New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne welcomes you to Haven Point, a small town full of big surprises that are both merry and bright

Nothing short of a miracle can restore Eliza Hayward’s Christmas cheer. The job she pinned her dreams on has gone up in smoke—literally—and now she’s stuck in an unfamiliar, if breathtaking, small town. Precariously close to being destitute, Eliza needs a hero, but she’s not expecting one who almost runs her down with his car!

Rescuing Eliza is pure instinct for tech genius Aidan Caine. At first, putting the renovation of his lakeside guest lodge in Eliza’s hands assuages his guilt—until he sees how quickly he could fall for her. Having focused solely on his business for years, he never knew what his life was missing before Eliza, but now he’s willing to risk his heart on a yuletide romance that could lead to forever.

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne and her Hope’s Crossing series

“In Thayne’s latest, her beautiful, honest storytelling goes straight to the heart. Her characters are authentically vulnerable and the light, amusing banter between them adds to the sweet warmth of this story… [A] moving yet powerful romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wild Iris Ridge

“A sometimes heartbreaking tale of love and relationships in a small Colorado town…. Poignant and sweet, this tale of second chances will appeal to fans of military-flavored sweet romance.”

—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“Once again, Thayne proves she has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart…. Crisp storytelling and many amusing moments make for a delightful read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Willowleaf Lane

“Thayne pens another winner by combining her huge, boisterous cast of familiar, lovable characters with a beautiful setting and a wonderful story. Her main characters are strong and three-dimensional, with enough heat between them to burn the pages.”

—RT Book Reviews on Currant Creek Valley

“Hope’s Crossing is a charming series that lives up to its name. Reading these stories of small-town life engage the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief miracles are possible.”

—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Sweet Laurel Falls

“Thayne, once again, delivers a heartfelt story of a caring community and a caring romance between adults who have triumphed over tragedies.”

—Booklist on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne’s series starter introduces the Colorado town of Hope’s Crossing in what can be described as a cozy romance… [A] gentle, easy read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Blackberry Summer

Snow Angel Cove

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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So many people have a part in bringing a book to life. In the craziness of life and kids and deadlines, I am sometimes remiss in expressing how very grateful I am to everyone who has played a part in helping me along this writing journey, from idea to completion.

First, I need to thank my brilliant brainstorming partners, Nicole Jordan and Victoria Dahl, for all the hilarious breakfasts. Someday, they’re going to get tired of us and kick us out of Village Inn!

To my agent, Karen Solem, for her thoughtful guidance, thank you for keeping me on track!

To my amazing editor for over forty books now, Gail Chasan, for having faith in me from the very beginning. Mere words are not enough!

My heartfelt gratitude goes to everyone at Mills & Boon—from Susan Swinwood and everyone else on the Mills & Boon HQN editorial team to the art department and the spectacular covers they give my books to the sales and marketing teams who work so hard to get my stories into the hands of readers. You are all wonderful!

I offer my deepest thanks to my family for their patience, their encouragement and their unending love.

And finally, to my readers. I am so very grateful to you for your letters, your emails, your Facebook messages—and especially, for the amazing gift you’ve given me of being able to watch with awe and wonder as my dreams come true.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

OH, THIS WASN’T GOOD. At all.

Eliza Hayward stood with sleet pelting her like hard little pebbles, gazing at the blackened, charred bones of her future. Cold dread wormed its way beneath her coat like the wintry wind blowing off Lake Haven, just a few hundred yards away.

“I don’t like this place,” Maddie muttered, gripping her hand tighter. “It’s ugly and scary.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

This couldn’t be real. She had driven the two hours from Boise with such eager anticipation, singing Christmas carols all the way, loud and silly enough to make a five-year-old giggle. She had been so excited about this new chapter of their lives in this lovely Idaho town nestled in the raw and stunning Redemption Mountains.

It had been an amazing opportunity all the way around—a big jump, career-wise, to her first hotel manager position, but also a nice salary increase, a really attractive benefits package and, best of all, an included apartment on the property for her and for Maddie so she could keep her daughter close.

Now that cute apartment, the salary bump, the insurance, everything, had disappeared in a puff of smoke. Literally. Though she couldn’t see any flames, tendrils of smoke still curled from the rubble of the building.

The air smelled harsh and acrid, far different from the sweet, citrusy scent of pine she remembered permeating the town when she had visited the month before during the interview process.

The fire had to have flared within the past few hours. Fire crews still worked busily all around the burned hotel coiling hoses, stretching yellow crime tape around the perimeter, putting out a hot spot here or there.

No wonder she hadn’t heard from Megan Hamilton. The woman was probably still in shock.

Oh, Eliza hoped no one had been hurt.

That dread sidled up to her again, menacing and dark. What was she going to do now? She had tied off every single loose end in Boise. Her job, her apartment. All gone. Their things had been packed and put into storage until she had a chance to figure out what she might need here in their new life, this new start.

She had even used a big chunk of her savings as a down payment on a newer SUV to get around the mountain roads.

Now what?

She gripped Maddie’s hand more tightly. She would figure something out. Isn’t that what she had been doing for three years?

“That’s not where you’re going to work, is it?”

“Well, it was supposed to be.” She forced a smile for Maddie, doing her best to ignore the flutters of panic taking wing inside her. “I guess they had a fire today.”

She drew in a calming breath, trying to make her brain cells snap into gear so she could come up with a plan. The sleet seemed to sting harder with each passing second and the wind had picked up in the past few moments. Apparently the big storm the forecasters had been predicting—the reason she had come to town early instead of waiting until the next day or Sunday—had blown into Haven Point.

Maddie shivered a little and Eliza was just about to take her back up the small hill toward the parking lot where she had parked when she spotted a familiar woman about her age in jeans and a sooty jacket, talking to a firefighter in turnout gear with the word Chief written on his helmet.

When she saw Eliza and Maddie, the other woman’s eyes widened, looking huge in her lovely features that looked taut with stress and exhaustion.

She cut off her conversation with the fire chief and headed in their direction. Though they had only met twice—once for Eliza’s initial interview and then the follow-up where she had been offered the job—the woman held out her arms and folded Eliza in a hug that smelled strongly of smoke.

“You’re here. Oh, Eliza.” Her voice wobbled and her slim frame trembled, too, like a slender branch shivering in the wind. “I should have called you. I’m so sorry. It didn’t occur to me. I only... It’s been such a terrible afternoon. I thought you weren’t coming to Haven Point until tomorrow or Sunday.”

She imagined receiving this sort of news over the phone and was almost grateful she had driven in early and had witnessed the damage for herself. “I wanted to beat the storm. Was anyone hurt?”

“Not seriously. Thank heavens. One of the housekeeping staff suffered some smoke inhalation while trying to help us evacuate the guests. Other than that, everyone is fine. We were only about half-occupied and we were able to get everyone out quickly. It’s been a nightmare few hours trying to find other places for them all to stay.”

What if this had happened a week from now, when she was in charge as the hotel manager? She hated even imagining it.

“What happened? Do you know?”

Megan rubbed at her red-rimmed eyes. “I was just speaking with Chief Gallegos about it. The investigators aren’t sure yet but all indications point to some kind of electrical event. They think it started near the guest laundry. It’s a miracle it happened when it did, on a slow week, first of all, and then late morning before the weekend guests checked in, when we were fully staffed with the maintenance crew and the housekeepers to help evacuate. If the fire had started in the middle of the night, things might have gone very differently. The situation could have been much, much worse.”

Eliza could certainly appreciate that from Megan’s point of view. As far as she was concerned, though, the fact remained that her exciting new opportunity was now a pile of ash and debris.

Megan suddenly spied Maddie, pressing her face now into Eliza’s wool coat to keep out of the wind. “But you. And Maddie. I’m so, so sorry.”

She wore the same sorrowful expression that Eliza had seen on her friends and neighbors after Trent’s funeral.

“I can’t believe this happened right before you were supposed to start. I’ve been so excited to have you on board, too. I just feel like we really clicked during the interview process. Your ideas were innovative and exciting, exactly what this old inn needed to shake things up.”

Eliza heard the “but” and knew what was coming.

“Obviously everything has changed. Oh, Eliza.” Megan’s eyes welled up and spilled over, trickling down her soot-grimed face. She pulled a bedraggled tissue out of her pocket.

“I understand.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do. We have to close indefinitely. I guess that’s obvious. I need to speak with the insurance company to find out if we should rebuild what is left or raze the whole thing and start over. And to have this happen right before Christmas! I feel so terrible for my staff. Some of them have been at the inn since before I was born, when my grandparents owned it.”

Though that leashed panic inside her wanted to break free and ravage everything, Eliza forced a smile, cuddling Maddie closer for comfort and warmth. “You obviously don’t need a new manager when you’ve got nothing for me to manage. Don’t worry. I understand.”

Megan gave a little whimper and more tears dripped out. “I’m so sorry I dragged you out here. You quit your job and everything. Can you go back to it?”

She wouldn’t, even in the unlikely event that they might hire her back. With the owners’ son firmly entrenched in the top managerial position and mismanaging everything from the linen orders to the payroll, she suspected it wouldn’t be long before the Diamond Street Inn would go under.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” She had no idea how, but she would figure something out.

“Don’t cry. It will be okay.” Maddie spoke softly to Megan, looking bewildered at the situation but distressed, too. She was such a sweet little soul, always concerned about the pain someone else might be experiencing, whether at the hospital or on the playground.

Megan gave her a watery smile, then reached down and hugged her. “It will be. You’re absolutely right. Not immediately, but things will eventually be okay.”

