The door to the mudroom off the kitchen opened and a moment later, Jim came in looking like the abominable snowman in a Stetson.
“You wanted snow, darlin’, you’re getting snow. I was outside for five minutes and look at me. It’s really coming down. I think we’ve had four inches in the last hour. Maybe six, altogether, since it started.”
“The weather lady said we were in for a doozy,” Sue said. “I love a good storm. Good thing all your Christmas decorations finally got here this afternoon before the snow hit or I might have had to put you to work making paper chains to put on that monster tree in the great room.”
“They only just arrived? They were supposed to be here by Thanksgiving! I wondered why the tree wasn’t decorated yet.”
“Better late than never. I guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.”
Too bad his brother Dylan and sister-in-law Genevieve couldn’t come out to Lake Haven early. He had it on good authority from Charlotte that the two of them were whizzes at Christmas decorating at A Warrior’s Hope, the recreational therapy program his brother-in-law had started to help wounded veterans.
The idea of his rough army ranger brother—a wounded veteran himself—decorating anything boggled his mind, but then a guy did crazy things when he was in love.
Aidan had seen plenty of evidence supporting that hypothesis since four of his brothers suffered from that particular malady—Brendan twice, now that he had found happiness with Lucy again after the tragic death of his wife a few years ago.
“Can you handle everything that needs to be done before the great horde descends?” he asked Sue now as she handed him the big soup stockpot to dry.
She shrugged. “I’ll do my best. Might need to look for somebody from town who might be in need of a little extra Christmas cash. There are plenty of folks struggling in Haven Point who might appreciate the help. From what I can tell, jobs here are few and far between.”
A germ of an idea found purchase and began to sprout as he dried the stockpot and set it on a counter. He thought of Eliza, out of a job and a place to live just a few weeks before Christmas.
He had to help her somehow. Fate couldn’t have thrown her into his path and then just expected him to stand by and ignore her plight.
While it would be easy to give her a comfortable cash settlement—he wouldn’t call it guilt money but he did owe her something—he sensed she would reject him flat if he tried.
He might not be as good as Dermot at intuitively tending to people’s needs, but he had learned a few tricks from his pop. People were more inclined to accept help if you could convince them they were doing you a favor, instead of the other way around.
He sensed Eliza wouldn’t be easy to persuade but he owed it to that sweet little girl to try.
HER PHONE BEEPING softly in her ear woke her from a dream about giant monster trucks with ferocious-looking grills barreling toward her from every direction, intent on mowing her down.
She fumbled under her pillow for the phone then rolled over to turn off the alarm. Ow. She swallowed a groan as various and sundry muscles complained quite loudly at just that small movement.
Beside her, Maddie stirred and made a huffing little noise but quickly subsided back to sleep. She hadn’t even made it to the trundle. After her bath, she had climbed into the big four-poster—the princess bed, she had called it—for their regular story time. They were reading a Junie B. Jones holiday book but had both fallen asleep about five minutes into the story about the mischievous kindergartener.
In fact...Eliza patted around the comforter until she found the book where it had slipped out of her hands as she drifted off. She moved it safely to the bedside table so the pages didn’t get crinkled, then enjoyed the luxuriously soft sheets for a few moments as she listened to her daughter’s deep, even breathing.
She did this sometimes, just slipped into Maddie’s room to listen to her breathing and to offer up earnest prayers for that weak, courageous heart to stay strong as long as possible.
Right now, she wanted to hug her daughter close and remain snuggled under these cozy blankets, safe and warm from the howl and moan of the storm she could hear outside.
Though she had no recollection of doing it, she must have turned the reading light off sometime in the night. The only light in the room came from the flickering glow of the gas fireplace.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to stay here in this nice, protective bubble and pretend the figurative storms in her life weren’t swirling around with equal menace to the actual blizzard outside, where she didn’t have to worry about any pesky little details like finding a place to live and a job that would provide decent health insurance that Maddie’s cardiac specialists would accept?
This time she couldn’t hold back her groan. Only a little of it was from the aches and pains of the accident.
What was she going to do? The natural optimism that had kept her from completely falling apart during the past three years of dealing with everything on her own seemed in short supply right now, as the reality of her situation seemed to seep beneath the blankets and grab hold of her skin with icy fingers.
She had options, she reminded herself. She wasn’t completely destitute. She had already taken care of Maddie’s Christmas presents, so that wasn’t a worry. Beyond that, she had a little left in savings, enough to tide them over for a month or two and to make a first and last month’s rent, and she received monthly social security benefits that would help.
She had been trying to save all of Maddie’s survivor benefits for her college education but the hard truth was that survival today had to take priority over tomorrow’s tuition payments.
The snooze on her phone alarm chimed softly again and she turned it all the way off, wide-awake now. Something told her Aidan Caine was a man who kept his word. He said he would be knocking on her door at 2:00 a.m. and she had a feeling he would be there precisely at that moment.
She gingerly eased out of bed, feeling about a hundred and ten years old. Her robe was packed in one of the boxes still in the back of her SUV so she grabbed a decadently soft throw from one of the plush chairs by the fire and wrapped it around her nightgown for warmth.
With one last check on Maddie, she padded out into the hall, hoping to intercept him before he knocked on her door. She could see a light on underneath the door across from hers but she didn’t quite have the nerve to knock on it. Instead, after a moment’s indecision she headed toward a padded window seat at the end of the hall upholstered in rich, deep colors that fit well with the lodge look of the rest of the residence.
The window was a little frosted but through the darkness she could see snow falling steadily, whipped in all directions by the wind.
She shivered, grateful for the comforts of the house. It really was a lovely place, with those massive beams and logs the color of sun-warmed honey.
What had led Aidan Caine to purchase the house? He didn’t strike her as the outdoorsy cowboy sort, more like a sexy computer geek. Maybe there was more to him than she would have suspected from what little she knew about his public persona.
The Geek God.
He seemed a very complex man. Yes, he was a powerful and successful man with this grand, expansive house, his own company. To achieve so much at his relatively young age he was no doubt a workaholic, just like Trent had been, a man whose entire focus revolved around making money.
On