Snow Angel Cove (Hqn) (6 page)

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.

CHAPTER FIVE

H
ER
PHONE
BEEPING
softly in her ear woke her from a dream about giant monster trucks with ferocious-looking grills barreling toward her from every direction, intent on mowing her down.

She fumbled under her pillow for the phone then rolled over to turn off the alarm. Ow. She swallowed a groan as various and sundry muscles complained quite loudly at just that small movement.

Beside her, Maddie stirred and made a huffing little noise but quickly subsided back to sleep. She hadn’t even made it to the trundle. After her bath, she had climbed into the big four-poster—the princess bed, she had called it—for their regular story time. They were reading a Junie B. Jones holiday book but had both fallen asleep about five minutes into the story about the mischievous kindergartener.

In fact...Eliza patted around the comforter until she found the book where it had slipped out of her hands as she drifted off. She moved it safely to the bedside table so the pages didn’t get crinkled, then enjoyed the luxuriously soft sheets for a few moments as she listened to her daughter’s deep, even breathing.

She did this sometimes, just slipped into Maddie’s room to listen to her breathing and to offer up earnest prayers for that weak, courageous heart to stay strong as long as possible.

Right now, she wanted to hug her daughter close and remain snuggled under these cozy blankets, safe and warm from the howl and moan of the storm she could hear outside.

Though she had no recollection of doing it, she must have turned the reading light off sometime in the night. The only light in the room came from the flickering glow of the gas fireplace.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to stay here in this nice, protective bubble and pretend the figurative storms in her life weren’t swirling around with equal menace to the actual blizzard outside, where she didn’t have to worry about any pesky little details like finding a place to live and a job that would provide decent health insurance that Maddie’s cardiac specialists would accept?

This time she couldn’t hold back her groan. Only a little of it was from the aches and pains of the accident.

What was she going to do? The natural optimism that had kept her from completely falling apart during the past three years of dealing with everything on her own seemed in short supply right now, as the reality of her situation seemed to seep beneath the blankets and grab hold of her skin with icy fingers.

She had options, she reminded herself. She wasn’t completely destitute. She had already taken care of Maddie’s Christmas presents, so that wasn’t a worry. Beyond that, she had a little left in savings, enough to tide them over for a month or two and to make a first and last month’s rent, and she received monthly social security benefits that would help.

She had been trying to save all of Maddie’s survivor benefits for her college education but the hard truth was that survival today had to take priority over tomorrow’s tuition payments.

The snooze on her phone alarm chimed softly again and she turned it all the way off, wide-awake now. Something told her Aidan Caine was a man who kept his word. He said he would be knocking on her door at 2:00 a.m. and she had a feeling he would be there precisely at that moment.

She gingerly eased out of bed, feeling about a hundred and ten years old. Her robe was packed in one of the boxes still in the back of her SUV so she grabbed a decadently soft throw from one of the plush chairs by the fire and wrapped it around her nightgown for warmth.

With one last check on Maddie, she padded out into the hall, hoping to intercept him before he knocked on her door. She could see a light on underneath the door across from hers but she didn’t quite have the nerve to knock on it. Instead, after a moment’s indecision she headed toward a padded window seat at the end of the hall upholstered in rich, deep colors that fit well with the lodge look of the rest of the residence.

The window was a little frosted but through the darkness she could see snow falling steadily, whipped in all directions by the wind.

She shivered, grateful for the comforts of the house. It really was a lovely place, with those massive beams and logs the color of sun-warmed honey.

What had led Aidan Caine to purchase the house? He didn’t strike her as the outdoorsy cowboy sort, more like a sexy computer geek. Maybe there was more to him than she would have suspected from what little she knew about his public persona.

The Geek God.

He seemed a very complex man. Yes, he was a powerful and successful man with this grand, expansive house, his own company. To achieve so much at his relatively young age he was no doubt a workaholic, just like Trent had been, a man whose entire focus revolved around making money.

