CHAPTER TEN
A
IDAN
TOOK
HIS
TIME
checking on Jemma, their foaling mare, talking to her, making sure she had the special feed mix the vet had recommended.
He knew his efforts were completely unnecessary as Jim did an excellent job managing the horses, but it gave him a good excuse to keep a little distance between him and Eliza and to work on trying to rein in this crazy attraction he hadn’t been able to shake all day.
This stupid season—this time for family, for connection—was seriously messing with him, especially this year, when he had almost lost everything.
He didn’t want to be so drawn to her and her cute little girl.
Yes, Eliza Hayward was a lovely woman—soft, curvy, with an air of delicate vulnerability he found intensely appealing.
She made him want to take care of her, to tuck her close and protect her from the hardships of life—an impulse he knew was completely ridiculous, not to mention chauvinistic and also unnecessary. He had only known her a day but he already knew Eliza Hayward had a fierce independent streak and seemed to be doing a fine job of managing life on her own, including raising a child with health challenges.
He admired many things about her, including her willingness to jump right in where she saw a need—specifically decorating his Christmas tree.
He had never been so immediately and forcefully drawn to a woman. Even BethAnn the Betrayer had taken a few months to pierce through his natural defenses and gain his trust—and that had happened when he was a naive college student living far from the security of home and still raw and grieving from his mother’s death.
He wasn’t that dumb, hungry kid anymore. BethAnn had taught him to be cautious and vigilant, especially when it came to women who appeared sweet and needy on the outside but could be cold, calculating, soulless bitches beneath the fluttering eyelashes and shy smiles.
Eliza had secrets. He hadn’t missed the shadows in her eyes or the way she carefully evaded certain topics, like her husband. In all likelihood, she was exactly as she appeared—a widow who had sustained some tough breaks lately.
Or she could be a con artist who had manipulated him and the events of the past twenty-four hours to her best advantage.
He couldn’t quite believe that one, but he would be a fool to let the magic and wonder of Christmas overshadow his own hard-won common sense.
He hadn’t been a fool in a long, long time.
Okay, he might have made a few irrational decisions during the summer—like purchasing three hundred acres on an Idaho lake, along with six commercial buildings and a factory he didn’t know what the hell to do with. But that had been a fluke, a medically induced anomaly. He was all better now, back on track, clearheaded and completely rational.
Maybe this attraction to Eliza—this
yearning
he also didn’t know what the hell to do with—was simply an unexpected side effect of that brush with mortality. Maybe she represented the world he had consciously given up when he set out to create the dynasty that would become Caine Tech.
Whatever the reason, he needed to keep his distance from her until his family arrived. After that, he would be so busy keeping all the Caines happy and entertained, not to mention avoiding Pop’s entirely too perceptive gaze, to have time to do something crazy like fall for a woman he barely knew.
He fed Jemma one of the apples he had also filched from the kitchen. “Here you go. There’s a good girl,” he murmured to her and received a nuzzle in return.
With a wish that all females could be so uncomplicated, he headed back to Eliza and Maddie. Eliza was on the bench in the middle of the barn petting Argus, who was clearly infatuated, while Maddie carried on an in-depth conversation with Cinnamon about Santa Claus and whether the horse might be able to talk on Christmas Eve, along with the rest of the animals.
He remembered his mother telling him and his brothers that old folk belief, that the magic of Christmas extended to animals being able to talk only on Christmas Eve. One year when he was about seven, he and Brendan had stayed up past midnight trying to get their big yellow Lab, Chester, to say something besides
woof.
Chester hadn’t been the brightest bulb on the tree under the best of circumstances and apparently Christmas Eve hadn’t suddenly endowed him with any particular linguistic skills.
“Are you ladies ready to head back to the house?”
Eliza nodded. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s put your mittens back on.”
“I don’t want to leave yet. Cinnamon is my second best friend now, after Bob.”
“You can visit her another day,” Eliza promised.
“Can I ride her sometime?”
“We’ll see,” Eliza said as she finished putting on the mittens. “Okay. We’re ready to go.”
He opened the door for them and immediately snowflakes swirled inside.
