Love on a Spring Morning (3 page)

“That’s my Grandma’s house,” the little girl piped up from where she was twirling around her father’s leg.

Holly grinned at her, sensing a possible ally. “Well, it’s a beautiful house. But there isn’t any hot water, and that might be because the cast isn’t arriving until Sunday. I’m a few days early.”

“Ah. Okay.” The back-lit giant turned, urging his crew of mini-Vikings to return to the table.
 

Holly stood in the doorway, unsure if she had an invitation to enter the home or not. After a moment, she decided to take the chance and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

“Olivia said if we had any problems, we could ask you…”

He stood at the stove, his back to her. “I just need to finish dinner,” he tossed over his shoulder. “We’ll all walk down in ten minutes or so, if that’s okay? It’s just the hot water heater that needs to be turned on.”

“Oh.” Maybe she should have thought of that before coming up here, although she didn’t have the faintest clue where she’d find that. “Is it something I can do myself? Is that in the bathroom?”

He froze, the extra-wide shoulders stiffening momentarily before he turned off the stove and set the spoon he’d been holding on the well-used stovetop.

“Look, miss…” He turned and Holly got her first good look at him. His solid jaw was covered in a few days growth of stubble, and his light brown hair had a decidedly unfashionable curl at the ends, but the sum total of his parts was unexpectedly attractive. Actually, each of his individual parts were appealing, too, but that still didn’t explain her immediate attraction. She worked with good-looking men every day.

But this wasn’t about seeing a good-looking man. This was about seeing one doing something as mundane as cooking his kids dinner.
He’s like the town
, she thought to herself. Real and normal and unlike anything she’d ever had before. And as strange as it seemed to describe such a masculine man as cute, that’s exactly what she thought.
So cute
.

He gave her a pained look which promised that her fascination with him was most definitely not returned. “It’s not in the bathroom. It’s in the furnace room.”

Holly tried like hell to keep the stupid look off her face, but on this front, she
was
stupid. “Furnace room?”

He just looked at her, like he was waiting for her to realize this was beyond her, but if it was
just
the water heater that needed to be turned on, surely she could do that.

“Let’s try this again.” She flashed another smile, because that always worked. “Is this something I can do myself?”

He looked like he desperately wanted to say no, but maybe he equally didn’t want to come down to the house, because after a long beat, he nodded. “Sure, yeah.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

He let out a sigh. “No, I need to get used to stuff like this. I guess when those fancy Hollywood types get here, this won’t be anything compared to the drama they’ll bring with them.”

Those fancy Hollywood types?
“Uhhh…” Holly nodded. What else was there to do? “Right. This is pretty straightforward, so I can do it. If you could just give me some instructions, maybe?”

“Yep. Hang on a second.” He pointed at the little girl, who’d hopped out of her chair again and was spinning in circles in the open space between the two grown-ups. “Table, Maya.”

Maya laughed as she scampered into her chair, but quieted down as her father set a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of her. Two more bowls, with larger portions, were set in front of her brothers, and then the mountain man with the curly hair and perma-scowl grabbed a pad of paper off the fridge and sketched something out really quickly.

He handed over the paper, and pointed at it with his pen. “The furnace room is in the basement, through the door beside the laundry.” She’d seen that; it was across from the workout room. “There are two units. The square one is the furnace. The round one beside it, here, that’s the water heater. There’s a knob on it. Turn it to the left. Call me if you have any trouble.”

About that. “I tried to call before I walked over, but the line was busy.”

He swore under his breath and stomped out of the room, returning shortly with a handheld phone. He pointed it at the little girl, who didn’t seem cowed in the least. “No phones. Not a toy.”

“Sorwee, Daddy,” she said in an exaggerated little girl pout.

“Maya.”

“
Daddy
.”

The entire family paused for a second before cracking up, and Holly covered her mouth with her hand, trying in vain to hide her own amusement.

“Seriously, kid, people need to get in touch with me now. I’m sure those movie stars won’t be as understanding as…” He trailed off and looked in Holly’s direction. “Sorry, what did you say your name was?”

