Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set

by Cari Lynn Webb, Linda Warren, Mary Anne Wilson

  She looked over at the massive stone hearth, then back to Jake. “It looks like you had a fire going before.”

  He’d made it poorly and it had died down too quickly. “Yes, and there’s plenty of wood.”

  She got up. “You take the couch and I’ll take one of the chairs. You need the length, I don’t.”

  The last thing he wanted was to share space with her for the night. He wanted to be alone and think. He also didn’t want her around if he got dizzy again. “I’ll get the fireplace going in the master bedroom upstairs for you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’d rather stay on the couch,” he said as he carefully got to his feet without any light-headedness. “I’ll get the fire going down here first, then I’ll do it upstairs.”

  “No, you rest. I can do that.”

  When she started across to the fireplace, he called after her. “Liberty?”

  She turned. “It’s Libby.”

  “You need to get your things out of the Jeep now, especially anything that can freeze.”

  “Okay, but you sit down. I’ve got this.”

  He almost laughed at her giving the orders and thinking he’d follow without pushback. “You’re good at telling people what to do.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said with good humor.

  “And I’ll get the fires going while you get your things out of the car.”

  “Okay. I’m not that good at making fires, anyway.” She crossed to pick up her jacket on the chair. As she headed toward the entry, Jake picked up the useless rifle and put it back on the wall, then went to the fireplace. He laid a decent fire this time, and when he got it blazing, he eased to stand up. He turned and saw Liberty coming back inside. She had a laptop in one hand and two bright pink shopping bags in the other. A large suitcase was already sitting in the archway with two boxes stacked by it. He watched her kick the door shut before she looked at him as he came toward her.

  “Done,” she said.

  “You’ve got everything that can freeze, right?”

  “Oh, shoot, my phone. I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  LIBBY SPOTTED HER cell phone on the car seat and pushed it in her pocket. Then she ran back to the door to get inside and out of the wind and cold. Before she could reach for the knob, Jake was opening it for her.

  “Thanks,” she said. The scent of wood burning was in the air now, along with a touch of warmth as Jake closed the door on the night.

  He crossed to pick up her suitcase and shopping bags. “I’ll take these up and start the fire,” he tossed over his shoulder as he took the stairs.

  Libby quickly shed her jacket and boots, leaving them at the cowhide bench, then hurried after him. She knew the floor plan of the original section on the second level. One large bedroom to the left across a walkway with a half wall that overlooked the entry. A similar one to the right, then the master bedroom took up the whole middle of the upstairs area. It was a smaller version of the great room below.

  The double doors to the master suite were both open, and soft yellow light fell out onto the plank flooring. When she went inside, past closets that lined a short hallway, she saw Jake crouched with his back to her at the stone fireplace across the room. It was half the size of the one in the great room. There were windows on either side, instead of the glass doors she’d noticed framing the downstairs hearth.

  The bedroom layout on the blueprints was nothing compared to standing in it. A huge four-poster bed that looked as if it had been carved from tree trunks faced the fireplace and the view. Equally large pieces of furniture lined the log walls. An open door on the opposite wall showed the shadowed bathroom, and she knew a large walk-in closet was accessed through it.

  It was cozy yet impressive, too. Sarge and Maggie had clearly put a lot of thought into it when they’d built the original house. She moved closer to Jake as the wood he laid in the fireplace caught and flamed. “That feels wonderful,” she said as heat started to flow into the space around her.

  Slowly, Jake stood and turned. He looked startled to find her behind him. “What in the…?”

  She’d thought he knew she was there after she’d spoken, but maybe he was just a person who had the ability to totally block out the rest of the world. “Sorry, I was going to say, you did that so fast. Can you show me how to make a really good fire like that before you leave?”

  “Matches, logs and kindling,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

  She looked toward the massive bed as she said, “Simple is as simple does.” When she glanced back at Jake, he didn’t respond. “You never saw the movie, did you?”

  He looked totally confused. “What movie?”

  “That was my version of an iconic line in Forrest Gump. I changed it a bit, from ‘stupid is as stupid does.’”

  Jake shrugged slightly. “Oh, sure. I’ll show you how to build a fire in the morning.”

  “Thank you, that would be great.” Then she motioned to the stripped mattress. “Where’s the bedding?”

  “In the closet,” he said.

  She turned to go to the closets in the hallway, but she stopped when Jake said her name. “Liberty.”

  She faced him and almost repeated that she answered to Libby, but she kind of liked him calling her Liberty. “I can get it.” She didn’t want him moving a lot until she was sure he wouldn’t topple over again. That had scared her far too much. It had seemed like more than just a dizzy spell to her, and she didn’t want it to happen again.

  “Just wait there.” He turned and went into the walk-in closet beyond the bathroom, then came back a few minutes later carrying folded linens topped by a brilliantly colored quit. He laid them on a wooden chest at the foot of the massive bed. “They’re custom made,” he said.

  Libby faced him across the bare mattress. “I always thought just the rich and really picky had custom-made bedding.”

  “Sarge designed the bed to fit his size, and he made it out of the logs that were being used for the house and the other buildings. It’s not regulation size at all. He actually made it as a gift for Maggie.”

