He was no Prince Charming. His brain tumor had forced him to take a hard look at his life and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. He was driven and focused, which could sometimes come across as cold and uncaring.
He might live in a nice house—a few of them, actually—and have a private jet at his disposal but that wasn’t the heart of him. He would never argue that he liked the luxuries he could afford now. More than that, he liked that his family members were all comfortable financially because he had given them stock in his company early on.
If Pop didn’t want to work another minute at the Center of Hope, he could have a more-than-comfortable retirement. Charlotte had been able to buy her candy store in Hope’s Crossing and a nice house in a very expensive resort town real estate market. Dylan had bought his property in Snowflake Canyon. Jamie could leave the army right now if he wanted and never fly a helicopter again for the rest of his days.
All of Pop’s grandkids could have their pick of any university, thanks to the education trust funds he had set up for each of them.
He liked the trappings of his amazing success but beneath it all, he was a man who had come face-to-face with his own mortality in recent months and had come to realize it wasn’t enough anymore.
He wanted a family.
He wanted someone to share his life with. He wanted someone sweet and warm and generous, who would light up when she saw him like Lucy did when she saw Brendan, like Genevieve for Dylan or Charlotte for Spence.
He remembered talking to Dylan shortly after he and Genevieve started seeing each other. Though he had known he was risking a right hook, he had asked his brother what he possibly saw in Gen, the spoiled society belle who had finally managed to make his wounded warrior brother smile again. They were the most unlikely of couples but somehow they just worked together.
Instead of reacting with his fists—or fist, in these days, as his arm had been amputated—Dylan had shrugged with that slightly besotted look he wore most of the time these days.
“She calms the crazy,” he had said simply, looking a little embarrassed to admit such a thing to his brother.
Aidan hadn’t known what the hell his brother was talking about until right this moment. He was not only drawn to Eliza on a physical level but on a deeply emotional one, as well.
When he spent time with her and Maddie, the usual frenzy of his thoughts—constantly racing from idea to idea and project to project—seemed to quiet to a low murmur, allowing him to simply be. It was a rare luxury, indeed, and one he suddenly craved with a fierceness that shocked him.
He sighed and sipped at what was left of his chocolate. It was cold now, congealed in the cup, and he quickly set it down again.
What was he going to do with her?
She had said one thing that rang with resonance. She worked for him. Yes, it had been a cobbled-together job offered more out of guilt and obligation than any real need, but she had proven herself indispensable.
He had a dilemma, then. He didn’t want her to leave but he didn’t want her to stay on as his housekeeper-slash-hostess, either.
Okay, solving problems was what he did best. He would set his considerable mind to it and figure out a way to convince her a relationship between them was not only possible but inevitable.
She might not have a fairy godmother, but she had him.
* * *
“SUE, YOU NEED to see a doctor.”
Eliza frowned at Aidan’s cook, who stood at the big six-burner stove with her foot on a stool. She was pale and drawn, with lines of pain around her mouth.
“I’m fine. This is stupid. I’m just such a klutz.”
“You told me you tripped. What exactly happened?”
“I wish I knew. It was just one of those weird things, you know? One minute I was walking along minding my own business, enjoying the night after the parade, the next I slipped off a curb and twisted my foot. I’m sure I was quite a sight, a dried-up old broad lying there in the gutter.”
Sue tried to make a joke and smiled at Maddie, sitting at the work island doing one of her math worksheets, but as she twisted to reach for the egg carton on the countertop, she winced as if she had dropped a heavy cast iron Dutch oven on her foot.
She swallowed a moan and Eliza moved forward to grab the eggs for her and move them closer so she could reach. She wanted to haul the woman to the doctor herself. Worry was a hard knot in her stomach.
“Please, Sue. You need to sit down.”
“Oh, don’t fret about me. By tomorrow, I’ll be in fighting form. You’ll see.”
“The only thing you’re going to be fighting is me if you don’t sit down and take some weight off that foot. I mean it. I can’t believe Jim didn’t take you into the E.R. for an X-ray last night.”
“He wanted to, that old worrywart. I wouldn’t go. Told him, I didn’t need to waste our hard-earned money for a doctor to tell me it was only sprained. The only way I was going to that clinic was if he tossed me over his shoulder and dragged me there kicking and screaming. He knew it wasn’t an idle threat—just like he knows darn well he can’t lift me anymore, what with his bad back and all.”
She hopped to the work island for the package of bacon she had left there. By the time she hopped the short distance back to the stove, she looked close to passing out.
“Good grief, you are one stubborn woman,” Eliza exclaimed. “Sit down. I’m making breakfast. I can handle pancakes and bacon.”
Sue looked as if she wanted to argue but didn’t quite have the strength to do it. After a moment, she sighed and sank onto one of the stools around the work island. Tears of frustration and pain gathered.
“What am I going to do? Aidan’s family is coming in two days.”
Eliza snatched a tissue from the box on the counter and handed it to her, then grasped Sue’s other hand in both of hers. “Please let me take you in for an X-ray. If it’s a sprain, you can at least get some crutches so you’re not hobbling around in pain with only that old cane you’re using. Who knows? Maybe they can give you a brace or something, or one of those cool little knee walkers I’ve seen people use at the grocery store. You don’t want to do more damage to it, possibly make things worse, right? If you can’t even stand up, you won’t be any use to Aidan while his family is here. You know that.”
The older woman seemed to waver. “I hate hospitals.”
Maddie slipped down from her chair and came over to Sue. This darling girl who had endured too many hospital visits placed a hand on the older woman’s leg. “You shouldn’t hate hospitals. The doctors and nurses only want to help you feel better.”
“Is that right?” Sue gave a little chuckle at receiving words of advice from a five-year-old.
Maddie nodded. “Even when they have to hurt you, it’s only so they can fix what’s wrong with you, then you’ll be all better.”
Sue tugged at one of Maddie’s braids. “You’re a pretty smart cookie, you know that?”
Maddie beamed at her and even though Sue looked tired and cranky and sore, she still smiled back.
“I don’t have time for a sprained ankle,” she said under her breath. “In forty-eight hours, twenty-plus people will be arriving here with empty stomachs.”
“We’ll make sure nobody goes hungry, Sue, I promise.”
“You know what the worst thing just might be? Having to admit everybody else around here is right and I just might be wrong.”
“We’ve all been there,