Where There's Smoke (Holiday Hearts #1)

by Kristin Hardy

  Nick’s family might not bite but she had a pretty good idea they were going to be very curious about Nick’s friend. “What did you tell them about me?”

  He flashed a grin as he stopped on the broad parking apron and turned off the ignition. “I told them you were in the witness protection program and they couldn’t ask you any questions. Oh, and that you’ve already taught me a dozen new sexual positions.”

  Amused despite herself, Sloane gathered up her purse and opened the door. “A dozen, huh?”

  He popped the trunk. “I didn’t think they were ready for the real number.”

  Around them, the woods stretched out dark and silent. In Cambridge and Boston, there was always light, always noise. Here, the chill night was its own presence. Sloane shivered.

  “Come on, let’s get inside,” Nick said, grabbing the bags and leading her up the steps of the little porch. He opened the door without knocking and walked inside.

  There was no place she could walk into like that, Sloane realized in an instant of painful clarity as she followed him into the mudroom. What was it Frost had said, “Home is the place that, when you have to go there, They have to take you in”? The only home she had was the one she paid for herself.

  Nick walked through the mudroom and stopped at the door to the inside of the house. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”

  Sloane shook back her hair and followed him.

  The kitchen was warm, fragrant and welcoming after the raw November night. It probably looked just about the way it had a century before, with a broad planked floor and butter-colored wainscoting. On one wall, a granite fireplace big enough to stand in held an enormous copper kettle. Pots and pans dangled from an overhead beam. A swinging door led to what she assumed was a dining room; another empty threshold presumably led to the rest of the house.

  In the center of the room sat a thick oak table with massive turned legs. On it, checkered dishtowels covered cooling pies. A half-dozen of them. Just how many people was Molly Trask expecting to feed? Sloane wondered a little desperately.

  On the stove, onions and celery sizzled quietly. A spoon in the spoon rest and a pot holder tossed down on the counter gave clues that the cook was nearby.

  “Hey, Ma,” Nick called, walking over to turn off the burner. “You planning to burn the house down?”

  “Nicholas?” Wiping her hands on her apron, a wiry-looking woman walked into the kitchen from the inside of the house.

  Nick grinned and swept her into a bear hug.

  “I can’t believe your timing,” she scolded when they were done. “I sit here all night waiting for you and the one minute I take to use the restroom you show up.”

  “We got a call a couple of weeks ago for a fire started by someone who’d left a pan on the stove unattended.”

  “I know, I know,” she said with a flush. “I promise I won’t do it again. Now introduce me to your friend.”

  “Sloane Hillyard, this is my mother. Ma, this is Sloane.”

  “Welcome.” Blue eyes set like Nick’s looked at Sloane in amusement. “My name’s Molly, in case you want an actual name.”

  Sloane grinned. “Thanks.”

  She’d given Nick his good looks, but Molly Trask appeared to have other things to worry about than vanity. She wore an apron over jeans and a flannel shirt. Her iron-gray hair swung down to her jaw. Her skin might have shown signs of weathering, but it showed more signs of laughter. Crossing to the stove, she stirred the onions. “Can I get you coffee or tea or something?”

  “Just some water for me, thanks,” Sloane said. “No coffee at this hour or I’ll never sleep.”

  “I’ll take coffee, but I’ll make it myself,” Nick said.

  “Like his father, this one,” Molly said fondly as she scraped the cooked onions and celery into a bowl. “He’d drink coffee at midnight and still go out like a light. Same thing with Jacob,” she added, nodding toward the sudden noise in the mudroom.

  “Jacob what?” The kitchen door opened and a bear of a man walked in, all black beard and bulk in his parka, stamping the snow off his boots.

  “Jacob’s here to meet our guests,” Molly filled in.

  Vivid blue, his eyes flickered over Sloane before fastening on Nick. “You’re parked in a soft patch.”

  “A soft patch?”

  Jacob looked around. “Yeah. I need to get the whole apron rolled. They’re predicting rain tonight and if it doesn’t freeze, you’re going to have a mess.”

  “I guess I’d better move it, then,” Nick replied.

