have a picnic right by the mill.”

Kirsten's mother rolled her eyes. “I've heard all the town gossip on how you like to play matchmaker, and I can't even begin to imagine you'd be up to those old tricks with me, Hazel. I'm too old and too ugly.”

“You're a beauty, my dear, and there's no such thing as too old for romance. Besides, this isn't some kind of scheme of mine. Jim's a fine man. Lost his wife to cancer four years ago. Never remarried and never even thought about it, I assure you.”

Jenn sighed. “A hayride sounds like great fun, Hazel, but all of this is beside the point. I just can't get it out of my head that something's going on with Kirsten—”

“Who's coming, Ebby?” Hazel asked, her sixth sense picking up on visitors even before the dust of the vehicle could be seen in the distance.

“I don't know,” Hazel's housekeeper mused, going to the window. After a few moments she said, “Looks like a Jeep. I think it might be Seth Morgan's Jeep. Yep, looks like his, all right.”

“Maybe it's Kirsten,” Jenn announced, going to the window.

Sure enough, the Jeep came to a halt and Seth jumped out of the vehicle. He went around to the passenger side to help Kirsten out.

“Something's different. I can see that from here,” Jenn mused, her forehead furrowed—now not with fear, but rather curious expectation.

Ebby went to the front door and opened it.

Quickly the couple was inside, with Jenn admonishing her daughter.

“Kirsten, I know you're an adult and all, but really, I just want a phone number, anything, if you decide to take off like that. What if something happened?” she said, giving her daughter a hug.

Seth cleared his throat, but didn't intrude.

“I've something to tell you,” Kirsten said, looking at her mother and Hazel.

“Should we sit down?” Jenn asked, caution all over her beautiful face.

“Nonsense,” Hazel huffed. “Can't you see that sparkler on her finger, Jenn? Your daughter's gone run off and got herself married.”

Jenn's gaze fell to Kirsten's left ring finger. There was a pink-lavender diamond surrounded by two others on a thin platinum band.

“Kirsten?” Jenn gasped. “Oh, Kirsten.” She hugged her laughing daughter.

When they parted, she added, “But you should have told us. Carrie will be beside herself that she missed you getting married.”

Kirsten sat them all down, her hand locked with Seth's as she took her place next to him. “We wanted to tell you, but it was very sudden. And when Seth decides something, come hell or high water, it's going to happen.”

“When did you both decide this? I didn't even know you had a romance,” Jenn commented. She turned to her new son-in-law. “And I thought you were engaged already to some woman in New York City.”

Seth released a wry grin. “Entirely my mistake. Because when I took one look at Kirsten, I knew she was the one I wanted and no other would do.” He squeezed his bride's hand. “And once I got her convinced that I loved her and
this was forever, we saw no reason to make a circus of it like Nikki'd been doing. We flew to Greece and got married shipboard.”

“But we're going to have a small ceremony here,” Kirsten added hastily. “Because I do want Carrie to be my maid of honor.” She leaned over and took her mother's hand. “And I want you to be the second woman at the reception to dance with your new son-in-law, Mom.”

It took a few moments for Jenn to absorb all that was being explained to her.

But finally, when she had regained herself, she stood and gave Seth a big hug. “Welcome to the family, Seth,” Jenn said.

He gave her a big bear hug. “I'm honored, Jenn. You three make the best family I've ever seen.”

Jenn smiled. “We all love each other. That's all a family needs, right, Kirsten?”

“That's all you need,” Kirsten agreed, looking at her husband with love-filled eyes.

“Now that that's settled,” Hazel interjected, “when are the babies coming along? No sense in wasting time. You've both seen the world. I say settle down and get to doing what God put you in this green valley for.”

Seth laughed. “Hazel, you're too much.” He
looked at his bride and said, “Should you tell them or should I?”

Kirsten shrugged helplessly. She faced the other two women and said, “We don't have it completely confirmed, but let's just say don't be surprised if the baby comes along sooner than later.”

Tears glistened in Jenn's eyes. “How amazing. All of this. How wonderful,” she uttered, beside herself.

Kirsten went to be by her side.

But Hazel was on to the next challenge.

“We've got to have a couple of parties celebrating this here thing,” she announced, mostly to Ebby, who was in the background making notes on all that had transpired.

“We don't need much, Hazel,” Seth added.

“Not much! You're talking Mystery people here. We need to pull out all the stops!” Hazel admonished.

Her eyes twinkled. “And the first thing we should do is go on a hayride! Doesn't that sound like fun? We could pack a nice supper and Jim—he works for you, Seth, I believe—why, he could take the whole family here for a celebration.”

Jenn recovered from her happy shock just long enough to say to Hazel, “Hey, I know what
you're doing—” before Seth and Kirsten and Ebby interrupted, each with their own contributions to the idea of a hayride.

In the ensuing fracas, Hazel returned to look out her parlor window.

Mystery Valley lay like a blanket of emerald moss beneath the majestic snow-covered peaks of the mountains. The sun was sinking, painting Mount Mystery a ruby-red. In the far distance a stag was chasing a doe across the golden fields. The cattle munched peaceably, their fat bodies casting long, lazy shadows across the hay fields.

“You can count another happy couple off your matchmaking list, you sly girl,” Ebby said, standing next to her boss in the window. “So are you resting on your laurels?”

The cattle baroness put that thought to rest. “Certainly not,” she said.

“So what are you thinking now, Hazel?” Ebby asked above the excited din.

Hazel couldn't repress the twinkle in her Prussian-blue eyes.

The only thing she said was, “Next!”