Читать книгу The Home Is Where The Heart Is Collection - Maisey Yates - Страница 16

CHAPTER SEVEN

“GET ME THE projected specs by Friday, then make sure your team takes time with their families over the holidays. They can hit it hard again after the New Year. Yeah. Same to you.”

He hung up the phone with one of his project managers then turned back to the trio of computers in his home office, almost a complete duplicate of the setup at his office at the Caine Tech headquarters and his home office in San Jose.

The furniture was the same style and arrangement in each location—one which he found most productive to his workflow—and he used the very same brand and model of office chair.

Aidan had long ago accepted that he knew what worked for him. Messing with that structure only erected mental roadblocks that wasted his time and energy.

His brothers sometimes accused him of having obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They were usually teasing when they said it but he wasn’t bothered by it. A man didn’t amass a fortune out of nothing without careful attention to detail and a healthy self-awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses.

Afternoon sun pierced the thick cloud cover to slant through the vertical blinds. With a flick of a remote, he turned on the gas fireplace—a unique but necessary feature of this particular one of his three offices—and dialed Louise, his very efficient assistant.

They spent a few moments going over details of a pending merger before he turned the conversation to his family’s upcoming visit.

“Yes. All the arrangements have been made,” she said briskly. “The pilots will pick them up at the Hope’s Crossing airport on the twenty-third and will return them all Sunday evening, the twenty-eighth.”

That was as long as he could manage to convince them all to stay, as Pop didn’t want to be gone from the café too long and others had work and volunteer obligations at home.

“Great. Thank you. And your holiday plans are in place?”

“Yes. Ken and I will fly out to South Carolina that same day, on the twenty-third, to meet up with Stephanie, Lane and the children for Christmas and then we’re all driving down to Orlando together the day after. The kids didn’t think Santa could find them if they weren’t in their own house.”

He absently doodled on the unprinted edge of a report. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good weather. We were completely socked in last night and this morning with a blizzard. It’s still coming down here.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I already know we’re crazy to travel this time of year. Even without a storm, the parks are going to be completely packed over the holidays. We won’t be able to move—and don’t even get me started on the lines. The kids are so excited, I hope it will be worth it. Every time we Skype, they don’t want to talk about anything else.”

Louise’s son-in-law had recently been transferred to Charleston. Aidan knew how hard it had been on his longtime assistant—and good friend—to have her grandchildren so far away. He suspected within the next few years she would be retiring to move closer to them.

“Enough about me,” she said after a few minutes of discussing her vacation plans. “How are you feeling?”

His pen jerked across the edge of his doodle. “Fine,” he said.

“Is the headache any better?”

“Some.”

Out of a habit he couldn’t seem to shake, he reached his index finger to the spot just behind his left ear. The hair in that particular spot hadn’t completely grown back, it was about an inch long now, bristly and itchy. Fortunately, the scar was in a spot where his hair was long enough to camouflage.

Pop was going to tell him he needed a haircut. He was going to have to preemptively come up with a strategic response. He wasn’t sure his father would believe he wanted to audition for a rock band or he was going on the road as a competitive snowboarder.

“The new medicine Dr. Yan prescribed is helping,” he answered Louise now. It was partly true. The pain was a dull, constant ache most of the time instead of a piercing, howling roar.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Worry threaded through her voice.

Maybe because she knew him too well. “Don’t concern yourself about me,” he told her. “Just enjoy the holidays with your family.”

He was doodling a Christmas tree now, complete with little curlicue ornaments.

“Same to you. It’s a good thing you have a good one—and a big house to host them all. Twenty houseguests for the holidays are enough for anyone. Sue is definitely going to have her hands full.”

Right. That had been the main reason for his call. “Speaking of Sue, can you email me the standard employment forms? I’m hiring someone to help her run the household while my family is here.”

“I can contact the employment service in the area and have someone sent over. It might take a day or two.”

“Not necessary. I’ve already found someone.”

He could almost hear her frown communicated across the line. “You hired someone on your own? Someone from the area?”

Louise was a master—mistress?—at conveying volumes with a well-placed pause. As one of the few with total knowledge of his health issues—information that had been deliberately withheld from Caine Tech stockholders and the general public—she had become extremely overprotective since September.

“Relax. I vetted her first, you can be sure. I spoke with a previous employer and received nothing but glowing reviews.”

Technically, Eliza had never actually worked for Megan Hamilton, since the poor woman’s hotel burned down first. Her loss, his gain. He decided not to mention that to Louise.

“What do you know about her?” his assistant asked.

