by Jackie Braun
But the only question she deemed polite enough to ask was, “How long has he owned the inn?”
“About six months now,” Doreen said.
“Has he always wanted to be an innkeeper?”
“Good heavens, no.” The older woman chuckled. “We were as surprised as anyone when he called to say he’d bought the old place.” She glanced around now and sighed. “Although it was something back in the day.”
“It needs a lot of tender loving care to be restored, but Jake’s just the person to do it.” This from Bonnie, who added, “And it will keep his mind off … things.”
“What do you do for a living?” Doreen asked, more likely in an effort to change the subject than out of actual interest.
“I’m a guidance counselor.” Or Caro had been, for one of the most prestigious prep schools in Vermont. These days, with the economy being what it was, she’d been lucky to find a part-time position in a public school district. It paid a quarter of her previous salary, but she wasn’t complaining. It was work, she needed the money and the kids made it worthwhile. Kids always did.
“Are you from around here?”
She shook her head. “I was just passing through today. I live in a small town south of Montpelier.”
“Is that where your parents live?” Bonnie asked innocently.
Caro’s heart squeezed. “No. They lived in North Carolina. They’re … gone now. Both of them. In an automobile accident five years this spring.”
Caro stared into her coffee mug now as more tears gathered and threatened to fall. These were born not only of grief but guilt. Her parents had been on their way to see her that fateful day. Their visit was to be a surprise. Thanks to her job at that exclusive prep school, Caro had been kept busy the previous five months. In addition to being the counselor, she’d taken on an after-school tutoring job and had signed on as an assistant coach for the volleyball team.
“God, I’m so sorry.” Bonnie scooted close enough on the couch so she could wrap an arm around Caro’s shoulders.
“How horrible for you. I can’t even imagine.” Doreen, who sat on the opposite side, gave Caro’s arm another squeeze.
The sympathy in the women’s voices and the gestures of comfort were nearly Caro’s undoing. Any minute now she was going to embarrass herself with a display of tears the likes of which she’d denied herself for five long years, fearing if she fell apart completely she might never put herself back together again. She couldn’t afford to be broken now. For Cabot’s sake, she had to remain whole.
“Thank you. You know, I’m feeling rather tired.” Caro set her mug on the coffee table and rose to her feet. Her movements were far from graceful or fluid. “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’ll turn in early.”
The women, of course, weren’t fooled. Nor had Caro expected them to be. Bonnie’s overly bright smile brimmed with compassion, while Doreen nodded knowingly.
“You go right ahead. It’s been a taxing day for you all around.”
“We’ll see you in the morning. I’ll try to keep the kids from waking the entire household before dawn,” Bonnie said. “But I can’t make any promises since they’re going to be eager to find their baskets.”
Her words and the images they conjured up made Caro’s heart ache worse. With a hastily issued “excuse me,” she bolted from the room. She had just cleared the door when the lights flickered twice before going out. The inn went dark with the exception of the glow coming from the fire in the other room.
Caro heard the children squeal and then settle down amid the soothing assurances of the adults.
“Isn’t this an adventure?” she heard Bonnie claim.
A few of those forbidden tears leaked down her cheeks. It was the very thing she’d told Cabot when they’d left the Wendell estate five months ago, trading in a life of luxury and privilege for one far less predetermined.
Caro couldn’t bring herself to go back in, though that would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, she continued in the meager light to the staircase, rapping her elbow on the corner of the reception desk before coming to the stairs.
As she slid her feet carefully along the worn carpet of the treads, she thought she heard the creaking of a second set of footsteps. She stopped, blinked and widened her eyes in an attempt to see something, anything. But by this point everything was black as pitch.
“Hello?” she said at the same time as a foot came down atop hers. If not for the big hands that wrapped around her, the force of their bodies colliding might have sent her flying backward.
“Caro?” It was Jake.
“Yes. I was just on my way upstairs,” she explained needlessly.
“The power’s gone out.” His words were equally unnecessary.
“The storm?”
“I wish I could say it was merely a blown fuse, but, yeah. The storm. We should go back downstairs.”
“No!” She moderated her tone before continuing. “I was just on my way up to bed.”
“Are you all right?” he asked. The hands gripping her arms tightened and she imagined him frowning again.
“Fine. Just tired.”
“It’s barely eight o’clock.”
“Yes, but I’ve been up since dawn and it’s been a rather eventful day,” she replied, using the excuse his mother had given her.
“Eventful.” He snorted. “You can say that again. I’ll walk you up.”
“Oh, there’s really no need. I can find my way by myself,” she told him with more confidence than she actually felt.
A light bounced off the wall at the head of the stairs before its beam turned on them and found them.
“I found a couple of flashlights and some candles in the linen closet just down from my room,” Dean said.
“Great. I’ll take one. Caro’s decided to turn in. I’ll see that she doesn’t run into any walls on her way to her room.”
“So thoughtful,” Dean said wryly. “Why do I get the feeling you wouldn’t do the same for me?”
