“Hold the blade straighter,” he called over the din of the idling motor. With his broad chest pressed to her back, he reached his arms around her, placed his gloved hands over hers and adjusted her angle.
“Ready?” he asked, his breath warm through the soft knit covering her ear.
Conscious of his body enclosing hers, she gave a tense little nod.
She wasn’t sure which disconcerted her more, the thirteen pounds of suddenly screaming machine, or the man surrounding her, making sure she didn’t hurt herself with it. With the blade engaged, metal teeth spinning, the chain bit ice. A quick spray of what looked like snow and wood chips flew.
“Keep your grip steady.” He spoke near her cheek now, his body still at her back as he eased his hands to her shoulders. “You need to keep it from bucking back if you hit a knot. Keep it under control.”
Control, she thought. She hadn’t felt “in control” in ages.
“Like this?” she called, handles in a death grip, her eyes glued to the blade sinking into the wood.
“Just like that,” he called back and, just like that, the weight of the free end of the limb cracked it downward and the blade went through.
A second of disbelief was replaced with a grin as she swung toward him.
“Don’t!” His hand shot forward, the side of his face bumping the corner of her goggles an instant before his hand caught hers to hold the saw in place. Bent against her, he’d turned his head to hers, his lips inches from the startled part of her own.
“The brake,” he said. With a small movement of his hand, the throttle dropped back to idle. “You need to set it as soon as you finish your cut. It’s safer that way.”
She realized now why he’d stayed behind her. Had she swung around, she could have caught him with the blade in his thigh.
Taking the idling machine from her, he shut off the motor, set the saw on the ground.
In the sudden silence, she could hear her heart hammering in her ears. Shaken from the start he’d given her, horrified by what she could have done to him, she dropped her glance to the short placket on his pullover as he rose and turned to her.
“Erik, I’m so sorry.”
His forehead furrowed as he pulled her hand from her mouth and lifted the orange band at her temples. Removing the goggles, he looped them over the fabric covering his forearm.
“Hey. It’s okay.” Hating how he’d killed her quick smile, he touched his gloved finger to her high cheekbone. It was there that the goggles would have bumped. “We hadn’t gotten to that part.” Another second and they would have, he thought, searching her pale features. He just hadn’t expected her to get excited about felling a limb. “Next time you’ll remember.”
He couldn’t feel the smoothness of her skin through the thick suede. He could imagine it, though. Just as he could too easily imagine so many other things he knew he shouldn’t be thinking about her.
Detachment wasn’t an option at the moment. Not with her looking so frightened by what she could have done. “Right?”
Beneath his hand, he felt her faint nod. What he noticed most, though, was how her head turned toward his hand, as if somewhere in her subconscious she craved that unfettered contact, too.
She’d done the same thing last night, right about the time he’d been thinking about reacquainting himself with the feel of her mouth. Heaven knew how tempted he’d been to do just that. But he acknowledged now what he hadn’t then. It hadn’t just been complications with her he wanted to avoid. He hadn’t wanted her thinking of anyone but him when he kissed her. And last night had been far more about easing the doubts that had haunted her for so long than whatever it was that kept him from caring about how easy she was to touch.
Rory watched his glance shift over her face. She had no idea what he was thinking, what it was vying with the concern so evident there, but from the way his eyes narrowed on her cheek, he seemed to be looking for a bruise.
“It didn’t hurt,” she told him, praying she hadn’t caused him one as she unconsciously lifted her hand to his temple.
“I don’t see a mark,” he murmured. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t have a bruise later. You should get some ice on it.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “There’s plenty of it.”
She felt far too concerned to smile back. “I don’t see one on you, either,” she told him, tipping her head to get a better look. “Not yet, anyway.”
Erik’s smile faded. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had touched him simply to make sure he was okay. There was caring in that touch, a hint of worry, a little gentleness. As complex as it seemed, it was really such a simple thing. Something basic. Yet her unveiled concern pulled hard at something deep inside him. Something he hadn’t been sure still existed, and which would have felt decidedly threatening had he had time to consider what it was.
“Mom? Come help me?”
At her son’s request, Rory’s hand fell. Only now aware of how she’d reached to be sure Erik was all right, and of how they must look standing there checking each other out, her glance darted to where Tyler stood by a stack of pine on the porch.
He wanted help with the wreath.
Taking a step back, she called that she’d be right there.
Erik met her lingering disquiet.
“Stop worrying. You’re quick. You’ll get the hang of this,” he insisted. “We’ll give it another try later. In the meantime, you did fine. Really.”
“Except for the part where I nearly disabled you,” she muttered, half under her breath.
“I had you covered, Rory. You were a long way from anything like that.”
A split second was hardly a long way. She’d have pointed that out had his assessment of her capabilities not just registered. It was like last night, she thought, when he’d talked her through the doubts and turmoil of the past year. It seemed he didn’t want her doubting her abilities, or herself, about anything.
