“I’m sorry I pressed you about it but I’m very glad you confided in me. I assure you, I will keep what you have shared with me confidential. I’m sure you have a strong support system around you and probably amazing physicians back in California but I understand how isolating a serious medical condition can be.” She handed him a card. “This is my cell number and my email. Please know you can contact me at any time if you have any concerns or questions while you’re in the Lake Haven area.”
“Thank you.”
He opened the office door for her and after a pause, she walked out and rejoined her sister and Eliza, who stood admiring the Christmas tree in the great room.
“Everything okay?” McKenzie asked with a curious look at her sister.
The physician gave her a casual smile. “Yes. I was just telling Mr. Caine here about the Lights on the Lake Festival and urging him to take his family while they’re here.”
“The Lights on the Lake Festival?” Eliza asked.
“Yes. It’s a week from today,” McKenzie said. “It’s great fun. You’ll love it! It’s a huge celebration in town where all the boat owners in Haven Point and Shelter Springs decorate their watercraft with Christmas lights and sail in a big parade from their marina to ours, three miles. There’s a big gift boutique, food vendors, music and then they light off fireworks over the lake.”
“In the cold?” Eliza asked.
“Everybody bundles up, warm and cozy, and the town puts little kerosene heaters all over downtown. I promise, you’ll have a great time.”
“You said it’s next Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“My family isn’t coming until the following Tuesday. The day before Christmas Eve.”
Too bad he hadn’t known about it earlier or he could have scheduled his family visit differently—though with all the complicated schedules, he wasn’t sure they could have pulled it off, anyway.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” McKenzie said. “It’s a can’t-miss event. But you all should definitely come. I promise, you’ll love it.”
“Sounds fun,” Eliza said. “Thank you for the information. And thank you especially for coming out in the storm to check on me. It was very kind of you. Both of you.”
“We take care of each other here on the lake,” Dr. Shaw said. “You’ll see that after you’ve been here a few months.”
Eliza looked regretful. “I’m afraid I won’t be here that long,” she answered. “I’m only staying here through the holidays to help Mr. Caine with his guests.”
“I understand from Megan Hamilton that you were supposed to start as her new manager today, until the place burned down yesterday,” McKenzie Shaw said.
Eliza made a face. “Yes. Obviously, yesterday was not the best day of my life.”
“No kidding! I’ll keep my eyes open to see if anybody else might be hiring in the area,” she offered.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. We love when new people move in,” McKenzie said. She gave him a quick look. “Well, usually.”
He didn’t laugh but was surprised to find he wanted to.
“Kenz, we better go,” her sister said quickly.
“Yeah, you’re right. Places to go, people to see. You know how it is.”
They both hugged Eliza, who seemed surprised and touched by the gesture, then headed out into the softly falling snow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE COULDN’T SLEEP.
Eliza lay in the comfortable bed listening to Maddie’s soft breathing and gazing out through the slats of the blinds to the pearly glow of the moonlight on the snow.
She really hated these nights, when her mind raced in a hundred directions and she just couldn’t get comfortable.
By all rights, she should be snoozing away. This just might be the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in. The mattress was the ideal firmness—not too hard, not too soft. The sheets were high-end Egyptian cotton, at least thousand-thread count. The quilted comforter was warm and cozy without being oppressively heavy.
So why was she wide awake at—she checked the readout on her phone—3:00 a.m.?
Okay, maybe she had a few reasons. So much had happened to her in the past few days, she really hadn’t had a chance to process everything—new job, new responsibilities, a new place to live, the intricacies of forging new working relationships. Underneath, as always, was the unrelenting fear that she wouldn’t be able to take care of this fragile child who depended on her for everything.
She gazed out at that slice of moonlight. For now she had a job, they had a more-than-comfortable place to live, and she had the rare luxury of time to figure out her next step—of course, she also had a great deal to do in the next week and a half.
She had taken a complete tour of the house earlier with the list of family members Aidan had given her, trying to figure out which room would work best for each of them. She found the bedroom suites empty shells containing bare-bones furniture but little else— naked beds, empty dressers and blank walls.
The public rooms of the house—the great room, the media room, the game room—were furnished and decorated, though all of them could use a little more warmth and holiday cheer.
What she had seen of Snow Angel Cove reminded her too much of an elegant hotel, she thought again. That was all fine when someone wanted to stay in an elegant hotel but Aidan’s family was coming to enjoy Christmas together in his home. They didn’t need fancy amenities as much as they needed all the comforting touches that made a place feel like a home—and she had her work cut out for her to deliver it to them given the time constraints.
She wouldn’t be able to do that work if she didn’t get some sleep. She flipped her pillow to the cooler side and rolled over but even that didn’t help her find a comfortable position that eased the ache in her wrist and her back.
