Yuletide Hearts

A Christmas homecoming...

When Matt Cavanaugh returns to his Allegany County hometown, he’s not as rough around the edges as he used to be. The former marine is a successful contractor, a man who now believes in the Lord and old-fashioned hard work.

But when he buys a bankrupt subdivision, he discovers he’s stepped on single mother Callie Burdick’s dreams for her family. And when Matt learns about Callie’s troubled past, he’s determined to rebuild her trust—plus an entire community—in time for Christmas.

“After working here, and then at the diner, you get to do homework duty at night?” Matt asked.

Callie glanced up and nodded, as if perplexed. “Of course.”

He’d have given anything to have a mother like that, a mother who was invested in her kid. He’d tackled his difficulties in school on his own and failed miserably. “That’s amazing, Callie.”

She glanced up. Their gazes met.

She went still, her eyes on his.

And she read his gaze, his thoughts. It was there in her slight intake of breath, the way she blinked, the quick flex of fingers as if realization just struck.

“I’ve got to reload the nail guns,” she said, breaking the connection. But that was good, right? Neither one of them had the time or energy to put into whatever was flaring between them, so it was best to ignore it.

But there was no way in this world he’d be able to ignore Callie for the coming weeks, and a big part of him didn’t want to try.

And that spelled trouble for both of them.

RUTH LOGAN HERNE

Born into poverty, Ruth puts great stock in one of her favorite Ben Franklinisms: “Having been poor is no shame. Being ashamed of it is.” With God-given appreciation for the amazing opportunities abounding in our land, Ruth finds simple gifts in the everyday blessings of smudge-faced small children, bright flowers, fresh baked goods, good friends, family, puppies and higher education. She believes a good woman should never fear dirt, snakes or spiders, all of which like to infest her aged farmhouse, necessitating a good pair of tongs for extracting the snakes, a flat-bottomed shoe for the spiders, and the dirt…

Simply put, she’s learned that some things aren’t worth fretting about! If you laugh in the face of dust and love to talk about God, men, romance, great shoes and wonderful food, feel free to contact Ruth through her website at www.ruthloganherne.com.

Ruth Logan Herne

Yuletide Hearts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.

—Proverbs 23:15–16

This book is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Theresa Elizabeth Blodgett, a woman who has never been afraid to put her hand to any task, large or small. Her strength and devotion are a constant inspiration to me. She’s one of those gals who could have settled the west single-handedly and would have coffee waiting for the crew at day’s end. Merry Christmas, Mom!

Acknowledgments

Big thanks to Bob Dean of Dean Remodeling in Hilton, New York, known affectionately as “Bob the Builder.” Bob’s advice on construction and his dedication to a job well done helped lay the foundation for Cobbled Creek. Huge thanks to Karen and Don Ash of the Angelica Sweet Shop and The Black-Eyed Susan Café in Angelica, New York, for getting behind this project. You guys are truly amazing! Hugs and gratitude to Major Tony Giusti and his lovely wife Debby (my Seekerville sister) for their sage advice on military basics. I’m spoiled to call so many experts “friends.”

To Beth for finding silly mistakes… And there were several! To Mandy for being my right-hand gal on road trips and for giving me a namesake. I love both! To Jon, who has taken on stove and refrigerator duty. You rock! To Stacey and Lisa for the spontaneous gifts of coffee: You have no idea how that spurs me to work into the night. Thank you! Hugs and thanks to Kyle and Casey Kenyon. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. And always to Dave, whose work ethic inspires my own: Thanks for the sandwiches. And the coffee, Dude. And for being there, night and day.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Complete and utter desolation.

Peering through a driving November downpour caused by remnants of Hurricane Karl, Matt Cavanaugh surveyed what might be the biggest mistake he ever made as sheeting water sluiced from unprotected roofs. Wind-driven storm rains pummeled gaping window openings. Expensive, irreplaceable topsoil washed down unprotected berms, each muddy water trail sweeping centuries of rich, organic soil into the watershed.