“It’s snowing
again?
” Maddie exclaimed. She sounded not quite as excited about the continuing storm as she had earlier in the day.
“Looks like it,” he answered.
Eliza lifted her face up to the flakes. “I can’t believe this. At least another two inches of snow fell in the half hour we were in the barn.”
“It’s supposed to taper off tonight.”
Maddie gamely trudged through the heavy snow for a few feet, until he reached down and lifted her up and onto his shoulders again. She didn’t weigh much, probably not even fifty pounds.
“Look how pretty it is,” she said, her voice soft and almost reverent. “The snowflakes look like little angels with parachutes.”
“If that’s the case,” her mother said from beside them, “you’ve got an angel on your nose.”
Maddie giggled and lifted her hand from his head. He couldn’t see her but he assumed the wriggling he felt behind him came from her wiping it away.
“There. Is it gone?”
Eliza smiled softly at her daughter. Snowflakes tangled in her eyelashes and her pale pink beanie and the little pale freckles on her upper cheekbones. She was so lovely and he had a feeling she was completely oblivious to it, which somehow made her all the more appealing.
“That one is gone. You’ve got about four more all over your face.”
“Ack! Get off me, angels! Get off,” Maddie exclaimed with more giggles, which made Eliza smile.
He loved that about kids, he thought, as he led the way up the path to break a trail for Eliza. They had such a clear insight into the magic and wonder around them, a perspective that adults surrendered when worry over mortgages and car payments took over their imaginations.
When they neared the house, an unfamiliar beat-up pickup truck was parked under the porte cochere. He frowned, wondering who was crazy enough to brave the poor roads and snowy conditions. The pickup had a snowplow on it, half full of melting snow, and giant studded tires. Whoever was here must have plowed their way up the hill to Snow Angel Cove.
“Expecting somebody?” Eliza asked when they neared the house.
“Not that I know of. I suppose it could be someone with a delivery for Sue.”
“Great service, if it is.”
“Let’s find out.”
He opened the door leading into the mudroom and heard the sound of female voices coming from the kitchen. He swung Maddie off his shoulders to more of her giggles—man, a guy could get addicted to the sound of a kid laughing—then hung up his coat and the wool hat his physician insisted he wear against the elements. Eliza helped Maddie out of her coat and mittens and hung them and her own outerwear on a hook near his.
When Aidan went into the kitchen, he found Sue in the sitting room off the kitchen, along with the auburn-haired doctor from the emergency room and the woman who had come out of the store to help Eliza after the accident.
They were sipping coffee, a tray of pastries on the table between them, and seemed on the best of terms with Sue.
“Dr. Shaw!” he exclaimed. “And Mayor Shaw.”
They must be related, he suddenly realized as the surname finally clicked. He hadn’t made the connection until right then because they looked nothing alike—the doctor with her pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair and the incoming mayor with the dark hair and complexion that spoke of some sort of Hispanic or Native American heritage. They did share a similar bone structure and their mouths were the same, but the resemblance ended there.
“I’m not mayor until the first of January,” she said. The laughter in her dark eyes faded and she gave him a polite smile.
“How did you make it up the hill to Snow Angel Cove?” he asked them.
Dr. Shaw’s smile was slightly warmer though still not quite cordial. “Best investment I ever made, trading a year of waived office deductibles for Maisy Perkins and her kids in exchange for that old pickup. My nurse and office assistant both told me I was crazy, since Maisy herself is a hypochondriac and out of her six kids, two have asthma and two have brittle bones. Joke’s on them, right? Already this winter I’ve used that old pickup to get to the hospital more times than I can count when my own car was stuck, not to mention saved a fortune plowing the parking lot of my office. Hi, Eliza. Hi, Maddie.”
“Hi, Dr. Shaw,” Maddie said, skipping forward. “Guess what? I have a new best friend named Cinnamon. She’s a red horse.”
“Do you?” The doctor smiled kindly down at the little girl, no more immune to her charms than any of the rest of them.
“Hello,” Eliza said. “You’re sisters. I should have realized.”
“We are,” the physician said.
