Her Cowboy Billionaire Boss: A Whittaker Brothers Novel (Christmas in Coral Canyon Book 2) Read online

She had no idea what to say. She couldn’t tell if Eli didn’t want her to come, or he’d just lost his voice again. Was he thinking about Caroline right now?

  Meg tore her eyes from his and took the ice, settling it over her puffy eye and cheek. “I don’t think I can,” she said at the same time Eli said, “She should stay here and rest.”

  So he didn’t want her to come.

  Meg’s stomach felt like someone had chopped it in half and sewn it back together inside out. She couldn’t swallow, and she was about to cry again.

  “Come on, bud. Let’s leave her alone.” Eli held his hand out, a clear indication he wanted Stockton to go with him.

  The little boy finally complied, tucking his hand in his father’s and letting him pull him off the bed. They held hands as they walked out of the bedroom, with Eli bringing the door gently closed behind him. He didn’t look back, and Meg felt like she’d been staked right through the heart.

  While she’d wanted to quit when she’d first told Eli about her feelings and he’d hid behind his first wife, she hadn’t been able to find anything.

  But now…she lowered the ice bag and set it on the nightstand. Anything would be better than staying in this luxury lodge with the man of her dreams just a wall away—at least physically. But emotionally, he was worlds away, and Meg couldn’t keep getting hurt every time they spoke more than ten words to each other.

  She got out of bed and over to the desk, the pounding in her head only on her right side, where she’d hit. It radiated from the front of her skull to the back, down to her jawbone and back behind her ear.

  But she opened her laptop and started getting the job board tabs open. She could go anywhere, do anything. She had no ties to Coral Canyon, and while she’d only nannied for the past fourteen years, surely she could learn how to scan a gallon of milk and count change.

  Anything would be better than subjecting herself to the perfect torture that was being with Eli Whittaker and not being his.

  The next day, she still hadn’t found anything to pay her bills, though her face was feeling better. Eli had texted earlier that morning that he’d take care of Stockton that day, that she should go ahead and take another twenty-four hours to rest, heal, whatever.

  Rest, heal, whatever.

  Those were his exact words. It was the whatever that had Meg wondering what to fill her time with. She could only take so many naps, and while she didn’t want to be seen with the perfectly round circle under her eye, she didn’t want to spend the next day and night cooped up in her room.

  The scent of yeast first drew her out of her bedroom to find Celia making bread for that night’s family dinner. The following evening, Graham had arranged a Christmas meal for the company, and the next night was Christmas Eve, and Celia would once again make copious amounts of meat, potatoes, breads, desserts and more for the friends and family meal.

  Andrew, another of Eli’s older brothers, had requested breakfast on Christmas morning, and Laney was making that so Celia could stay home and enjoy the holiday with her family.

  Meg loved the family atmosphere at Whiskey Mountain Lodge and her resolve to find another job wavered, just as it had over Thanksgiving.

  She went into the kitchen, prepared to say she was fine at least two dozen times. “Need some help?” she asked Celia, who turned and gave her a warm smile. Meg couldn’t remember the last time her mother had smiled at her. They spoke four times a year—on Meg’s birthday, her mother’s birthday, Christmas, and Mother’s Day. Meg had been preparing herself for the obligatory Christmas Day call for a week already.

  “Oh, just sit down and let me feed you. You’re skin and bones.”

  Meg didn’t argue, because it was nice to have someone take care of her for a change. She spent so much time attending to Stockton’s every need that she sometimes wondered what it would be like to be the primary concern for someone.

  “You didn’t come out of your room last night.” Celia set a pan on the stove and opened the fridge to retrieve the carton of eggs.

  “I…yeah.” Her suite came equipped with a television, attached bathroom, and mini-fridge. She didn’t have a kitchen, but she could rinse bowls in the bathroom. “I ate cold cereal with cream for dinner.”

  “Oh.” Celia paused, a stricken look on her face. “Eli?”

  Meg shook her head when she should’ve nodded. “That man is perfectly impossible.” Celia flew into action, cracking the eggs with a little too much force as if punctuating her frustration with violent cooking.