There was only one answer here.
Hope Creswell, one of those awful Hollywood types. Sorry to be a bother.
But she couldn’t bring herself to be that person tonight. “Holly. Holly Cresinski. And I’m sure everyone on the film shoot will be very understanding that we’re all crowding into your lives for a few months, really. They’re not so bad, those movie stars.”

“Ryan Howard.” He extended his hand, and she took it, enjoying the way he gripped her fingers, his skin warm and dry and rough against hers. He squeezed her hand more than people usually did, and she felt the stern shake all the way up her arm.

Who knew she’d been missing an honest handshake in her life?

He let go and crossed his arms over his broad chest. She looked up at him—way up. She was average height for a woman, and he still towered over her. In his plaid shirt shoved up to his elbows and his faded jeans, he looked every inch the rustic lumberjack she thought might live here—except for the cute part. That was unexpected.

And inconvenient, because this particular lumberjack had a family. She needed a clone of him back in Los Angeles, although she suspected that maybe something would get lost in translation.

“Thanks for the instructions. I’ll call if I have any questions.” She waved the paper in the air as she blindly reached for the door behind her.

He nodded, his face showing none of the distraction that rioted through her midsection. Of course not. She was a random nobody, sweating and flustered, who’d showed up in the middle of a late dinner demanding help.

But she could help herself, armed with the piece of paper in her hand. It was a little thing, but was hers.

He grabbed the door as she swung it open, closing it quietly behind her as she headed back into the night.
 

Holly Cresinski, maybe you should pretend to be yourself more often.

— THREE —

I
T turned out the celebrities staying down the road from Ryan’s house were pretty easy guests, because they were never home.

Olivia had promised being the property manager would be a relatively easy task, and other than the young intern coming to complain about the hot water heater before everyone else arrived, he hadn’t had any other maintenance calls. So maybe his friend was right.

Everyone else in town was fascinated by the movie being made in their backyard. On the first day of filming, the cast and crew had finished early and thrown a barbecue for the community, but Ryan hadn’t bothered to go. None of his kids were interested and it had been a school night. And even with the distraction of famous people, there would be the inevitable looks of concern and murmurs of so-called helpful advice.

But even if he didn’t have to run the gauntlet of well-meaning intervention, he still wouldn’t be interested in the fantasyland extravagance of making a movie. The amount of money they were paying his in-laws for the cottage rentals alone was crazy.
What a complete waste
.

So when his first counselling appointment in three months started with small talk about the filming, which had been under way for a week, he was a bit harsh.

Maybe more than a bit.

“So you’re not a fan,” Gayle, the counsellor, said drily.

“Sorry,” Ryan said, then cleared his throat. “I’ll be happier when they’re gone, that’s all.”

“Even though the movie has brought you a bit of work?”

After a lengthy back-and-forth, Lynn’s life insurance policy had paid out, and he lived mortgage-free in the home Lynn had grown up, that his in-laws had moved out of when they built the house at the other end of the lane. For the immediate future, he didn’t need to work more than his very part-time reserve Army schedule required. “If I wanted to work more, I’d go back to being a paramedic.”

“And you don’t want to do that?” She looked at him gently. She had a way of listening that made these sessions tolerable. Ryan wouldn’t go so far as to say he
liked
Gayle, but she was a good counsellor—better than the first one they’d tried as a family.

He’d do anything to protect his kids—from invasive questions for which they didn’t have answers, for example, or other risks. Harder to pin down ones, like leaving them with other people, even if that wasn’t rational, because he was okay with them going to school or being watched by Olivia or his other friend Dani for a few hours.
 

But he still couldn’t leave them overnight, with anyone. Not their grandparents, not any of his well-meaning friends. Definitely not a hired babysitter or nanny. “I’m happy being a full-time dad right now.”

She waited just long enough to let him know that she knew that wasn’t a complete answer. “How are the kids?”

“Sad. Scared. Acting out a bit.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Seriously? You couldn’t ask a more clichéd question?”

