Snow Angel Cove

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He felt like a different person than he had been earlier in the evening—as if everything he was and everything he wanted had just undergone a radical shift.

  After the doctors found his brain tumor, he remembered walking out of the office and into the August sunshine, amazed to see people going about their business, driving down the road, walking into stores, eating in restaurants. How could life just go on around him like normal when his world had just been completely rocked on its axis and nothing would ever be the same?

  This evening spent with Eliza and Maddie felt much the same, for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

  He had feelings for her. He wasn’t sure how or when they started, but he was coming to care deeply for her courage and her strength, her sweetness and warmth.

  He didn’t want to think about her and Maddie leaving. But how could he convince her to stay when she was throwing up barriers between them as fast as she could come up with them?

  You’re like a fairy-tale prince and I’m Cinderella without the godmother and the cool shoes.

  He smiled a little at the silly analogy, though it bothered him that she saw the two of them through that filter.

  He was no Prince Charming. His brain tumor had forced him to take a hard look at his life and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. He was driven and focused, which could sometimes come across as cold and uncaring.

  He might live in a nice house—a few of them, actually—and have a private jet at his disposal but that wasn’t the heart of him. He would never argue that he liked the luxuries he could afford now. More than that, he liked that his family members were all comfortable financially because he had given them stock in his company early on.

  If Pop didn’t want to work another minute at the Center of Hope, he could have a more-than-comfortable retirement. Charlotte had been able to buy her candy store in Hope’s Crossing and a nice house in a very expensive resort town real estate market. Dylan had bought his property in Snowflake Canyon. Jamie could leave the army right now if he wanted and never fly a helicopter again for the rest of his days.

  All of Pop’s grandkids could have their pick of any university, thanks to the education trust funds he had set up for each of them.

  He liked the trappings of his amazing success but beneath it all, he was a man who had come face-to-face with his own mortality in recent months and had come to realize it wasn’t enough anymore.

  He wanted a family.

  He wanted someone to share his life with. He wanted someone sweet and warm and generous, who would light up when she saw him like Lucy did when she saw Brendan, like Genevieve for Dylan or Charlotte for Spence.

  He remembered talking to Dylan shortly after he and Genevieve started seeing each other. Though he had known he was risking a right hook, he had asked his brother what he possibly saw in Gen, the spoiled society belle who had finally managed to make his wounded warrior brother smile again. They were the most unlikely of couples but somehow they just worked together.

  Instead of reacting with his fists—or fist, in these days, as his arm had been amputated—Dylan had shrugged with that slightly besotted look he wore most of the time these days.

  “She calms the crazy,” he had said simply, looking a little embarrassed to admit such a thing to his brother.

  Aidan hadn’t known what the hell his brother was talking about until right this moment. He was not only drawn to Eliza on a physical level but on a deeply emotional one, as well.

  When he spent time with her and Maddie, the usual frenzy of his thoughts—constantly racing from idea to idea and project to project—seemed to quiet to a low murmur, allowing him to simply be. It was a rare luxury, indeed, and one he suddenly craved with a fierceness that shocked him.

  He sighed and sipped at what was left of his chocolate. It was cold now, congealed in the cup, and he quickly set it down again.

  What was he going to do with her?

  She had said one thing that rang with resonance. She worked for him. Yes, it had been a cobbled-together job offered more out of guilt and obligation than any real need, but she had proven herself indispensable.

  He had a dilemma, then. He didn’t want her to leave but he didn’t want her to stay on as his housekeeper-slash-hostess, either.

  Okay, solving problems was what he did best. He would set his considerable mind to it and figure out a way to convince her a relationship between them was not only possible but inevitable.

  She might not have a fairy godmother, but she had him.

  * * *

  “SUE, YOU NEED to see a doctor.”

  Eliza frowned at Aidan’s cook, who stood at the big six-burner stove with her foot on a stool. She was pale and drawn, with lines of pain around her mouth.

  “I’m fine. This is stupid. I’m just such a klutz.”

  “You told me you tripped. What exactly happened?”

  “I wish I knew. It was just one of those weird things, you know? One minute I was walking along minding my own business, enjoying the night after the parade, the next I slipped off a curb and twisted my foot. I’m sure I was quite a sight, a dried-up old broad lying there in the gutter.”

  Sue tried to make a joke and smiled at Maddie, sitting at the work island doing one of her math worksheets, but as she twisted to reach for the egg carton on the countertop, she winced as if she had dropped a heavy cast iron Dutch oven on her foot.

  She swallowed a moan and Eliza moved forward to grab the eggs for her and move them closer so she could reach. She wanted to haul the woman to the doctor herself. Worry was a hard knot in her stomach.

  “Please, Sue. You need to sit down.”

  “Oh, don’t fret about me. By tomorrow, I’ll be in fighting form. You’ll see.”

  “The only thing you’re going to be fighting is me if you don’t sit down and take some weight off that foot. I mean it. I can’t believe Jim didn’t take you into the E.R. for an X-ray last night.”