Basically he was watching a large share of his life savings wash away. What had he been thinking?

“I see merit here, son.”

The memory of his grandfather’s reassuring voice eased the tension snaking Matt’s back, crowding his neck. Simple words from a gentle man, an industrious construction worker unafraid to lift a hand to any task, great or small, including the gift of unconditional love to his bad-boy grandson.

Matt clenched his jaw, then realized that would only fuel headache potential. Surveying the muddy mess he’d just purchased with significant help from the bank, he fought the urge to run hard, fast and long when a banging screen door drew his attention to the left.

A boy raced out of the faded farmhouse facing the neglected subdivision. A dog chased after him, a black-and-white spitfire, his non-pedigreed look perfect for the place and the boy, a pair of mutts enjoying the tempest.

Within seconds they were soaked, the rain blurring their features, but the combined excitement apparent even from this distance.

The boy aimed for the uncompleted subdivision, the dog racing alongside. Too late, Matt realized their intent.

The kid dived through a window opening.

The dog followed.

The kid emerged from a door opening.

So did the mutt.

Then back in another window, a little higher this time, the crazy game of follow the leader probably not the smartest of ideas for a kid and a dog around a construction site. Matt left his truck at the now-unnecessary roadblock and raced downhill. “Hey! Hey, you! Kid. Stop.”

Visions of leftover two-by-fours, nails, screws and abandoned tools raced through his head, the innocence of youth unfettered by the hazards of life. As the new owner, Matt didn’t have the luxury of relaxation. Construction insurance rates skyrocketed with a claim, and the kid and the dog were a hospital visit waiting to happen. “Kid. Stop! Now!”

The driving rain swallowed his voice and the thickening mud did a similar number on his feet. The dress shoes he put on for the bank closing weren’t meant for tromping around construction sites.

He lost visual of the quick-paced pair as he neared the skeletal houses, his descent and the rising rooflines blocking his line of sight. He wasn’t sure if the storm made it impossible to hear the kid and the dog or if they were just unusually quiet. Since unusually quiet might mean unconscious, Matt increased his pace. “Kid! You hear me? Come out of there!”

No answer.

Matt continued along the road, mud-slicked shoes slowing his progress. The graveled areas would have been inconsequential in his boots. In worn dress shoes, the rough curves and sharp points of stone reminded him that if new shoes hadn’t been on the list before, they’d gain a spot now, and all because some fool didn’t have sense enough to keep their kid out of harm’s way.

Kind of like his mother.

He refused to flinch at the memory. His mother was no June Cleaver, but he hadn’t been a choirboy either. He had the juvie record to prove his stupidity before Grandpa Gus realigned him with old-fashioned hard work, faith and fishing.

A movement drew his attention left. He darted between two incomplete houses, saw the kid about a house-and-a-half away, yelled again and took off in pursuit. The boy appeared fairly savvy about dodging among the half-built homes, so Matt ducked through a window and raced across the subflooring to the front door of the house, burst through and collared the kid just as he angled toward the house Matt had cut through.

“Hey! Hey! Let go! Let me go!”

“Not until we’ve had a few words, kid.”

“Let me go! Let me go!”

Matt held tight.

The dog raced into the fray, tail wagging, obviously unconcerned about his young owner’s welfare.

“Jake? Jake? Where are you?”

The dog’s tail flagged faster. He dashed to the front door of the house, barked a welcome, then raced back, his gaze expectant, his angled doggie look wondering what was going on.

Which reflected Matt’s feelings to a tee.

A disheveled woman strode through the nonexistent front door, her hair a mess, her shoes not quite as bad as Matt’s, her jeans rain-spattered, her fleece pullover soaked.

“In here, Mom! Someone’s got me!”

