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father's rights superseded her custody bequest.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. He couldn't say it was
because she was sexy. He knew sexy women. And he couldn't
say he'd felt a jolt because he was happy to see her. He
didn't know her.
But whatever the hell that jolt was, he was smart enough to
ignore it.
He was also taking that damned bell off the door. The whole
point of having an executive entry was so the workers didn't
know when he was there or he wasn't!
"Come on. Show me how to send these letters to a remote
printer."
She followed him into the office of the current company
president and her little boy followed her.
"What's your name?"
"Harry."
Cullen couldn't help it; he laughed. "Like Harry Potter?"
"No, like my grandpa."
He turned to Wendy Winston. "So your father was a Harry?"
"No, his grandfather's name was Harry."
Confused, Cullen stopped and faced them again. He looked
from Wendy to Harry and back to Wendy again. They didn't
look a thing alike. So the kid probably resembled his dad
which meant that Grandpa Harry had been her late husband's
dad. Whatever the deal, he really didn't care. He was trying
to make light conversation so the afternoon would go more
smoothly. If they wanted to play guessing games, he wasn't
interested.
He turned and walked behind the desk, falling into the
uncomfortable desk chair. With a few keystrokes he minimized
his letters and left a blank screen. He rose and motioned
for Wendy to take a seat in the chair.
"Show me which printer to send these to."
She sat. "Okay. Well, you just do all the things you need to
do to print—" Using the mouse, she clicked the appropriate
icon to get the print menu.
When the print menu popped on the screen, he leaned down to
get a closer look. The scent of something floral drifted to
his nose. With a slight movement of his eyes, he took in her
shiny red hair—more the color of cinnamon than autumn
leaves—then let his gaze drift down to her shapely breasts.
Damn it! Why did he keep looking at her?
"Once you get this screen, you scroll to the top, click this
menu to get the available printers, and choose this printer.
Your documents will be sent to the printer by my desk."
He cleared his throat. "Okay. I get it. Thank you. You can
go now."
She rose from the desk chair and caught Harry's hand. "I can
leave?"
"Yes. All I wanted were the financials and production
reports, and to know which printer was closest." He plopped
down on the chair again and she turned to go but another
thought struck him. "Wait!"
She faced him.
"You aren't leaving town, are you?"
She laughed and he frowned. The last review in the personnel
file for Wendy Winston had described her as quiet and
unassuming, but extremely capable. He'd never know that from
her behavior today. Of course, the way he kept staring at
her, his attention continually caught by parts of her body
he normally wouldn't look at with an employee, wasn't normal
either. All because she'd fallen into his arms.
So maybe that brush had affected her as much as him? And
maybe he should just ignore the way she was acting?
After a few seconds of silence, she gasped. "Oh, you weren't
kidding about my leaving town?"
"Why did you think I was kidding? Everybody else in this
company is out of town."
She gaped at him. "Because it's the holiday! People are
going to parties and visiting friends and relatives for
Thanksgiving!"
"Right." Because his holiday had been uneventful he'd almost
forgotten it altogether. He looked down at his papers, then
back up at her. "I'm not Scrooge. I'm just trying to make
sure I don't lose my source for information."
She pulled in a breath. Her breasts rose and fell. Realizing
he was staring, he jerked his eyes upward, cursing himself
for acting like a horny teenager.
"No, Harry and I are staying in town. Even weekends."
"Great." Forcing his mind off her sweater and to the mission
he was here to accomplish, he rubbed his hands together over
the keyboard. "I'll call you if I need you."
She turned and left the office. Though Cullen had thought
his attention was on the family business, where it was
supposed to be, he couldn't resist glancing up to watch the
sway of her hips as she left.
Because her back was to him, he braced his elbow on his desk
and his chin on his closed fist, letting himself watch as he
tried to figure this out. He felt bewitched. But he couldn't
be. They hadn't spent more than ten minutes together. And
she wasn't his type. He liked blondes. And she was a widow.
A serious woman, not to be trifled with.
So he wouldn't trifle. He would be the perfect gentleman for
the few weeks he had to run this company, and then he'd
leave Barrington, Pennsylvania, and, he hoped, never again
even set foot in the town that bore his family's name.
Wendy hustled Harry into the foyer of her echoing home. Her
house was a monstrosity, a five-bedroom, three-bath mansion
built in the eighteen hundreds that had been updated with
the times, but had gone into disrepair when the last owner
had left town and let it sit empty for over a year. She and
her husband had purchased it with the idea of turning it
into their dream home. They'd gotten as far as ripping out
carpeting and finishing the hardwood floors throughout the
house, chucking wood paneling in favor of plastered walls
and installing a new furnace, roof and windows. But Greg had
died before they even touched the bathrooms or the kitchen,
which could best be described as early-American. As in
Revolutionary War.
She turned up the thermostat to accommodate the howling wind
outside and pointed Harry in the direction of the kitchen.
Creamsicle, her fat orange-and-white cat, thumped down the
stairs and wrapped himself around her legs in greeting.
She motioned to the cat, diverting Harry's attention to him.
"Harry, this is Creamsicle. Creamsicle, this is Harry."
The cat blinked. Harry grinned. "You have a cat!"
"Yes, but he's old and moody, so you have to be nice to
him." She stooped down to pet Creamsicle, who ignored
Harry—which was probably for the best. "I seem to remember
something about Christmas cookies."