“Is there something I can help you do now?” Eliza asked. “I can find somewhere to stay and help you cancel bookings or something?”

“I appreciate that, but I’ve already got the front desk staff taking care of that. Thank heavens our computer system was backed up off-site and we can still access all those reservations.”

“That is good news.”

She squeezed Eliza’s hands. “Again, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. This wasn’t your fault.”

“At least I can give you a small severance package. Something to tide you over while you look for another position.”

Megan had already been so generous, offering to pay her moving expenses and including the apartment as part of her compensation package. Eliza didn’t want to burden her with one more obligation.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, even though that panic fluttered harder. She wasn’t destitute. She had some savings left, as well as monthly survivor benefits. She also had several solid years of experience as the assistant manager at the Diamond Street Inn.

She wondered if she could possibly return the SUV and get her down payment back—but what would she drive to interviews if she did? Her sedan had been on its last bald tire.

Job-hunting less than two weeks before Christmas wasn’t ideal timing, nor did she want to move her fragile child into some grimy pay-by-the-week hotel until she found a position and could lease a nearby apartment. Right now she couldn’t see any other choice.

All in all, this might be another in a string of miserable holidays.

Emotion welled up in her throat and she was very much afraid she would burst into tears like Megan.

“I have your cell number. I’ll be in touch as soon as things settle down,” the other woman said.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Hey, Megan,” the fire chief called. “Do you want us to put up temporary fencing to keep out the looters?”

“Looters. I didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry. I need to...”

“Don’t worry about us,” Eliza said firmly. “I’m going to go get Maddie out of the cold. Good luck with everything.”

She gave Megan a hug, very sorry suddenly that she wouldn’t have the chance to get to know the other woman better. She had been certain they would have been friends—and she could always use a few more of those.

The wind and sleet had died down a little while she had been speaking with Megan. The calm before the storm, maybe? She should climb into the SUV she could no longer afford and drive back through the mountain passes toward Boise before the snow began in earnest, but she didn’t trust herself to drive right now, with her emotions in turmoil.

With the vague intention of grabbing a bite to eat at one of several restaurants she had spied in the town’s small commercial district, she headed away from the scorched remains of the Lake Haven Inn.

“Was that lady sad because her hotel burned down?” Maddie asked after a moment.

“She was. It’s been in her family for many years.”

Eliza had learned during the interview process that Megan Hamilton had had no inclination or aptitude to run the hotel after she’d unexpectedly inherited it. Her interests lay elsewhere, Megan had told her, which was why she had hired Eliza in the first place.

“We can’t live there now, can we?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Where will we put all our boxes?”

“Why don’t we grab a bite to eat at that diner across the street from where we parked and we’ll try to figure out our options?”

“Do they have macaroni and cheese?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

They headed for the crosswalk and waited for the light to change. Eliza took a moment to look around, cognizant of her surroundings for the first time since she had seen that pile of rubble.

She could see the downtown business owners had done their best to decorate their charming little clapboard-and-brick storefronts. Lights hung on nearly every facade and most had Christmas trees in the windows. A few had ornaments with nautical themes, in keeping with the vivid blue of the lake that dominated the view in every direction.

“Mama, the light is green. Green means go,” Maddie declared.

“So it does.”

Maddie slipped her hand free of Eliza’s and scampered ahead of her into the crosswalk. Eliza followed close behind her, keeping an eye on a black SUV headed down the hill toward them.

The SUV was slowing down, she saw, the driver hitting the brakes in what should have been plenty of braking distance but her insides suddenly froze.

The vehicle’s tires spun wildly, ineffectually, unable to find purchase on the road. He tried to turn into the skid but she could tell in an instant he wasn’t going to be able to completely stop in time—and he was sliding straight for her child.

No. This couldn’t be happening!

“Maddie!” she screamed. Acting on a mother’s frantic desperation, she leaped forward to push her daughter out of the path of the vehicle.

She had only an instant to feel deep gratitude and overwhelming relief that her daughter was safe before the vehicle struck her. Though the driver had almost stopped completely by that time, the impact still stole her thoughts, her breath, and she crumpled like that ragged tissue of Megan Hamilton’s. Her head struck concrete and she knew a moment’s screeching agony before everything went black.

* * *

AIDAN CAINE FUMBLED for the door handle in the unfamiliar SUV he had rented from the paunchy dude at the Lake Haven airstrip. It took him a moment but he finally worked the handle and shoved the door open, panic and nausea roiling in his gut.

He had just hit a person! Maybe two. A woman and a little girl crossing the road had been the last thing he had seen as he frantically tried to pump the brakes during the slide and turn into the skid.

This couldn’t be real. He wanted to rewind the past twenty seconds of his life to that horrible moment the SUV hit that patch of ice and started sliding down the hill, wheels spinning.

When the light changed and the pedestrians had started across, he had tried frantically to turn into a streetlamp or something but the vehicle had been completely out of his control by that point.

He thought he would be able to stop in time, until he heard that horrible crunch.

A child’s cries reached him, strident and fearful. Crying. Crying had to be a good sign, right? At least it meant the girl was alert enough to be upset.

He raced around the vehicle to assess the situation and found the source of the crying was a little girl with wavy dark hair beneath a pink-and-purple stocking cap. She knelt in the snow and slush of the road next to a crumpled, motionless figure.

“Mama! Mama!” she cried out, trying to shake the unresponsive woman.

He knelt down beside the girl and put his arm around her, mostly to keep her from jostling the figure unnecessarily. “Okay. Okay.”

The girl trembled in his hold. “She won’t wake up! Mama!”

“Ma’am?” he called. “Hello?”

She wasn’t dead, at least. He could see the steady rise and fall of her chest. Beyond that, he had no idea the scope of her injuries. He thought he had barely tapped her but that crack as she went down still seemed to reverberate through him like a gunshot.

He reached in his pocket for his phone and with fingers that felt heavy and thick he started to dial 911. He couldn’t seem to make his brain function, which sent icy fingers of fear crawling down his spine.

Only natural, he told himself. Normal and expected. The accident had severely rattled him, just as it would anyone else. This had nothing to do with his health situation—nor did the accident. He hadn’t blacked out or had a seizure or something similar. He knew that unequivocally as he could remember each second of those terrible few moments.

His head ached like somebody was drilling him over and over with a nail gun, but that was nothing new.

“I already called for paramedics,” someone said. “They’re on the way.”

He looked up and found a young woman dressed only in jeans and a sweater coming out of one of the nearby businesses.

“Thanks.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket as she came closer to them and knelt beside the woman and the little girl.

“I saw the whole thing. You hit the bad patch of black ice at the top of the hill, didn’t you? I’m so sorry!”

“You are?” It was hardly her fault he hadn’t checked the condition of the vehicle before he endangered other people by taking it on the road.

“Three times I’ve told the road crew supervisor we need to have the crews come by and put deicer on that patch. Every time we have a little melt, water just collects there and then freezes, causing all sorts of issues. When I take over as mayor after the New Year, I can promise you, fixing the drainage in that spot is going to be Priority One.”

He didn’t give a damn about the road problems in Haven Point. Right now, his Priority One was the woman who still hadn’t moved.

“Oh,” the shopkeeper suddenly exclaimed as she looked at him for the first time. Her mouth sagged open. “You’re—”

Aidan supposed he shouldn’t be surprised she recognized him. He wasn’t exactly a celebrity on par with Bezos or Zuckerberg, but he had some renown in certain circles. Closer to home, he was quite sure word had trickled out that he had taken over Ben’s property in town, including Snow Angel Cove.

That he was Aidan Caine, founder and CEO of Caine Tech, was the least important issue right now, even less important than the poor precipitation drainage. He cut her off before she could say anything more about it by turning back to the injured woman. “Ma’am,” he said again, gently nudging her. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

When she didn’t answer, he turned to the little girl. “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Eliza Jane Hayward,” she answered promptly, though her voice wobbled on the words. “My name is Madeline Elizabeth Hayward.”

He tried to give her a reassuring smile, though it was completely fake since he wasn’t reassured by anything that had happened in the past few minutes. He did his best to push away the headache that had become his constant companion the last few months. “Hi, Madeline. My name is Aidan.”

“Why won’t she wake up?” the little girl asked with a worried frown. “Is it her heart?”

He blinked at what seemed an odd question. “Her heart? Oh, I don’t think so. Sometimes when people have an accident and hurt their heads, they can go to sleep for a minute. That’s probably what happened. Ma’am? Eliza?”

Her eyes fluttered a little but she didn’t awaken so he tried a little harder. “Eliza? Come on, ma’am. You have to wake up. Your daughter is here and she needs you.”

At that, long eyelashes brushed her skin again, once, then twice and finally she opened her eyes with what looked like supreme effort.

They were the same rich green as dewy new leaves on an aspen tree, he noted—a completely inconsequential observation but one that couldn’t be helped. Just now they looked dazed, unfocused. She mumbled something incomprehensible and then in the next instant, she blinked rapidly and he watched as full consciousness returned in a mad, frantic rush.

Her gaze shifted wildly. “Maddie? Maddie!”

The little girl moved closer. “Right here, Mama. I’m right here.”

Eliza gave a sob of relief and pulled the girl to her chest, holding her tight. “I thought you were... Oh, honey.”

“You didn’t wake up and I was so scared.”

“I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears leaked out of those stunning eyes and dripped into her hair and her daughter’s. After a moment, the girl sat up and her mother tried to follow her but Aidan rested a hand on her arm.

“Easy. Don’t get up. The ambulance is on the way.”