  “Hello, Jacob. Oh, hello, Nick. Haven’t seen you in a while. That’s right, it’s been since spring.” Molly spread plastic wrap over the bowl and put it in the refrigerator. “Honestly, you could at least say hello, you two.”

  A corner of Nick’s mouth twitched. “Hey, J.T.”

  Jacob stuck his hand out in resignation. “Nick.”

  No hugs, no shoulder pounding, Sloane noticed. An awkward current of tension ran through the room, something not quite comfortable.

  “Jacob, this is Sloane Hillyard. Sloane, this is Jacob, my older brother.”

  She found her hand enveloped in Jacob’s. She could see the resemblance now that she looked, but in contrast to Nick’s ease, Jacob seemed awkward, too big for the kitchen. He belonged outdoors, she thought.

  “Nice to meet you,” he muttered. “Well, I just came in to tell you. The back door’s open. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Molly stifled a yawn as Jacob disappeared. “It’s probably time for me to go to bed, too.” She walked over to kiss Nick and squeezed Sloane’s shoulder. “The guest room is made up.”

  The bedroom could have been in a B and B, with colonial blue walls and scatter rugs covering the wide-planked hardwood floor. She caught the scent of freesia from the vase of fresh flowers that sat on a maple bureau that had been polished until it glowed. The bed was a spindle-topped four-poster, with an intricate quilt laid over the top of the double-sized mattress.

  Sloane cleared her throat. “We’re not staying in here, are we?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “With your mother in the house? It doesn’t quite seem right.”

  The corners of Nick’s mouth turned up. “Old-school. I like that.”

  “I’m not a prude,” she muttered, blushing furiously. “It just…well, it feels disrespectful.”

  Nick leaned in to kiss her. “God, I adore you. You didn’t let me finish. You’re staying in the guest room, alone. I’ll be bunking in Jacob’s house, out back.”

  “Well, you don’t need to go to a whole ’nother building,” she protested.

  His eyes crinkled with humor. “I’m old-school, too. Relax. I’ll come over in the morning and make you coffee.”

  She smelled it before she even opened her eyes. Sloane took a blissful sniff. Any man who would be up and making coffee for her at six-thirty in the morning was her hero.

  Or heroine, she discovered a few minutes later as she walked into the kitchen to find Molly Trask wrestling with the turkey and cursing a blue streak.

  Sloane stopped in the doorway. “Need some help?”

  Molly glanced ruefully over her shoulder. “Yes, actually. If you could just hold the drumsticks together so I can get them tied, we’ll be all set. They keep slipping out of the string.”

  It was about the biggest turkey she’d ever seen, Sloane thought as she washed her hands. “Just how many people are you expecting today?” She pulled the ends of the legs together so Molly could tie them securely.

  “I think we’re up to sixteen now, give or take a grandniece or -nephew,” Molly said, snipping the ends of the string with kitchen shears. “The boys, you, my in-laws, their three kids and their families and a neighboring couple who have known us forever.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Now if you could just help me get the bird into the roaster, we’ll be all set. I’ll lift him up and you slide the roaster under,” she directed. “Ready? One, two, three.”


  The turkey safely transferred, Molly wiped off her hands and leaned against the counter. “If you want coffee, there are mugs in that cabinet over there. Tea, too.”

  “Coffee’s perfect,” Sloane assured her.

  “Well, how about if you pour us a couple of cups while I get old Tom in the oven?”

  Sloane searched out a pair of pretty blue ceramic mugs. “These are nice.”

  “Nick got those for me one year for Christmas. He said they reminded him of my eyes. Always did have a romantic streak, that boy.”

  “Really?”

  Molly picked up a dish of melted butter. “Well, he could hardly be a firefighter without it, could he? I mean, a lot of it is hard work, but a lot of it is making a difference, maybe saving a life. That takes being a romantic, doesn’t it?”

  And romantics didn’t agree to relationships that had no future, Sloane thought uneasily.