Not as much as he would like. While he couldn’t put a finger on it, he sensed Eliza had secrets she was deliberately keeping from him. “She’s a widow and single mother, new to the area. She has been working on the management team at a small hotel in Boise and is eminently qualified to run the household, which will leave Sue free to focus on what she loves best—the cooking.”

“If she can manage to keep Dermot out of the kitchen.”

“Maybe I’ll hire a bouncer for that, too.”

Louise laughed, that rich, full laugh that always made him smile. “That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. You might just need one.”

“Better send me two sets of employment forms,” he joked.

They hung up after a few more moments and he scratched a few more embellishments on his doodled Christmas tree while he thought about all the people who worried about him.

He was a lucky man.

A few months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to say that as he had stared down into the abyss of human frailties.

He looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views overlooking the lake and the mountains—okay, there was the big difference between this office and those in California—and saw the snow had begun to fall again, not as hard as the day before but big puffy snowflakes.

His stomach growled loudly. When he glanced at his watch, he was surprised to discover it was after two, hours since the quick breakfast he had grabbed before he’d headed out to clear snow with Jim.

He could use a break, he decided. Without Louise there to gently remind him, he would work straight through without eating. He was surprised, actually, that Sue hadn’t brought him a tray. She usually did.

He filed the paperwork—doodles and all—then rose, stretched and headed toward the kitchen.

The moment he walked out of his office, he heard a small voice singing “Jingle Bells.” Maddie, he realized. What a cute kid. The heart condition, though. He felt a little squeeze in his chest as if in sympathy. That seriously sucked, though she didn’t seem to let it bother her.

Maddie and her mother were decorating that behemoth of a Christmas tree. Eliza stood on a ladder hanging ornaments while the little girl worked on the lower branches.

They must have been at it for a while, since only about half of the branches were still bare. He had to wonder how many rounds of “Jingle Bells” Eliza had endured.

Maddie finished the song with a flourish. “What should I sing next, Mama? Do you want me to sing ‘Rudolph’ again or ‘Way in a Manger’?”

“You choose,” she said. Even though she faced away from him, he could tell she was smiling by the tone of her voice.

She had no business being up on a ladder, especially after she had sustained a head injury the day before. He moved forward to tell her so but Maddie spied him before she could even get to the shiny nose part of her song.

“Hi, Mr. Aidan.” She beamed at him. “You have the biggest tree I ever saw. It’s bigger than the one at the mall!”

The tree was about fifteen feet tall. To a little girl who probably barely topped three feet tall, the tree must seem gargantuan.

“This is a big room that needs a pretty big tree. A little one would look kind of sad in here, don’t you think?”

For a moment, the dimensional quandary seemed to stump her. She looked at the tree then at the room in general, then gave a serious nod. “It would be like my American Girl doll trying to ride my pet horse named Bob. He’s way too big for her.”

“Right.”

Eliza started to climb down from the ladder and he instinctively moved forward to spot her, which had the added benefit of giving him a front-row, eye-level view of her perfect curves. She was lush in all the right places.

He swallowed hard, suddenly forgetting all about his hunger. The kind requiring food, anyway.

“I hope you don’t mind that we started to decorate your tree. Sue showed us where to find the ornaments.”

He forced his mind back to safer channels. “You shouldn’t be up there. You were supposed to be taking it easy today. Climbing up and down a ladder like a monkey so you can decorate a Christmas tree doesn’t really fit in that category.”

She made a face. “I told you I’m not very good at doing nothing.”

He couldn’t argue with that since he had the very same problem. His doctors still gave him a hard time about how he had tried to send off a couple of important emails just before being wheeled in to surgery.

“Maybe you just need more practice,” he said—which was a good reminder for himself, too. He was hoping the time he spent here would help him relax a little more.

“You can help us if you want,” Maddie offered. “It’s your Christmas tree. You should put at least a few of the ornaments up.”

“Oh, honey. I’m sure Mr. Caine is busy with other things.” A hint of a rosy blush crept over Eliza’s high cheekbones.

“No, she’s right.” He smiled at the girl. “It is my tree. It’s only fair I help you decorate it.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Eliza said quickly. “We’ve got it covered. It shouldn’t take us long to finish up here.”

She obviously didn’t want his help, which conversely made him all the more determined to pitch in. Blame that obstinate streak of his.

“I’m helping,” he said, giving her no room to argue. “I didn’t have time for lunch. Give me five minutes to grab a snack and I’ll be right back.”

In the kitchen, he sliced a couple of apples, added some grapes to the plate, a few peppered water crackers and some of the imported French cheese that Sue always kept on hand, then carried the plate and a glass of water back into the living room.

