She smiled up at him, and he was very aware she hadn’t let go of his hand. “My brother who moved across the country to help his best friend renovate a silk mill and, oh, why not start up a winery while he’s at it?” She laughed. “What else could he say?”
“Jump in, the water’s fine?” Hudson suggested. He took her other hand. “Moira, you know—”
“Hey, Hud. Oh, Moira, good, you’re still here.” Drake Clarkson pushed through the swinging doors and walked into the pub kitchen. He was a few years older than Hudson and taught music classes at the mill in addition to being a regular on the little stage at the pub. “I heard you were helping Hud out here with his bar fight thing. I’ve got a legal question I was hoping you might help me with.” He lifted his hand. “Just guidance, I promise.” He smiled at Hud. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Hudson swallowed a sigh, smiled, and shook his head. “Not at all. We were just finishing up lunch. But Moira’s here on a bit of a vacation, so—”
“It’s all right, Hudson,” Moira said, then turned to Drake. “I don’t know if I can be of any help though. What’s the issue?”
Drake launched into a story about a visitor who’d come to the mill and signed up for fiddle classes. Drake had offered to let him borrow one of his fiddles for the class; then the man had taken off, never to return. “I’ve got all his contact information, but he doesn’t respond. It’s been more than two months now. Do I contact the police in his town? He lives about an hour from here. Or has too much time gone by? I don’t want to cause trouble—I just want my fiddle back.”
“You can certainly contact the police here and in his county or city. That’d be the first step to take in retrieving stolen property. Which is what this is, if you don’t have some kind of signed agreement giving him use of the fiddle for longer than the two months it’s been since you’ve seen him.”
Drake shook his head. “We don’t worry so much about contracts and such. He wanted classes, I signed him up, offered him use of the fiddle to practice on between classes. I figured if he took to it, I’d offer him a deal on one from my shop. It was a handshake deal. He took a class that day, left with the fiddle, and never came back.”
“Well, if you wanted to file suit—and I’m not saying you should—it would be a matter for small claims court.” She smiled. “But I’d see what the local police could do before incurring any legal fees.”
“Thanks,” Drake said, looking relieved. “I’d really like not to incur legal fees, either. I appreciate your advice.” He looked at Hudson. “She’s handy to have around.” He looked back to her. “Used to be Judge Parsons would be the one we’d go to. He was a justice of the peace down in Turtle Springs and had a fishing cabin up here he’d come to pretty much every weekend. Lived up here full time after he retired.” Drake smiled. “Couldn’t catch fish worth nothing, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Said he just liked dropping a line in now and again. Used to regale us with some of the craziest stories about cases he’d presided over, always willing to offer advice if we had a problem.”
“Sounds like you both got something from the arrangement.”
Drake nodded. “He passed on last spring. It’s funny—I don’t think we all realized just how much we relied on his advice until he was gone.” He grinned. “Kind of like finding a great car mechanic or a good barber. Don’t know how good you’ve got it till they’re gone.” He laughed. “Only there’s a lot more mechanics around than retired judges.”
Moira smiled. “I would imagine so.”
“So, I truly appreciate the advice. Hope I haven’t imposed.”
“Not at all,” she said.
Drake waved and was back through the swinging door, leaving them alone in the kitchen.
Moira glanced up at Hudson consideringly. “I don’t suppose you—”
“Put him up to that?” Hudson finished for her. “Hoping it might make you consider how you’d fit right here in Blue Hollow Falls?” He grinned broadly. “No. That was completely serendipitous. I would have if I’d thought of it, though.”
She laughed. “At least you’re honest.”
“Always,” he said, then looked down at their still joined hands. When he lifted his gaze back to hers, his expression had grown serious. “Let me ask you this. If Seattle is out, and California isn’t where you want to be . . . maybe Blue Hollow Falls is worth considering. Not because of me,” he added; then a smile curved his lips. “Though, naturally, I’d be a champion of the idea.”
“Hudson,” she began, and started to pull her hand away.
He held on a moment longer. “I mention it because your brother lives here, and your new sister-in-law. Katie would probably be a somewhat regular visitor. It’s just, if you’re looking for a place to start, of all the places in the world, you have some connection here. I know you and Seth are close. He’d be thrilled at the very idea, and your family would probably be on board. So, a little family, but not too much family,” he added with a smile. “Not that you need any of those things to decide where to go next, but . . . it’s something to consider, right?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about Seth being thrilled,” she said with a smile. “He’s my go-to guy for getting me out of jams, so I might be the last person he’d want living just down the mountain.”
Hudson laughed and squeezed her hands gently, then let them go. She looked momentarily surprised by that, and a little disappointed. It was a small thing, but he better than anyone knew that sometimes the littlest things were what, in the end, made the most splendid of dishes. “All I’m saying is, it’s worth considering. And what I started to say earlier was that I don’t want to influence your decision. Not that I could, but—”
“You could,” she said quietly.
Surprised by that admission—shocked, actually—he was momentarily speechless.
He must have looked it, because she let out a little laugh, and along with the amusement, what he saw in those green eyes was affection. For him.