  “Where is he?” Meg asked, glad her voice sounded semi-normal.

  “Oh, he’s outside somewhere. Horses or something.” Celia whisked and threw in a healthy pinch of salt and a splash of milk. She put a pat of butter in the pan and swirled it around. “I had no idea he’d be so stubborn about his own feelings.”

  “It’s fine,” Meg said. I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

  “You told him how you feel, didn’t you?” Celia paused in her prep and peered at Meg. “That’s why you’ve both been bumbling about with stormclouds above your heads.”

  Meg nodded, a certain measure of misery pulling through so strongly she felt the air leak from her lungs. “He said he wasn’t over Caroline.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “What am I supposed to say to that? How can I compete with her?” A woman Meg didn’t even know and had never met—couldn’t know, couldn’t meet.

  The front door opened, and laughter spilled into the lodge. “Please don’t say anything.” Meg already had enough to deal with.

  “Of course I won’t.” Celia poured the eggs into the hot pan as Graham came around the corner with his wife, Laney.

  “Is Stockton outside?” Bailey asked, skipping over to Celia.

  “He sure is, pumpkin.” Celia beamed down at the little girl, Graham’s step-daughter.

  “Can I go out, Mom?”

  Laney heaved a sigh as she sat at the bar. “Sure thing. Stay wherever Stockton is.”

  “How are you feeling?” Celia asked, scrambling like a pro and producing a plate of eggs for Meg before Laney could answer.

  Meg nodded at Graham and Laney, but she couldn’t stay in the kitchen with them. Graham smelled too much like Eli, and the two of them so happily in love made Meg’s heart shrivel to the size of a raisin.

  And seeing Laney’s baby bump…Meg swallowed back her jealousy and loss over what she could never have. So she took her plate, thanked Celia, and headed back to her room.

  She’d eaten in her room before, and it wasn’t like her mother was at the lodge to reprimand her. The very thought of her mom at Whiskey Mountain Lodge sent shivers down her spine.

  She ate with something blaring from the TV and she surfed through the available jobs on the boards she’d subscribed to. It wasn’t an easy task to search for a new job. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to live, if she wanted to keep nannying, or pretty much anything else.

  Her phone rang, and Meg stared at the name on it, because no one usually called her. She had very few friends over the age of twelve, and her former employers weren’t the type to call and chat.

  Mom.

  Dread filled Meg’s chest, but she answered the call. Her mother would simply redial every ten seconds until Meg picked up.

  “Hey, Mom.” She infused as much false cheer into her voice as she possibly could. There was plenty of holiday cheer and charm at the lodge, but none of it had seeped into Meg’s soul yet.

  “Meg, how are you?”

  So her mother wanted something. Meg could tell from the first thing her mom said when she called. And asking her how she was meant her mother needed a favor.

  “I’m doing great.” She didn’t tell her about the fall. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

  “Carrie’s kids have come down with the flu.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” Meg pulled in a breath and held it. Carrie and Brittany were Meg’s older sisters, and they were twins who did everything right. They were ten when Meg was born, and she�
�d never quite fit into a family that had been complete before she’d even shown up.

  “Yes, it is.”

  More silence.

  “What’s Brittany doing for Christmas?” Meg asked, because she knew what was coming next.

  “Oh, she and James are on that cruise with the kids.”

  “Mm hm.” Meg was not going to offer.

  “I’m wondering what you’re doing at the lodge. Maybe there’s room for one more.”

  Why her mother would want to spend the holidays with her, Meg could not comprehend. Though she supposed she knew exactly what it felt like to be alone, abandoned, unwanted.

  She heaved a great big sigh. “Can you drive?”

  Her mother had been forty-three when she’d given birth to Meg, and now, thirty-two-years later, Meg was sure she couldn’t make the eight-hour drive from Boulder to Coral Canyon.

  Her mom laughed, but it wasn’t the happy kind. “Of course not. Brittany took my license at Thanksgiving. I swear I didn’t see that tractor.”