Maddie beamed with delight when he returned, which sent a little burst of warmth through him, as if he had stepped into a sunbeam. Her mother, on the other hand, looked less than thrilled and even a little surprised, as if she hadn’t really expected him to follow through.

Who had disappointed her so badly? Her husband? Questions about the man simmered just below the surface. He wanted to ask what had happened to him but he couldn’t do that with Maddie there.

“Do you want anything?” He held the plate out to both of them. Eliza shook her head but her daughter reached for an apple wedge and a piece of cheese.

“Any idea where Sue might be?” he asked.

“Lying down, I hope. She had a migraine so I urged her to take a rest. I hope that’s okay.”

He stared. “Okay, what’s your secret? You actually persuaded Sue to stop for five minutes in the middle of the day? How on earth did you manage that?”

“It wasn’t hard. It helped that she really didn’t feel well. I told her she wouldn’t be able to take care of anyone if she didn’t care for herself first. That seemed to do the trick.”

“And you don’t see the irony here? The day after being hit by an SUV, you won’t be persuaded out of wearing yourself out by decorating a Christmas tree.”

“This is fun, not work,” she said, with that appealing blush soaking her cheekbones again.

He could quickly grow addicted to teasing out that color.

The thought and the sudden fierce, simmering attraction beneath it unnerved him.

What was the matter with him? She was lovely, yes, with that soft spill of hair, those big green eyes framed by the dark fringe of lashes, the little tracery of pale freckles on her nose. But he could think of a dozen reasons why he had no business wanting to lick the very center of that plump bottom lip, to explore those luscious curves and nuzzle that soft curve of her neck.

He couldn’t imagine a worse time for him to become embroiled in a relationship—or with a more unlikely woman.

Applying the same concentration and determination he used at Caine Tech, he worked hard to shove down the attraction and turn his attention to the matter at hand.

He picked up an ornament in each hand. “It’s been a few years since I’ve decorated a Christmas tree. What do we do here?”

“It’s easy,” Maddie declared. “Just hang them where Mama tells you.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. I await your command, then.”

He told himself not to be delighted by her rueful smile.

“I’m not a control freak usually, I swear,” she said. “If this were our tree, I would let her hang the ornaments any which way. Isn’t that right, honey?”

Maddie nodded her head. “But your tree is super fancy so we have to be careful.”

“I only thought you might be a little more discriminating, especially as you’re entertaining guests for the holidays,” Eliza explained.

“Guests who honestly won’t care if the ornaments on the Christmas tree are upside down or sideways or clustered all together, I promise.”

“They might not care, but I do. I want Snow Angel Cove to be perfect for you and your family. That’s why you hired me, isn’t it?”

In light of this attraction, he was beginning to question his own motives for wanting to keep her around, but he decided it probably wouldn’t be wise to mention that to her.

“All right. We’re going for perfection. I can do that. From here on out, I’ll climb the ladder and take the higher branches. Your job is to hand me more ornaments when I need them and to keep an eye out and be sure I’m not making a mess of things.”

She made a face. “Right.”

“What this party needs is a little Christmas music.”

“I know!” Maddie concurred. “I can keep singing but my voice is a little tired.”

“You need a break. Let me see if I can find something.”

One of the first things he had insisted upon after purchasing a house was the installation of a top-of-the-line entertainment system that could stream throughout the house. He had yet to crank up the classic rock like he did sometimes at his house in San Jose.

He opened the cabinet that held the components and punched in a few criteria, then let the server search for music online while he returned to the Christmas tree. Soon, soft, jazzy holiday music filled the great room from the built-in speakers.

“That sounds nice,” Maddie said.

“Definitely,” her mother agreed.

“It’s unanimous, then. We’re officially ready to get our tree decorating on.”

He grabbed several of the ornaments and climbed the stepladder, ignoring the slight unsteadiness in his equilibrium. His own sense of balance wasn’t the greatest yet and he probably shouldn’t be scrambling up and down ladders, either, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

While the snow continued to fall outside the huge windows with relentless abandon and the flames in the grate danced and swayed, they worked together to decorate the tree.

Maddie chattered about Christmas and about the vast variety of angel decorations on the tree—most that Sue had unearthed in a box in the attic that had been left over from the previous owners.

As they worked, Aidan was aware of an odd feeling, so rare for him, especially lately, that he didn’t recognize it at first. Peace. A soft, sweet contentment seemed to seep through him as Eliza handed him ornaments with instructions about where to hang them. At first, she was hesitant, as if afraid to overstep by telling him what to do, but it didn’t take long before they fell into a comfortable rhythm.