“Because I wouldn’t. Hitting a wall or two would be good in your case,” Jake replied. “The impact might knock some sense into you.”
Dean laughed, apparently not offended by the insult. “Here you go.” A second light winked on.
“Tell the others I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Okay.” Dean’s joking tone was gone when he asked, “Is that ancient furnace going to hold out?”
“If it goes, we have plenty of wood for the fire. We’ll all be fine.”
Caro found comfort in his words, delivered as they were with such authority. Jake had that air about him. He was a man who meant what he said. Everything would work out. Everything would be fine. The comfort lasted until they reached the bedroom. In her case, the raging snowstorm and loss of power were the least of her concerns.
“Hold this.” He handed her the flashlight and rounded the bed.
The fire had burned down to embers that glowed red in the hearth. Jake added a couple more logs before stirring them with the poker and then blowing. It took mere seconds for the fire to catch and flicker back to life. Afterward, Jake rose to his feet.
“I feel guilty hogging a fireplace and one of the only working bathrooms in the place,” she said as he came back around the bed.
“It’s just for one night, Caro. Maybe two, depending on the roads and your car.”
“Thank God!” He shot her a glance. “You know what I mean,” she said. “The storm.”
He let her off with a nod, but then his gaze sharpened. “You’ve been crying.”
She reached up and brushed off the traces of her earlier tears. “Delayed reaction.” She shrugged. “As I said, it’s been an eventful day.”
She thought that would be the end of it. Then he asked softly, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Trouble?”
“You seem … desperate.”
The word battered what remained of her defenses. Desperate. She was indeed. Yet she tried to deny it. Ja
ke was a stranger, one who had made it clear he wasn’t interested in taking on her problems. Even taking her in from the storm had seemed an imposition.
“I have a—”
“Deadline,” he finished, sounding a little impatient. “I know.”
“I have a son.”
That news clearly caught him off guard.
“A son?”
“He’s three and tomorrow is Easter.”
The tears she’d done her damnedest to keep at bay broke free in a torrent. She dropped her head into her hands, too tired and heartsick to care about propriety or her own dignity. What did those things matter at a time like this?
Jake’s first instinct was to ask the dozen questions that sprang to mind. That was the cop in him, always seeking answers and wanting things to add up. But the woman standing before him wasn’t a case he was working. She was a stranger, the root of whose desperation he thought he now understood. So, he went with his second instinct. This one was rusty for lack of use. He wrapped an arm awkwardly around her shaking shoulders and drew her closer.
She tensed at the contact. They both did. Though he suspected his reaction was more primal than hers. She felt good in his arms, right in a way he didn’t care to analyze. Her hair was soft against his cheek. He forced himself to recall the reason he was holding her. This wasn’t a lover’s embrace. It was about offering comfort.
“It’ll be okay. I think the snow is starting to slow down. The storm will be over by morning and then the county road crews will get busy. You’ll be on your way before … you know it.”
The fact was, it could be days before the roads were clear enough to travel.
“But not in time for Easter,” she said miserably. The words were muffled against his shoulder and he felt another shudder pass through her.
“You said he’s three. Kids that age, they’re incredibly resilient. Celebrate Easter a couple days late with him. He won’t care.”
“Do you have children?”
He stiffened, pulled back, even as his mind was pulled into the past. He recalled one of the first entries he’d written in his journal: Would you have been a boy or a girl?
A boy would be nice. I’d teach you how to do woodwork when you got older, like your grandpa taught me. This is assuming you had my temperament and not Dean’s.
Then again, I have nothing against girls. I’d have been happy either way.
While the original idea of the diary had been so he could purge his anger and mourn his professional demise, he’d used it almost exclusively to express his pain, grief and, later, curiosity regarding the baby Miranda had aborted.
“No. No children.”
Caro blinked, obviously waiting for more, given his earlier reassurance.
“But I … I spend a lot of time with Riley and Jillian.” Or he had before moving to another state. “They’re nice kids.”
“The best.” But Jake’s mind was on his child. “Jake?”
He swallowed, forced himself to focus. “Where is your son right now?”
“In Burlington with his father and paternal grandmother. It was his first extended visit with them since … well, in months. It was supposed to last a couple of days. It’s been more than a week.”
Ah. Custody battle with the ex, Jake concluded.
“You talked to him earlier on the phone,” he said.
I love you.
Her words and soft expression took on a different meaning now. They hadn’t been romantic in nature, but maternal. They were the words of a mother reassuring her child. Something inside him softened, ached. His child had never known that.
“Yes. He’s scared, and he misses me.”
“You said he was only supposed to be with his father for a couple days.”
“That was our agreement. Cabot was to spend one weekend with his father and grandmother on Lake Champlain. They were going to celebrate Easter early since Cabot was supposed to be with me on the actual holiday.”
“But the rules changed,” Jake guessed.