  “You hit a tractor?”

  “It pulled out right in front of me.”

  “Mom, tractor’s are huge.” Meg wanted to laugh, but she knew she shouldn’t.

  “Can you come pick me up?” Her mom asked like it was a couple of blocks away, that they got together all the time for ham and mashed potatoes, to exchange gifts and sip hot apple cider.

  But the truth was, Meg hadn’t spent Christmas with any member of her family in thirteen years. The first year after she’d graduated high school, she’d gone to Florida to visit her father. Since her parents had divorced when she was four, she hardly knew the man, and she could admit now that she’d made the trip specifically to make her mom angry.

  And she had.

  Since then, she’d spent holidays with her kids and the families she worked for. It was better for everyone that way.

  “Well?” her mom asked.

  “Well, I’ll need to talk to my boss. I’ll call you back.” Meg hung up before her mother could say another word. She faced the closed bedroom door, wondering if she should just wait ten minutes and then call her mom back and say, “Sorry, he said no.”

  After all, then she wouldn’t have to endure the holidays with her mother nor would she have to talk to Eli.

  Chapter Three

  Eli adored his time spent in the stables. He loved horses, and taking care of them, and talking to them like they were friends. Honestly, besides his brothers, his horses were all he had left.

  “I used to talk to Meg,” he told a mare the color of butter. He’d named her Caroline, and he spent a lot of time with her, almost like she could replace his wife. Which was ridiculous. Eli knew that, but yet he gravitated toward the light-colored mare everyday before he left the stable.

  “But she doesn’t like me anymore.” He stroked the horse’s nose, wondering if what he’d said was true. Probably not. If she truly didn’t like him anymore, she wouldn’t avoid him so completely.

  Marbles wandered over to the fence where Eli leaned and lifted his head over the top rung. “Hey, bud.” This horse was gray and white and black, all swirled together like the real marble in the lodge.

  The horses didn’t talk back, but Eli didn’t need them to. They kept him company, and that was what he needed.

  He left the stables and walked back up the path to the yard, where Stockton had been making snowmen and forts for days. The wind bit at Eli’s cheeks and he hunkered down in his coat. “Stock,” he called. “You okay? Warm enough?”

  “Yeah.” His son could play outdoors for hours, and Eli thanked the Lord again for bringing them back to Wyoming where his son could have the life only this backcountry lodge could offer. It sure beat sitting in a hotel room with the TV on.

  Bailey came around one of the walls of the fort, and Eli knew his brother had arrived at the lodge. Still, he stayed outside for several minutes, talking to the kids and helping them arrange the snowballs they’d built into a large snowbeast.

  He finally went into the house through the back door, the kiss of warmth almost painful against his frozen nose. “Woo boy!” Eli whistled and came around the corner from the mudroom to find Graham and Laney and Celia in the kitchen. No Meg. “It is cold out there.”

  He wasn’t sure if he was relieved Meg wasn’t with them or disappointed. He’d grown so used to her being right there, that it felt odd she wasn’t.

  “Wishing you were back in Bora Bora now, aren’t you?” Graham grinned at his brother.

  “Nah.” Eli took off his hat and shook the snow from it. “I actually like the snow. Stockton is going crazy. Third snowman this week.” Eli grinned, truly happy that his son was enjoying himself so much.

  Eli took off his coat and boots and hung them in the mudroom before entering the kitchen and taking a marshmallow treat dipped in caramel. “Celia, I love you.”

  “That’s what all the boys say.” She let Eli press a kiss to her cheek before he turned to Laney and Graham.

  “How’s the baby?” If anyone was as excited as Graham about having another Whittaker, it was Eli. More babies for someone else meant less pressure from his mother. Though she’d advised him last night to follow his heart and it wouldn’t lead him astray.

  But Eli had no idea what his heart was doing. Or where it was going. Or how he should follow it. Falling in love with Caroline had been easy and instant. He’d never be able to replicate it, and his mom had said he didn’t need to.

  That at least had lifted a burden from his shoulders. He still didn’t know what to do about Meg, so he’d done nothing.

