Читать книгу The Home Is Where The Heart Is Collection - Maisey Yates - Страница 28

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IN A RARE twist for him, Aidan couldn’t seem to concentrate, no matter how he tried.

For the past thirty-six hours, he had been obsessed with a new project. He loved the completely natural buzz that sometimes bubbled through his veins when he knew he was on to something sure to be a hit—when he could sometimes spend twenty-plus hours straight at his computer, until his eyes blurred and his shoulders ached.

That same excitement hummed through him about the project he was currently developing, but at the moment he couldn’t seem to focus on any of the three screens in front of him.

Little wonder, he supposed. The largest jet of the Caine Tech corporate fleet was wheels up at the moment, on its way here carrying his family, and was due to touch down in less than an hour.

After piddling around a little longer, he finally sighed, saved the encrypted file and shut down his network.

He wasn’t precisely nervous. His family had visited him in California plenty of times—maybe not en masse like this, but he had hosted them in smaller groups without problem. Pop and Charlotte had flown out and spent a few days with him over his birthday weekend a few years ago. Dylan and Jamie had each crashed with him for a while between deployments.

Hosting everyone at Christmas added an entirely new dimension, especially at a new house. He wanted everything to be perfectly memorable, which turned out to be a hell of a lot of pressure. Who knew?

As he walked through the house, some of the stress eased. Everything would be great. How could it be otherwise? The house looked terrific, from the Christmas tree to the garlands to the glittery lights everywhere.

Jazz Christmas carols played softly on the excellent stereo system, something Eliza must have programmed since he had completely forgotten about it.

He meant what he said earlier. She had done wonders with Snow Angel Cove. It was cozy and warm, exactly as he wanted.

Now that Sue was temporarily sidelined, Eliza had been forced to step up in the kitchen, too. He found her there, standing at the work island before a huge stainless-steel bowl filled with a puffy mound of dough.

She wore a Christmas-patterned apron and was humming softly to the music. He watched her for a long moment, enjoying the graceful economy of her movements as she rolled bits of dough between her palms and transferred them to muffin cups, the way she nibbled on her bottom lip just as Maddie did, the little sprinkle of flour she left behind when she rubbed the back of her hand along her cheekbone.

He had been so consumed with the project, he had only seen her briefly over the past few days. Each time he did, he was surprised all over again by the way the world suddenly seemed a brighter, happier, better place when he was with her.

What would it be like to have her here all the time? Not here at Snow Angel Cove, specifically, but in his life, in his bed. In his heart.

He didn’t think he made a sound as he watched her but eventually she must have sensed his presence. She looked up from the dough and her cheeks turned a little pink.

“Oh. Hi. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you come in. How long have you been standing there?”

“Only a moment.” He moved farther into the kitchen, wishing he had the right to wrap his arms around her from behind and tug her against him, to kiss the delicate skin at the nape of her neck, under her ponytail.

He pushed away the yearning. “You’re on your own in here.”

“I could tell Sue’s cast was bothering her so I strongly encouraged her to put it up for a while, before everyone gets here. She’s in my sitting room with Maddie. I believe they were about to watch a Christmas special.”

“Sue is a little addicted to them.”

“I suspect she may end up sleeping through this one.” She smiled softly as she set another ball of dough in the muffin tin.

“You are truly a miracle worker if you could convince her to rest just before the chaos I call a family descends on Snow Angel Cove. How did you manage to pull that off?”

“I wouldn’t have been successful if her foot wasn’t killing her. Christmas is a terrible time to have a fracture and have to wear a cast.”

Sue had ended up with what doctors called a Lisfranc fracture of the small bones in her foot from the twisting injury of falling off the curb. It hadn’t required surgery but she was now hobbling around with a cast and a small knee walker to keep her weight off it as much as possible.

“Looks like she put you to work before she went to rest. What are you doing? Cloverleaf rolls?”

She gave him a sideways smile that made him hungry for more. “Careful, Aidan. Your culinary experience is showing. Sue might end up putting you to work.”