Her eyes closed as she grimaced. “I should have known better. Truman has always been good at seeming reasonable in order to get his way.” Another sob shook her. “When he didn’t arrive at our meeting place at the designated time last Sunday evening, I called him, and … was informed of a change in plans.”
“You’ll be together soon, maybe even by tomorrow night. Or the night after that at the latest.”
“You don’t really believe that.” She shook her head sadly. “The roads might not be passable for days and who knows when my car will be ready. It’s still sitting in a snowbank.”
“It’s going be okay, Caro. I promise. One way or another, you’ll be with your son, even if that means I have to take you there myself.”
Jake didn’t make promises easily. He was the kind of man who needed to be sure he could keep them before giving his word, because his word meant something. At least it still meant something to him, even though much of the public considered him a liar who’d offer up any excuse as a way to cover his butt.
“Why?”
“Your son … he deserves … he deserves …” He couldn’t finish. Because her son deserved what Jake’s child had been denied, a mother’s unconditional love.
Even so, he couldn’t be sure that was the only reason for his offer.
Caro stepped back and studied him. The fire’s glow clearly showed the tracks of her tears. Jake’s hands were more adept at holding guns and subduing suspects—or lately, wielding a hammer—than drying a woman’s damp cheeks. But that’s what he did. All the while, his gaze stayed on hers. Afterward, he flattened his palm against her cheek.
“You’re a good man, Jake.”
Her words were like balm to a wound that still festered. He studied her face in the flickering light. The sexual interest he felt didn’t surprise him. That kind of chemistry was understandable and could be discounted easily enough, especially given his lengthy bout of celibacy. No, it was a different kind of need he was feeling, a yearning whose origin, whose very existence, he was at a loss to explain.
He lowered his head, wanting more than a kiss, which was foolish enough. It was because of what he wanted that he denied himself altogether, and in the end merely brushed his lips against her forehead.
Caro didn’t seem insulted. She smiled at him. “You’ll be a good dad someday.”
She might as well have put a bullet in his heart. He stumbled back a step and swallowed convulsively.
“Jake?”
He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. And so he left.
Long after Jake was gone, Caro stood where he’d left her, arms wrapped around her middle as she waited for her pulse to settle. She passed off her trembling as a result of the cold, though the room was plenty warm now with the fire that was crackling cheerily. The unexpected ache she felt deep inside was what really troubled her.
She wasn’t entitled to feel it. He apparently felt the same, given the way he’d bolted from the room.
She tidied the bed linens, swallowing hard as she did so. She swore his scent wafted up from the sheets, curling about her much like the heat from the fire. It was a good thing she would be leaving as soon as the roads were cleared. She meant it when she’d told Jake he was a good man. Beneath the brooding and bruised exterior, he was just that. The sort of person who did what needed to be done. He didn’t delegate the work to others. He rolled up his sleeves and did it himself.
But even good men could be trouble, especially when they came along at the wrong time. Just as bad men could seem good when a woman was blinded by grief.
Truman’s words from their telephone conversation the week before haunted her.
“You belong with me, Caroline. You need me.”
“I need no one,” she’d protested.
“No, sweetheart. You’re too delicate to be out on your own, especially raising our son.”
“What do you mean by that?” she’d asked.
She’d thought she was beyond his m
anipulations. She’d thought she was well on her way to putting her life back together and creating a happy environment for her son.
It turned out she was wrong.
“I will not have our son raised by a griefstricken single mother. Quite obviously, my dear, you are not thinking clearly. You need to come back by Easter and resume your life as my wife. No one here, other than Mother, of course, knows you tried to leave me.”
“Where do they think Cabot and I have been?” she asked, incredulously.
“Staying at our condo in Belize. You didn’t want to pass the long, cold winter here.”
“And if I don’t come back?” She’d had to swallow twice before asking the question.
“I will of course be forced to seek full custody of our son. You’re not well, Caroline. Surely, you can see that. And I can’t have our son raised by someone unstable.”
“What … what are you talking about?”
“Mother agrees with me. She said it’s a good bet you won’t be allowed to visit Cabot without a social worker’s supervision once a family court judge understands the full scope of things.”
Ice had formed in her heart. The Wendells had that kind of pull and power, and she had none of their connections, much less their vast wealth.
Tonight, given the storm, he’d agreed to allow her one week’s reprieve. But no more.
“I would hate to have to do this, Caroline. Surely, you must know that. But my lawyer is already preparing the paperwork and it will be filed if you don’t return by the end of the week. Remember, I’m doing this for your own good as well as Cabot’s.”
“I’m doing all I can,” she’d pleaded instead.
“Yes, and we’ll see you soon. I know you’ll do what’s right,” he’d finished.
What’s right, she thought now with a sigh. Nothing in her life was going according to what was right, including these unexpected feelings that had welled up so suddenly for Jake McCabe.
Tightening the belt on her borrowed robe, Caro climbed into the bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin, doing her best to ignore thoughts of Jake occupying that very space, tangled up in those very sheets, only the night before.
