Millionaire on Her Doorstep Read Online Free PDF Page A

it,” but the flimsy commitment was enough to make her wonder if she was being a mite hasty. Or, even worse, going crazy.
    A mite hasty! Whom was she kidding? A normal person didn’t go out and buy the first house they looked at! And as for her going crazy, she had to be cracking up to think she could ever have a real home here in southern New Mexico or anywhere. When her husband had walked out on her, she’d seen the last of her hopes and dreams vanish. Since then, she’d finally come to the conclusion that it was foolish of her to ever plan on having a real home with a family.
    The long, graveled lane curved, then made one last switch back before the house came into view. The split-level structure had been built on a rough ledge of the mountain. There was hardly a yard to speak of. Unless you counted the rocks and clumps of sage clinging tenaciously to the ground sloping down to the driveway.
    Tall pine and aspen dappled the pink stucco walls and red tiled roof with gently moving shadows. The prickly beauty of blooming cholla cactus guarded the front entrance.
    Maureen parked the pickup on the graveled circle driveway and slipped quietly to the ground. The mountain air had already grown incredibly cool for midsummer and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill as she climbed a set of simple rock stepping stones up the sloping yard.
    This wasn’t Houston by any means. From now on
she would have to remember she was seven thousand feet or more above sea level and needed to keep a jacket with her after dark. And compared to the busy, humid city, the quietness here on the mountaintop was nearly deafening. Other than the wind whispering through the pine boughs and rattling the aspen leaves, there were no other sounds.
    She smiled to herself as she imagined what her friends back in Houston would think about her buying such a secluded home. Probably that she was asking for trouble. And she doubted any of her female friends would have driven up here alone at this late hour. But Maureen wasn’t afraid.
    For nearly ten years she’d been on her own. Alone. Facing the world without her husband or her child. She couldn’t possibly be hurt any worse than when they’d gone out of her life.
    Maureen wandered around the house, studying its strong walls and gracefully arched windows trimmed with dark wood. It was a lovely structure, but the house or even the wild, beautiful tangle of forest growing around it was not the thing that had called to her when she’d first seen the place. Job or not. Family or not. She’d simply felt a deep intuition that here in New Mexico was where she belonged. And in spite of Adam Sanders, this was where she was going to stay.
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    The next morning, Maureen was already at work when Adam arrived at Sanders Gas and Exploration. He found her in the small lab behind his office. She was standing at a cabinet counter, the sleeves of her blue striped shirt rolled above her elbows, a pair of gold-framed glasses on her nose. Once again her
brown hair was braided. The single rope reached the waistband at the back of her jeans. He wondered how long her hair would be if she let it loose, or if she ever did.
    Hearing his step, Maureen glanced up from the seismographic chart she’d been studying and peered at him from behind the lenses of her glasses.
    â€œGood morning,” she said warmly.
    Encouraged by her greeting, he joined her at the counter. Just because the woman stirred his libido didn’t mean he lacked manners or enough sense to accomplish a day’s work, he assured himself. If she could be civil and productive, he certainly could.
    â€œGood morning,” he replied, then inclined his head toward the charts on the counter. “I see you’ve already found something to work on.”
    â€œThese are the first tests from several sections of land in eastern Oklahoma.” She tapped a set of papers with her forefinger, then reached