“Don’t be silly,” she croaked. “I don’t need an...ambulance.”

“You were hit by a car. My car. You need an ambulance,” he said firmly.

“Where are you hurt? Can you tell us?” the storekeeper asked in a kind voice.

“Everywhere,” Eliza Hayward muttered. “But...I don’t think anything’s...broken.”

She again tried to scramble up but Aidan set a hand on her shoulder, careful not to apply pressure anywhere until they had a better idea of the extent of her injuries.

“Please. Just stay still. By the sound of it, help is almost here.”

She didn’t look thrilled at the reminder as the siren’s wail approached them but she subsided on the cold ground again. Heedless of the weather conditions, he took his coat off and folded it under her head so she didn’t have to lie on asphalt, just as the ambulance pulled up behind his rental vehicle.

A couple of frazzled-looking emergency medical technicians—probably volunteer firefighters, if Haven Point was anything like his hometown of Hope’s Crossing—raced over carrying boxes he assumed contained medical supplies.

The EMTs greeted the woman who had come out of her store to help.

“It’s that stupid patch of ice we’ve had such trouble with this year,” she said. “Mr. Caine couldn’t stop in time and he slid right into her.”

After quick, furtive looks in his direction that made him squirm, the EMTs turned their attention to Eliza. Aidan quickly stepped out of the way to give them more room.

He noticed Madeline—Maddie, her mother had called her—standing to one side, watching the activity with eyes that looked very large suddenly in her pale face.

He stepped closer and leaned down to her. “Don’t worry, Maddie. The paramedics are taking very good care of your mom. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She looked skeptical. “How do you know?”

He could appreciate someone who demanded verification. “Your mom was talking to us. That’s a great sign. She said she was okay. I think we’re going to have to believe her until we find out otherwise. What about you? Are you okay?”

The little girl’s chin wobbled a little, as if she had been trying all this time to be brave and had finally lost the battle. “My knee hurts,” she said with a sniffle. “My mom pushed me and I fell and now I think it’s bleeding.

“See?” She pulled up her purple jeans and he could see she had a scrape about the size of a quarter just below her little kneecap.

“Look at that. You are bleeding. I bet we can find a Band-Aid to put on that for you.”

“Will it have a princess on it?”

She reminded him forcefully of his niece Faith, which seemed odd as Faith was a few years older, slender and blonde. This little curly-haired imp with the big personality and the dimples probably had more in common with Carter, Faith’s younger brother. They seemed about the same age.

But there was something about her, a kind of fragile sweetness, that made him want to blindly promise her everything would work out—and then tuck her against him to protect her from further harm and do everything in his power to keep his word.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

He spent a few more moments talking to the girl while the paramedics were working on her mother and learned, much to his surprise, that she and her mother weren’t from Haven Point.

“We were just moving here. All our things are in boxes,” she revealed. “I was going to sleep in my new bed tonight, but then my mama’s new job burned down. See?”

She pointed down the hill toward the lake, where he could see the charred remains of the comfortable inn where he had stayed on his first visit to the area.

“Your mother was going to work at the Lake Haven Inn?”

Maddie nodded, curls bouncing. “Yes. Only now she can’t and the lady was really sad. She cried and my mama told her not to worry, that we would figure something out. That’s what she always says.”

He was still mulling that and the atrocious luck that had hit Eliza Hayward in the past hour when the woman who had first come out of the store to help after the accident approached him.

She was young, he could see now, no more than twenty-seven or -eight. This was the new mayor of Haven Point?

“You’re Aidan Caine, aren’t you?”

She said it bluntly and without any of the kind of embarrassing awe he sometimes encountered. In fact, her voice and expression were completely devoid of any kind of warmth.

“I am, yes. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”

She wasn’t overtly hostile but there was definitely a coolness in her tone and expression. “I don’t think I told you. I’m McKenzie Shaw. That’s my store over there. Point Made Flowers and Gifts.”

Was she trying to drum up business? This really wasn’t the time.

“I like your Christmas tree,” Maddie said.

The woman smiled at her with considerably more warmth than she had shown Aidan. “Thanks, honey. If you come in with your mom, I’ll give you an ornament made out of a pinecone. I make them myself.”

“Wow! Thanks,” Maddie said.

“You’re welcome.”

Ms. Shaw turned back to Aidan. “I’m also the newly elected mayor of Haven Point and will take office in January.”

“So you said.”

“I apologize again on behalf of the town for the poor road conditions,” she said stiffly. “You can be assured, it won’t happen again.”

Was she afraid he would pursue legal action against the town? The fault was entirely his own. If he had been driving a vehicle with better tires, this wouldn’t have happened. He was already planning on purchasing an additional vehicle besides the ranch Suburban and pickup truck—one with excellent tires—that he could leave at the Lake Haven airport and use for ground transportation on future visits.

Before he had the chance to tell her that, a police officer approached them. “I’m Officer Bailey with the Haven Point police department. I understand you were the driver of the vehicle that struck Mrs. Hayward while the light was red and she was in the crosswalk,” she said sternly.

“Yes,” he answered. By her unfriendly tone and set jaw, he had to wonder if he was going to end up behind bars over this whole thing. He wasn’t sure the town even had a jail but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

“I saw the whole thing from my shop window, Wyn,” McKenzie Shaw said. “He wasn’t speeding and definitely tried to stop in time.”

He blinked, shocked by the would-be mayor’s unexpected defense.

“It’s that stupid patch of black ice,” she went on. “How many times have I tried to get the road department to lay down extra salt solution there?”

“Plenty,” Officer Bailey said. “Regardless, it’s still considered a failure to yield situation. I’m going to need to see your license and registration.”

“You know who this is, don’t you, Wyn?” McKenzie said, giving him a significant look.

The police officer—who looked only a few years older than the new mayor—gave a shrug. “Sure I do. No matter what Mr. Caine might think, owning half the town doesn’t give him any special privileges, as far as the law is concerned.”

Why the hell were all the women in this town pissed at him? This was only the second time he had even stepped foot in Haven Point. What had he done?

“I don’t expect special privileges,” he insisted.

“Good.” She smirked. “Then you’ll understand that I have to give you a citation with a hefty fine.”

“Absolutely,” he said, with a coolness to match hers.

“Mr. Aidan! Where are they taking my mama?” Maddie spoke in a frantic voice, adding several progressively more insistent tugs on his shirt for emphasis.

While he was talking to the new mayor and the police officer, the EMTs had started to load the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, he realized.

“Where is the closest medical facility?” he demanded of the two women.

“Lake Haven Hospital,” Officer Bailey answered. “It’s the closest and only medical facility around here. You’ll find it at the halfway point between Haven Point and Shelter Springs.”

Maddie tore away from him and raced over to the ambulance. “No! Don’t go, Mama. Don’t go!”

Eliza looked equally distressed. “Please. My daughter. I can’t leave without her!”

One of the EMTs, a man with a completely bald head and a bit of a paunch, gave her an apologetic look. “It’s against our department policy, ma’am, to take uninjured minors in the ambulance. But Officer Bailey over there can transport her to the hospital in her patrol vehicle. She might even beat us to the hospital.”

“I want to go with my mama!” Maddie exclaimed. “I’m hurt, too! I scraped my knee!”

“It’s true,” Aidan offered solemnly. “She definitely needs medical attention.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“She’s a little girl who’s been through a terrible ordeal, seeing her mother hurt like that. It’s cold out here and she’s frightened. What’s the harm in letting them stay together?”

“The rules—”

“Just let her ride the bus, Ed,” the police officer said, her voice weary. “I’ll clear it with Chief Gallegos. He’s too busy dealing with the fire at the inn to mind a little breach in protocol this once.”

After a moment and another whispered conversation between the EMTs, the bald dude shrugged. “Fine. Come on up here, little lady. You have to promise not to touch anything, though.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

Aidan lifted her up into the ambulance and she paused in the door opening to give him a little wave before the EMTs climbed in after her and closed the door. A moment later, the ambulance pulled away, lights flashing, and drove away from the scene.

He shivered a little and realized his coat had disappeared somewhere. Maybe they had used it to cover the woman in the ambulance. He hoped so.

“Mr. Caine. I need your license and registration, please.” The police officer’s expression had once more returned to a stern, uncompromising line.

He found the necessary information inside the rental vehicle—not an easy task since the glove compartment was packed with all kinds of paperwork, from the last time the tires were rotated to a receipt for pizza from a place called Pie Guys Pizza.

By the time they finished, he was freezing. The mayor had long since returned to the warmth of her store, with its cheery Christmas tree in the window.

“That should be all,” Officer Bailey said, still without smiling once. “You can find all the necessary instructions for paying your citation or where and when to appear before the judge if you want to contest it. If you have any questions, there’s also a number there you can call.”

“Thanks. Am I free to go, then? You’re not going to arrest me?”

“Not today, anyway.”

Was that a joke? It was tough to tell, since she seemed completely humorless.

“Can you tell me again how I get to the hospital?”

“Take a left and go a block until you hit Lakefront Drive, then head north about a mile. You can’t miss it. Big redbrick building. The storm is picking up. Drive slowly and leave plenty of room to stop, especially with those tires.”

He nodded and climbed back into the rental SUV. His headache had ratcheted up about a dozen notches. He wasn’t in any hurry to drive anywhere except his lodge at Snow Angel Cove after the trauma of actually hitting a person, but Dermot and Margaret Caine had raised him to do the right thing, even when it hurt.

CHAPTER TWO

AIDAN’S PHONE RANG with the signature ringtone for his father just as he pulled into a parking space near the sign for the emergency department at the modern-looking redbrick hospital along the lake.