“She knows I can hold my own if she needs my help.”

“Actually, I think we have everything under control. Sue wanted me to make rolls to go with the turkey tenderloins we’re making for the late lunch. She babysat me through her recipe to make sure I didn’t overwork the dough but trusted me enough to make the balls for rolls on my own.”

“They look great. Good job.”

She made a face. “Thank you for not mentioning all the misshapen circles.”

“I can’t see any from where I’m standing.”

“You must not be looking hard enough,” she said.

He wanted to argue that he could see fine and everything within his view looked perfect but he was afraid that would sound cheesy.

“In my experience, we tend to see our own mistakes and weaknesses far more vividly than other people do,” he said instead.

“Isn’t that the truth?”

The lapsed into silence broken only by the soft music on the sound system, now playing a vibraphone version of “Winter Wonderland.” Did she feel the tensile attraction tug and stretch between them or was it wholly one-sided? He wasn’t sure but by the occasional sidelong glance she sent his way, he suspected the former.

“I know I haven’t said it enough,” he said after a moment, “but thank you again for stepping up to help Sue out with the meal prep. We really would have been sunk without you.”

“I’m glad I was here.”

“Again, let me just say that I’m terribly sorry I ran into you that day and I’m probably going to have nightmares about it forever, but somehow it turned into one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time.”

“Oh.” The word escaped her on a small breath of sound and she gazed at him, green eyes wide, arrested. It took a great deal of wrestling for him to fight down the urge to lean across the work island and kiss her right there, over the bowl of cloverleaf roll dough.

“I mean it, Eliza. I’m very glad you and Maddie are here—and not only because you’ve been a lifesaver in the kitchen.”

“I am, too,” she said after a moment, and he knew it was a confession she didn’t make easily.

“How long before your family arrives?” she asked, changing the subject quickly.

“Within the hour. Jim and I need to be leaving in a few minutes for the airport pickup.”

“You have the list of room assignments, right?”

“Yeah. I looked it over this morning. It all should be fine.”

“We talked about leaving most of the evening unstructured. We’ll let people settle into their rooms before we put out the late lunch buffet style an hour or so after everyone arrives. Dinner tonight is pizza, which is already prepped, and then we have the sleigh ride on the agenda.”

“Right. Okay.”

He did a little mental reorganizing. He had entertained some vague idea of welcoming his family for a few hours and then going right back to his project but that wouldn’t work. Jim would need his help handling the team of draft horses temporarily on loan for the sleigh ride.

“Do you have a route in mind?” she asked.

“Yes. We won’t go far, just around the road that circles the ranch property and down by the cove.”

“Oh, that sounds perfect. You’ll have a lovely view of the stars and the moonlight down by the lake. Your family will love it.”

“I hope so. You and Maddie will, too. She has been dying to ride in the sleigh ever since she spied it in the barn the other day.”

Her mouth tightened. “We probably would enjoy it, if we were going with you.”

“Of course you’re going! You have to!”

“Is that an order?”

“If it has to be,” he retorted. He hated when she threw the fact that she technically worked for him between them like razor-topped concertina wire.

“How can I go? I’ll be busy cleaning up after twenty people and I don’t feel comfortable sending my child along for someone in your family to babysit.”

“First of all, the primary rule in my family is, if you don’t work, you don’t eat, as I’ve told you before. Everybody will help you clean the kitchen before we leave. Watch. Pop will insist on it. And second of all, you have to come. Fine, consider it an order, if that helps you sleep at night. We both know Maddie’s heart would break if we left her home.”

She was silent, brow furrowed as she concentrated on rolling the last bit of dough into a ball. “Can’t you see how awkward this is for me? I’m a total stranger to your family. A total stranger who works for you! What are they going to think when I just start hanging around, going on sleigh rides and eating dinner with you?”

“They’re going to think the more the merrier. And five minutes after they all show up, you will feel like one of the family. One of my pop’s favorite Irish sayings is, there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.”

