Right. His family. He needed to focus on his priorities here.
“You’re absolutely right. Let’s go.”
Before he left the kitchen, he turned back and found Eliza pressing a hand to her cheek. She dropped her fingers quickly, eyes slightly defiant, then quickly turned back to the rolls as he headed out the door.
* * *
“NO, REALLY. I can do this,” Eliza insisted, stacking another plate on the tray she was using to bus the dining room table. “I promise, I don’t mind cleaning up by myself. Go on your sleigh ride while it’s still clear, before the snow starts up again.”
Dermot Caine, a sturdy, handsome charmer who had passed his striking blue eyes on to all his children, wagged a finger at her as he picked up silverware. “Nonsense, my dear. We aren’t leaving you with this mess! With all of us pitching in, it won’t take but a moment to have that fine kitchen sparkling once more. Then we can all go for a sleigh ride, hmm?”
Apparently Aidan had inherited more than his father’s blue eyes. His stubbornness must be a family trait, too.
“It’s not necessary,” she tried again. It had become a point of honor to her but Dermot overrode her as easily as his son usually did.
“Dylan, Bren, Andrew. Snap to it, boys.”
The men—far from boys and every bit as gorgeous as their brother—obeyed their father with alacrity and Eliza could do nothing but be swept along in the tide of Caines grabbing up plates and trays and bowls.
Spencer Gregory—the Smokin’ Hot Spence Gregory, who turned out to be not only more gorgeous in person but amazingly nice, too—smiled as he picked up a bowl containing just a few corkscrew curls, all that was left from a massive pasta salad.
“That pizza was really great, Eliza,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Fantastic,” Brendan Caine, the biggest of the brothers concurred. “I do believe I could have eaten one pie all by myself.”
“Sue did a great job, didn’t she?” She refused to take undue credit when she had merely followed directions.
“Couldn’t have done it without you, dear,” Sue piped up from her spot at the kitchen table, where she was going over the menu for the next day.
“The boys and I will take care of these dishes,” Dermot said before she could even reach for a dishcloth. “Go on. You deserve to put your feet up and rest up a bit before our sleigh ride.”
Argh. Wouldn’t anybody listen to her? “I’m just going to wander through the house and see if I can round up any other dishes.”
In her experience, cups and plates and bowls tended to be scattered far and wide as people carried snacks and drinks from room to room.
“Might as well, might as well. I need to put Dylan to work here with a dish towel.”
“Sure. Why not make the guy with one arm do all the hard stuff?” Aidan’s younger brother, the wounded army ranger, gave Eliza a teasing wink.
“That one-arm thing sure comes in handy sometimes. Didn’t seem to stop you from kicking our butts at billiards earlier,” Andrew, the attorney in the family, threw out.
They were bickering good-naturedly as she headed out to canvas the other rooms.
In the great room, she saw Dylan’s huge black-and-tan coonhound stretched out in front of the fire while a trio of much smaller dogs—a lean chihuahua and a couple of tiny cute puffballs who had to be related—cuddled up to him.
The house had needed dogs, she thought with a smile. Old Argus in the barn didn’t count.
His sisters were clustered in one of the sitting areas of the great room looking at a photo album one of them had brought along. Not wanting to intrude, she tried to give them a wide berth on her way up the stairs to the media and game rooms, but Charlotte spotted her.
“Eliza, that pizza was fantastic.”
She pasted on a smile and headed toward the women. “Thanks, but Sue really did all the work. I’m an adequate prep cook but that’s about it.”
Lucy Drake, tall and lovely with long dark curls, gave her a smile. “I understand I need to pick your brain while I’m here. Aidan says you’re the one who added all the wonderful little touches to our rooms like the water carafes by the bed, the basket of fuzzy socks, the little gift bags of fresh cookies.”
“I would love to talk with you,” she answered. “He says you have an amazing bed-and-breakfast in Hope’s Crossing.”
Lucy blinked. “Aidan called Iris House amazing? Our Aidan?”
“Yes. He had nothing but good to say about it. It sounds absolutely delightful.”
“Okay.” Charlotte leaned forward. “What is going on with him?”
Eliza studied the women warily. “With Aidan? What do you mean?”
The women exchanged glances. “This whole party!” Charlotte said. “Inviting us here.”
“Most years we can count ourselves lucky if he flies in for a few hours on Christmas Day,” Erin—the schoolteacher, she remembered, married to the attorney—made a face. “This year he was absolutely insistent that we all come and spend several days here at his new place. Do you know how tough it is to get us all together, with everybody’s crazy schedules?”
She could only imagine. She had a feeling this was not a family that sat home waiting for life to happen to them.
“So what’s the story with him?” Genevieve pressed.
Eliza shifted and tried to keep her features as impassive as she could manage. “I guess he has this lovely new house and was eager to show it off.”
It sounded totally implausible, even to her, but she wasn’t about to reveal the secret he had demanded she keep for him.
“That’s another thing,” Erin pressed. “Why this house? Why here? Why not buy in Hope’s Crossing, where he could be closer to all of us?”
“I’m sure he had his reasons. You should ask him,” she said, trying to edge away from the group.
“No, something is definitely up,” Charlotte said. “This afternoon, he spent an hour playing billiards with the guys. An entire hour! Right after that, he was down here reading a Christmas story to your darling little girl and Faith and Carter.”
“Why is that such a shock?” Eliza asked. Aidan had showed remarkable patience and kindness to Maddie from the moment they met.
“It just seems...out of character. Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother dearly. He’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. He’s loving and loyal and brilliant. But as long as I have known him, he has also been the most driven person I know.”
“Personally, I find it odd that he invited us all here, spent a few hours with us and then disappeared the rest of the evening.” Katherine Caine, Aidan’s new stepmother, had a worried light in her eyes. “Is he ill?”
Oh, she had a horrible poker face. Nevertheless, Eliza tried her best. “I believe he has a project he’s busy with right now.”
“See, that’s more like the Aidan we know and love,” Lucy said. “It’s the whole, come stay at my new digs, I’ll fly you out thing that seems out of character to me. Something is definitely up.”
Eliza picked up a couple of empty nut bowls from the table, careful not to meet anyone’s gaze. “He loves his family very much. I think he just wanted