“Someone’s got you all right.” Matt sent the kid a look meant to quell and refused to relinquish his grasp, despite the fire-breathing mother striding his way. Her purposeful gait seemed militaristic even though she wore somewhat impressive heeled boots, which meant she’d most likely served at some point in time. If that assumption proved true, she should know enough to keep her kid where he belonged. He raised his chin, noted she almost matched him in height with the shoes on, met her glare and stood his ground, refusing to scowl, letting his stance make his point. “This your kid?”

“Let him go.”

Matt ignored the command. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to have a kid running around a construction site? The things that could happen to him?”

The woman’s gaze returned his look, one on one. “I’m well aware, thank you very much, although Jake knows his way around construction sites. Usually.” She leveled a tough, knowing look to the kid, shoulders back, feet braced, her posture adding evidence to Matt’s guess that she’d been in the military at one time. “Were you supposed to leave the house?”

“N-no.”

“And what if something happened to The General?”

The General? Matt frowned, followed her glance to the dog and realized it must be the dog’s name.

The boy snorted, a pretty gutsy act for a kid being collared by an absolute stranger while his mother reamed him out from a few feet away. “The General knows all the enemy hideouts. He’s trained to sniff out snipers and UXBs.”

“UXBs?”

The woman kept her gaze on the boy, her profile taut, worry lines marring a perfect forehead over sea-green eyes. Light brown hair fell to her shoulders, a side clip meant to keep the bulk of it out of her face, but the storm had outmaneuvered the clip’s potential. She shoved the errant hair back, obviously irked. “Unexploded bombs. London. The Luftwaffe.”

“I get the war reference.” Matt switched his gaze from her to the kid as he released the boy’s collar. “What I don’t get is how he gets it. You’re what? Seven? Eight?”

“Almost nine.”

“Which means eight.”

The kid’s glare matched his mother’s, obviously a genetic trait. “You can’t play around these houses. It’s off limits,” Matt told him, his voice stern. He turned his attention to the woman, realizing she was probably chilled through, the November day wretchedly wet and cool. “You’ll keep him out of here?”

“Yes.” Something in her look told Matt she didn’t say things lightly. That quality reassured him. She turned and hooked her thumb toward the door. “Jake, let’s go. The banker’s got better things to do than chase you around where you don’t belong.”

Her words registered as she neared the door, the kid following, head down, chin thrust out, forehead furrowed. “I’m not a banker.” Matt strode forward and yanked down a bill of foreclosure notice attached to the front window. “I’m the new owner.”

Her head jerked up. She stared at him, then the house, then him again, utter disappointment painting her features. Wet, bedraggled, rumpled, cold and wickedly disappointed.

Her look grabbed a piece of him, the air of disillusionment needing comfort and joy, but at the moment, confronted with the enormity of what he’d undertaken less than two hours ago, Matt’s personal comfort level had nose-dived into incredulity.

“Seek and ye shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened, son.”

Gus’s wisdom reminded Matt that he wasn’t in this alone, that despite Gus’s death while Matt served in the desert sands of Iraq, he’d never be alone again, not in spirit anyway.

“You bought this house?”

The reality of the recent transaction tightened his neck, his look. “I bought the subdivision.”

“All of it?” The kid’s air reflected his mother’s again, a shadowed starkness making Matt feel like a crusty headmaster, cold, cruel and crotchety.

The cold part was accurate, his wet clothes and the brisk wind a chilling reminder of what was to come. He met the kid’s eyes and nodded. “All of it. Yes.”

“But, Mom—”

“Stop, Jake. It’s all right.”

“But—”

“I said stop.”

The kid’s baffled look made Matt feel like scum, but why? Why should it matter if…

“You bought Cobbled Creek?”

A new voice entered the fray.

Matt swung around.

Three older men stood at the back door opening, backs straight, heads up, their posture definitely not at ease.

Military men, despite the paunch of one and the silver hair of another.

The man in the middle stepped forward, drew a breath and extended a hand. “I’m Hank Marek.”

The name sent a warning bell of empathy. Hank Marek of Marek Home Builders, the now-defunct contractor that started this project over two years ago.