  She reached to slowly run her forefinger over the satiny wood of the closest poster. “He did beautiful work. Did they ever have children?”

  “I don’t think they could. Maybe that’s why they started taking in kids one by one when they’d only been married a couple of years. They filled this original part of the house, then added both wings to make room for more kids.”

  “Where was your room?”

  “To the right across the walkway outside the double doors.” He reached for a sheet and shook it out with a sharp snap to open it and let it drift down onto the mattress. Libby pulled it toward her side, and they worked in silence making the bed. A few minutes later it was done. The handmade quilt on top, with a design of flaring circles in gold, red, green and blue splashed color into the room. With the pillows in fresh cases, Jake tossed them up against the headboard.

  Libby stood back and smiled at him. “Boy, you sure know how to make a bed and with no fitted sheets or anything.”

  “I do have some skills, thanks to Sarge and the army.”

  She could hear the wind blowing outside, a loud unsettling sound, but Jake seemed to be ignoring it. She tucked her hair back behind her ears. “Apparently you do.” Then she looked around the room before she met his eyes again as the sound outside got louder. “Is that just the wind?” she asked him. “It sounds almost like a tornado or something.”

  “Yeah, once it blew with such force that it felt like an earthquake.”

  “I hate the wind. I hope that doesn’t happen much while I’m here.”

  Crossing over to the window to the left of the fireplace, Jake pressed his hand on the cold pane of glass. “It’s really blowing hard.”

  She moved over to
stand beside him and copied him by pressing her left hand on the window below where he had. Almost immediately she jerked back and looked at him. “You’re right. It’s so strong.”

  “This house has been around for over fifty years and gone through storms you couldn’t even imagine. It’s still here.”

  “Let’s hope that luck holds up,” she said before turning to go and sit down on the just-made bed. She took a deep breath slowly, trying to calm herself and keep bad memories at bay.

  “Hey,” he said as he crossed to stand in front of her. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  “I’ve never liked wind. Thunder, that’s okay, but wind just feels so overwhelming.”

  He seemed to sense something else was going on with her, and offered her comfort. He smiled at her slightly. “Sarge told me once that he built this house as a fortress against the world, and no measly windstorm was strong enough to harm it or anyone inside it.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I did. I trusted him.”

  She exhaled. “Okay, then… I’ll trust you.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LIBBY TRIED TO ignore the unsettled feeling that wind and the rattling sound of glass being tested gave her. “I’ll add some more wood to the fire,” Jake said, and went back to the hearth.

  He reached for the poker off a rack of tools that was fastened to the stone facade of the fireplace. Then he crouched to push the burning logs farther back into the firebox. She turned to get her suitcase by the bed, but a loud crash startled her. She spun around, afraid that something had been pushed over by the storm or that that Jake had fallen again. But he was hunkered down in front of the growing fire, seemingly mesmerized by the leaping flames.

  Then she saw the source of the cacophony. The rack that had held the fire tools had fallen, scattering the metal objects onto the raised hearth and the floor. “Jake?” she said. He didn’t respond. She took two steps to get closer to him. “Jake?” She saw his shoulders strain against the confines of the black T-shirt as he reached for another log to his left. Three feet of space separated them, and when he put the log on the fire, she heard the wood thud, the fire hiss and sparks snap. “Jake, are you all right?” she said, louder now. Still nothing.

  She tapped him on the shoulder lightly, and he took a beat too long to shift and look up at her. His eyes went to her lips immediately, and her stomach sank. No wonder he hadn’t responded to any noise she’d made coming into the house earlier, not even the door smashing against the wall.

  “I’m finished here,” he said, slowly getting up and looking at her, but not quite directly in her eyes. It was as if he was looking somewhere in the middle of her face. “It should last a while.” He glanced as if to look back at the fire, but he hesitated when he saw the scattered tools. He sighed before he crouched down to collect them. Then he laid them together with the rack on the hearth.

  She waited until he stood again and looked at her. “What’s going on?” she asked him.

  Jake hesitated, as if he expected the question and was still trying to come up with an answer. Seth had never suggested Jake had a hearing problem, but he obviously did. She had no idea why he’d hide it. He stared at her, then took the offensive. “What do you mean?”

  She couldn’t let it go. “You didn’t hear the fire tools falling, did you?”

  “I didn’t jump out of my skin, if that’s what you expected.”

  She bit her lip, then finally said, “You didn’t answer me when I spoke to you, either.”

  Now she could see she was annoying him. “Sorry,” he said. “Now get some sleep.”

  He ducked his head and started to go past her. She didn’t expect to do it, but she reached out and grabbed him by his upper arm. He stopped, then drew back from her hold and looked straight at her. “What?”

  It worried her that Seth had never mentioned Jake had a problem. He had to know, and she suspected it wasn’t just some simple problem, either. But she had no right to press Jake. “Nothing. Thanks for the fire.”

  He turned and walked away.