“I need to get a drink,” Maddie announced just as he finished the top branches.

“Okay. Come right back,” Eliza said.

Her absence left a conversational void that even Tony Bennett’s smooth version of “My Favorite Things” couldn’t quite fill.

“I haven’t done this in years,” he said. “The Christmas-decorating thing, I mean. Probably since I left home for MIT. My roommate in college used to put up a little tree but I was too busy to bother. After college, it always seemed like too much effort, until I could afford to hire a decorator to do it for me.”

That sounded pretty pitiful, when he thought about it.

“Was Christmas a big deal at your house?” she asked.

“Definitely.” He thought of crazy mornings around the Christmas tree and the frenzy of gifts and ribbons and wrapping paper. The Hope’s Crossing Christmas Eve candlelight ski had always been one of his favorite traditions at home, where they would all bundle up and either gather to watch or strap on skis to participate in the annual tradition, where all the lights on the runs at the ski resort would be extinguished except the small candles each skier carried down the hillside.

He usually watched with Charlotte and his mom while his brothers took to the mountain. Downhill skiing had never been his favorite winter activity. He loved snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, where he could be all alone on a trail, able to savor the hushed magic of moonlight on thick new snow or watching a nuthatch seek out the last few berries on a currant bush.

“When I was a kid, decorating the Christmas tree was the best part of the year,” he told her. “We had certain ornaments we all used to fight over, each of us determined to have the privilege of hanging them. And when I say fight, I mean punches were thrown. Seriously.”

Her laughter was every bit as magical as a dusky evening spent alone on a winter trail. “You’re telling me your family actually came to fisticuffs over Christmas ornaments?”

“Usually it was Dylan, Jamie and Brendan. They were always the most competitive. As the older two, Andrew and Patrick did their best to stay above the fray and Charlotte would usually burst into tears the minute voices were raised.”

His childhood had been crazy and chaotic and wonderful. He wouldn’t have changed a minute of it, even if he had sometimes felt like the odd one out.

“I said it before but it bears repeating. Your mom must have been the most patient woman on earth.”

He felt the same sharp pang he always did when thinking of Margaret Caine. “She was an amazing person. She gave us all the same love and affection and never once treated any of us differently than the others. Of course, I always knew I was her favorite. We both loved books and music and old movies. The funny thing is, when I talk with my brothers or Charlotte, they say the same things. Every one of us thought she treated us as her favorite.”

“You still miss her.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, hanging a little angel with beaded wings and a glittery halo on a bough.

“You must be very close to your family.”

He couldn’t argue with that. As far as families went, they were close. He loved them all dearly and knew that he could call on any one of his brothers and they would have his back.

At the same time, over the years as he had gone first to MIT and then to Silicon Valley, an inevitable distance had widened between them. He only connected in person with his family three or four times a year while everybody else saw each other almost every Sunday, when Pop would host a big noisy family dinner.

Aidan knew it was his own fault for moving away from Hope’s Crossing, an inevitability, really, but it added to his own sense of...separateness, barring a better word.

“What about you?” he asked, turning the conversation around. “Are you close to your siblings?”

“Only child,” she answered with a stiff smile that didn’t fool him for a moment.

“You said your mom died when you were a teenager.”

“Yes.” She picked up one of the few remaining angels and hung it on the tree with brisk movements, but not before he saw her eyes cloud with sorrow.

“And your dad?”

“He remarried a few years ago and lives in Portland now. His wife has a couple of teenagers from a previous marriage so I have a couple of stepbrothers. I don’t know them well, as we have always lived apart.”

He sensed more to the story. What was her relationship with her father? And had she planned to spend the holidays with him before Aidan had basically blackmailed her into staying at Snow Angel Cove?

“My sister sometimes tells me I can be arrogant and insensitive. It’s just occurred to me that asking you to help me with my family might be keeping you from seeing your own family at Christmas.”

She shook her head. “My father doesn’t have a lot of room at his place and, to be honest, his wife and I have...issues.”

“Issues. That’s a complicated word.”

She sighed. “We didn’t get off on the best footing. My fault, mostly.”

That surprised him. He had a short acquaintanceship with her, true, but Eliza struck him as someone a great deal like his sister, Charlotte, sweet and kind and maybe a little too forgiving for her own good.

He had hit the woman with his vehicle, for crying out loud, and she still seemed eager to help him create the perfect Christmas for his family.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, genuinely curious about what she might have done to warrant enmity between her and her stepmother.