Between her discomfort and her racing thoughts, she probably wasn’t going to be able to sleep anytime soon. The last time she took pain relief had been hours before, at lunchtime. Maybe swallowing her stubbornness along with some ibuprofen would be a good first step.
With a sigh, she pushed the comforter down and sat up. Good plan.
She pulled on fuzzy socks and her robe then found the baby monitor she had dug out of one of the boxes Jim and Aidan had brought in after dinner. She hadn’t had time to unpack all of them—and wasn’t sure she would, anyway, since they would only be here for a few weeks—but she had found this while looking for Maddie’s favorite cozy blanket before bedtime.
Some little burst of mother’s intuition had prompted her to include it in the boxes she had brought along to Haven Point instead of leaving it in their storage facility with the rest of their things. She had thought maybe it would come in handy if she were required to work the front desk after hours at the Lake Haven Inn and needed to leave Maddie sleeping for a while in their attached apartment.
Whatever the instinct, she was grateful to have it in this big house where she might not be able to hear her daughter wake up otherwise.
How many times over the past five and three-quarter years had something similar happened to her? One memorable time, she had been compelled to double-check a prescription she had picked up a dozen times before at the pharmacy, one she usually didn’t think twice about. She vividly remembered the cold fear cramping in her stomach when she discovered the pharmacist had made a grave error and given her a much more highly concentrated medication than Maddie’s usual dose.
It could have been a deadly mistake. If she hadn’t followed that sixth sense to check the bottle before giving it to Maddie, the overdose probably would have killed her daughter.
She liked to think Maddie had more than a few angels looking out for her.
After turning on the monitor, she slipped the receiver in her poc
ket then used the flashlight app on her cell phone to first find the bottle of ibuprofen in her purse and then guide her path through the boxes in the sitting room and out of her rooms toward the kitchen.
The instant she walked into the kitchen, she realized she wasn’t alone. Flames danced in the sitting area’s gas fireplace, sending out warmth and light enough to outline the shadow of someone sitting on the sofa. She felt just an instant’s fear at the unexpected before she recognized Aidan.
Was he asleep?
She started to tiptoe back to her room, not wanting to bother him, but again that instinct stopped her.
“Are you...okay?” she asked.
Her employer shifted to face her and in the shaft of snow-brightened moonlight filtering in through the window, she caught an expression of raw pain on his features before he quickly contained it.
“Fine,” he said, his voice tight.
That was a bald lie if she had ever heard one. She hesitated. It was none of her business. He was her boss, that was it, and she sensed he was also a very private man. She should just turn around and go back to her room, leaving him in peace.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t very good at doing what she should.
She took a step forward and then another. “I don’t believe you,” she said calmly.
The rough sound he made wasn’t quite a laugh, but close. “Who said you had to?”
His blue eyes gleamed silver in the moonlight and flames, his mouth set in grooves of pain. He had his elbow up on the back of the sofa and was resting his head on his hand as if his neck couldn’t bear the weight of it.
“What is it? Headache?” It seemed the logical choice, given his posture.
He made that rough sound again. “Something like that.”
“Can I get you something for it?” She held out the bottle in her hand. “I was on my way to take a couple of ibuprofen. I only came out for a glass of water.”
“I have medicine for it. I was just...delaying the inevitable.”
He reached out and flipped on the lamp beside the sofa and she saw the prescription bottle on the table at his elbow.
“I’ll get you some water,” she offered. Without waiting for a response, she crossed to the cupboard by the sink for two glasses then filled them from the filtered water pitcher in the refrigerator before returning to his side.
“Thanks,” he said when she handed him one. “You know you don’t have to wait on me.”
“It’s only a glass of water. I didn’t exactly offer to wash your feet with my tears.”
He made that same rough, not-quite-a-laugh sound, sending shivers up her spine. She did her best to ignore them. She was not going to give in to this unwelcome attraction, especially right now. The man was in pain, for heaven’s sake.
“Go on. Take your medicine so you can feel better. You’re not proving anything, except your own stubbornness.”
“That sounds like something my mother would have said.”
“You can consider me your surrogate mother, then.”
He gave her an unreadable look. “Yeah, that’s not about to happen.”
The words seemed to shiver between them like the echo of sleigh bells on the night air.
After a moment, he shook out a couple of pills from the bottle and washed them down in one gulp.
“There. Now your turn.”
Apparently, they were bonding over pain medication. These few days were turning into the most surreal of her life. Under his watchful eye, she took out a couple of ibuprofen and swallowed them back. The cold water tasted delicious and she took several more swallows.
“There. Happy now?”
“Getting there. Tell me the truth. Are you having a lot of pain from the accident?”
“No, not really. Just a bit achy. I thought a couple of ibuprofen would take the edge off. What about yours? Migraine?”
He was silent for a several moments and she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. She had the impression he was having one of those personal debates with himself like she always did.