“I listen, too,” she said. “And I’ve heard everything you’ve been saying. You’ve given me a lot to think about, on all fronts. We have such a different way of looking at life.” She smiled. “I’m a little envious of your way.”
“It’s up for adoption,” he said, and they both laughed.
Their laughter abated and she simply held his gaze, as if searching, but for what he didn’t know.
At length, she took a breath, and said, “Well, here’s my stab at taking a Hudson Walker leap.” She deliberately took his hands back in her own, and he thought his heart simply up and stopped right then and there. Hold on, mate, until you know what she’s about to say. It was too late though; his hopes were already beginning to climb, and no amount of resolve was going to stop them.
“Since we’ve always been honest with each other, it’s only fair for me to tell you that what you’re saying, your viewpoint, not only intrigues me, it attracts me, too.” Moira’s expression turned more serious then. “I’ve been pulling back, hard, from that attraction.” She smiled. “You don’t make it easy.”
“I’m sorry?” he offered gamely, and they both flashed a grin.
Her smile remained, but her words were serious when she said, “I think . . . my concern is, am I doing the same thing I did last time? Telling myself this is what I want because then I don’t have to actually go back and figure out what that really is?”
“Is that what you think you did in Ireland?”
She nodded. “To some degree. I mean, he was worth loving; I didn’t fabricate that. But I may have swooned over the larger picture, of which he was just a part.”
“Meaning if you’d met him apart from all that, you might have felt different?”
She nodded. “I’m pretty sure of that. We weren’t the love match of the century, we were just . . . right place, right time. For him, right place and time for something fun. For me, a nice, decent guy, in a lovely place, that looked like it could possibly be a whole new so
lution to my I-need-to-get-out-of-Seattle problems.” She smiled again. “Not to encourage you or anything, but meeting you put a lot of that in very clear perspective.”
His heart kicked up a notch or three, right along with his hopes. He tried to keep it all in check, because while she was giving him far more than he’d ever anticipated, he heard the caveat coming from a mile away. “Because . . . ?”
“Because I’m pretty sure I’d have been attracted to you no matter where you turned up, or at what point in my life. I’m attracted to you, yes. And you make me laugh, yes. I’ve experienced that before, though I’d say not nearly on the level that we connect. What’s completely new, though, is how you make me think. How we both like to think, to ponder, to have a sense of what we’re doing, and why. We’re both goal oriented.” At his look of surprise, she said, “We are. You just approach your goals differently, and they aren’t as rigidly set as mine were. Your goal was to not be bored by life. And you set out to make sure that never happened. When it started to feel that way, you moved on. Forward thinking, forward looking.” She smiled. “Dare I say, focused.”
He grinned. “Well, to all of the above, counselor, can I say in much more simple terms . . . ditto. You care about things that matter, you’re focused on helping others.” His grin spread even wider. “You sat at my table with day-old makeup on, in a gown that had gone through a wedding, a reception, a bar brawl, and a night’s sleep, and you never once seemed perturbed.” He tugged her a little closer. She let him. “You swooned over my food,” he said, more quietly now, as she stared up at him with that green-eyed gaze of hers. His smile was intimate now. “You could have had me right then and there. And despite what you may think of me, I’m not that easy.”
Her pupils slowly expanded as he lowered his head to hers. “I’m not trying to persuade you,” he said, his voice so quiet it just reached her ears. “But if I don’t find out how you taste, I think I truly will go mad.”
She held his gaze for the longest moment, then whispered, “Then I think you should.”
Chapter Five
His lips were warm and firm, and fit her mouth perfectly. He let go of her hands and slid his to her waist, lifting her effortlessly so she could sit on the edge of the café table, pushing their plates of food back when she pulled him in closer and returned his kiss.
She knew three things immediately. This definitely wasn’t Ireland redux. Hudson wasn’t remotely like Finn. Finn, who? And this absolutely wasn’t going to be the only time she kissed this man.
He took his time, didn’t hurry, didn’t crush her mouth thinking that was the way to show his ardor. No, he took the slow, savory route. Of course he would. And she savored it right along with him.
Why had she balked at this? Why hadn’t she trusted herself? Why had she wasted so much time wondering “what if” when they could have been doing this? If you don’t keep trying, if you shield yourself from wanting, then you might avoid heartbreak, but what you end up with is nothing. This was not nothing.
“Moira,” he said when he finally lifted his mouth from hers. His voice was husky now, and the sound of it sent a thrill of anticipation racing down her spine.
“Hudson,” she replied, hearing the hoarseness in her own voice as well. With their noses pressed together, they both smiled.
“I said I’d always be honest with you,” he said.
She tensed.
He felt it and immediately dropped a kiss on her mouth, then kissed her temple before lowering his mouth next to her ear. “Just so we’re clear, I might be trying to persuade you now.”
She burst out in giggles, then turned her head so her mouth was next to his ear. “I don’t think the burden of persuasion lies solely with the defense counselor.”
He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “Oh, I don’t need any persuading. I knew you were it the moment you took a swing at Taggert’s—”
“Bad manners?” she offered not so innocently.