  “Doing great.” Laney put the last bit of biscuit in her mouth. “Graham was just saying he wanted a boy.”

  “I was not.”

  “Well, I have a great name for him if it’s a boy.” Eli gave them a playful smirk. “Eli is such a strong name, don’t you think?”

  Graham shook his head and chuckled. “We’re not naming our baby after you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think Laney would like to name a boy after her dad,” Graham said, returning to Laney’s side and rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand.

  “Or yours,” she said, gazing up at him.

  Eli watched them as absolute love filled the room. He’d felt like this before, and it hurt so, so much that God had taken Caroline from him so soon. Almost unfair.

  He didn’t ask why, though. His mom had raised him to walk with faith, and that was what he’d been trying to do. He wasn’t perfect at it, but he figured if there was anyone who knew what they were doing, it was the Lord.

  Someone entered the kitchen, and Eli turned to find Meg there, the perfect distraction from Graham’s bliss. Eli practically jumped toward her, a huge smile on his face. “Hey, Meggy.”

  She didn’t return the smile right away, another oddity in Eli’s life he didn’t know how to deal with. “What’s wrong?” Eli asked.

  “It’s my mother.” She wrung her hands, her dark eyes pools of pure panic. “She called and she’s hoping to come here for the holidays.”

  “It’s fine with us,” Graham said. “I mean, I don’t even live here anymore.”

  “There’s plenty of room,” Eli said carefully, wishing Meg would’ve come to him privately so they could truly talk about the situation. He didn’t know everything about Meg, but he knew she and her mother didn’t get along well, that Meg never went home for the holidays, and that she’d left home a week after she’d graduated from high school.

  Meg’s gorgeous eyes searched his, and he thought he might be able to fall into them—if he’d let himself. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and now that I’m back in the states….”

  Eli reached out and ran his hand from Meg’s wrist to her shoulder, a quick movement, but probably something he shouldn’t have done nonetheless. “Invite her. It’ll be fine.”

  Meg nodded and turned to go back down the hall and Eli spun back to the kitchen, the loss of Meg’s presence baffling and disconcerting. H
is brother wouldn’t look at him and Celia stirred something on the stove.

  “So what’s going on with you two?” Laney asked.

  “Nothing,” Eli said, but his voice was full of falseness.

  “Right,” Laney said. “Just like I didn’t have a crush on my best friend in high school.”

  “And look how that turned out.” Graham put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and grinned at his brother.

  “She’s my nanny,” Eli said. “I’m going to go shower.” He left, unwilling to have this conversation with two people who’d already navigated through their hard times. No, thank you. They had no idea what Eli had been through, and how he felt about Meg was none of their business anyway.

  He heard Meg’s voice when he arrived in the short hall leading to her room, as she’d left her door open a few inches. He wanted to go talk to her, find out more, but something told him it wasn’t a good idea. So he ducked into his suite, locked the door, and did exactly what he’d told Laney and Graham he would: he showered.

  When Meg didn’t show up for the family dinner, Eli tossed his napkin on his plate and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Only Andrew looked up from his plate piled with ham, potatoes, and creamed corn. Eli didn’t care. Meg should be here. This was the family dinner, and she lived in the lodge.

  He knocked on her door, and she opened it a few seconds later. “Oh, Eli.” She filled the doorway so he couldn’t see past her. “I guess we need to talk. I need tomorrow and the next day off. I know it’s the holidays, and Stockton isn’t in school, but…I thought maybe you woudn’t be working too much.”

  She spoke in such a rush, Eli got the feeling he was an ogre of a boss. “It’s fine. What are you—is your mom coming?”

  She sighed and stepped back, letting the door fall further open to reveal a small carryon open on her bed. “Yeah, I have to go pick her up. It’s an eight-hour drive.”

  “Eight hours?” Alarm filled Eli. “You should fly.”

  “I don’t have the money to fly. And my mom certainly doesn’t.” She returned to the bed and balled a pair of socks. “And you’re not paying for it.”