Snow Angel Cove

“True enough. Being hit by a car can be such a distraction.”

“Who knew?” she said dryly, earning a short, surprised-sounding laugh.

“I will probably try to find a short-term lease on an apartment back in Boise somewhere while I send out resumes,” she finally answered.

“You don’t have family you could stay with?”

“No,” she said. To her dismay, her throat started to close at that single harsh word. For a moment, she missed her mother fiercely. It had been sixteen years since her mother went to work and never came home and it still sometimes seemed like yesterday.

She could drive to Portland and stay with her father and stepmother but she knew just how that would go. They would be squeezed into a sofa bed in the corner of the family room. Her teenage stepbrothers would resent her presence in what they considered their home and would complain about having to share a bathroom and about Maddie’s chattering. After a week or so, her father—prodded by Paula—would take her aside and quietly tell her he was afraid things weren’t working out.

She didn’t want to put any of them through that.

“My father lives out of state,” she said. “He doesn’t really have room for us.”

In his house or in his life. Though she didn’t add the words, she acknowledged them with a familiar little pang, then forced herself to focus on the positive.

“I have many friends in Boise and could call several of them in a moment and they would gladly open their homes until I can find a place.”

Her best friend, Joan, had an extra bedroom and had ushered her off tearfully just that morning—Lord, it seemed like a month ago—after extracting promise after promise that Eliza would come back for frequent visits.

He didn’t have a chance to answer, as they had approached a massive carved wooden gate. The gate opened smoothly before they reached it—she had no idea how—and he proceeded up a long driveway.

“It’s like a tunnel,” Maddie exclaimed. Pine trees rose up on either side of the driveway, blocking the view of the house—not that they could have seen much, anyway, through the darkness and the snow that was blowing almost horizontally.

She could see a glow in the distance that gradually took shape as a rambling log home ablaze with lights. The lodge was set on a hill, angled in such a way that Eliza imagined it would have magnificent lake and mountain views during better weather conditions.

“Welcome to Snow Angel Cove,” Aidan said as he pulled into a porte cochere in front of the house.

The moment he opened the driver’s side door, two people hurried out of the house toward the passenger side to open the doors for Eliza and Maddie.

The woman was lean to the point of being scrawny, with lined, leathery features and black and iron-gray hair pulled into a ponytail. She beamed at Maddie as she took her arm to help her from the car.

“Hello, my dears. Oh, you’ve had a time of it. Come inside where it’s warm.”

Maddie, who must have fallen asleep a little in the car without Eliza realizing, gave her a bleary-eyed smile. “I’m Madeline Elizabeth Hayward. I’m almost six years old.”

“Hi, Madeline. I’m Sue Stockton and this is my husband, Jim.”

Maddie waved at him and the man solemnly shook her hand. Jim was just as leathery, just as gray, but with a sweet smile and a bit of a paunch.

She liked them both instantly, though it was one of those snap judgments that had no real basis in reality.

“You must be Eliza,” Sue said. To her surprise, the other woman wrapped her in a warm hug, as if they were old friends reconnecting after a few years.

When Eliza confirmed her identity, Sue said, “Don’t dawdle. Come inside. It’s freezing out here.”

She opened the door wide and ushered them into a massive great room, with a ceiling that had to top thirty feet, dominated by a huge open river rock fireplace and raw timber mantel. The space was big enough to contain at least four couches she could see, in separate seating areas, along with a giant Christmas tree that was currently unadorned.

Aidan came in behind them with her purse and Maddie’s backpack in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He was followed by Jim, who carried a few more suitcases.

She wanted to tell them not to bother bringing everything in since they were only staying one night, but she didn’t have the chance before Aidan set her things down on a chair and swept the woman into an affectionate embrace.

He bent down and kissed her cheek. “Sue, darling, you are more gorgeous every time I see you.”

The woman blushed and shook her head. “And you’re still a rascal, aren’t you?”

“Sue and Jim have been with me for many years,” he said to Eliza and Maddie.

“Almost since the beginning of Caine Tech. What has it been? Twelve? Thirteen years? You bought that little ranch outside San Jose and hired us to look after you and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

“Something like that. She and Jim retired a few years ago but I managed to talk them out of retirement for a while to help me get things organized here at Snow Angel Cove.”

Sue gave her another hug. “When he called to tell me he was bringing you here, Aidan told me everything that’s happened to you today. I’m so sorry, honey.”

She ached in every muscle and under normal circumstances she would have tried to extricate herself from the woman’s hug but she found something so comforting and warm and genuine about it.

Tears welled up, much to her dismay. “Thank you,” she murmured with a watery smile, trying to wipe them away on the cuff of her sweater before anybody noticed.

“You probably haven’t had time to eat a thing all afternoon, have you, what with going to the emergency room and all. Well, I hope you’re hungry. I’ve got vegetable beef soup on the stove and fresh rolls just set to come out of the oven.”

Maddie perked up. “I love fresh rolls!”

“You and me both, young lady,” Jim said with another of those slow, sweetly charming smiles.