Matt wasn’t a sympathetic person by nature. He’d hard-scrabbled his way up the ladder of success despite illegitimate beginnings followed by a fairly miserable upbringing, but coming face to face with the man who lost his dream so that Matt could have his, well…

He hauled in a breath and accepted Hank’s hand. “Matt Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Construction.”

The older man’s face revealed nothing of what he must be feeling inside, the loss of his work, his livelihood, his well-designed subdivision the victim of overextended loans and the burst of the housing bubble.

The other men stepped forward, concerned.

Hank moved back, nodded and directed a look beyond Matt to the woman and boy. “There’s stew just about ready and the temperature’s supposed to dip lower tonight before coming back up tomorrow. Jake, can you help me fire up the wood stove?”

The boy scowled Matt’s way, scuffed a toe, huffed a sigh, then trudged past Matt, the dog trailing behind, their mutual postures voicing silent displeasure.

“Callie? I’ll see you at home?”

“I’m on my way, Dad.” She pivoted, her mud-slicked heel tipping the move.

Matt started to lean forward to stop her fall, but she managed to right herself despite the wet floor and the mud. High, flat, wedged heels marked her departure with a tap, tap, tap as she hung a right turn at the door. She strode up the drive to her car, the soaking rain deepening the pathos of an already melodramatic situation.

Matt watched her go, then headed to the back door opening. The older men and the boy trudged in measured steps across the banked field, faded flag stakes symbolizing the wear and tear of waiting through too many seasons of sun, wind, snow and rain.

Matt watched their progress, his brain working overtime, the reality hitting him.

Hank Marek lived alongside the subdivision he had tried to create in the beautiful hillside setting, the curving road nestling the homes in the ascending crook of the Allegheny foothills.

It was that eye for setting that drew Matt to the initial showing, then the ensuing auction, his appreciation for the timeless, reasonably priced and aesthetically pleasing housing, a plan that not only fit the terrain but added to it, a rarity.

But he had no idea Hank lived in the quaint, small farmhouse on the main road, just steps away from the sign labeling Cobbled Creek a community of fine, affordable homes.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered a prayer that combined a plea for understanding and a silent lament that he might be following the foolish imprint of the older man’s footsteps, and headed to his truck, the cold, soaking rain a reminder that winter loomed, and he had an amazing amount of work to do in a very limited time frame.

Which was probably something he should have thought a little more about before papers were signed and money exchanged, but the delayed closing was the bank’s fault, not his. Matt understood the time constraints he faced, but God had guided him this far. Someway, somehow, they’d get these sweet homes battened down for the winter.

As he crested the rise to his truck, the woman’s car backed toward the roadway, a wise decision on her part. Mud-slicked shoulders weren’t to be trusted in these conditions, and when she curved the car expertly onto the road, then proceeded to the farmhouse beyond, he recognized the meaning behind Hank Marek’s words.

The woman and the kid probably hated him for who he was and what he’d done. On top of that, they appeared to live across the street from where he would take over Hank’s dream because he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

The hinted headache surged into full-blown reality, a niggling condition spawned from a really nasty concussion while fighting in Iraq, a grenade explosion too close for comfort. But if occasional bad headaches were his worst complaint after a double tour in the desert, he really had no complaints at all.

Dad’s dream is gone.

Callie steered the car into the drive, angled it between the catalpa tree and Tom Baldwin’s classic Chevy, then headed inside, determined to put on a happy face despite what just happened. The smell of Dad’s stew reminded her of how often her father had been there for her, supportive, honest, caring and nonjudgmental.

Returning that respect was imperative now.

The men trooped in, their footsteps heavy on the back porch. Callie pulled out a loaf of fresh-baked Vienna bread crusted with sesame seeds, placed it on the table and settled a plate of soft butter next to the bread, her mama’s custom because cold butter seemed downright unfriendly.