He briefly entertained the temptation to ignore the call. He loved his father dearly but at the moment his primary focus centered on finding out Eliza’s condition and checking to make sure Madeline had someone looking after her.

On the other hand, after such a traumatic afternoon, he was drawn to the safe, warm, familiar connection with his father.

“Pop. Hi.”

He pictured Dermot Caine—hearty, strong, still handsome even as he headed toward seventy. Wherever his father might be when they spoke on the phone, Aidan always imagined him in his favorite environment, the Center of Hope Café, where he ruled as master and commander—pouring coffee and serving up pie and conversation to tourists and locals alike.

“Are you in the country?” Pop said. “I wondered if you might be abroad.”

Aidan winced a little as he watched the snow pummel the windshield with increasing intensity. Calling his father had been on his to-do list for a week.

“I’m here. I got your messages. Sorry we never connected. I’ve been in the middle of some pretty intense negotiations this week.”

“You work too hard, son.”

He couldn’t argue. He had been working twenty-hour days for the past week trying to iron out some contract disputes with one of their vendors in China and for several weeks before that, he had been neck-deep in product development projects.

Everything seemed harder since September. He wanted to think he was almost back to full throttle but he still had times when he had to collapse and sleep for almost twenty-four hours straight.

He didn’t tell his father any of that, of course.

“How is Katherine?” he asked, choosing a topic certain to distract his father.

“Lovely. Just lovely.” The delight and satisfaction in his father’s voice made him smile, despite the bleakness of his errand. “I had forgotten so many little things about sharing a home and a life with a woman. How she straightens up the towels in the bathroom and fills the house with fresh flowers and scented candles and little fancy soaps. She’s had such fun decorating for Christmas. The house is beautiful.”

His father, who had been a widower for most of Aidan’s adult life, had married just a few months earlier to a woman he had secretly cared about for years.

Aidan was deeply happy for his father, who deserved to find love and joy again after all these years on his own.

“And how are things coming there?”

“Good, I guess. I haven’t been up to the house yet.”

“Katherine is anxious to see it. We all are.”

“Everyone is still coming, then? I was afraid you might be calling to tell me you’ve decided to stay in Hope’s Crossing, after all.”

“No. We’re all excited to be together for once. No one else has any place big enough for all of us, now that we’ve absorbed all these new people into our midst.”

In the past year, two of Aidan’s siblings had also married and another had become engaged. When his family was already unbelievably large, every new person added a little more chaos into the mix.

“You’re sure about having us all, then?” Dermot asked.

“Absolutely. I’m looking forward to it.”

He was, even if he was beginning to have a few misgivings as the holidays approached. The whole plan to host everyone for Christmas had been his idea, actually, during that dark time in September while he waited for test results and feared the worst.

He had only recently come into possession of the property here at Lake Haven and his initial visit had convinced him the rambling ten-bedroom lakeshore lodge would be the perfect place for his overlarge family to gather.

Now that the reality of it all was sinking in, he was beginning to wonder if this was yet another decision he had made when he wasn’t precisely in his right mind. He loved his family best in small doses. Having everyone at Snow Angel Cove was certain to be noisy, chaotic and intense.

“I wanted to talk to you about the travel arrangements.” His father’s voice turned disapproving. “That’s the reason for my call.”

He braced himself for the lecture he knew was coming. “What don’t you like about the arrangements?”

“A private jet, son? Really? You’re sending a private jet for us?”

“Yes. And?”

“And it’s a ridiculous expense, that’s what it is. Why, we can drive there in no more than thirteen, fourteen hours, on a few tanks of gas.”

“Do you have a school bus I don’t know about, big enough for twenty people plus luggage?”

“Smarty. We could take separate cars. We could each drive our own and it would still cost less than a chartered flight.”

He sighed. His humble, hardworking father couldn’t quite grasp the fact that Aidan was loaded, even after all these years.

“I don’t want everybody to have to spend their whole holiday in the car. I can get everyone here from Hope’s Crossing in less than two hours.”

“It’s a big waste of money. That’s what it is.”

“It’s my money. If I want to waste it giving my family a happy Christmas, that’s my prerogative, isn’t it? I’m excited for everyone to be here. We haven’t spent a Christmas together in years. It’s too bad Jamie can’t make it.”

“Yes.” He could tell his father was still fretting about the expense.

“Just relax and let me worry about the details, okay? The flight is already arranged. It’s too late to back out now so you might as well just sit back and enjoy it.”

“I don’t see that you’ve given us a choice, if you’ve already paid for it.”

He would have smiled at Pop’s reluctance if he wasn’t parked outside a hospital, about to go in and check on the woman he had injured.

“I’ve got to go, Pop. I’m sorry.”

“I know. You’re a busy man.”

“I’ll see you in a few weeks, though, and we’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”

“You know I love you, son.”

“I love you, too, Pop.”

He had said those words whenever he spoke with his father since September. Each time, they seemed to carry a new weight, to ring with resonant depth.

He loved his family, each crazy one of them. His father had set a fine example of the way a man should live, with dignity, compassion and Dermot’s inherent goodness. As a result, his brothers were all men of honor and strength and he admired each one of them for different reasons—and the women they had chosen.

He only had one sister, the sweet and kind Charlotte, who impressed the hell out of him for the determination and courage she had directed toward turning her life around the past few years.

Aidan had neglected them all. For years, he had been immersed with single-minded focus on building Caine Tech into the powerhouse it was today. Something else had to slide along the way and his personal life had, by default, dwindled to nothing. As a result, he had missed countless birthdays, holidays and special occasions over the years.

This year, he wanted everything to be different. Life had taken an unexpected, disconcerting turn for him in the fall but he had emerged from it with a new determination to tighten and strengthen those ties binding him to his family.

He wanted this Christmas at Snow Angel Cove to be perfect for all of them, his way of making up for all those years of neglect.

First, he had to make sure the woman he had injured would be able to enjoy a merry Christmas of her own.

* * *

OH, HOW SHE hated this.

From the drafty hospital gown, to the smell of sickness and disinfectant, to the frustrating and unsettling sense of being completely out of control of her circumstances, Eliza heartily disliked hospitals.

She had a great respect for medical professionals and understood that certain instances required their services but she would rather be standing out in the middle of that storm out there in bare feet than be tucked here under warmed blankets in the emergency department of the Haven Point medical center.

Okay, she seriously loved the warmed blankets. They made her feel sleepy and cozy and safe. She probably should be ashamed at her fierce desire to just curl up on the uncomfortable exam bed and sleep for a few days.

All the more reason she had to get out of here. She didn’t have the luxury of dawdling under blankets, warmed or otherwise, when she and her daughter were now basically homeless.

“I’m fine, I promise,” Eliza insisted for at least the twentieth time. “Can’t I just go?”

The lovely red-haired young woman frowning at her appeared far too young to have earned that stethoscope and the name tag on her lab coat that read Dr. Devin Shaw.

“You were hit by a car, Ms. Hayward. The head CT showed a concussion.”

“And you said yourself, you saw no evidence of bleeding or swelling.”

The doctor made a dismissive gesture. “Yet. Sometimes those things can develop hours or even days after the initial injury. With all that’s been in the news lately about professional athletes and concussions, you surely understand that any head injury is potentially serious.”

“I know. I will be very careful, I promise.”

The doctor jotted a note on her chart. “I would still like to X-ray that wrist and possibly your shoulder where the vehicle struck you.”

All of which would take time and money, both of which she had in very short supply right now. “That’s hardly necessary. The SUV barely tapped me. Nothing is broken.”

“You sound very certain of that.”

“I’m sure I would know if I had any broken bones. Besides the concussion, I’ve got some scrapes and bruises and possibly a sprained wrist. That’s all. I don’t need to waste any more of your time.”

“You’re not wasting anything. It’s my responsibility to make sure we don’t let you leave the hospital until we’re absolutely certain it’s safe for you to do so.”

She shifted in the flimsy gown, wanting rather desperately to be done here. It was growing dark and a storm was poised to deliver a hard uppercut to this little corner of western Idaho. She didn’t have time to lie here being coddled and fretted over, not when she needed to find somewhere safe and warm for her daughter to stay.

“Look, I appreciate what you’ve done so far but, really, I’m fine. Please.”

She couldn’t stay here. The hospital was nice enough. Over the past five years with Maddie, she had seen the inside of more than her share of medical facilities and as far as she could tell, the Lake Haven Hospital was small but modern and seemed to have all the necessary diagnostic equipment.

The doctor might seem young but she also projected a calm, comforting bedside manner that Eliza appreciated.

That didn’t make her any more eager to stay a moment longer than necessary.

She craned her neck to see Maddie curled up in the visitor’s chair, watching one of her favorite Disney movies on Eliza’s tablet while she colored a picture with crayons and paper provided by the hospital staff.

Maddie had plenty of experience with hospital rooms and didn’t seem at all distressed to be in a new one. In fact, she had spent the past hour chatting up all the doctors and nurses in her usual friendly fashion.

Every time Maddie touched a surface, Eliza wanted to cringe and grab the spray disinfectant. Having a child with a serious health condition had given Eliza a severe case of germaphobia, at least when it came to hospitals.

No matter how good the hospital’s housekeeping department might be, most emergency departments were a breeding ground for viruses and bacteria by the very nature of the cases they treated.

She had to get out of here.

“Look, I appreciate your concern and I understand you’re just doing your job, but what do I have to do to convince you I’m fine so you’ll let me go? As I said, the SUV barely touched me. I don’t need X-rays or stitches and I don’t want any pain medication.”

