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“I love horses,” Maddie informed him. “I have a horse named Bob. Mom calls him my imaginary friend but he’s real. He is!”
“I’m sure.”
“Jim said Bob and me could visit your horses tomorrow.”
“I don’t see why that would be a problem. I’m sure they would love a visitor.”
“He said I could maybe even ride one!”
He didn’t miss the way Eliza’s mouth tightened at that idea. Did it have something to do with her heart issues? Not wanting to stir the pot, he simply shrugged. “I don’t know about that. We’ll have to see. Sometimes they’re not in the mood to have people ride them.”
“Can I still visit them, though?”
“I don’t mind, if your mother doesn’t,” he answered.
“That really depends on how early we leave tomorrow,” Eliza said.
“Okay,” Maddie said with an equanimity he found surprising in such a young girl. Perhaps she was used to disappointments, a notion that left him sad for her. His nephew Carter, about the same age as Maddie, would never be so sanguine.
Or maybe she was simply too tired to argue. She yawned and drooped a little more.
“The bathroom is through there,” he said, pointing to the en suite. “You should find everything you need, as far as linens and toiletries.”
“Thank you.”
He was strangely reluctant to leave them. How was it possible he had only met Eliza Hayward and her daughter a handful of hours before? He felt an odd connection to her, as if the events of the day had forged a bond between them.
“If I haven’t said it in the last hour or so, I’m sorry again for what happened today.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mr. Caine.”
“Please. Call me Aidan.”
Her lips tightened. “Aidan. It was an accident. I completely understand that and don’t blame you at all. If Maddie hadn’t raced into the road at just that moment, we would have been safely on the sidewalk when you hit that patch of ice and I would be back in Boise right now trying to find a new apartment.”
“Is there anything else we can get you before you settle in for the night?”
She shook her head and then winced a little as if the slight motion pained her. He wished she had taken the painkiller Dr. Shaw tried to foist off on her in the emergency room but he was the last one to encourage the use of opiates, since he hated them, too, and only used them as a last resort after his surgery and with his lingering headaches, much to his own doctor’s frustration.
“The master bedroom is upstairs but tonight I’m going to sleep in one of the guest rooms in this wing. If you need anything, I’ll just be across the hall.”
“I won’t need anything,” she said firmly, even as she swayed slightly then gripped the chair a little more tightly.
“I promised Dr. Shaw I would check on you during the night. What’s the best way to do that so I don’t wake up Maddie?”
“Totally unnecessary. I’m fine.”
He wanted to tell her not to bother arguing with him. He was far more stubborn than she could ever be. “Sorry to disagree but it’s absolutely necessary,” he said. “Also nonnegotiable. I promised the doctor.”
“And if I lock the door?” she challenged.
He simply raised an eyebrow. “Then I’m afraid I would most certainly wake up Maddie when I have to kick it down.”
She glared at him, two bright spots of color on her pale, lovely features. After a moment, she sighed and all the fight seemed to seep out of her. “Fine. I’ll set an alarm on my phone. Should we say about 2:00 a.m.?”
“Works for me.”
“Maddie is a heavy sleeper. I’m not. Just knock softly on the door and I should hear you.”
He didn’t want to have to wake her when she so obviously needed rest, but he had promised the doctor. “You’ll leave the door unlocked?”
“I would hate to be responsible for you ruining such a lovely door,” she said dryly.
Good. At least she understood when he was serious.
Maddie had pulled out a couple of improbably colored horses with rainbow tails and manes from her backpack and was galloping them across the quilt of her little trundle bed.
He smiled, though he wasn’t quite sure why. He enjoyed his nieces and nephews, though usually from a distance. Something about Maddie Hayward touched his heart—especially after learning of the trials she had already endured in her young life.
“Good night, young lady. Be good for your mother, okay?”
“I will, Mr. Aidan. Night.”
“Try to get some rest,” he said to Eliza.
“Until you wake me up, you mean?”
“Something like that. Good night.”
After he closed the door behind him, he headed back through the house toward the kitchen, where he could hear Sue singing “Let it Snow” in her Western twang.
Her sharp ears heard him come in. “Did those two sweet things get settled?”
“They did,” he answered. “I’m taking the guest room across the hall so I can hear if they need anything.”
“You want me to do it for you? I can take the room across the hall and check on her. You’re not exactly in tip-top shape yourself to be staying up all night.”
“I’m fine,” he said shortly, fully aware of the irony that he sounded exactly like Eliza.
Out of habit, he grabbed the dish towel off her shoulder and started drying. After all these years of working for him, Sue knew better than to argue with him or shrug off his help. He grew up working at the Center of Hope Café, the restaurant in Hope’s Crossing his father owned. He had been washing and drying dishes since he was old enough to pull a stool up to the sink.
“I’m sorry to throw a couple of last-minute guests in your direction. I know you’ve got plenty to do, with the family coming in a little over a week.”
“Oh, never mind that. How is the poor thing?”
“Peaked. That’s how my father would have described her.”
Dermot would have swept into the situation and wrapped Eliza and Maddie under his considerable wing. That’s just the way his pop was, a natural nurturer. Aidan hadn’t inherited those tendencies. His own natural inclinations—and a few bitter experiences—had left him reserved and slow to trust. He kept most people except a reliable few at arm’s length.
The door to the mudroom off the kitchen opened and a moment later, Jim came in looking like the abominable snowman in a Stetson.
“You wanted snow, darlin’, you’re getting snow. I was outside for five minutes and look at me. It’s really coming down. I think we’ve had four inches in the last hour. Maybe six, altogether, since it started.”
“The weather lady said we were in for a doozy,” Sue said. “I love a good storm. Good thing all your Christmas decorations finally got here this afternoon before the snow hit or I might have had to put you to work making paper chains to put on that monster tree in the great room.”
“They only just arrived? They were supposed to be here by Thanksgiving! I wondered why the tree wasn’t decorated yet.”
“Better late than never. I guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.”
Too bad his brother Dylan and sister-in-law Genevieve couldn’t come out to Lake Haven early. He had it on good authority from Charlotte that the two of them were whizzes at Christmas decorating at A Warrior’s Hope, the recreational therapy program his brother-in-law had started to help wounded veterans.
The idea of his rough army ranger brother—a wounded veteran himself—decorating anything boggled his mind, but then a guy did crazy things when he was in love.
Aidan had seen plenty of evidence supporting that hypothesis since four of his brothers suffered from that particular malady—Brendan twice, now that he had found happiness with Lucy again after the tragic death of his wife a few years ago.
“Can you handle everything that needs to be done before the great horde descends?” he asked Sue now as she handed him the big soup stockpot to dry.
She shrugged. “I’ll do my best. Might need to look for somebody from town who might be in need of a little extra Christmas cash. There are plenty of folks struggling in Haven Point who might appreciate the help. From what I can tell, jobs here are few and far between.”
A germ of an idea found purchase and began to sprout as he dried the stockpot and set it on a counter. He thought of Eliza, out of a job and a place to live just a few weeks before Christmas.
He had to help her somehow. Fate couldn’t have thrown her into his path and then just expected him to stand by and ignore her plight.
While it would be easy to give her a comfortable cash settlement—he wouldn’t call it guilt money but he did owe her something—he sensed she would reject him flat if he tried.
He might not be as good as Dermot at intuitively tending to people’s needs, but he had learned a few tricks from his pop. People were more inclined to accept help if you could convince them they were doing you a favor, instead of the other way around.
He sensed Eliza wouldn’t be easy to persuade but he owed it to that sweet little girl to try.
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