Right now a part of Callie felt unfriendly, but not to Dad and the guys. Or Jake, her beautiful son, her one gift from a sorry attempt at marriage to a fellow soldier.

Hank dropped a hand to her shoulder. She looked up, sheepish, knowing he’d see through her thin attempt at normalcy. “It’s okay, Cal. He’s young. Looks competent. And he must have the numbers behind him because the bank signed off. Those homes need someone now, not next spring when things might look better for us.”

He was right, she knew that; she’d been handling his books for three years, and truth be told she did as well with a nail gun as she had with an M-16 and a computer spreadsheet, but—

“The important thing now is to save the houses. I’m hoping Matt Cavanaugh and his crew can do that.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Hank had personally planned that subdivision to honor her mother, the name reminiscent of her mother’s childhood home along the shores of Lake Ontario, the quaint family cobblestone a salute to artisans of old. Hank had been determined to carry that classic neighborhood warmth throughout Cobbled Creek, his plans lying open on a slant board he’d erected at the back of the family room. He didn’t glance their way now, and neither did she, the thoughts of all that time, effort and money gone in the blink of an eye, a slash of a pen.

Hank lifted the stew pot onto the center of the table. Tom and Buck grabbed bowls, napkins and utensils, the old-timers a steady presence at the Marek homestead. Jake put The General on the back porch and shut the door. He ignored the dog’s imploring whine and triple tail thump, a sure sign The General would rather be curled up on the braid rug alongside the coming fire, but the smell of wet dog didn’t rank high on Callie’s list.

An engine noise drew her attention to the north-facing kitchen window.

Matt Cavanaugh’s black truck sat poised at the end of Cobbled Creek Lane. Sheeting rain obscured her vision, but something about the truck’s stance, strong yet careful, imposing yet restrained, reminded her of the man within, his shoulders-back, jaw-tight stance just rugged enough to say he got things done. His dark brown eyes beneath short, black hair hinted Asian or Latino, maybe both, his look a mix that defied the Celtic last name. She’d faced him almost eye-to-eye in three-inch heels which put him around five-eleven, not crazy tall, but with shoulders broad enough to handle whatever came his way.

She refused to cry, despite the disappointment welling inside. Stoic to the end, she’d been practicing that routine for years now.

Too long, actually, don’t you think?

Callie pushed the internal caution aside. Survivors survived because they manned up, took the shot and stood their ground. Four years in the military taught her how to draw down the mask, put on the face, pretend disinterest as needed.

“Great bread, honey. Thanks for picking it up.”

Callie turned, flashed the men a smile, laid a gentle hand on Jake’s shoulder and nodded. “You know I’ll do anything to keep you boys happy. Any word on when this storm’s going to let up?”

Jake took her lead, such a good boy, so much like his grandpa. “Supposed to be nice tomorrow, Mom.”

“Perfect.” She smiled, ruffled his hair and sank into a seat alongside him. “We’ve got to finish the front of the house while we can, get it cleaned up so we can decorate for Christmas. We’ll save cleaning the gutters—”

“Again?”

Callie sent Jake a “get serious” look and nodded. “Yes, again, they’re filled with leaves and maple spinners. You know we can’t leave them like that for winter.”

“We don’t want ice damming that porch roof again,” interjected Hank.

Tom took up the thread, his face saying he’d play along, pretend everything was all right. “I remember Callie up on that roof last winter, luggin’ that smaller chain saw, cutting through the ice.”

“Bad combination of events, all around,” agreed Buck. “To get that much snow, then warm up just enough to get a quarter inch of ice. Rough circumstances.”

“But nothing we couldn’t handle,” Callie reminded them all. She’d used the short chain saw to hack through the pileup, pretending she didn’t recognize the risk of being on a roof bearing thousands of pounds of unwanted ice, chain saw in hand. The roof’s shallow slope helped steady her, but that flattened slope caused the initial problem, the lack of height allowing snow to gather and drift beneath the second-story windows.