“You might be singing a different tune in the morning. You’re probably going to hurt everywhere.”

She already hurt everywhere but she wasn’t about to tell this earnest, concerned young doctor that. “I promise, I’ll pick up a bottle of ibuprofen and take them faithfully.”

The doctor still didn’t look convinced so Eliza decided to appeal to her sympathy, if nothing else. “I appreciate your concern. Everyone here has been really great. I can highly recommend the hospital and will be happy to post good reviews on Angie’s List or wherever you hospitals need reviews, but I have had a really miserable day. The worst.”

The doctor gave her a sympathetic look. “The paramedics told me you were supposed to start work at the Lake Haven Inn. I’m so sorry. What rotten timing.”

“Almost as bad as being in the crosswalk at the exact moment a driver coming down the hill hit a patch of ice, right? Haven Point hasn’t been really great to me. Right now I just want to take my daughter and go.”

The doctor frowned again, looking torn. She studied the computer screen again and studied Eliza carefully.

“If I were to release you, where will you go?”

“I was going to drive back to Boise. I have friends I can stay with for a few days, until I figure things out.”

That was a blatant lie. Yes, she had plenty of friends but she wouldn’t feel comfortable calling any of them a few weeks before Christmas and inviting her and her daughter over for an open-ended visit.

She didn’t like the bleak option of an extended-stay hotel somewhere, but she would figure out a way to make it work for a while.

Dr. Shaw chewed her bottom lip, looking more like a middle-school student prepping for an algebra test than the attending physician at an emergency room.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t feel good about you driving two hours back to Boise when we haven’t properly assessed your injuries, especially with that storm. It’s already snowing pretty hard out there and I can imagine the mountain passes between here and Boise are restricted to chains or four-wheel drive only.”

“I have four-wheel drive on my vehicle and chains in my trunk.”

She also had a pounding headache that would make even driving to the mountain pass an interesting exercise, but that was another thing she decided not to mention to the physician.

“How about this. I’m all right with releasing you from here but I don’t feel good about sending you out into the storm. Do you know anyone in town you could stay with tonight?”

She shook her head then fought a wince as her pain cells reacted quite negatively to the gesture. “Megan Hamilton is the only person I know—besides the nice EMTs and your staff here, of course. I imagine Megan has her hands full right now, dealing with the fire at the inn. I can’t add another burden onto her plate.”

“We’re at a stalemate, then.”

“What if I were to find a hotel room for the night and drive back tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid that might be easier said than done. A lot of our hotels are only open seasonally, during the summer. With the fire at the inn, we lost half the available hotel rooms in town. All their guests had to scramble to find lodging here or in Shelter Springs, from what I understand.”

She sighed. Finding a way through this quandary was more effort than her aching head wanted to handle right now. “I suppose that’s our answer, then. I can’t stay overnight in the hospital simply because of a lack of hotel rooms. Not with Maddie to think about, too. I’ll drive back to Boise to stay with friends. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

The doctor was quiet. “I’m still not crazy about that option. You’ve got a sprained wrist and a concussion. We both know you’re in no shape for driving under perfect conditions, forget about driving at night during a winter storm. Give me a few moments to see if I can arrange something.”

“I may have the solution.”

The sudden masculine voice in the room startled both of them. Only Maddie, happily watching her show with her headphones on, didn’t jump.

Eliza and the doctor both turned to find Aidan Caine standing in the doorway, looking lean and sexy in a blue sweater, jeans and worn leather boots.

She knew who he was now. She had figured it out during the ambulance ride, when she heard the EMTs mention his name. She should have recognized him immediately but she had been too dazed after the accident to place why the face of the man whose vehicle had hit her seemed so familiar.

Aidan Caine. The Geek God. That’s what the magazines called him. He was a tech genius whose company had recently been named one of the five most influential in Silicon Valley. Though only in his midthirties, he was reported to be worth well into nine—possibly ten—figures.

She had never met the man in person but they were connected by a tangled web that went back far further than the events of this afternoon. What an odd coincidence, that he had been driving in the little town of Haven Point at the exact moment she was crossing the road.

If she didn’t know better, she might think Aidan Caine had some kind of vendetta against her and was determined to ruin her life—all while looking like a cover model for Sexy Geek Monthly.

“Hi!” Maddie exclaimed suddenly, distracted from the Disney princess movie she was watching. She pulled off her headphones and beamed at Aidan.

“Hey, Mama, look! That’s my friend! The nice man who helped me when you were hurt.”

Nice man? Aidan Caine? She really needed to have a talk with her daughter about developing more discriminating taste. From all reports, the man was ruthless and cold, used to taking what he wanted, to hell with the consequences.

He had just mowed her down with his car, for heaven’s sake.

Eliza had plenty of reason to know Mr. Caine and the people who worked for him only cared about the Caine Tech bottom line, not about all the people they stepped on to protect it.

Oblivious to just how much this man had indirectly altered the course of her young life, Maddie slid off her chair and trotted over to him holding out her paper. “Look, Mr. Aidan. I’m coloring a picture. It’s a Christmas tree. You can have it, if you want.”

Eliza braced to swoop in and protect her baby, fully expecting him to be impatient and brusque with a little girl’s childish drawing. Instead, he surprised her by taking the paper with apparent delight. “Thank you. It’s very nice. I especially like the angel on the top.”

“We always have an angel on the top of our tree,” Maddie informed him. “Except this year. This year we don’t even have a Christmas tree. Isn’t that sad? We were going to have one at our new apartment but it burned down. Now I don’t know what we’re going to do. All our ornaments are in boxes. So are most of my toys, even my Barbie Malibu Mansion.”

Dr. Shaw stepped forward before he could answer. “This is a secure area, Mr. Caine,” she said, her voice cold. “How did you get back here?”

The young doctor didn’t seem very impressed or intimidated by Aidan’s reputation, either. She faced him down, chin up and arms crossed over her chest like she was a one-hundred-pound offensive lineman protecting Eliza, who had the ball.

“I asked where I could find Eliza Hayward and the receptionist gave me the room number. Is that a problem?”

“Yes! We have strict security protocol. This area is restricted to family and friends of patients. As far as I know, you’re neither.”

“He’s my friend,” Maddie said firmly. “I want him here. He’s nice.”

Eliza flushed. Maddie had become very good at pushing her weight around in hospitals.

“There. You see?” Aidan said, after flashing a rather devastating smile to her daughter. “I’m Maddie’s friend. And I do believe I have an answer that might help everyone.”

She sincerely doubted that. Eliza pulled the warmed blanket—quickly losing its comforting capabilities, anyway—up to her chin, wishing she were wearing something other than this atrocious hospital gown.

A little battle armor would be nice when confronting a man like Aidan Caine.

“You need a place close by to stay for the night so you can leave the hospital, is that correct?”

Eliza didn’t want to answer but she could see no point in dissembling. “I want to drive back to Boise to stay with friends but Dr. Shaw is concerned about the storm.”

“With good reason. It’s really coming down out there.”

He was not helping her position with the doctor. Maybe he was trying to sabotage her life.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I recently took ownership of some property in town.”

Dr. Shaw gave an inelegant snort. “More like half of Haven Point,” she muttered.

To Eliza’s surprise, a hint of dusky color rose on the man’s cheekbones. “Not quite. But one of the properties is a large lodge on the southeastern shore of the lake about two miles from Haven Point.”

“Snow Angel Cove,” Dr. Shaw offered.

He looked surprised. “You know it?”

“I grew up on the lake, Mr. Caine. Everyone knows Snow Angel Cove.”

“Then you can confirm that there’s plenty of room for Ms. Hayward and her daughter to stay while she recovers from her injuries.”

He really thought she would just merrily pack her daughter up and go move to a stranger’s home? Either he was unbelievably arrogant or ridiculously clueless. She would bet on the former.

“That’s not necessary. I’ll figure something else out,” she said, her tone stiff. Her head throbbed as if someone had wedged it in a car door and was slamming the door against it again and again for fun. The rest of her wasn’t faring much better.

After the miserable day she had endured, she just wanted to be alone somewhere where she could whimper and sniffle and lick her wounds by herself.

“There aren’t any hotel rooms left in town. You heard the doctor. I don’t feel good about you leaving town, either, in the middle of that storm. I promise, I’m not a homicidal maniac.”

No. Only a fiercely ruthless competitor who had built his business from nothing in only a few years—and the man who had indirectly contributed to her husband’s death.

She didn’t want anything to do with him.

“That’s impossible,” she said. “Completely out of the question. I’m not staying with you.”

Surprise flitted in his blue eyes, as if he had never expected her to refuse. “If it makes you feel any better, a very nice couple has been overseeing the renovations on the property for me the last few months. They’re staying on the property, as well.”

That made the whole thing sound more like a genuine offer to help her out of a tough situation and help her get released from the hospital and less like he planned to drag her to his evil lair for his own nefarious purposes. But still.

“This is stupid. I’m fine to drive back to Boise. I’m used to driving in snow. I’ve got a four-wheel-drive SUV and I have good tires on my car. Unlike someone else I could mention,” she said pointedly.

Where was all this snarkiness coming from? She was never caustic or sharp. She considered herself a nice person, darn it. Apparently, leaving one job and apartment, losing another of each in a terrible fire and then being mowed down on the street, all in the same day, tended to bring out the worst in her.

Unfortunately, reminding him of his contribution to her situation only seemed to strengthen his resolve.

“That is exactly the reason you should stay at Snow Angel Cove for the night. I feel responsible that you were hurt.”