  “He wanted to, that old worrywart. I wouldn’t go. Told him, I didn’t need to waste our hard-earned money for a doctor to tell me it was only sprained. The only way I was going to that clinic was if he tossed me over his shoulder and dragged me there kicking and screaming. He knew it wasn’t an idle threat—just like he knows darn well he can’t lift me anymore, what with his bad back and all.”

  She hopped to the work island for the package of bacon she had left there. By the time she hopped the short distance back to the stove, she looked close to passing out.

  “Good grief, you are one stubborn woman,” Eliza exclaimed. “Sit down. I’m making breakfast. I can handle pancakes and bacon.”

  Sue looked as if she wanted to argue but didn’t quite have the strength to do it. After a moment, she sighed and sank onto one of the stools around the work island. Tears of frustration and pain gathered.

  “What am I going to do? Aidan’s family is coming in two days.”

  Eliza snatched a tissue from the box on the counter and handed it to her, then grasped Sue’s other hand in both of hers. “Please let me take you in for an X-ray. If it’s a sprain, you can at least get some crutches so you’re not hobbling around in pain with only that old cane you’re using. Who knows? Maybe they can give you a brace or something, or one of those cool little knee walkers I’ve seen people use at the grocery store. You don’t want to do more damage to it, possibly make things worse, right? If you can’t even stand up, you won’t be any use to Aidan while his family is here. You know that.”

  The older woman seemed to waver. “I hate hospitals.”

  Maddie slipped down from her chair and came over to Sue. This darling girl who had endured too many hospital visits placed a hand on the older woman’s leg. “You shouldn’t hate hospitals. The doctors and nurses only want to help you feel better.”

  “Is that right?” Sue gave a little
chuckle at receiving words of advice from a five-year-old.

  Maddie nodded. “Even when they have to hurt you, it’s only so they can fix what’s wrong with you, then you’ll be all better.”

  Sue tugged at one of Maddie’s braids. “You’re a pretty smart cookie, you know that?”

  Maddie beamed at her and even though Sue looked tired and cranky and sore, she still smiled back.

  “I don’t have time for a sprained ankle,” she said under her breath. “In forty-eight hours, twenty-plus people will be arriving here with empty stomachs.”

  “We’ll make sure nobody goes hungry, Sue, I promise.”

  “You know what the worst thing just might be? Having to admit everybody else around here is right and I just might be wrong.”

  “We’ve all been there, right?”

  Eliza smiled, thinking how very dear this woman and her husband had become in the time she had been at Snow Angel Cove. She wanted to be just like Sue some day, plucky and strong, opinionated and hardworking and efficient.

  “Who knows? It might just be a sprain, just as you said, but you can’t know for sure until you have it checked out. I’ll just finish the breakfast and we can run over to the Lake Haven Hospital.”

  “Jim can take me. You’ve got plenty to do here.”

  Eliza started to tell Sue that everything else could wait but she heard the door of the mudroom open before she could, then Jim’s and Aidan’s voices.

  “Speak of the devil,” Sue said.

  A moment later, the two men walked into the kitchen. Eliza’s resident troop of butterflies started dancing around her insides again at seeing him for the first time since she had left his arms the night before.

  “Morning,” he murmured to all of them, but she was quite certain his gaze rested on her for much longer than was strictly necessary.

  “Hi, Mr. Aidan,” Maddie said cheerfully. “Sue needs to go to the hospital.”

  He blinked at Maddie’s casual tone. “What?”

  “It’s nothing,” the cook assured him. “I slid over an icy curb at the boat parade last night. I probably should go get a brace or something.”

  “I knew it!” Jim exclaimed. “I should have taken you there last night like I wanted to. Maybe if I had, it wouldn’t have been so swollen that you couldn’t even put your shoe on this morning.”

  “You’re right and I was wrong. There. I said it. Happy now?”

  She looked so miserable that Eliza couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Any trace of pity seemed completely inconsequential when Jim stepped forward and kissed the top of the woman’s graying head.

  “Now, how could I be happy when my darling girl is in pain?” the quiet cowboy said.

  Oh. Eliza’s butterflies stopped long enough to go as gooey as the rest of her. She glanced at Aidan and found him watching the older couple with a softness she didn’t usually see there.

  “Son, you mind if I take the Suburban?” Jim asked him. “She can stretch her leg out better in that.”

  “Not at all. I’ll go pull it around for you.”

  He gaze Eliza a quick, unreadable look, then hurried back out to the mudroom and out the door.

  “Can you go over to our place for my best black coat and my purse with the insurance information?” Sue patted Jim’s arm, apparently resigned to her fate now and in action mode.

  “You bet. Be back in a flash.”

  He practically galloped out the door.

  “I think the darn thing might be broken,” Sue admitted when it was just the two of them and Maddie in the kitchen again. “I’ve had sprains before and they never hurt like this one.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “What if it is? I’ll ruin everything for Aidan and his family.”

  “You’ll ruin nothing,” Eliza insisted. “I told you, we’ll figure it out. I can manage with a little help. You can sit right there at the work island with your cast up on a chair and tell me everything you need me to do.”

