Page 3 of Cooped Up for Christmas

With the full benefit of painful experience, I do what I can to avoid such disasters now. Now, I have two rules. Number one? Always be professional and remote with the clients. These are powerful people, but they also have powerful problems. You don’t want to get mixed up in their dark web. Do your job, keep your nose clean, and say thank you when they tip.

Rule number two? Don’t fraternize with the clients or the staff. For those of you who are unaware, that means no sex.

Been there. Done that. Burned the t-shirt.

Too bad Darcy hadn’t learned that lesson.

Then again, it could be a good thing, this sentimental romp down memory lane. Aside from the heartbreak at the end, that had been the most magical summer of my life, one that lingered in my memory. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the fresh-cut grass, hear the hum of the bees seeking pollen, feel the warmth of Coop’s cheek beneath my palm.

God, we’d been young then. Too young to be making any real-life decisions. Stupid, impulsive decisions. Like, Hey! Let’s join the Navy!

Do you think he might have chosen differently? If he’d known how much I loved him? Or would he have gone anyway?

Oh, it hardly mattered. He’d disappeared into the wild blue yonder. I’d long ago lost touch with anyone who’d known him then. And he wasn’t on Facebook. There were too many people with his name on Google searches to make any progress. And I wasn’t about to pay for a service to find him, because I’m not a creeper like that. I simply considered Cameron Cooper a trickle of water under a very ancient bridge.

Speaking of ancient bridges… It was still there, that adorable, pointless little fairy-tale bridge spanning a non-existent moat leading to the staff quarters, a tiny but cramped cottage off the main house. How delightful that someone thought it clever to make the servants’ quarters a whimsy.

I thrust old, unspoken resentments against my most beloved clients from my heart, and soldiered forward, through the front door and into my home for the next week (or until the clients left). I would enjoy this Christmas, serving a discerning clientele with impeccable style and grace, as I always have. And I would remember, and honor, my past self with gentle, forgiving, and supportive energy.

It would be like a spiritual spa vacation. A cake walk into the pantry of my past. It would be—

“Oh. Thank God you’re here.” A young woman with frizzled blonde hair and too-wide blue eyes, dressed in an oversized chef’s apron, grabbed at my sleeve as I stepped into the foyer of the staff quarters. “You must come at once.”

Ah yes. My staff. First impressions are so important. I thrust out my hand. “Hello there. I am Victoria—”

She brushed away my gracious introduction with a yelp. An actual yelp. “Please. Just come. Come at once. The chef is on fire.”

Ah.

Wonderful.

How wonderful to visit my past.

How nice to know that some things never change.

In this case, the insanity.

* * *

Okay. Technically, the chef was not on fire. I don’t know why the girl said that. Only his hat was on fire and that was easily solved. I simply grabbed the singed accessory with a pair of tongs and dropped it into a pot of boiling water next to a pan of flaming cherries. I ignored his squawk—and his complaint that I’d ruined his boiling water—because, seriously? Priorities, man.

Also, don’t wear flammable paper hats when you have a job setting brandy on fire. But that’s just me.

The chef was in a tizzy, the girl told me in a whisper, because he’d been in love with Darcy, and she’d left with no word whatsoever.

“So he set his hat on fire?”

She blanched. “He’s been drinking. I don’t think he did it on purpose.”

I glanced at the crumpled form of a man, sobbing in the corner and repeating over and over again, “Darcy, mon amour. Mon coeur. Mon être. Pourquoi? Pourquoi?”

Sheesh. What was in the water here? I’d fallen for a guy like Cooper—totally wrong for me—Darcy had fallen for a gazillionaire who’d made no bones about his intention to stay single. And then there was this… Whatever this was.

Too bad I didn’t have time to ruminate about it. There was too much work to do. We had to turn this damn house in twelve hours. First things first.

Like a general, I turned to the girl and said, “What’s your name?”

“Like, Olivia?”