“Half sisters, actually,” McKenzie offered. “Same father, different mothers. And a long story.”
To him, her smile was the temperature of Lake Haven—colder maybe, since the lake never quite froze over—but to Eliza, her smile was as warm and welcoming as a mug of hot cocoa, with whipped cream on top.
“Devin was saying she wanted to check on you and I offered to tag along.”
“And here we are,” Dr. Shaw said. She reminded Aidan of a much calmer version of her sister, who seemed to vibrate with energy—along with the antipathy toward him he couldn’t miss, even though he didn’t quite understand it.
“I’ve been dying to see inside this place since Mr. Caine here took it over. We played here a lot when we were kids, when the Kilpatrick family used to own it. I hardly recognize the place now. With all the building permits that were railroaded through the town council the last few weeks, I knew it had to be spectacular and I was absolutely right. It’s just stunning.”
He didn’t miss the caustic edge in her tone. What beef did the mayor have against him? Yeah, he had caused an accident in front of her store but she had said herself the road conditions were at least partly to blame.
“I’m sorry you went to so much trouble,” Eliza said, a delectable hint of color on her cheekbones. “Especially
unnecessary
trouble. I am really doing much better, as you can see for yourself. A phone call could have saved you time and effort.”
Dr. Shaw studied her carefully. “I’m glad to see you’ve got a little color back. Yesterday you were so pale, I thought you were trying to camouflage yourself into the snow. Staying here at Snow Angel Cove appears to agree with you.”
Eliza cast a sideways glance in his direction and he was almost positive her blush intensified.
“It’s a lovely home and Sue is a fantastic cook, as I’m sure you have figured out.”
McKenzie, in the act of choosing another of Sue’s delicious lemon bars, grinned. “You know it, sister.”
“I love it here,” Maddie declared. “Did you know Mr. Aidan has
six
horses? And one is a pony named Cinnamon who is just the right size for a girl who will be six years old in February?”
“I did not know that,” Devin said. She smiled at the girl, though her gaze seemed sad somehow.
“We just went to see them and Cinnamon ate a carrot right out of my hand. It tickled.”
“Guess what?” McKenzie said. “I have a horse, too. His name is Darth Vader and he’s my best friend, too. Next to my sister, anyway.”
Both women seemed charmed by Maddie, which wasn’t surprising. She seemed to have that effect on people.
“I wish I had a sister,” she said wistfully. “Even a brother, I guess, if he wasn’t a pain.”
“I’ve got five of them and I’m usually more than willing to give a few away,” Aidan offered.
“I want a
baby
sister or brother,” she said. “Your brothers are probably old like you.”
McKenzie Shaw and Sue both chortled at that and Eliza groaned.
He was only thirty-seven and until that moment he thought he was in the prime of his life—the past few months notwithstanding—but he suddenly felt like he should be looking into buying a Jazzy and investing in denture cream.
“Sorry,” Eliza murmured.
“You’re the one under pressure to procreate, not me,” he said.
Her color returned in a delightful pink tide. “Why don’t you have a cupcake?” she suggested quickly to distract her daughter.
“How are you really feeling?” Devin asked. “I worried about you all night.”
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t. I’m fine. A little achy but that’s all.”
“Would you mind if I perform a quick exam? That’s the real reason I came, because I wanted to check your condition for myself.”
He liked the doctor more and more for her diligence.
“Please?” she pressed.
Eliza sighed. “It’s completely unnecessary, but since you’ve gone to so much trouble, I suppose I can’t say no.”
“Is there somewhere private we can go?”
She gestured toward the hallway leading to the cook’s quarters. “Back here to the rooms I’m moving into. There’s a comfortable sitting room there.”
“Perfect.”
As soon as they walked into the other room, Sue rose. “I need to take those chicken pot pies out of the oven if I don’t want them to burn.”
“Can I help?” Maddie asked.
“No, but you can keep me company,” Sue said. “Come on, kiddo.”
They headed hand in hand toward the oven. Though they were only fifteen feet away, it felt like a football field as he was now virtually alone with the prickly new mayor.
“Would you and your sister care to stay for dinner?”