  Molly basted the turkey. “I hope butter doesn’t alarm you. Nick’s brother Gabriel brought home a girl one year who wouldn’t eat a thing once she saw I was cooking with butter. Honestly, it’s Thanksgiving, for heaven’s sakes. Every now and then you throw out the rules.” She shut the oven door briskly. “I’m a stickler for basting a turkey.”

  “My sister-in-law used to swear by cooking the turkey upside down until the last hour and then flipping it.”

  “Your sister-in-law?”

  Sloane hesitated. “My brother’s widow, I mean.”

  Molly’s gaze softened. “Nick mentioned that you’d lost your brother. I’m sorry. It must be hard.”

  “It is,” Sloane said simply. And to her surprise the sympathy was easy to accept for once, rather than embarrassing. Few people she knew were aware of her loss, a loss she kept fiercely private. Perhaps it was easier with Molly Trask because they had loss in common. Sloane looked at her. “Nick told me about your husband, too. I hope you’re getting along all right.”

  “I keep thinking it will get easier. Does it?” For an instant, Molly’s eyes held a glint of pleading.

  She deserved frankness, Sloane thought. “Maybe. It’s always there waiting for you when you least expect it. After a while, though, you stop getting ambushed so often.”

  “How long has it been since your brother passed away?”

  She thought for a moment. “Five years.” And it still seemed like yesterday.

  “I can’t believe it’ll be a year in spring for us. It still takes me by surprise. Something will happen and I’ll think, oh, I have to tell Adam and then I remember that I can’t. When does that stop?”

  “I don’t know. For a long time I thought it never would. It’s gotten easier lately, though.” When had that happened, she wondered. Since she’d been so busy with the gear? Or since Nick? “I try to focus on other things, go on about life. Get past it.” But who was she kidding? She hadn’t gone forward at all.

  Molly drew in a breath and gave an uneven laugh. “Well, now’s not the time to talk about this, not with a house full of people coming.”

  “What can I do to help?” Sloane asked.

  “Sit and drink your coffee. You’re company. You don’t need to do anything.”

  “I want to. I’ll be more at home if you put me to work.”

  “Shy around strangers?” Molly’s eyes were sympathetic. “Well, then, you can start by helping me fix breakfast.”

  Breakfast was a memory and the scent of roasting meat was beginning to perfume the house. Sloane stood slicing sweet potatoes, watching Jacob and Nick through the kitchen window as they repaired the soft spot in the parking apron. Being put to work was soothing; to her surprise, she was actually beginning to relax.

  As she reached for the baking dish that Molly had set out she knocked over the box of brown sugar, sending it cascading onto the floor. “Oh hell,” she murmured. The goal was to help, not make a sticky mess.

  Sloane set aside the sweet potatoes and hurried over to the broom closet. Molly was out of the room ironing a tablecloth. With luck, Sloane could have everything cleaned up before she returned. Knowing how sugar migrated, she swept the better part of the floor before she finally had a small pile near the stove. All she needed was a dustpan and she’d be all set.

  As she reached into the closet to pull the dustpan off its hanger, the hook flipped out of the wall to land in the back of the closet with a metallic tink. Perfect. Come for the holiday and tear the house apart. With a muttered curse, she groped in the corner for the hook, bending down to search with one hand.

  And someone swatted her on the behind.

  Halfway inside the closet, she jerked upright so quickly she thumped her head on the bottom shelf and came up cursing.

  “Funny, Nick.”

  She reached back for help getting out of the closet. When she turned, though, she realized the hand wasn’t Nick’s. It belonged to a complete stranger.

  “Oh hell,” the man said, his wide grin dissolving into consternation, discomfiture and the beginnings of amusement. “I thought you were my cousin.”

  “You always greet your cousin that way?” she asked.

  “When she deserves it, which is most of the time.” The smile was back as he stuck out a hand. “I’m Gabe, Nick’s brother. I take it you’re his guest?”

  “Gabriel!” Molly bustled into the room and gave him a quick hug. “You know Sloane?”

  “We’ve met,” he agreed, face straight.

  “Hey, bro.” Nick stood at the edge of the mudroom, stamping his feet. There was none of the uneasiness with Gabe that there’d been with Jacob, Sloane saw as the two men came together and thumped each other on the back.