She huffed out her breath. “Do you always manage to get your own way?”

“Not even close,” he murmured. How could she say that, when she came up with excuse after excuse to fight the feelings growing between them?

She gazed at him and her mouth trembled slightly, just enough that he knew he couldn’t go another moment without kissing her. In this, yeah. He insisted on his own way.

As he lowered his mouth, she caught her breath and he saw her pupils dilate, then turned shocked when he only pressed his mouth to that dusting of flour on her cheek.

“You had a little something there,” he said, his voice low.

“Oh.”

Her lashes fluttered down and she leaned into him slightly, almost as if she didn’t realize it. Just before he leaned in to kiss her—really kiss her this time—he heard the mudroom door slam and cowboy boots on the tile.

Jim.

He eased away and stepped back a pace just as the man strolled into the kitchen. Jim looked between the two of them with a slight frown, as if he sensed some of the sparkling tension in the room but wasn’t sure of the origin.

“There you are, boss. We should probably get moving to pick up your family, since we’ll each have to make a couple of trips to haul them all, plus their stuff, plus their dogs.”

Right. His family. He needed to focus on his priorities here.

“You’re absolutely right. Let’s go.”

Before he left the kitchen, he turned back and found Eliza pressing a hand to her cheek. She dropped her fingers quickly, eyes slightly defiant, then quickly turned back to the rolls as he headed out the door.

* * *

“NO, REALLY. I can do this,” Eliza insisted, stacking another plate on the tray she was using to bus the dining room table. “I promise, I don’t mind cleaning up by myself. Go on your sleigh ride while it’s still clear, before the snow starts up again.”

Dermot Caine, a sturdy, handsome charmer who had passed his striking blue eyes on to all his children, wagged a finger at her as he picked up silverware. “Nonsense, my dear. We aren’t leaving you with this mess! With all of us pitching in, it won’t take but a moment to have that fine kitchen sparkling once more. Then we can all go for a sleigh ride, hmm?”

Apparently Aidan had inherited more than his father’s blue eyes. His stubbornness must be a family trait, too.

“It’s not necessary,” she tried again. It had become a point of honor to her but Dermot overrode her as easily as his son usually did.

“Dylan, Bren, Andrew. Snap to it, boys.”

The men—far from boys and every bit as gorgeous as their brother—obeyed their father with alacrity and Eliza could do nothing but be swept along in the tide of Caines grabbing up plates and trays and bowls.

Spencer Gregory—the Smokin’ Hot Spence Gregory, who turned out to be not only more gorgeous in person but amazingly nice, too—smiled as he picked up a bowl containing just a few corkscrew curls, all that was left from a massive pasta salad.

“That pizza was really great, Eliza,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Fantastic,” Brendan Caine, the biggest of the brothers concurred. “I do believe I could have eaten one pie all by myself.”

“Sue did a great job, didn’t she?” She refused to take undue credit when she had merely followed directions.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, dear,” Sue piped up from her spot at the kitchen table, where she was going over the menu for the next day.

“The boys and I will take care of these dishes,” Dermot said before she could even reach for a dishcloth. “Go on. You deserve to put your feet up and rest up a bit before our sleigh ride.”

Argh. Wouldn’t anybody listen to her? “I’m just going to wander through the house and see if I can round up any other dishes.”

In her experience, cups and plates and bowls tended to be scattered far and wide as people carried snacks and drinks from room to room.

“Might as well, might as well. I need to put Dylan to work here with a dish towel.”

“Sure. Why not make the guy with one arm do all the hard stuff?” Aidan’s younger brother, the wounded army ranger, gave Eliza a teasing wink.

“That one-arm thing sure comes in handy sometimes. Didn’t seem to stop you from kicking our butts at billiards earlier,” Andrew, the attorney in the family, threw out.

They were bickering good-naturedly as she headed out to canvas the other rooms.

In the great room, she saw Dylan’s huge black-and-tan coonhound stretched out in front of the fire while a trio of much smaller dogs—a lean chihuahua and a couple of tiny cute puffballs who had to be related—cuddled up to him.

