We Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by Brenda Novak Page A

idea. If Cole didn’t have time to teach her the business and preferred to let Rick’s job go undone, maybe she could help him in other areas. Judging from the bare cupboards in his kitchen, the few meals he actually took the time to eat and the thick layer of dust covering almost everything in his part of the house, he didn’t need a secretary half as badly as he needed a housekeeper and cook.
    And she was a darn good cook.
     
    S OMETHING SMELLED like heaven.
    Only half listening to what Larry Schneider from the bank was saying over the phone, Cole pushed away from his desk and sniffed the air. Pot roast, with onions. Or maybe it was steak and onions, but it sure smelled like pot roast….
    “Cole?”
    “Hmm?”
    “What do you have to say?”
    “About what?”
    “About the interest rate. Are you willing to go up half a percent? Otherwise, I doubt I’m going to be able to sell this loan to the board. I mean, if I were the only one whohad to approve it, that’d be different. But on a project this size…”
    Where was that aroma coming from? A barbecue outside? No, a few of the homes in the first phase of Oak Ranch had already sold due to drive-by traffic, but they hadn’t closed escrow yet. The closest neighborhood to his development was more than a mile away. Even with every window in the house open—and there weren’t any because the air conditioner was running—he wouldn’t be able to smell someone’s dinner cooking from that far away—
    “Cole? Are you there?” Larry demanded.
    “Yeah, I’m here. What was that again?”
    “What was what? I need an answer.”
    Cole couldn’t give him an answer because he couldn’t remember the question. He couldn’t think of anything except dinner. He’d been holed up in his office for nearly eight hours without breaking for lunch. He was famished and tired and annoyed about the amount of work Rick’s absence had caused, and worried about everything that wasn’t getting done—and he couldn’t figure out why his house suddenly smelled like a winter holiday in late August.
    “I’m sorry. I have to go, Larry. I think someone’s cooking pot roast in my kitchen.”
    “You think? You don’t know?”
    “It could be something else.”
    “I meant—”
    “I’ll call you in the morning.”
    After hanging up, Cole followed his nose out of his office and down the hall to the kitchen, where he found Jaclyn lifting a roasting pan out of the oven.
    “Hello,” she said, smiling when she saw him.
    “What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s four-thirty in the afternoon. You’re supposed to be in the office.”
    Her expression grew uncertain. “There wasn’t anything to do in the office. There hasn’t been for over two weeks. And I can’t imagine that you appreciate paying me twenty-five hundred a month to sit behind my desk and answer five or six calls an hour. So I brought the cordless phone in here with me and decided to make better use of myself.”
    Cole eyed the steam coming off the meat and cut-up carrots, potatoes and onions she’d just uncovered. “I knew it was pot roast.”
    She glanced up at him as she set the lid aside. “It was the only thing I could find without running to the store. I was going to ask if I could defrost the meat, but you’ve been on the phone for hours. So I called Chad on his cell, and he said to do whatever I thought would be the most helpful.”
    “And that was making dinner?”
    She shrugged. “You’ve got to eat. Restaurant food has to be getting old for you, and at least this way you’re getting something for the money you’re paying me. Hope you don’t mind.”
    Did he mind? Cole jammed a hand through his hair as he tried to decide. If his secretary had been anyone else, someone old and gray, perhaps, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. He would have thanked her and enjoyed the meal. But seeing the girl he’d dreamed about all through high school standing in his kitchen wearing oven mitts and serving