“Those too,” he said, chuckling.
They held each other’s gaze, and he lifted his hand, brushed her curls from her forehead, traced the blunt tips of his fingers down the side of her cheek. “In all seriousness, you need to do what is right and best for you. If you want to give Blue Hollow Falls a spin, then do it because it’s all the things you think might suit you, both personally and professionally.”
“I wish I could say I was certain this is the right fit, but . . . I guess I’ll be smarter this time and say I can’t be sure without trying.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It might not be. It might be the first of many places you try.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t—”
He tugged her close again. “I’m a big boy. No one is leading anyone down a garden path here. But if you’re going to give the place a go, then give it all a go, aye? You can’t figure things out in pieces. Life tends to come at you full on. My experience is embrace it for what it is, get out of it what you can. Discard what doesn’t work, consider it a learning opportunity, and build on what does.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was a lot to take in, a lot to consider. “I can’t imagine bouncing from place to place,” she said instead. “Not much of a way to build a career.” Her tone was dry when she added, “And I’m really not looking to rack up frequent flyer miles by taking one state bar exam after the other, either. I do know I want to practice law.”
“Big city law?”
She shrugged. “I could, and I did. The firm in Seattle and the one I worked for as a paralegal in California handled some huge corporate accounts, as well as defending some rather high profile individual clients.”
“Trial attorneys, you mean, for the defense.”
She nodded. “I like criminal law, it’s where I specialized. But being honest, I can’t say I got all that personally motivated by helping to get some big corporation off the hook on paying out a claim or doing the right thing by one of their vendors, or worse, their employees. I’m not saying I want to represent hardened criminals, either. That’s why I shied away from the public defender’s office. I guess I figured out while I was in California that I wanted to do something to help individual people. Make the law work for them, instead of the system working against them.”
“Someone like Drake, who wants his fiddle back?”
She laughed. “A bit more complex and challenging than that would be nice, but in general, yes.” She looked at him. “I’d have relished taking your case, if it went to trial. Taggert is exactly the kind of person I’d like to prosecute for taking gross advantage of others. That’s personal, I know, but it’s the kind of case I’m talking about. He could have crushed you financially, and you wouldn’t have had the resources to fight back.”
“There’s not much of mine to have. I’ve had something and I’ve had nothing. The former didn’t make me and the latter didn’t break me. Taggert is barking into a hollow well.”
“Interesting metaphor,” she teased, “and that may be true, but don’t underestimate the toll it would have taken on you emotionally, monopolizing your life for endless months, perhaps years. And I meant to add this before, but if the court drops the case, that isn’t to say he won’t try and come after you some other way. Recommend to your attorney that he or she ask the judge to block Taggert from filing frivolous lawsuits against you. Having evidence of his threatening to crush you however he can in those videos would help that request enormously.”
Hudson’s smile brightened. “If you did decide to move here, hypothetically speaking of course, and Taggert became a nuisance, then you could take him on, right? Assuming you did whatever it is you’d have to do to practice law here.”
“Ah,” Moira said with a laugh. “So that’s what this is all about? You’re just after me for my legal skills; then you’ll cast me aside once I’ve vanquished the enemy?”
“You could start another bar brawl and I could defend your honor if that would help. I’d take a few lumps to keep you on retainer.”<
br />
“First, I didn’t start that bar brawl. Second, it’s very kind of you to offer yourself up as a punching bag on the altar of my career growth.” She tilted her head. “Third, should I be concerned about your apparent propensity for enjoying physical altercations?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m an Aussie, love. We don’t back down. And if that means things get tricky, well, we might as well enjoy ourselves, then.”
“I’m glad you were on my side.”
He leaned down and kissed her. “I’m always on your side.”
She sighed just a little, leaned into him just a little. Can it really be so simple as this? Am I fooling myself again? Looking for the easy answer to all life’s problems?
“You won’t know until you try,” he said quietly, his lips pressed against her curls.
She gave him a playful poke in the shoulder. “Will you stop reading my mind?”
“Why, when I’m so good at it?” he said with a chuckle. “It saves a lot of time spent mentally wrangling over every little thing if we just talk it out.”
“You really do just live your life and take things as they come, don’t you?”
“Life is going to do what it’s going to do and there’s only so much you can control. But that’s not to say I don’t care about things. I do. I’ve come to love this place very much. I’ve taken quite a liking to my unusual living quarters. In fact, I’m thinking about adding a third car. Believe it or not, I’ve found a caboose in West Virginia, and I already know we can unearth more of the rail.” He grinned when she just shook her head in amazement. “What I mean is I’m not impervious to disappointment, or to being hurt. If I lost that place, lost my work here, it’d set me back on my heels. I’d have to really think about what to do next. I’m confident that I’d go on to be just fine. I’ll always be able to support myself. But I’m not bulletproof. Nobody is. The point is, I want to be just fine here. The Falls have come to matter to me. More than any other place I’ve landed. I wasn’t planning on it, but it turned out that way. Which is how the best things do.”
A Season to Celebrate Page 24