  * * *

  JAKE FOUGHT THE urge to run out of the room and keep going. He hurried down the stairs, but when he stepped onto the stone floor in the entry, Liberty was right there behind him. She passed by him and went over to where she’d left the rest of her things. She picked up her laptop but left the boxes, then came back to where he stood.

  He hoped she’d just keep going back up to the master bedroom. But she stopped and looked him right in the eye. “I just needed this,” he watched her say. Then she went upstairs and out of view.

  Jake sank down on the second step of the staircase and buried his face in his hands. He was trapped. She was right about the dizziness, so he couldn’t leave. He accepted that. But that didn’t mean he wanted to have someone around worrying about him. He didn’t want someone hovering over him or asking questions he wouldn’t have answers for. He’d been sloppy, obviously, and she was bright enough to catch on. All he wanted was his solitude, to gather strength for what was ahead of him with Sarge. But that had been taken from him by a woman who saw too much and asked too many questions.

  Running both hands over his face, he slowly got up, then put his boots and jacket on to retrieve his duffel and new clothes from the truck. A biting cold driven by the growing wind pushed hard at him as he made his way outside, and he wondered how Liberty could have stayed on her feet in this weather. He hurried back to the door once he had his things and barely turned the handle before he lost his grip and the wind sent the door flying violently inward.

  That’s when he saw Liberty jerking back as if she’d barely escaped being hit. He tossed his things off to one side and grabbed the door to force it shut. Then he turned to her. He wished he could muster up some anger at her being there, but with her looking so stunned, anger was nowhere to be found. However, frustration was there in spades. “That door could have hit you right in the face and knocked you into kingdom come!”

  He watched her as she backed up to put even more space between them. Then he saw her speaking slowly and deliberately. “I heard the door open and close. I thought you might have left.” He just bet she was talking louder than normal, too. “I wanted to find out.”

  He read her lips and knew what she was doing. Slow and easy so he didn’t miss one word. “Please, don’t do that,” he said trying to control himself.

  “I didn’t know if—”

  He cut that off by turning away from her and took his time removing his jacket and boots. He set them by hers before he turned to her again. “Don’t yell when you speak to me or go very, very slowly with exaggerated enunciation. Neither is needed. I have a slight, temporary hearing problem. Just look at me when you talk. I’ll understand.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Good night,” he said, and he didn’t give her a chance to say anything as he walked toward the great room with his bags. He felt a vague breathlessness that had nothing to do with his ear damage as he passed Liberty and inhaled the soft scent of something, maybe flowers. He turned off the lights and dropped his stuff by the couch, then lay down and pulled the blankets over himself.

  Errant thoughts were annoying to him. Liberty Connor was attractive, he’d give her that, and she seemed smart, maybe too smart. Despite her annoying curiosity about him—and the fact that she wasn’t his type at all—she nudged at him for some reason. He wondered why in the heck Seth hadn’t dated her. Or maybe they had dated before she’d found her fiancé. One thing he knew, whoever that fiancé was, the man had his hands full. He almost felt sorry for the poor guy.

  * * *

  AS JAKE SLOWLY drifted out of sleep, he felt warmth on his face, then inhaled and caught the aroma of coffee brewing. He opened his eyes to the cool light of morning that was filtering in through the glass doors on either side of the fireplace. He figured he’d missed dawn by a minimu
m of two hours. Disengaging his legs from the tangle of blankets, he slowly pushed to a sitting position. The world was steady, and he felt hungry, not nauseated. A fire was roaring as it sent its heat into the room and its sparks flew up the chimney. It seemed Liberty knew how to lay a fire, after all.

  Jake looked toward the kitchen and that’s when he saw her at the stove. Her hair was caught back in a clip low on her neck, and she was wearing pink again, a thermal top she’d matched with faded jeans. She moved to her left and disappeared inside the combination pantry and storage room by the old refrigerator on the back wall of the kitchen. She came back out carrying a bottle of something.

  She stopped when she saw he was awake. “Good morning,” he saw her say with an uncertain smile. “Pancakes in two minutes.” With that she went over to the stove.

  He stood cautiously, but he was still good. Maybe last night had been his last episode. He crossed to the long dining table between the kitchen and the great room where he’d sat for so many meals years ago. Plates and flatware were laid out for two on the end near the back wall, closest to the heat from the fire.

  Liberty came over carrying a plate of pancakes in one hand and a bottle of syrup in the other. “Are you hungry?” she asked, making sure he was looking at her before she glanced down to put the food on the table halfway between their plates. When she looked back at him, there was no smile as he kept his silence. When she said, “Well, are you hungry?” very slowly, he knew she was not happy with him.

  He couldn’t blame her. He knew he definitely owed her an apology for being abrupt with her last night. She was only trying to help him. “I am,” he said.

  She went back to the kitchen and returned carrying two large mugs, and steam curled up from them. Making eye contact with him, she said, “Please, sit down.”

  He took the chair with its back to the kitchen and she went around to sit opposite him. She put the mugs down and nudged one closer to him. “Coffee. No milk, sorry. It was spoiled. This place is stocked with enough staples for the whole town to survive for a year, yet no bottled or even powdered creamer.” As he reached for his mug, she added, “But there’s sugar if you want it.”