He clearly expected her to challenge his last claim. The quick part, probably. She couldn’t. Last night he had called her beautiful, smart and stubborn. The stubbornness she would concede. That he thought her beautiful and smart still left her a little stunned. But what mattered to her most was that for him to feel so certain about her meant he might actually believe in her himself.
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she wanted that sort of faith—that trust—from him.
“I’m going to go help Tyler now.”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “You’re good, then?”
He wanted to know if she believed what he’d said.
I had you covered, Rory.
“I’m good,” she said, and with him already turning to his task, she headed for the porch to rescue the boughs and her rosy-cheeked child.
He had her back. He wasn’t going to let anything bad happen as long as he was there.
He couldn’t begin to know how much that assurance mattered to her.
Chapter Nine
Erik had told her not to worry.
Rory wasn’t sure she knew how to do that. The unwelcomed trait had become second nature. Yet what concerned her far more than her lack of skill with gas-fueled equipment was how she found herself wishing Erik’s solid presence could be part of the community that encouraged her with its potential.
Ed Shumway, the neighbor who’d loaned Erik the saw, was married to Edie, the loquacious neighbor who’d first welcomed her to the neighborhood. He had come to repay Erik for his assist moving a limb from his garage that morning. Having heard on the news that it would be at least two days before crews could get in to restore power, he’d brought his bigger saw to help him clear the uprooted oak from the road that was their main access to town.
Even for her neighbors who didn’t have access to TV news, word traveled fast by cell pho
ne. Crystal Murphy, her laugh infectious and her carrot-red hair clashing wildly with her purple earmuffs, brought her four-year-old son to play with Tyler while her husband, Tony the roofer, joined the men. Her mom was at their house a quarter of a mile away with their two-year-old. They didn’t have power but that seemed just fine with them. They had a woodstove and kerosene lamps and Crystal confessed to liking the throwback lifestyle. She turned out to be the candle maker Edie had told Rory about.
Jeremy Ott came for the same reason as Tony and Ed. Talia, his wife, who taught riding lessons at the stables a mile farther up, had braved the cold with her five-year-old twins because Edie had mentioned that Rory had a son their age.
Edie herself showed up with her two children, twelve and six, and a half gallon of milk. With all the children, hot cocoa went fast.
Even with all the activity, Rory found her attention straying to the man who stood just a little taller than the rest.
It was nearing four o’clock when the women stepped out onto the porch to see how much longer the men would be. The kids were warming up in front of the TV, under Edie’s preteen’s supervision, and it would be dark soon. There were suppers to prepare.
Rory doubted that Erik had taken a real break since lunch. All she’d noticed him stop for was to stretch his back or absently rub his neck before tossing aside another log or attacking another limb on the downed oak.
She was standing by the railing between Crystal and Edie when he made a V of his arm and hitched his shoulder before putting his back into hefting another chunk of tree. He and Tony were hauling cut sections of limbs to the side of the road while the other two men continued decreasing the size of what had blocked it.
Seeing who had Rory’s attention, Edie flipped her braid over her shoulder and tipped her dark blond head toward her. A navy Seattle Seahawks headband warmed her ears.
“He’s an attractive man, isn’t he?”
“Who?” asked Talia, leaning past Crystal.
“Erik,” the older woman replied.
Rory gave a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose.” If you like the tall, dark, unattainable type, she thought. Suspecting her neighbor was fishing, she glanced to Edie’s nearly empty mug. “More coffee?”
“I’m good. Thanks.” The loquacious woman with the too-keen radar kept her focus on the men methodically dismantling the tree.
“He and his business partner have done quite well for themselves, you know.”
“I’d say they’ve done extremely well,” Crystal emphasized. “Pax—his business partner,” she explained helpfully to Rory, “is from here, too. I’ve heard they’re both millionaires.”
“I’ve met Pax. Nice guy,” Rory admitted. What she didn’t mention was that she already knew that Erik had means—that he even had friends among the very rich and famous.
She had been surrounded by the well-to-do, and those intent on joining their ranks, from the moment she’d married until she’d moved mere weeks ago. The understated way Erik used his wealth and the way he didn’t balk at getting his own hands dirty just made her forget that at times.
Edie gave her a curious glance. “Would you mind a personal question? I didn’t want to ask when I first met you,” she explained. “I mean, I did, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the time.”
Rory smiled, a little surprised by the request for permission. “Ask what?”
“How long you’ve been widowed.”
“A year and two months.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It really is,” Crystal agreed. “I’m sorry, Rory.”
“That has to be so hard.” Talia placed her gloved hand over her heart. “I don’t know what I’d do without Jeremy.”
Edie shook her head. “I meant it’s too bad it hasn’t been longer. I was just thinking how nice it would be if you two hit it off. I’m sorry for your loss, too,” she sincerely assured Rory. “But I imagine you need a little more time before you start thinking in that direction.”
“I don’t know about that,” Talia piped in. “My uncle remarried six months after my aunt passed.”
“I think men do that because they don’t know how to take care of themselves,” claimed Edie.