“You are responsible,” Devin Shaw murmured.

He nodded. “There. What the good doctor said. I am responsible for you being hurt. I would offer to put you up in a hotel for the night but as Dr. Shaw pointed out, I doubt there’s one room to be found in town. This is the next best thing. Please, Ms. Hayward. Better than some cramped couch at a friend’s house.”

“Do you have a Christmas tree?” Maddie asked eagerly.

He looked down, apparently disconcerted by the question. “Um, I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”

“That’s okay,” Maddie said.

She seemed to accept this failing—and the whole situation—with far more equanimity than Eliza. She also seemed to have developed an immediate liking for Aidan.

Eliza wanted to pull her daughter close and whisper to her a bit of maternal advice about being careful about the men you decide to trust, but this probably wasn’t quite the time.

“It’s not a bad solution,” Dr. Shaw said with a pensive nod. “As a last resort, I was going to offer my own house for you to stay. It’s not far from here and I have an extra bedroom. The only problem is, I’m on shift all night tonight and you and your daughter would be alone there. I’ll tell you quite frankly, I feel much better about you staying somewhere with people around than I would even if we could find you a hotel room here or up in Shelter Springs.”

Eliza studied all three of the people in the room, looking at her with varying degrees of expectation. She was too tired and battered to make this kind of decision right now! This whole thing was so ridiculous.

If she only had herself to consider, she would jump up from this bed, grab her coat, tell them all to go to hell and drive to Boise, against medical advice or not.

But she would be a poor mother not to be concerned about her daughter’s well-being. Maddie had already had a long, hard day. She was a trouper but she had to be exhausted. Subjecting her to at least a two-hour car ride in poor conditions—and with a driver who, like it or not, probably wasn’t in any shape to drive—would be foolhardy.

He had an abundance of bedrooms and a caretaker couple in residence. She likely wouldn’t even see the man before she and Maddie left in the morning.

The thought of having a safe, comfortable bed suddenly held enormous appeal. One night. What would be the harm in that?

And anyway, what choice did she really have in the matter? She had a feeling it was either stay with him or be stuck here in the hospital overnight.

“I suppose we could stay for one night, if you’re certain you have the room.”

Relief blazed across his features and she realized with some surprise that his concern was genuine.

“Absolutely,” he answered. “We have more than enough room.”

“The place is huge,” Dr. Shaw said.

“Yay. Now we can help you get a Christmas tree!” Maddie exclaimed.

“Great,” he answered another quick flash of that devastating smile.

“I do have one caveat,” Dr. Shaw said. “Someone will have to check on Eliza during the night. I would prefer every two hours but at least once or twice will suffice.”

“That can be arranged,” he said.

“Great. Then I’ll start work on your discharge papers.”

She hurried out of the room, leaving Eliza alone with the man who had put her in the hospital bed in the first place.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE TIME the nurse brought the final paperwork to release Eliza from the emergency department an hour later, Maddie’s patience with hospitals had trickled away, leaving her tired, hungry and cranky.

“I want to go home,” she said several times. Each time, panic trickled through Eliza at the reminder that she didn’t have a home for her daughter.

“We’re going to stay overnight at Mr. Caine’s house,” she finally explained just as she was shrugging back into her coat.

At least she assumed that was still the plan. She hadn’t seen the man in an hour, not since he left with her car keys to call his employee to retrieve her vehicle from downtown Haven Point and take it out to his property so she would have all her things waiting for her when they arrived.

“Are we having a slumber party?” Maddie asked with excitement. She had been hounding her mother to let her stay overnight at a friend’s house but Eliza had always been too nervous, given all the medication her daughter required. Apparently this was the next best thing.

“Something like that,” Eliza murmured.

The more thought she gave to it, the more ridiculous the whole concept seemed. What in the world was she thinking? She didn’t even want to speak with the man, forget about staying in his home.

She was a smart, capable woman. She never should have let herself be railroaded into this whole thing, storm or not.

When they walked out to the reception area, they found Aidan leafing through a magazine in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs.

He rose when she and Maddie came through the door. “Are you free to go?”

“So they tell me,” she said glumly.

She had no choice, she reminded herself. She had her daughter’s welfare to worry about first and foremost. A safe, warm place for the night, even with Aidan Caine, was the best option for Maddie.

“Excellent. I’ve already brought the car around.”

He gripped her elbow as they passed through the outside door and she caught a whiff of some kind of expensive peppery aftershave before the wild swirl of icy wind and blowing snow snatched away her breath.

“It’s so cold!” Maddie exclaimed.

“Come on. We’ll get you warmed up.”

Still gripping her arm, he headed for a very familiar vehicle and opened the door to the backseat.

“Hey! This is my SUV,” she exclaimed.

He nodded. “It seemed the safest choice, since you had a car seat and everything. I drove the rental with the lousy tires into town while they were discharging you and swapped with the key you gave me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. What about your rental?”

“I called them to pick it up,” he said grimly, “with a few choice words about renting out an unsafe vehicle.”

She would not like to be on this man’s bad side.

After he made sure she and Maddie were both settled securely, he pulled out into the snow.

Within the first few minutes of observing while he drove along at a crawl, the wipers valiantly trying to beat back the snow, she realized driving back to Boise would have been a nightmare. She wouldn’t have made it, not with the headache still throbbing through her to the same rhythmic beat of the wipers.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked after a few moments.

She shrugged then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark interior of her SUV. “Yes. Fine.”

“Thank you for giving me this chance to try to make things up to you,” he said, his voice low. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened today. I’ve been having flashbacks ever since that terrible moment when I thought I had hit both of you. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget it.”

She relived that moment of helpless terror when she had seen Maddie racing directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle and realized he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. A fine-edged shiver rippled down her spine. “I doubt I will, either.”

If she had any doubts about his competency behind the wheel, they were quickly allayed as he drove through the snowy night around the lake. Though they encountered few other vehicles on the road, he was cautious, alert, leaving plenty of time for braking at the few stop signs they passed through on the way out of town and then progressing at a sedate pace.

She had a feeling this was more a reaction to the events of the afternoon than his usually driving patterns. That didn’t make her appreciate his vigilance less, given the dangerous conditions.

“Tell me again about what you were doing in Haven Point, the job you were supposed to be starting,” he said after a few moments without taking his gaze off the road. “I only caught bits and pieces of the story at the accident scene and then a little more at the hospital.”

She released a long breath and shifted in the seat. Just that slight movement hurt and she sincerely wished she had taken the doctor up on her offer to write a prescription for pain medication.

“I have a degree in hotel management and was hired to take charge of the Lake Haven Inn.”

“What were you doing before today?”

“Until yesterday I’ve been working as the assistant manager at a small hotel in Boise. I’ve been there for three years, since my husband died.”

“I’m sorry. About your husband, I mean.”

“Thank you.” Manners compelled her to acknowledge the condolences, though it felt strange, wrong somehow, when they were coming from Aidan Caine.

She stared straight ahead at the snow blowing against the windshield. When she was a little girl, she used to think the snow reflecting in the headlights looked like stars and she would pretend her dad was piloting a rocket ship through hyperspace.

That time of imagination and fun seemed a long time ago. Now driving through snow was at best an inconvenience, at worst, an experience fraught with tension and peril.

“It seems an odd time to start a new job, right before Christmas,” he observed.

“I suppose. I was actually hired in early November but it took a little time to tender my resignation and end the lease on my apartment.”

“You really did pack up everything, didn’t you?” He jerked his head to the back, piled high with boxes.

“Most of our things are in storage. These were only the essentials. Moving to Lake Haven was supposed to be a new start for us. I guess that didn’t work out so well.”

That panic hovering just beneath the surface since the moment she’d seen that blackened building seemed to bubble up all over again. For a moment, she wanted to just close her eyes and wallow in self-pity. She had pinned such high hopes on this move. Running a hotel in a small town had been her dream since she was just a girl working the front desk at the Seaswept Inn on the Oregon Coast.

She loved the idea of raising Maddie in this small town, finally putting down roots after Trent had moved them from job to job, opportunity to opportunity, always in search of pay dirt.

The charming town of Haven Point and the whole Lake Haven area had seemed the perfect location—quiet part of the year, bustling during the summer months, and close enough to Maddie’s specialists in Boise that they could still go to appointments with relative ease.

She had loved Haven Point on previous visits and had felt welcomed from the first moment she stepped into town.

She was so tired of disappointments, of constantly being forced to rechart her life’s direction.

“I’m sorry about your job situation,” Aidan said quietly. “I can only imagine how upsetting that must be for you and for Maddie.”

What did he know about upsetting job situations? He came from a completely different world and probably had no idea what it was like to struggle, to wonder which bills she could afford to pay off that month and which she would have to make token payments on until a better time.

“Upsetting. Yes. It certainly is.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are your plans beyond the next few days?”

She didn’t have a fallback position. Why would she ever have imagined she needed one?

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “I haven’t exactly had a great deal of time to go over my options, considering I’ve been at the hospital since five minutes after I found out the inn burned down.”

“True enough. Being hit by a car can be such a distraction.”

“Who knew?” she said dryly, earning a short, surprised-sounding laugh.

“I will probably try to find a short-term lease on an apartment back in Boise somewhere while I send out resumes,” she finally answered.

“You don’t have family you could stay with?”

“No,” she said. To her dismay, her throat started to close at that single harsh word. For a moment, she missed her mother fiercely. It had been sixteen years since her mother went to work and never came home and it still sometimes seemed like yesterday.