The house had needed dogs, she thought with a smile. Old Argus in the barn didn’t count.

His sisters were clustered in one of the sitting areas of the great room looking at a photo album one of them had brought along. Not wanting to intrude, she tried to give them a wide berth on her way up the stairs to the media and game rooms, but Charlotte spotted her.

“Eliza, that pizza was fantastic.”

She pasted on a smile and headed toward the women. “Thanks, but Sue really did all the work. I’m an adequate prep cook but that’s about it.”

Lucy Drake, tall and lovely with long dark curls, gave her a smile. “I understand I need to pick your brain while I’m here. Aidan says you’re the one who added all the wonderful little touches to our rooms like the water carafes by the bed, the basket of fuzzy socks, the little gift bags of fresh cookies.”

“I would love to talk with you,” she answered. “He says you have an amazing bed-and-breakfast in Hope’s Crossing.”

Lucy blinked. “Aidan called Iris House amazing? Our Aidan?”

“Yes. He had nothing but good to say about it. It sounds absolutely delightful.”

“Okay.” Charlotte leaned forward. “What is going on with him?”

Eliza studied the women warily. “With Aidan? What do you mean?”

The women exchanged glances. “This whole party!” Charlotte said. “Inviting us here.”

“Most years we can count ourselves lucky if he flies in for a few hours on Christmas Day,” Erin—the schoolteacher, she remembered, married to the attorney—made a face. “This year he was absolutely insistent that we all come and spend several days here at his new place. Do you know how tough it is to get us all together, with everybody’s crazy schedules?”

She could only imagine. She had a feeling this was not a family that sat home waiting for life to happen to them.

“So what’s the story with him?” Genevieve pressed.

Eliza shifted and tried to keep her features as impassive as she could manage. “I guess he has this lovely new house and was eager to show it off.”

It sounded totally implausible, even to her, but she wasn’t about to reveal the secret he had demanded she keep for him.

“That’s another thing,” Erin pressed. “Why this house? Why here? Why not buy in Hope’s Crossing, where he could be closer to all of us?”

“I’m sure he had his reasons. You should ask him,” she said, trying to edge away from the group.

“No, something is definitely up,” Charlotte said. “This afternoon, he spent an hour playing billiards with the guys. An entire hour! Right after that, he was down here reading a Christmas story to your darling little girl and Faith and Carter.”

“Why is that such a shock?” Eliza asked. Aidan had showed remarkable patience and kindness to Maddie from the moment they met.

“It just seems...out of character. Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother dearly. He’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. He’s loving and loyal and brilliant. But as long as I have known him, he has also been the most driven person I know.”

“Personally, I find it odd that he invited us all here, spent a few hours with us and then disappeared the rest of the evening.” Katherine Caine, Aidan’s new stepmother, had a worried light in her eyes. “Is he ill?”

Oh, she had a horrible poker face. Nevertheless, Eliza tried her best. “I believe he has a project he’s busy with right now.”

“See, that’s more like the Aidan we know and love,” Lucy said. “It’s the whole, come stay at my new digs, I’ll fly you out thing that seems out of character to me. Something is definitely up.”

Eliza picked up a couple of empty nut bowls from the table, careful not to meet anyone’s gaze. “He loves his family very much. I think he just wanted a chance for everyone to be together.”

That was as much as she was willing to say. Much to her relief, Maddie came galloping in with Carter and Faith close at her heels. As Aidan had predicted, the three of them had become immediate friends and Maddie appeared to be having a wonderful time with children close to her age.

“Mama, when is the sleigh ride? We want to go now.”

“I don’t know, honey. Soon, I’m sure.”

“We’re going to sit together and sing ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Way in a Manger.’”

Aidan had been right about this, too. She couldn’t have separated her child from the family activities. Maddie would have been devastated at being excluded. She was already having the time of her life and his family hadn’t even been here half a day.