Finally, he seemed to reach some kind of internal decision. His sigh sounded weary and a little self-conscious. “The truth is, I had brain surgery eleven weeks ago. I still have some residual headaches once in a while.”
She stared at him, quite certain she hadn’t heard him correctly. Of all the things she might have expected him to say, she never would have anticipated that answer.
“Brain surgery! You’re not serious?”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t believe most people would throw those particular words out as some kind of a joke.”
She sank down onto the easy chair next to the sofa. “Why did you... I mean...are you... Is everything okay now?”
He lifted one palm. “As far as the docs can tell. I had a brain tumor. Benign, thank God, though they weren’t sure of that at first.”
A brain tumor. Dear heavens. She tried to imagine how terrifying that must have been for a man like Aidan: successful, powerful, used to being completely in control of his own empire. His genius was legendary, even to someone outside of the tech world. Trent had been a huge fan, naturally, and used to rave about Aidan’s cutting-edge ideas. He was Caine Tech—brilliant, creative, innovative.
And apparently he had a brain tumor.
“After they figured out it was benign, they wanted to leave it alone but it started growing at a rather alarming rate so they decided it was best to remove it.”
Eleven weeks. Not even three months. How had he concealed it so well? She hadn’t seen so much as a scar. “Have you had the headaches since the surgery?”
“At first they were constant but the last month they’ve eased to once or twice a week.”
She still couldn’t imagine that, after her own experience the past thirty-six hours with pain.
“Besides the headaches is everything...okay?”
“You mean is my cognitive function impaired? Am I having hallucinations or seizures or anything? You’re the second one to ask me that today. I’m fine. I’ve had a little memory loss from right before the surgery and right after but that’s the extent of it. The doctors tell me my recovery has been nothing short of miraculous. I wouldn’t have even mentioned it if you hadn’t come in tonight and caught me in an unguarded moment.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you.”
He waved off her apology. “No need to apologize. You have every right to be here.”
“Does anything help? A warm compress? A cold one?”
“I’m fine. Usually I just need to sit in a dark room for a while.”
She rose again. “In that case, I’ll get out of your way.”
“You don’t have to leave. I’m already feeling better. You were right, I shouldn’t have been stubborn about the medication. I don’t like some of the side effects but the headache is worse than a few minor inconveniences. Sit down if you’d like.”
He wanted her to stay. Though he didn’t specifically say so, she saw a certain shadow of loneliness in his eyes, a sort of wistful hesitance in the invitation.
She paused, torn. A winter night, a flickering fire, a gorgeous, fascinating man. All in all, a dangerously irresistible combination.
How could she possibly walk away?
She sank back into the easy chair with an odd feeling of inevitability. “For a few moments. I really need to at least try to sleep tonight. I have it on good authority my new employer is a harsh taskmaster.”
“I’m sure he’s not as bad as his reputation.”
“I will have to judge that for myself, I suppose.”
In light of the information he had just shared with her, a few more pieces of the Aidan Caine puzzle seemed to click into place. “Your brain tumor is the reason you’ve invited your family to Snow Angel Cove for the
holidays, isn’t it?”
He sipped at his water instead of answering but she knew suddenly she was right.
Like many people facing a personal crisis, he was turning to those who had loved him all his life—for comfort, for support, perhaps simply for a connection to the familiar.
The insight made her heart ache a little for him, even as she was aware of a tweak of envy that he had such a huge circle he could gather around him.
“I hate to mention this, but I’m going to have to insist you don’t say anything to anyone else about what I just told you,” Aidan said.
She bristled, that moment of soft compassion giving way to annoyance that he would think she was the sort of person who might run to the tabloids with this sort of juicy tidbit. “I never would! Even if I hadn’t signed a nondisclosure clause with my employment paperwork, I wouldn’t share your personal information with anyone, Aidan.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure you wouldn’t. I just had to be clear. It’s a very closely guarded secret. If it became public knowledge before I’m a hundred percent back to normal, the Caine Tech shareholders could panic. We’re in the middle of some very intricate negotiations to purchase two other companies right now and I don’t want to unnecessarily complicate matters.”
Again, that compassion squeezed her chest. The poor man. She couldn’t imagine the sort of pressure on him, where he had to be so guarded about his personal life.
On the other hand, she was keeping secrets from him about her own history and about Trent’s death, so perhaps she wasn’t in a position to judge.
“I won’t say a word,” she promised.
He sipped at his water and gazed at the flickering fire. The gas fireplaces were far more convenient than those that burned wood for fuel and were cozy enough to warm a room, but something was definitely lost without the crackle and hiss and the aroma of burning fruitwood.
“I also must insist you not mention anything about my brain tumor to my family members while they’re here.”
It was a good thing she was firmly sitting down or she would have stumbled, with her typical style and grace. “What? You mean your family doesn’t even know?”
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