She laughed. “Sorry. Why don’t you tell me what you wanted to talk about today?”

He shook his head. “I don’t really know. The kids, I guess. Coping strategies for when they act out, when we have bad days.”

“Ahh.” She reached behind her and grabbed a sheet of paper. “Maybe this support group would be more your speed.”

He took the information sheet to be polite, but he wasn’t comfortable with his own grief—he definitely didn’t want to deal with other people’s sob stories.

“Ryan…” She trailed off, waiting until he looked at her. Her round, slightly lined face was dangerously close to sympathetic. He didn’t want empathy or sympathy or anything. He just wanted to know how to get his life back on track. “Okay. Maybe not an entire group. But the coordinator…her name is Faith. She’s a widow, about your age, and she’s not big on feelings. She’s a survivor. Email her and tell her you’re looking for tips on helping your kids, and she’ll give you just that, nothing more.”

— —

He didn’t email the woman from the support group, but he didn’t throw out her contact information, either. He took his kids south to Windsor for the weekend, for a visit with his parents and siblings and their spouses and children. His three sisters, all mothers, fussed over him. His mother and father were a bit better, knowing he still needed some distance. But the only real bright moment, other than seeing his kids happily playing with their cousins, was when his brother Finn came into the city from Wardham, the small lakeside town he’d moved to for love.

“How’s Beth?” Finn’s new wife was eight months pregnant with their first child. They’d met through his work as a marketing expert, and fallen in love when he did some consulting work at the winery she managed in Wardham.

“Good, working like crazy. She’s hired two people to replace her at the winery for the next year.”

“She didn’t let you take over?”

Finn gave him a baleful look. “I know better than to offer. Go West is her domain. Besides, I’ve got my plate full with other consulting work.”

“So that’s going well?”

“Really well. Might hire someone this year to help me.”

“Awesome, man.” Ryan grabbed two beers from his parents’ fridge and nodded to the side door leading to the driveway. It was after dark, and the kids were all in bed, but their parents were around and he didn’t want to
talk
, exactly, but if they did wander into any touchy subjects, he wanted to be able to vent without judgement.

Finn waited until their beers were half-drunk before asking if Ryan was okay. But he didn’t do it the same way as their sisters, or the counsellor, or any of the well-meaning residents of Pine Harbour. No, his brother just slid him a sideways glance and asked, “Don’t you ever want to get laid again?”

Damn. He laughed, because that was the point of the question, to shake him out of his funk. But it had quietly poked at him for a few weeks. The answer was complicated.
Yes
. No. Yes, in abstract, and no, not when he gave even half a thought to the logistics of that. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

“Dating sites?”

Ryan recoiled at the idea. No, he definitely wasn’t ready for dating. And since he wasn’t his brother, who’d been a bachelor-extraordinaire until Beth had tipped him sideways into unexpected monogamy the year before, that meant that de facto, he wasn’t ready for sex, either. “It’s more complicated with kids.” He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the look on his brother’s face when he admitted the next fact. “And it’s not like Lynn and I were super active in that regard, anyway. This hasn’t been the longest stretch of celibacy in my life.”

Finn didn’t say anything, and when Ryan finally looked his way, his brother was staring into the distance.

“What?”

“I don’t want to say anything ill of the dead, man.”

“I know you weren’t her biggest fan.”

“For
you
. She was nice, and a good mom, but you guys had trouble.”

“Sure we did. But I still loved her. And not just because we had three kids.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

Finn shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Don’t handle me with kid gloves. I may be battered and bruised, but I’m not fucking fragile.”

“She’s gone. You don’t have to keep being faithful to her.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” And if it was, that wouldn’t be a bad thing—he was still talking to her as if she wasn’t gone. She was still in his heart. “The God’s honest truth is that I’m just getting through the fucking day. I don’t have time to think about cologne and flowers and bear skin rugs and seduction. Or whatever the hell voodoo magic it was you worked to make women get naked with you. That’s all.”