  Molly beamed at them. “Such good-looking boys.”

  It was true, Sloane saw. Gabe was perhaps more polished than Nick, his features and style more refined. Nick wore a chunky olive sweater and khakis. Gabe wore a black blazer over an untucked white tuxedo shirt and jeans, with loafers. She could see him wining and dining a lady at a five-star restaurant rather than taking her to a neighborhood tavern. And if Sloane found Nick’s slightly rough-hewn, casual look more appealing, she was sure that Gabe had his choice of female companionship.

  “You’re the one who runs the hotel,” Sloane said, thankful for Nick’s briefing on the way up.

  “Not just any hotel,” Molly said, brushing his arm affectionately. “He manages the Hotel Mount Jefferson.” The phone rang, adding to the cacophony. “You should see it.” Molly walked over to answer the telephone. “It’s gorgeous. Like the old hotel in that movie where Christopher Reeve goes back in time.” She picked up the receiver.

  “Or like The Shining,” Nick added with a wicked smile. “Redrum, redddd rummmmm.” He tattooed his fingers up Sloane’s sides. “This isn’t really Gabe, he’s been taken over by the spirit of the hotel so that all he can do is walk around doing the white-glove test.”

  “You’re just jealous of my organizational skills.”

  “We’re going to need them,” Molly said from across the room as she hung up the phone. “That was the Demmings. Their daughter Marta just showed up with a new fiancé in tow, so we’re going to have two more for dinner.”

  “That’ll be interesting,” Nick observed. “Any ideas?”

  Molly pushed open the swinging door to stare into the dining room at the crowded table, already stretching near to the French doors at the far end.

  Gabe looked thoughtfully over her shoulder.

  Molly frowned. “There’s just no room, not with the French doors there. We can put a couple of the kids at the kitchen table, I suppose.”

  “Nope.” Gabe stepped forward. “Now we come into my area of expertise. You’ve got a card table, right Ma?”

  “Sure, but we can hardly fit another table.”

  “We’ll take care of that. Jacob, do you still have those sheets of plywood left over from fixing up the sugar house?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “Perfect. Let’s get one of them in here. And your toolbox.”

  “What do you have
planned?” Molly demanded suspiciously.

  Gabe grinned. “Trust me, you’re going to love it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The clink of serving spoons on china. The scent of roast turkey and stuffing perfuming the air. The murmur of conversation, the boisterous noises of children and above all, the sound of laughter. The place and faces might have been different, but the sights, sounds and scents of Thanksgiving never changed.

  All things considered, Sloane thought, the table looked wonderful. Under Gabe’s direction, Nick and Jacob had taken down the French doors between the dining room and living room and extended the dining-room table courtesy of the plywood and the card table. Molly and Sloane had done some last-minute juggling with place settings and table linens, and if everything wasn’t a perfect match, the crowd around the table scarcely cared. What mattered was food and company.

  And it felt way too good, she thought with a sudden twinge. Somewhere along the line, shyness had slipped away. There was no room in the Trask world for strangers, and the teasing, joking and sense of purpose had carried her along. This wasn’t her family, though, she had to remember that. It wouldn’t do to get used to the warmth and easiness. Sure, it looked great from the outside but everything ended.

  She knew from firsthand experience.

  Next to her, Nick reached out to squeeze her hand. “You okay?” he murmured.

  Sloane glanced at him, startled that he’d known. “Sure, I’m fine.” She gave him a smile. “Would you pass the turkey?”

  Another thing that never changed about Thanksgiving was the dishes. Sloane set a stack of plates on the kitchen counter and looked around. They’d managed to convince Molly to take a break and let others handle the cleanup. Now they had to do it.

  Jacob pushed through the swinging door that led to the dining room, his hands dwarfing the serving dishes he carried. Now that she saw him in his neat corduroys and pine-colored twill shirt, she realized that her impression of bulk the night before had been mostly a factor of his parka and unruly hair. True, he topped Nick by a couple of inches but he wasn’t fat, not even remotely. Instead, he was solid with muscle built over years of manual labor.