  “I wanted the holidays to be perfect for Aidan. It’s important to him. Especially this year.”

  “Because of his brain tumor?” Eliza asked, after making sure Maddie had gone back to her worksheets and was humming softly to herself, not paying any attention to them.

  Sue looked surprised. “He actually let you in on the big dark secret? Wow. I’m shocked. You’re one of only a lucky trusted few. He didn’t even tell most of his household staff in California. He leased a house on the coast to keep it a secret and called me and Jim out of retirement to go help him there.”

  “Why the big secret? Do you know?”

  Sue sighed and shifted her leg on the chair. Eliza caught a glimpse of her foot, swollen and discolored. It looked worse than a sprain to her.

  “He said it was because of how it might affect the Caine Tech bottom line if news trickled out. Make shareholders question the direction of the company and who might take over if his brain tumor turned out to be fatal.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he hates showing any sign of weakness. I don’t know, that might be from having so many tough brothers or it might just be part of who he is, the same way he likes to believe he doesn’t need anybody.”

  He was an independent, complicated tangle of a man and she was coming to care far too much about him.

  Before she could answer, Jim came in.

  “Is this the coat you wanted?” he asked.

  “That will do.”

  He helped her slip her arms in just as Aidan came in from the other direction. It must have started snowing, as his ranch coat had little sprinkles of snow scattered over the shoulders.

  “Your carriage awaits, madam.”

  “Thank you, darlin’.”

  She gingerly rose to her feet and started hopping to the door with the cane she had brought along. Aidan let her go only to the edge of the work island before he sighed and scooped her up in one smooth motion.

  “Put me down, you fool. You shouldn’t be lifting anything, especially not someone my size.”

  “You weigh no more than Maddie over there and I carried her to bed last night.”

  Maddie giggled as the wiry cook flushed brighter than a poinsettia. “You’re crazy. That’s what you are. Loony as popcorn on a hot skillet. Put me down! Right now!”

  “Stop wriggling around,” he said with a laugh. “You’re only making it harder.”

  She instantly subsided.

  “What do you need me to do while you’re gone?” Eliza asked.

  “Finish fixing breakfast for his orneriness here,” Sue said. “That should do it.”

  “You don’t need to fix me anything,” Aidan protested as he carried her out the door. Jim picked up Sue’s purse and headed out after them. He paused in the doorway and turned back to Eliza.

  “Whatever you said to convince her to see a doc, thanks a million,” he said gruffly. “I owe you.”

  “Anything you think you might owe me has been paid in full many times over with the kindness you and Sue have shown to me and to Maddie,” she said firmly. “Please call and let us know when you find out anything.”

  After they left, Eliza pressed a hand to her chest. How was she supposed to protect her heart against Aidan? Every time she turned around, she found more things to love.

  She stood there for only a moment as she fought the bleak realization that leaving this place was going to hurt worse than anything she had experienced in a long time, then she rubbed her hands briskly down her thighs, threw on an apron and went to work.

  Aidan came back inside a few moments later. He looked at her standing by the stove and frowned. “You really didn’t have to make me breakfast. Toast and coffee would have been fine.”

  “Too late. It’s already cooking. How do panc
akes, bacon and eggs sound?”

  “Delicious, if you want the truth.”

  He walked farther into the room and approached the stove, bringing in the delicious scent of snow and leather and him.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Not a thing,” she answered. “It’s under control.”

  At least the breakfast was. Tension seemed to sizzle and pop between them like the bacon frying in the pan. She heartily wished she could go back and unkiss him. Okay, not a word, but it absolutely fit in this circumstance. She wanted to go back to those sweet moments they had shared on the drive home from the boat parade, when they had shared confidences and she had felt warm and safe.

  Instead, all she could think about was being in his arms again.

  “I can flip the bacon,” he said.

  “No need. It’s just about there.”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue but finally crossed to the coffeemaker and poured a cup then carried it over to the island where Maddie had finished her math homework and had pulled out crayons and a paper.

  “What are you drawing?”

  “It’s a feel-better card for Miz Sue.”

  “Wow. That’s really good. She’s going to love it. It’s a horse, right?”

  She nodded, her bottom lip firmly nestled between her teeth as she concentrated. It was a mannerism she had either inherited or picked up from Eliza. “Yep. It’s Cinnamon. See? There’s the white patch on her face.”

  He peered closer. “Oh, sure. It’s an exact likeness. Way to go, kiddo.”

  They shared a smile of perfect accord and something soft seemed to twist in Eliza’s heart.

  She quickly turned her attention back to crisping the bacon before setting it on paper towels to drain the grease. Breakfast, in her estimation, was the hardest meal of all to prepare because all the typical breakfast dishes only took a moment to cook and everything needed constant pouring, stirring or flipping.

  She was nevertheless quite pleased with the results as she plated golden pancakes, fluffy eggs and perfectly cooked bacon then set it down in front of him.

  “Thank you,” he said, that unreadable look in his eyes again.