“Why don’t you children go find your coats and hats and scarves so we don’t have to look for them later?” Erin said in what was obviously her best schoolteacher voice. “I’ll try to find out where things stand with the sleigh ride.”

“And I need to take care of these,” Eliza said, gesturing to the dishes in her hands. She hurried away from the women, grateful she had escaped what she feared would have soon become an interrogation.

His family had already been so kind to her. He had been right, they had absorbed her into their circle from the first moment, as if she had always been part of it.

She loved watching their interaction—the teasing of his brothers with each other, their careful respect for Dermot, the affectionate touches between husbands and wives. This was a family overflowing with love.

Half a day and she already felt as if the women could become good friends to her—if she could only keep from spilling secrets that weren’t hers to share.

She delivered the dishes to the kitchen. The men had finished cleaning up—sort of. They had left a jumbled pile of soaked dish towels on the counter. She picked them up and carried them to the laundry room off the mudroom to add to the pile left over from the lunch cleanup. Hoping to save a little time later, she threw them in the washing machine and was adding laundry soap when she heard someone come in.

“Eliza. What are you doing in here?”

Her traitorous heart gave that silly little skip it did whenever Aidan was close. She looked up with a shrug. “We’re already running low on dishcloths. I guess that’s what happens when you have eight or nine people helping in the kitchen after every meal.”

He laughed as he pulled on his coat, sending a ridiculous shiver down her spine.

Smokin’ Hot Spence Gregory was great-looking, sure, and she could admit she still had a little bit of an embarrassing celebrity crush on him—but he had nothing on Aidan, with those lean chiseled features, vivid blue eyes behind his sexy geek glasses and that slow smile that made her feel like her nerves were stuck on some permanent agitate cycle.

“I warned you how it would be,” he said. “Crazy and chaotic. The noise level from this house alone might be an avalanche danger for the surrounding mountains.”

“They’re wonderful,” she said quietly. “If everything else you ever had was stripped away tomorrow, you would still be the most fortunate man I know. I am absolutely green with envy, Aidan. I wish they were mine.”

His eyes softened. “El.”

He stepped closer and she was mortified at the sudden burn of tears that sprang up out of nowhere. She had no way to protect herself when he called her that, like a sweet and private endearment.

She cleared her throat and pushed them away. “A word of warning. I was just cornered by the women of your family. They’re quite formidable as a group, by the way.”

“Tell me about it. They scare the hell out of me.”

She smiled a little and busied herself by reaching into the dryer for a load of extra bath towels she had left there earlier. “Yes, well, they know something is up with you. You’re acting very out of character, apparently, sending up red flags all over the place. Buying this house, inviting everyone here for the holidays, reading to the little ones. Everyone is very suspicious of your odd behavior.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

She snapped a towel out between them, filling the air with her annoyance along with the sweet scent of laundry soap. “What do you think?”

He sighed. “I think it’s probably not fair for me to ask so much of you.”

Why did he have to make it so tough to stay annoyed with him? “It’s not. You’re a terribly cruel boss. I should complain to someone.”

He laughed. “Take it up with Sue. She probably has a raft of complaints.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure. That you pay her too much and don’t eat enough of her snickerdoodles.”

He grinned down at her just as Dermot came in carrying a few more towels.

He stopped in the doorway and studied the pair of them. “Oh. Sorry to interrupt.”

Eliza could feel herself flush. “You’re not interrupting anything, Mr. Caine,” she said swiftly. “We were just discussing the, um, fabric softener. Your son is very particular about what he wants, you know.”

“Oh, yes. He always has been.”

After a slight pause, he smiled. “If we don’t go on a sleigh ride soon, I’m afraid there are some children out there who might start staging a revolt.”

Aidan seemed to collect himself. “Jim should be bringing the sleigh around to the front right now. Eliza, grab your coat.”

“Yes, my dear,” his sweet father added in that irresistible Irish accent. “And don’t forget your gloves, will you? It’s a bit nippy out there.”

Eliza headed for her coat on the hook, aware there would be no point arguing with either one of them.