“He married her and moved to Portland right in the midst of everything with Tre—my husband’s death. I was lost and grieving and really needed my dad, you know?”

She couldn’t even say her husband’s name after three years. The depth of her sorrow gave him that same kick in his gut as he would get from a hard topple off the ladder.

More evidence of his arrogance. A few minutes ago he had been thinking what a lousy time it was for him to be attracted to a woman, focused only on himself again. Why would he even think for a minute she would return that attraction, when she was obviously still grieving her late husband?

“I needed him here to help me with Maddie but instead he got married after years of being a widower and packed up everything to move to Portland with Paula and her children. I acted like a spoiled brat, I guess, and I’m afraid I wasn’t the most gracious of new stepdaughters to her. Our relationship since then has been...strained. Which means my relationship with my father is strained, too.”

Her father should have been less concerned with his own love life and raising some other man’s kids and more concerned about his own grieving daughter who needed him. Why hadn’t he bothered to put his wedding on hold for a few months, just long enough to help his daughter when she needed him?

People did things for their own reasons, which often eluded Aidan. Usually selfishness, if he had to guess.

Here was one perfect example of why he preferred to work with computers and code. They did what was required of them. They didn’t cheat, didn’t betray, didn’t wake up one morning with a damned tumor that knocked them to their knees.

“What about your husband’s side? Does Maddie have paternal grandparents?”

“No. My husband’s parents died when he was ten or eleven. An older sister raised him. She’s on the east coast. We stay in touch and she’s very kind to Maddie, sending gifts and letters and so forth, but she’s busy with her own children and grandchildren now, which is only natural.”

So she really had no one in her corner. His family might drive him crazy sometimes and he might lament the inevitable geographic and emotional distance between them over the past few years but they were his and he would be lost without them.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice a little sharp. “You don’t have to look at me like I’m some lonely little widow with no one. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a core group of very good friends in Boise who would do anything for me. They have stood by my side through everything with Trent and with Maddie. I also have a strong network of other parents I’ve met through the cardiac unit at the hospital or online and we share everything.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you, Eliza. Far from it. I think you’re amazing.”

She blinked, those green eyes reflecting the lights of the tree.

Embarrassed at words he never should have said, he looked around the room. “Speaking of Maddie, is she still getting a drink?”

“Oh. I thought she came back.”

She looked around the room a little wildly. They both spotted the little girl at the same moment. She had curled up on the sofa angled in front of the big fireplace and was sound asleep with her horse toy tucked in the crook of her arm, along with one of the soft-bodied ornaments from the tree, as if she had been making the angel ride the little horse.

She looked like one of the angels herself, with that wavy dark hair and her ethereal features.

“Some days, she gets tired easily,” Eliza said, gazing down at her daughter with a deep love that made something hard in his chest seem to break free.

He could care about both of them entirely too easily and the realization scared the hell out of him.

He hung another ornament on a space that looked a little empty. “There. That should do it for this side.”

“It looks beautiful,” she said. “Absolutely breathtaking, especially in front of the windows with that amazing scenery as a backdrop.”

There were a few more decorations in boxes for the tree but it was almost done. They stood for a moment, admiring their handiwork. He felt that connection tug between them again. It couldn’t be only one-sided, could it?

The moment stretched between them, fragile and sweet like a spun glass angel ornament.

Widow, he reminded himself. Off-limits. And probably not interested, anyway.

Needing to distract himself, he focused on something within his control. “Think I’m going to take a minute to grab something a little more substantial than apples and cheese.”

“There’s deli meat in the refrigerator. I can make you a sandwich. I’m sorry. I should have offered earlier. I didn’t think about it.”

“I can make my own sandwich, Eliza. I can even make one for you, if you’d like.”

He headed for the kitchen. To his surprise, she followed him.

“Let me do this,” she said as he started to pull the cold cuts from the refrigerator.

“Forget it. You’ve been on your feet all afternoon. Sit down. That’s an order from your boss.”

“I haven’t signed any papers. You’re not my boss yet.”

He laughed as he grabbed a loaf of crusty bread and reached for a knife. “You sound like my sister. You’re not the boss of me was one of Charlotte’s favorite phrases. We heard it all the time. With six older brothers to contend with, can you blame her?”

Her smile was as genuine as it was lovely. “I imagine she learned early to stand up for herself.”

“She did. But she also knew how to listen to us when we actually did know best. Like now, for instance. Please sit down. You’re looking a little pale, which isn’t an easy feat with that nasty bruise.”

Color crept over her cheekbones as if in rebuttal. After a long moment she pulled a chair out from the work island and complied while he went to work.