On the other hand, he was obviously very fond of Jim and Sue and he had been extraordinarily kind to Maddie. He had been visibly upset about the accident and had gone out of his way to make sure she was all right, even coming to the hospital and eventually bringing her here for the night.

All that hardly seemed the actions of a heartless, cold businessman, which was the image she’d had of him before today. How did she reconcile the man she had met that day with all the anger she had nurtured toward him and Caine Tech over the last three years?

His company had stolen the heart right out of her husband. Plain and simple. The people he had met with at Caine Tech had taken Trent’s dreams of fame and fortune, his ideas for a new productivity app he was certain would revolutionize the business world, and had shut him down fast and hard.

He had called her from California in despair to tell her about it and she had never heard him sound so defeated. She had tried to be encouraging but by that point she was exhausted and out of patience from trying to be a supportive wife in his endless chase for financial security for her and for Maddie.

She couldn’t blame Aidan for the mess. Not really. Knowing the nature of big companies as she did, he probably didn’t even have any direct knowledge of that final meeting between his associates and her husband.

Shifting her mind-set would be a difficult task where she had demonized him for so long. She could manage it for the few hours she might see him in the morning, before she left Snow Angel Cove.

At exactly one minute to two, she heard the door just across from theirs open. Aidan walked out into the hallway in jeans and a T-shirt. Had he forced himself to stay awake into the early hours so he could check on her or was he habitually a night owl?

He was wearing dark-framed glasses that only magnified the impact of those stunning blue eyes and his hair was a little messy, rumpled a bit on the right side of his head behind his ear. Perhaps he had been leaning his head against one side of a wingback chair or maybe propping his head on his hand while he read or watched TV. Or maybe he just had a cowlick on that side that resisted his hairstylist’s attempts to tame it.

It hardly seemed fair that the man could have a zillion dollars and be gorgeous, too. She swallowed, suddenly aware of a completely unexpected quiver in her stomach. Oh, for heaven’s sake. Where did
that
come from? She hadn’t experienced the tiniest flutter of attraction to a man in so long, she thought maybe that part of her had withered and blown away like dry leaves in an October wind.

She quickly shoved it down deep, where she put every other ridiculous urge she knew she could never act upon. While she was tempted to hide away under the throw, she didn’t want him knocking on her bedroom door, then barging in and waking Maddie when she didn’t answer.

“I’m over here,” she murmured.

At her soft words, he shifted in her direction. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness during those few moments she had been sitting in the window seat and she clearly saw his frown of surprise before he headed over to her.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked in the same low tone.

She shrugged. “I told you Maddie is usually a heavy sleeper but I thought she might be thrown off her routine by finding herself in a strange place, especially with everything that’s happened. I didn’t want to wake her up.”

“Ah.”

As he moved closer, a shaft of moonlight pierced the gloomy clouds and she saw that while he might be a little on the lean side, his unadorned blue T-shirt clung to surprising muscles.

He was a tech genius, responsible for dozens of apps and devices dominating the market. She would have expected him have the pudgy, soft frame of someone who spent most of his waking hours staring at a gadget or screen. Instead, he apparently spent some of those hours at a gym.

To her dismay, he perched on the other end of the window seat. Theoretically, there was plenty of room for both of them but she couldn’t help feeling crowded, edgy, especially in light of this extremely inconvenient physical awareness she didn’t want.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Oh, you know. Like I’ve been hit by a truck. I have a feeling I’m going to be saying that a lot from now on.”

He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I guess that was a stupid question. Let me be more specific. Does anything new hurt?”

“No. I’m fine. Don’t get me wrong, I have aches and pains but they seem fairly generalized right now. Nothing is broken.”

“And your head?”

“Not bad, actually. My wrist hurts more than my head right now.”

“I suppose I should ask you how many fingers I’m holding up, just to make sure you’re not delirious.”

