If reluctance needed a pictorial representation, Jesse Slater had the job. Hands fisted at his side, the muscles along his jawbone flexed repeatedly. Lindsey’s medical training flashed through her head. Fight or flight—the adrenaline rush that comes when a man is threatened. But why did Jesse Slater feel threatened? And by what? She was the woman alone, hiring a virtual stranger to spend every day in her company. And she didn’t feel the least bit threatened.
“Don’t you want to see all my Christmas goodies?”
His expression was somewhere between a grimace and a forced smile. “Some other time.”
He turned abruptly away and began gathering trimmed pine branches, tossing them into the wheelbarrow. Lindsey stood for a moment, observing the strong flex of muscle beneath the denim jacket. His movements were jerky, as though he controlled some deep emotion hammering to get loose.
Regardless of his good looks and his easy manner, something was sorely missing in his life. Whether he realized it or not, Jesse was a lost and lonely soul in need of God’s love.
Ever since coming to live on her grandparents’ farm at the age of fifteen, Lindsey had brought home strays, both animal and human. She’d been a stray herself, healed by the love and faith she’d found here in the mountains. But there was something other than loneliness in Jesse. Something puzzling. Maybe even dangerous.
Then why didn’t she send him packing?
“Could we go now?” A tug from Jade pulled her attention away from the man and back to the child.
“Sure, sweetie. Want to race?”
The storage and office buildings, which looked more like old-time outhouses than business buildings, were less than fifty feet from the field. Lindsey gave the child a galloping head start, her short, pink-capri-clad legs churning the grass and leaves. When enough distance separated them, Lindsey thundered after her, staying just far enough behind to enjoy the squeals and giggles.
When Lindsey and Jade returned sometime later, Jesse had shed his jacket and rolled back his shirtsleeves. The work felt good, cleansing somehow, and he wanted to stay right here until nightfall.
“That was fun, Daddy.” Jade pranced toward him with a strand of shiny silver garland thrown around her neck like a boa. “Lindsey let me bring this to decorate a tree.”
“Little early for that isn’t it?” He tried not to react, tried to pretend the sight of anything Christmassy didn’t send a spear right through his heart. But visions of gaily-wrapped gifts spilled out around a crushed blue car still haunted him.
Lindsey shrugged. “It’s never too early for Christmas. Looks like you’ve been busy.”
He’d filled and emptied the wheelbarrow several times, clearing all the rows she’d trimmed today.
“Impressed?”
She rested her hands on her hipbones and smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Good.” Yanking off his gloves, he resisted returning the smile. “What’s next?”
“Nothing for now. It will be dark soon.”
She was right. Already the sun bled onto the trees atop the mountain. Darkness would fall like a rock, hard and fast. He’d run away once into the woods behind the farm and darkness had caught him unaware. He’d spent that night curled beneath a tree, praying for help that never came.
“Guess Jade and I should be heading home then.”
Knocking the dust off his gloves, he stuffed them into a back pocket, letting the cloth fingers dangle against his jeans.
“Did you find a house to rent today?”
“Your friend Debbie hooked me up. Sent me to the mobile-home park on the edge of town.”
She picked up his jacket, swatted the pine needles away and handed him the faded denim. “Is it a nice place?”
He repressed a bitter laugh and tossed the jacket over one shoulder. Anything was nice after living in your truck. When Jade had seen the tiny space, she’d been ecstatic.
“The trailer will do until something better comes along.” He couldn’t tell her that the something better was the farm she called home.
By mutual consent they fell in step and left the tree lot, Jade scampering along between them, deliberately crunching as many leaves as possible.
Before they reached his truck, Lindsey said, “I have extra linens, dishes and such if you could use them.”
Don’t be so nice. Don’t make me like you.
He opened the door and boosted Jade into the cab. “We’re all right for now.”
“But you will let me know if you discover something you need, won’t you?”
Grabbing the door frame, he swung himself into the driver’s seat.
“Sure.” Not in a hundred years. What he needed was somewhere in the courthouse in Winding Stair and she didn’t need to know a thing about it—yet. He’d planned to start his investigation today, but finding a place to live had eaten up all his time. Soon though. Very soon he would have the farm he’d coveted for the past eighteen years.
Lindsey wiped the sticky smear of Jade’s maple syrup off the table, trying her best not to laugh at the father-and-daughter exchange going on in her kitchen. In the week since she’d hired Jesse Slater, he and Jade had become a comfortable part of her morning routine. As many times as she’d offered, Jesse refused to take his meals with her, but he hadn’t objected when she’d taken to preparing breakfast for his little girl.
Now, as she cleaned away the last of Jade’s pancakes, Jesse sat on the edge of a chair with his daughter perched between his knees. Every morning he made an endearingly clumsy attempt to fix the child’s beautiful raven hair. And every day Lindsey itched to do it for him. But she said nothing. Jade was, after all, Jesse’s child. Just like all the other children she loved and nurtured, Jade was not hers. Never hers.
Normally, he smoothed her hair with the brush, shoved a headband in place, and that was that. This morning, however, Jesse had reached his limit when Jade announced she wanted to wear a ponytail like her new best friend, Lacy. Lindsey suppressed a smile. From the expression on his face, Jesse considered the task right next to having his fingernails ripped out with fencing pliers.
A pink scrunchie gritted between his teeth, he battled the long hair into one hand, holding it in a stranglehold. He’d once let slip that he’d ridden saddle broncs on the rodeo circuit and, Lindsey thought with a hidden smile, that he must have done so with this same intense determination.
Finally, with an audible exhale, he dropped back against the chair. “There. All done.”
“Jess…” Lindsey started, then hushed. As much as she longed to see the little girl gussied up like the princess she could be, she wouldn’t interfere.
Jade touched a hand tentatively to her head. The lopsided ponytail resided just behind her left ear. A long strand of unbound hair tumbled over the opposite shoulder and the top of her head had enough bumps and waves to qualify as an amusement-park ride.
“Daddy, I don’t think Lacy wears her ponytail like this.”
Lindsey couldn’t hold back the laughter bubbling up inside her. Dropping the dishtowel over the back of a chair, she covered her face and giggled.
Jesse heaved an exasperated moan and rolled his silver eyes. “What? You don’t appreciate my talent?”
Lindsey could barely get her breath. “It isn’t that—It’s just, just—” She took one look at the child’s hair and started up again.
Jesse had never joked with her before, didn’t smile much either, but this time a