She could drive to Portland and stay with her father and stepmother but she knew just how that would go. They would be squeezed into a sofa bed in the corner of the family room. Her teenage stepbrothers would resent her presence in what they considered their home and would complain about having to share a bathroom and about Maddie’s chattering. After a week or so, her father—prodded by Paula—would take her aside and quietly tell her he was afraid things weren’t working out.

She didn’t want to put any of them through that.

“My father lives out of state,” she said. “He doesn’t really have room for us.”

In his house or in his life. Though she didn’t add the words, she acknowledged them with a familiar little pang, then forced herself to focus on the positive.

“I have many friends in Boise and could call several of them in a moment and they would gladly open their homes until I can find a place.”

Her best friend, Joan, had an extra bedroom and had ushered her off tearfully just that morning—Lord, it seemed like a month ago—after extracting promise after promise that Eliza would come back for frequent visits.

He didn’t have a chance to answer, as they had approached a massive carved wooden gate. The gate opened smoothly before they reached it—she had no idea how—and he proceeded up a long driveway.

“It’s like a tunnel,” Maddie exclaimed. Pine trees rose up on either side of the driveway, blocking the view of the house—not that they could have seen much, anyway, through the darkness and the snow that was blowing almost horizontally.

She could see a glow in the distance that gradually took shape as a rambling log home ablaze with lights. The lodge was set on a hill, angled in such a way that Eliza imagined it would have magnificent lake and mountain views during better weather conditions.

“Welcome to Snow Angel Cove,” Aidan said as he pulled into a porte cochere in front of the house.

The moment he opened the driver’s side door, two people hurried out of the house toward the passenger side to open the doors for Eliza and Maddie.

The woman was lean to the point of being scrawny, with lined, leathery features and black and iron-gray hair pulled into a ponytail. She beamed at Maddie as she took her arm to help her from the car.

“Hello, my dears. Oh, you’ve had a time of it. Come inside where it’s warm.”

Maddie, who must have fallen asleep a little in the car without Eliza realizing, gave her a bleary-eyed smile. “I’m Madeline Elizabeth Hayward. I’m almost six years old.”

“Hi, Madeline. I’m Sue Stockton and this is my husband, Jim.”

Maddie waved at him and the man solemnly shook her hand. Jim was just as leathery, just as gray, but with a sweet smile and a bit of a paunch.

She liked them both instantly, though it was one of those snap judgments that had no real basis in reality.

“You must be Eliza,” Sue said. To her surprise, the other woman wrapped her in a warm hug, as if they were old friends reconnecting after a few years.

When Eliza confirmed her identity, Sue said, “Don’t dawdle. Come inside. It’s freezing out here.”

She opened the door wide and ushered them into a massive great room, with a ceiling that had to top thirty feet, dominated by a huge open river rock fireplace and raw timber mantel. The space was big enough to contain at least four couches she could see, in separate seating areas, along with a giant Christmas tree that was currently unadorned.

Aidan came in behind them with her purse and Maddie’s backpack in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He was followed by Jim, who carried a few more suitcases.

She wanted to tell them not to bother bringing everything in since they were only staying one night, but she didn’t have the chance before Aidan set her things down on a chair and swept the woman into an affectionate embrace.

He bent down and kissed her cheek. “Sue, darling, you are more gorgeous every time I see you.”

The woman blushed and shook her head. “And you’re still a rascal, aren’t you?”

“Sue and Jim have been with me for many years,” he said to Eliza and Maddie.

“Almost since the beginning of Caine Tech. What has it been? Twelve? Thirteen years? You bought that little ranch outside San Jose and hired us to look after you and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

“Something like that. She and Jim retired a few years ago but I managed to talk them out of retirement for a while to help me get things organized here at Snow Angel Cove.”

Sue gave her another hug. “When he called to tell me he was bringing you here, Aidan told me everything that’s happened to you today. I’m so sorry, honey.”

She ached in every muscle and under normal circumstances she would have tried to extricate herself from the woman’s hug but she found something so comforting and warm and genuine about it.

Tears welled up, much to her dismay. “Thank you,” she murmured with a watery smile, trying to wipe them away on the cuff of her sweater before anybody noticed.

“You probably haven’t had time to eat a thing all afternoon, have you, what with going to the emergency room and all. Well, I hope you’re hungry. I’ve got vegetable beef soup on the stove and fresh rolls just set to come out of the oven.”

Maddie perked up. “I love fresh rolls!”

“You and me both, young lady,” Jim said with another of those slow, sweetly charming smiles.

“We’ll work on bringing in your things while you grab a bite to eat,” Aidan said.

“I don’t need everything,” she said. “We’ve got boxes and boxes in my car. Just the suitcases you’ve already brought in should be sufficient for one night.”

“Are you certain? We don’t mind bringing in whatever you think you might need.”

“Positive. I should be fine.”

“In that case, I’ll have dinner ready for you quick as a wink,” Sue said.

Eliza wanted to protest that she wasn’t hungry. What she needed most was a horizontal surface to stretch out on. Maddie needed to eat, though.

“If you care to wash up, there’s a powder room just down that hallway. First door on the left.”

“Come on, Maddie.”

She almost didn’t want to look in the big carved wooden mirror in the lovely little half bath. The damage was as bad as she feared. She had a darkening bruise above her temple and an abrasion on her cheek. Her hair wasn’t as bad as she feared but running a brush through it was an exercise in pain for both her head and her sprained wrist.

By the time she set Maddie’s hair to rights, she had to stop and lean against the sink for a moment to catch her breath.

When they returned to the great room, they found Sue, Jim and Aidan seated at a massive dining table on the other side of the pass-through fireplace.

Maddie quickly climbed into the chair next to her new friend.

“I like your house,” she told him. “It’s pretty.”

He smiled. “Why, thank you. This is the first time I’ve seen it since I bought it last August. I’m amazed at all the work that has been done in just a few months.”

“Only a little paint and some varnish,” Sue said, ladling soup into bowls. “I’ve had the cleaning crew working their fannies off, I can tell you.”

Maddie giggled. “You said fanny!”

“Why, so I did.”

“That’s a funny word. Fanny, fanny, fanny.”

“Maddie,” Eliza said in a warning.

Sue chuckled. “I’ll have to be more careful. I’m afraid Jim and I might both need reminders that we’re not on the ranch with roughneck cowboys. Now, eat up while it’s warm.”

“We have to pray first!” Maddie exclaimed.

Aidan cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go ahead.”

Maddie offered a sweet prayer, asking a blessing on the nice lady who cried because her hotel burned down and for the nurses at the hospital and for Dr. Mendoza, her own cardiac specialist. She even remembered to bless the food before saying amen and taking a bite of her roll with the next breath.

Conversation flowed between Aidan and his caretakers—who were obviously more to him than just employees. Eliza listened with half an ear. She was so tired. She judged it couldn’t be later than 7:00 p.m. but she couldn’t see a clock anywhere to confirm her guess.

Though it was grand and spacious, with those huge log supports in the great room and the wide wall of windows, it seemed...cold, somehow. The lodge reminded her of a new hotel in Boise she had toured about a month prior to opening, before all the finishing touches had been added to give it a welcoming air.

“How are you holding up?” Aidan asked.

“Okay, for now.”

“Would you prefer a tray in your room? I should have thought to ask.”

Yes. Quite desperately. She wanted a long, hot shower and then a bed. But she could manage to keep it together for a few more moments. “No. This is fine. It’s delicious, Sue.” The rolls were perfect, crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside while the soup was probably the best she had ever tasted, even though she could only manage a spoonful or two.

“Thank you, darlin’. It seemed just the thing for a stormy night.”

She would have expected Aidan Caine to dine on gourmet meals every night but he seemed more than content with the rather humble fare.

“Oh. I almost forgot the pasta salad,” Sue said.

She headed out of the dining room just as a phone rang. Aidan pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. He glanced at the number.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting for this call. I’ve got to take it. I’ll be right back.”

He excused himself and answered the phone on his way out of the dining room as Sue came in from the kitchen Eliza could see through a doorway.

“Where is he going?”

“Phone call,” Jim answered, taking another roll out of the basket.

“Oh. That man! I swear, he hasn’t had a warm meal in a decade. One of these days, I’m going to drop his blasted phone right in the soup bowl.”

Maddie giggled at the image and Sue and Jim both smiled at her. Her daughter had a way of charming everyone, even crusty old ranchers.

“He’ll put his phone away quick enough when he has the chance to get out again with the horses,” Jim said.

Maddie inhaled sharply. “You have horses here?”

Oh, dear. Here we go, Eliza thought.

“Why, we certainly do!” Jim said proudly. “Six of the prettiest horses you could ever meet, including a little pony that’s just the right size for a girl such as yourself.”

“Oh. Mama, did you hear?”

“I did.”

Maddie was a little obsessed with all things equine. Okay, a lot obsessed. Her daughter loved horses with a deep and abiding passion.

Eliza didn’t quite comprehend the depth of the obsession since her daughter had never actually ridden a horse and had only seen a few closer than out the car window. Yet Maddie drew horse pictures, she had horse toys, her favorite pajamas featured horses and every time they went to the library, she wanted to check out books about horses. She even pretended she was a horse sometimes and made clippy-cloppy noises when she walked and her imaginary friend—who seemed to appear and disappear in their lives with rather alarming and random frequency—was a black horse named Bob, for reasons Eliza had yet to determine.

“Do you think I could see the horses?” Maddie asked, as if the prospect was far more exciting than even meeting Santa Claus on Christmas morning.