Crystal frowned. “I thought that the men who married fast like that were the ones who’d had good marriages, so they weren’t afraid to jump back in.”
“If that’s true,” Talia said, leaping ahead, “then the opposite could explain why Erik hasn’t remarried. I’ve never heard what happened with him and...what was her name?”
“Shauna,” the other two women simultaneously supplied.
“Right. She wasn’t from here,” she explained to Rory. “They met one summer and she moved here after they married, but they left for Seattle after a year or so. My point, though,” she claimed, getting to it, “is that maybe his experience has put him off women.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s off women,” Rory admitted. “We’ve had a couple of meetings where he had to leave because he had a date.”
Talia shrugged. “Well, there goes that theory.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not gun-shy,” Crystal supplied supportively.
“True. But Rory’s not looking right now,” Edie reminded them. “Anyway, I was just thinking it would be nice if Erik would come back. I can’t imagine that he ever would,” she insisted, certainty in her conclusion. “Not with his business so well established over in Seattle. But he still seems to fit in so perfectly here.”
The woman who’d brought up the subject of her potential availability had just as abruptly concluded it. Relieved to have escaped matchmaking efforts, for a while at least, and not sure how she felt having reminded herself of her mentor’s social life, Rory found herself silently agreeing with her well-intentioned neighbor.
Erik did seem to fit in. But then, he’d been raised there. Without letting herself wonder why, she’d also wondered if there was ever anything about this place that he missed. Or if his emotional barriers kept him from even noticing.
It hadn’t sounded to Rory as if the women knew the other, more personal reasons why he wouldn’t be coming back. The dreams he’d buried there. Still, Edie was right. Everything Erik cared about was in Seattle.
And everything she now cared about was here, she thought, and went back to looking a little concerned about him again.
* * *
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“Because we were almost finished.”
“You were out there another two hours, Erik.”
“That’s close enough to almost. I’ll be fine after a hot shower. How did it go with the neighbors?”
The man was hopeless.
“It was nice.” You escaped the part where Edie wanted to make us a couple, she thought, but other than that... “Crystal is going to bring me samples of her candles to see if I’d be interested in selling them. And Talia’s twins go to the school I enrolled Tyler in. We’re going to carpool.”
She frowned at the way he cupped his neck as he sat down at the island. He’d said he’d be fine, though. The man had a scar as wide as Tyler’s tired smile on the inside of his forearm. It was visible now where he’d pushed up his sleeves. He knew how much discomfort he could handle.
“What are you grinning about, bud?” he asked, tired but smiling himself.
Tyler took a deep breath, gave a decisive nod. “This was the best day ever.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” Forearms resting on either side of his heaped and steaming bowl of stew, he looked over at the little guy who’d mimicked his position. “What made it so good?”
Tyler looked over his shoulder at the white lights softly illuminating the room behind them. The fire in the stone fireplace crackled and glowed.
“My tree. And the ice on everything. And my new friends.”
He wrinkled his little brow, thinking. “And Mom, ’cause I got cocoa two times. And you.”
“Me?” Erik exhaled a little laugh. “What did I do?”
“Well,” he began, pondering. “You fixed things. And you made Mom laugh.”
Erik’s glance cut to where she sat at the end of the island, back to the child between them. “I did?”
“Uh-huh,” Tyler insisted, his nod vigorous. “When you dropped your coat on her.”
Though Erik looked a little puzzled, Rory knew exactly what Tyler was talking about. The two of them had just gathered boughs for the wreath. She’d been sorting them on the porch, her head bent over their project, when Erik had walked up behind her and asked if she’d take his jacket. With her back to him and him in work mode, she’d no sooner said she’d be glad to when he’d unceremoniously dropped it over her head.
He’d meant it to land on her shoulders. But she’d looked up just then. Heavy and huge on her, she’d practically disappeared under the soft black leather.
She’d already been smiling at what he’d done and gone still at the unexpectedness of it when he’d lifted the back of the collar and peeked around at her.
“You okay in there?” he’d asked, and the smile in his eyes had turned her smile into something that had sounded very much like a giggle.
She hadn’t giggled since she was sixteen.
Erik apparently remembered now, too.
Looking over at Tyler, he gave his little buddy a knowing nod. He remembered the bright sound of that laugh, of hearing a hint of lightness in it he suspected she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“She needs to do that more often,” he decided, and after arching his eyebrow at her, suggested Tyler finish his stew before he went after it himself.
Rory glanced away, stabbed a piece of carrot. She wished he wouldn’t do that—arch his eyebrow at her that way. Something about the expression seemed teasing, playful and challenging all at once. Except for the challenging part, it also tended to disarm her and she’d been having a hard enough time remembering why she needed to keep her emotional guard in place with him pretty much since he’d strong-armed her into trying Ed’s saw. Or maybe the problem had started last night, when she’d unloaded on him. Again. Or yesterday, when he’d sided with Tyler about the size of the tree.
Her Holiday Prince Charming Page 16