“Four. I promise, I’m not delirious. I know what year it is, who the President of the United States is and my birthday, social security number and email password.”

“That should cover it, then.” He sounded amused. “Definitely not delirious.”

“You didn’t need to check on me but now you can report to Dr. Shaw that I’m fine.”

“Except for feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

“Right.” Because she was already growing a little tired of people asking her how she felt, she quickly changed the subject by gesturing out the window behind her. “That snow is crazy. Have you seen it?”

He shifted around and peered out. His eyes widened behind his lenses. “Wow. I’ve been catching up on some year-end reports and not paying attention. I knew we were supposed to have a storm, but that looks intense. Jim said he thought we would have eighteen inches by morning. When he said it, I thought he was exaggerating. Looking out there, now I wonder if he underestimated things.”

“Makes me glad I’m in here and not out there.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to admit she was grateful he and Dr. Shaw had encouraged her to stay in Haven Point for the night, though she was. She hadn’t been in any shape to drive back to Boise.

“I hope this isn’t the start of an intense weather pattern. I would hate for my family to be trapped here over the holidays in the middle of a storm like this.”

“Your family is coming to Snow Angel Cove for Christmas?”

He stretched out long legs, apparently settling in for a while. So much for demonstrating her mental acuity and then returning to her warm bed. She tucked the blanket more tightly around her shoulders, not minding a little conversation as much as she ought.

“Just about everybody will be here—barring my brother Jamie, who’s in the military and stationed overseas.”

“That will be lovely for you. Do you come from a big family?”

He gave a rough laugh. “You could say that. Five brothers and one sister.”

She blinked. “Seven children. Oh, my. Your mother must have been a saint.”

“She was. The closest thing to it I ever knew, anyway. She died when I was in college. Cancer.”

Though he spoke in an even tone, she sensed an undercurrent of lingering grief that shouldn’t have touched her but somehow did, anyway.

“I’m sorry. My mother died the summer before my junior year of high school.”

Unlike Aidan, she didn’t offer an explanation. Not only did she dislike discussing it but he already considered her an object of pity, the poor widow with the ill child who had lost her job and been hit by a car within minutes. She didn’t need to add to that extremely unappealing picture.

She didn’t consider herself a victim of anything. She preferred to see herself as a survivor, someone who had been through some tough things—and who hadn’t, really?—but who endured with dignity and strength and tried to move through the hard times to the other side.

Yes, it was a little Pollyannaish, maybe, but she liked that narrative better than the pathetic alternative.

“Do you still have your father?” she asked.

He smiled, his teeth flashing white in the dim light. “I do. And a new stepmother, as of a few months ago. She’s quite wonderful.”

Eliza was aware of a twinge of envy. She also had a stepmother but theirs was an awkward, tense relationship—mostly because of her.

“Does your family live close by?” she asked, wondering if that explained why he had purchased Snow Angel Cove.

He shook his head. “My dad and most of my siblings live in a little town in Colorado. Hope’s Crossing.”

So much for that theory. “And yet you chose to buy a house several hundred miles away from them on a remote Idaho mountain lake.”

He was silent for so long, she wondered if her question had been unforgivably rude. After a long moment, he sighed. “I love my family. Don’t get me wrong. We’re all very close and I enjoy being with them. I consider my brothers my best friends. I’m flying the whole crew here for Christmas, aren’t I?”

“But?”

He sighed again. “But when a guy is the middle of seven children, he can sometimes have an overwhelming need to find his own way. Whenever I go to Hope’s Crossing, I’m always Dermot’s boy, the one who invariably had his nose pressed to a computer. There’s something very appealing about the fact that nobody in Haven Point knew me when I had braces on my teeth and bad acne and a crush on the head cheerleader, who was only interested in my younger brother, Jamie the stud—which, by the way, is fairly traumatic to the ego when you’re fifteen and would like to think
you’re
the stud, despite all evidence to the contrary.”