“Don’t see why not,” Jim answered. “Maybe you could even help me feed them in the morning.”

“Oh, could I?” she asked Eliza with eager entreaty.

“We’ll have to see.”

It was her traditional maternal nonanswer but Maddie barely heard her, too enthralled by the idea that Snow Angel Cove had six horses, including a girl-sized pony.

“I have a horse,” Maddie declared. “His name is Bob.”

“Is it?” Jim looked interested.

“Yes. He’s black with a white nose and he can gallop as fast as the wind. He says hello.”

The couple exchanged surprised looks. “He...says hello?” Sue asked.

“Yes. Didn’t you hear him? He’s right next to you.”

They both looked baffled, until Eliza mouthed imaginary friend.

She had been concerned enough about Bob to speak with the unit mental health counselor during Maddie’s last hospital stay, who assured her imaginary friends were both normal and healthy for children, whether or not they had chronic conditions.

“I guess I must have missed him,” Jim said. “Black with a white spot, you say. That must be why. He blends right into the dark window there.”

“He likes it here. So do I.”

“Maybe he’ll like making new friends with the other horses tomorrow,” Jim suggested.

“He will. He loves new friends. I do, too.” She beamed at the grizzled man, who seemed to visibly melt. People tended to do that around Maddie.

An alarm suddenly went off on her phone. She and Maddie both knew what it was without looking and her daughter gave a little groan.

“Do I have to?”

“You know you do, honey.”

Eliza reached into her purse to find the four medications Maddie took twice a day, morning and evening. She shook them out and set them on her daughter’s plate. Maddie sighed but obediently picked up her water glass and swallowed them, one after the other, with the ease of long practice.

“My goodness,” Sue exclaimed. “What’s all this?”

“I have to take pills for my heart,” Maddie said. “It doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to and the pills help it, plus I have a little machine in there to make sure it beats the right way. When I get bigger, I might get a new heart like my friend Paige.”

“Oh. Oh, my.”

Jim and Sue both looked astonished. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction. Maddie seemed healthy most of the time. She was healthy, just like other children—to look at her, it would be impossible to know she had a rare, idiopathic form of juvenile cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the lining of her heart.

For the past few years, her condition was wonderfully stable. While the disease was incurable, the pacemaker helped steady her irregular heartbeats and the medications she took slowed the progression of her condition but she would probably need to be put on the heart transplant list before she hit puberty.

The harsh reality constantly prowled through Eliza’s thoughts like a huge, voracious beast that never slept. With the help of her specialists in Boise, Maddie was a happy, well-adjusted girl who was hardly bothered by the fact that she lived with such a serious condition.

Eliza intended to keep it that way.

“She has a heart condition,” she explained. “It required the implantation of a pacemaker when she was two. But she’s doing very well now.”

“I’m a trouper. That’s what my mom calls me.”

“Sounds like that’s exactly what you are.”

She looked up at the voice to find Aidan had returned to the dining area while her attention was focused on Maddie. He watched them with an inscrutable expression.

“You’re a trouper with a horse named Bob,” Jim said.

“Bob comes to the hospital with me when I have to stay there. He likes the nurses a lot, especially when they feed him candy.”

“Well, sure. Who wouldn’t?” Aidan said as he sat back down.

Eliza shifted, uncomfortable that he had overheard the discussion for reasons she couldn’t have explained. She was, no doubt, already an object of pity to him, the widow who had just lost her job and had been hit by a car within five minutes. Throw in a daughter with a serious heart condition and it was a wonder she didn’t have her own personal violin trio following her around playing mournful tunes.

This man had everything he could ever want or need. He was insanely wealthy, powerful, successful. She, on the other hand, probably presented a pathetic picture to him and she hated it.

Aidan Caine, of all people. Why did her path have to cross with him?

She had nurtured a completely unreasonable resentment toward him and Caine Tech since Trent’s death. Logically, she knew he wasn’t to blame directly. He hadn’t even been at the fateful meeting that afternoon.

Her emotions weren’t very rational, however. It was easier to blame him than to accept that her husband had been on a self-destructive path since Maddie’s diagnosis.

She took another spoonful of soup as she listened to Aidan speak with Jim about one of the horses. She had to get over this. The man had been kind enough to give her and Maddie a comfortable—even luxurious—place to stay for the night. She could manage one night in his home and then she would move on without having to speak with him ever again.

Maddie yawned suddenly and set her spoon down with an impolite clatter that made Eliza wince a little. “I’m tired, Mama,” she announced. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

Aidan set down his own spoon and slid his chair back from the table. “You both look like you’re ready to drop. I’m sorry to keep you so long out here. Let’s go get you settled.”

She wanted to protest that he could at least finish his dinner but in truth she was exhausted and was more than ready for this miserable day to be over.

The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner she could wake up and begin to figure out how she was going to put life back on an even keel for her and for Maddie.

CHAPTER FOUR

AIDAN LED THE WAY through the house toward the bedroom suite Sue had suggested might be best for Eliza and her daughter. He really hoped he was going in the right direction. How embarrassing would it be if he got lost in his own home?

He couldn’t believe all the work that had been finished since he’d last seen the house. Though Sue and Jim had kept him apprised of the progress with pictures and even a few videos, the change was remarkable.

When he first saw the house, the logs had been dark and dreary. Since then, an army of workers had sanded and varnished them until they glowed a warm honey.

The changes he had wanted to make to the bones of the house had been completed in record time and Snow Angel Cove now boasted new paint, new carpet and updated electrical and plumbing systems.

A decorating team had come in with new furniture over the long Thanksgiving weekend. He was happy with the result as he studied the furnishings, though he couldn’t help thinking something still seemed missing.

He wasn’t very good at that sort of thing, which was why he tried to hire people who were.

“Is this our room?” Maddie asked when he paused outside the guest suite Sue had suggested.

“Yes. Do you like it?”

She walked into the room, with its gas fireplace, four-poster bed and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lake. “I like rooms that are pink, usually, but this one is nice,” she said. She looked tired, he thought, more concerned about her than ever now that he knew she suffered from a heart condition.

“It’s a lovely room,” Eliza said. “Thank you.”

Like her daughter, she showed clear signs of exhaustion. Her mouth drooped a little at the corners and she gripped the back of the armchair in the room to steady herself.

The bruise above her temple looked dark and ugly against the pale loveliness of her features. He couldn’t look at it without guilt drenching him like somebody had tossed a bucket of ice water in his face.

He could have killed her and Maddie both.

Yeah, the tires had been terrible on the rental vehicle and black ice had contributed to the accident, but some part of him would always wonder if his own reflexes had somehow been slower than they should have been.

Could he have stopped a few seconds earlier than he had and avoided hitting her altogether if he were a hundred percent back to normal?

He couldn’t know the answer to that, for all the metrics and algorithms in the world.

“I thought you might like a bedroom on the main floor so you don’t have to tackle the stairs, but if you would prefer one with a better view of the lake, those are on the second floor. I’m having an elevator installed but it won’t be done for a few months.”

“This should be fine. It’s very nice. We can share the bed.”

“Not necessary.”

He reached down and pulled a wheeled trundle mattress out from underneath the bigger four-poster.

“I wanted these rooms designed with flexible bedding for when my family comes to visit.”

“Oh, I love it! Look! My very own little bed.”

“Nice.” She smiled at her daughter, though she hadn’t moved from her spot where he suspected she would fall over if she moved away from the chair propping her up.

She belonged in the hospital. He frowned, wishing he could pack her up and drag her right back there. At least she was here, where he could watch out for her, and not trying to drive back to Boise. It was small comfort.

“Your home is lovely,” she said.

“It’s a work in progress,” he said.

“All the best homes are. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

Purchasing a home on a mountain lake in Idaho had never been on his radar. He enjoyed the home he had built in San Jose and had leased another property on the coast near Big Sur for his recovery.

For some time, he had been thinking about buying a ranch, maybe something closer to Hope’s Crossing and his family, until a friend and business partner mentioned his family property here on Lake Haven.

One quick visit later and a look at the stunning, restful view of the lake and mountains, and Aidan had purchased it on the spot, along with the other property that came with it.

He might not have been a hundred percent in his right mind but he refused to regret it. He needed a retreat, a place away from the constant pressure and stress of his regular world—especially now. He was on strict orders to rest and be patient with himself as he healed and slowly returned to his regular activities.

Where better to do that than this sleepy little Idaho town where he could ride horses and cross-country ski on untrammeled snow during the winter and stand hip-deep in the Hell’s Fury River with a fly rod in his hand during the summer?

His scar itched like crazy and he wanted to reach back and scratch it but he curled his hand into a fist at his side instead.

“It lacks many of the finishing touches I want,” he said after a moment, looking around the room. “I have family coming for the holidays the Tuesday before Christmas. I’m hoping we can whip it into shape before they arrive.”

“The other guy, Jim, said you have six horses,” Maddie said, bouncing her bottom a little on the trundle bed.

She was really an adorable little girl, with those dark curls, dimples and the big green eyes she had inherited from her mother.

Cardiomyopathy. Poor thing. Sometimes life really sucked.

“I do indeed have six horses.”

He loved to ride and had since he was a kid spending a few weeks each summer with his maternal grandparents, who had a ranch in southwest Colorado. All his brothers would stay with their grandparents but he was the best rider of the six of them. He didn’t need a psychoanalyst to explain his enduring affinity for horses. It was rare for him to excel at anything physical that one of his brothers hadn’t already conquered.

Even at his house in San Jose, he had a few horses and would take them up into the mountains along the coastline whenever he had the chance.

“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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