The Best Christmas Ever

“Don’t you dare pull that patronizing look on me. It won’t work. I’ve seen it before.”

“I’m not trying to be patronizing, Sarah. I just wondered why you were in such a sour mood already this morning. It’s not even ten a.m.”

She dropped her arms from where she’d crossed them and let them hang at her sides. However, she looked anything but relaxed; she looked ready to pounce on him and take him apart limb by limb.

“You know exactly what’s the matter. How could you get Bill involved in this?” she demanded. “He’s a friend I trusted, until he hunted me down this morning and told me you had called him last night.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

“No, it’s not,” she fumed. “What’s bothering me is he told you about…well…”

She trailed off and Justin understood it was her lack of a job and an apartment she referred to.

“You offered me work out of pity, and when I told Bill exactly what I thought of that, he told me you refused to take no for an answer and would come to the shelter yourself if I didn’t show up here.”

So, it had taken the threat of his tracking her down at the homeless shelter to convince her to come to his house this morning. Justin wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Insulted? No. A little angry? Maybe. Frustrated? Definitely. But he understood how debasing it must feel for someone she considered her enemy to be offering her a job. However, they were no longer enemies, and the sooner she accepted that, the better.

“Come in.” He stepped back. “Mickie is next door playing. She’ll be home in a little while.”

“Sent her off so she wouldn’t see the fireworks?” Sarah replied nastily.

“Yes.”

That one word seemed to deflate Sarah. She let out a long sigh, raked a hand through her hair, then finally walked in. Justin didn’t wait for her but continued to the kitchen, where he had juice and coffee waiting. He poured her both before hooking a kitchen stool with his foot and pulling it out. Slipping onto it, he indicated the one across from him.

He watched Sarah glance around and wondered what she saw. Little had changed since Amy. The kitchen was still a cozy little place for family meetings.

That’s one reason Amy had liked it so much. Modem, with tiles, yellow paint and pale corn-silk flowers on the pastel printed wallpaper, it gave off a feeling of homeyness. A small table for four sat near a picture window that afforded a view of a large backyard and the forest beyond that. The appliances were new, with a small snack bar separating the breakfast area from the actual cooking area.

Did Sarah wonder if he and Amy had eaten their dinner in here or out in the more formal dining room? If they’d had intimate chats in the evening, staring out the window as the sun slowly sank beneath the trees? She was in for a surprise if she thought that.

One of the things Justin truly regretted was there had been none of that. He’d always been too busy to sit down and spend any time with his wife. The melancholy of that inconsideration tried to grab hold of him, but he shook it off. Better to get down to business with Sarah before she decided to get defensive again.

“I need help.”

“I’ve never doubted that.”

He smiled at her quick comeback. “My sitter quit. I can’t find anyone on such short notice and I have to go to the office today. I’m very picky about whom I leave Mickie with. As you might guess, losing a parent is very hard on a child so small. Even though it’s been two years now, Mickie is still not over her mother’s death. She needs stability, someone who can be here for her when I’m not.”

Justin fiddled with his coffee cup, staring into the depths of it before raising his gaze back to her.

“I know being a housekeeper-sitter is way beneath your training, but I have a proposition. I want you to work here—live here, too, as a matter of fact. That way, if any emergencies come up and I have to go out of town, someone will be here. The pay is good, but not as good as you would make as a legal assistant. However, while working here, you would be tree to send out your résumés and seek a better paying position more in keeping with your experience. All I ask is that any interviews be set up at a time when I’m free to be here with Mickie, and that when you do quit, you give me at least a month’s notice so I can find another housekeeper and let Mickie get used to her before you leave.”

Sarah stared at Justin, certain her mouth hung open. In one hand he offered her a job, but only until she could find something else. What did the other hand hold? The hatchet if she blundered? Did he realize how awful his offer sounded? Or had he only been trying to help her and had accidentally made it sound as though he didn’t want her around?

Evidently, she’d voiced her opinions, because Justin responded.

“That’s not the way I meant it. I simply meant you’d be doing me a great favor by helping me out. Look, Sarah, I know we never got along before, but you’re family. Can we at least try—for Mickie’s sake?”

Sarah swallowed. For Mickie’s sake? Well, what did she expect? That Justin would say he had been wrong in the past, wrong because of all the pain he had caused her family? He’d come to them and told them he was sorry for what had happened, had even offered compensation and jobs…and married Amy, too. If that didn’t show he felt remorseful, what did? But she’d never believed it. She’d thought he should pay for everything that had happened and have no happiness. She’d made it her crusade to make his life miserable, and she had succeeded. If rumor could be believed, he and Amy had been having problems. Amy had never said anything to her, but Sarah wondered now if it was because of all the grief she herself had caused him whenever she was around.

Guiltily, Sarah looked away from the deep brown eyes that stared at her with such intensity. She needed to let go of the past. Wasn’t that just the reason she’d come yesterday? Justin was offering to let her look for a job while she worked for him. That was it. Very simple. A way to put the past where it belonged, while proving herself trustworthy.

It galled her, though, to feel that she was taking charity.

As if reading her mind, Justin said quietly, “I’m family, Sarah. Let me help you.”

She swallowed her humiliation. She would take the job, but she would make sure that she earned every penny of her pay. “Very well.”

He expelled a great breath. “Fantastic.”

When he named her salary her eyes widened in shock. “You can’t be serious. That’s too much.” Her temper rose again. She didn’t think housekeepers made that in a month and she didn’t like that he thought she was an idiot. After all, how hard could housekeeping and taking care of a child be? She had kept her own house.

“I assure you, Sarah, for cooking, cleaning and taking care of a child, that’s the going rate. If you don’t believe me, you can call Bill.”

Studying him, she decided he was telling the truth. In any event it didn’t matter. She was going to make sure she earned her paycheck, with no room for questions.

“Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

“Okay. Uh, well, do we need to get clothes, car, anything like that?”

Sarah burned with embarrassment. “Most of my clothes are in a suitcase at the shelter. I do have a few boxes in a storage area that’s paid up through next month.”

Sarah hated that she’d had to admit such a thing to this man. But he hadn’t said anything or given her the slightest reason to think he pitied her. If he had, she would have walked out, despite her desperation for needing the job.

“You can pick them up whenever you’re ready.” He strode over to a door leading to the garage, where he lifted a key off a hook on a piece of wood shaped like a small house. He brought it back to her. “This is to the car. I’ll drive the four-by-four to work—and don’t object. We’re low on groceries. If you have time today, you’ll need to go shopping. Consider free use of my car part of the job.” He opened his wallet and pulled out some money.

Sarah’s eyes widened.

“This is your first month’s salary plus household expenses. The other housekeeper just took the money and as we needed supplies or whatever she paid for them out of an account she’d set up in her own name. There was a box in the office, where she kept all her receipts and stuff. However, if you’d prefer not to have a separate household account, you can buy whatever you feel the house or Mickie needs, then I’ll reimburse you.”

“No, that’s fine. I—I’ve never done this before. It’ll take me a week or two to learn my way around.”

“I would expect no less.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They stared at each other for what seemed like minutes before Sarah broke the stare. “Well, I—”

“Sarah,” he said softly.

His hand came to rest on her shoulder to keep her from walking away.

“I hope this will be a time to heal for you, me…us. We need to let go of the past and go on.”