“We’ll work on bringing in your things while you grab a bite to eat,” Aidan said.

“I don’t need everything,” she said. “We’ve got boxes and boxes in my car. Just the suitcases you’ve already brought in should be sufficient for one night.”

“Are you certain? We don’t mind bringing in whatever you think you might need.”

“Positive. I should be fine.”

“In that case, I’ll have dinner ready for you quick as a wink,” Sue said.

Eliza wanted to protest that she wasn’t hungry. What she needed most was a horizontal surface to stretch out on. Maddie needed to eat, though.

“If you care to wash up, there’s a powder room just down that hallway. First door on the left.”

“Come on, Maddie.”

She almost didn’t want to look in the big carved wooden mirror in the lovely little half bath. The damage was as bad as she feared. She had a darkening bruise above her temple and an abrasion on her cheek. Her hair wasn’t as bad as she feared but running a brush through it was an exercise in pain for both her head and her sprained wrist.

By the time she set Maddie’s hair to rights, she had to stop and lean against the sink for a moment to catch her breath.

When they returned to the great room, they found Sue, Jim and Aidan seated at a massive dining table on the other side of the pass-through fireplace.

Maddie quickly climbed into the chair next to her new friend.

“I like your house,” she told him. “It’s pretty.”

He smiled. “Why, thank you. This is the first time I’ve seen it since I bought it last August. I’m amazed at all the work that has been done in just a few months.”

“Only a little paint and some varnish,” Sue said, ladling soup into bowls. “I’ve had the cleaning crew working their fannies off, I can tell you.”

Maddie giggled. “You said fanny!”

“Why, so I did.”

“That’s a funny word. Fanny, fanny, fanny.”

“Maddie,” Eliza said in a warning.

Sue chuckled. “I’ll have to be more careful. I’m afraid Jim and I might both need reminders that we’re not on the ranch with roughneck cowboys. Now, eat up while it’s warm.”

“We have to pray first!” Maddie exclaimed.

Aidan cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go ahead.”

Maddie offered a sweet prayer, asking a blessing on the nice lady who cried because her hotel burned down and for the nurses at the hospital and for Dr. Mendoza, her own cardiac specialist. She even remembered to bless the food before saying amen and taking a bite of her roll with the next breath.

Conversation flowed between Aidan and his caretakers—who were obviously more to him than just employees. Eliza listened with half an ear. She was so tired. She judged it couldn’t be later than 7:00 p.m. but she couldn’t see a clock anywhere to confirm her guess.

Though it was grand and spacious, with those huge log supports in the great room and the wide wall of windows, it seemed...cold, somehow. The lodge reminded her of a new hotel in Boise she had toured about a month prior to opening, before all the finishing touches had been added to give it a welcoming air.

“How are you holding up?” Aidan asked.

“Okay, for now.”

“Would you prefer a tray in your room? I should have thought to ask.”

Yes. Quite desperately. She wanted a long, hot shower and then a bed. But she could manage to keep it together for a few more moments. “No. This is fine. It’s delicious, Sue.” The rolls were perfect, crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside while the soup was probably the best she had ever tasted, even though she could only manage a spoonful or two.

“Thank you, darlin’. It seemed just the thing for a stormy night.”

She would have expected Aidan Caine to dine on gourmet meals every night but he seemed more than content with the rather humble fare.

“Oh. I almost forgot the pasta salad,” Sue said.

She headed out of the dining room just as a phone rang. Aidan pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. He glanced at the number.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting for this call. I’ve got to take it. I’ll be right back.”

He excused himself and answered the phone on his way out of the dining room as Sue came in from the kitchen Eliza could see through a doorway.

“Where is he going?”

“Phone call,” Jim answered, taking another roll out of the basket.

“Oh. That man! I swear, he hasn’t had a warm meal in a decade. One of these days, I’m going to drop his blasted phone right in the soup bowl.”

Maddie giggled at the image and Sue and Jim both smiled at her. Her daughter had a way of charming everyone, even crusty old ranchers.

“He’ll put his phone away quick enough when he has the chance to get out again with the horses,” Jim said.

Maddie inhaled sharply. “You have horses here?”

Oh, dear. Here we go, Eliza thought.

“Why, we certainly do!” Jim said proudly. “Six of the prettiest horses you could ever meet, including a little pony that’s just the right size for a girl such as yourself.”

“Oh. Mama, did you hear?”

“I did.”

Maddie was a little obsessed with all things equine. Okay, a lot obsessed. Her daughter loved horses with a deep and abiding passion.

Eliza didn’t quite comprehend the depth of the obsession since her daughter had never actually ridden a horse and had only seen a few closer than out the car window. Yet Maddie drew horse pictures, she had horse toys, her favorite pajamas featured horses and every time they went to the library, she wanted to check out books about horses. She even pretended she was a horse sometimes and made clippy-cloppy noises when she walked and her imaginary friend—who seemed to appear and disappear in their lives with rather alarming and random frequency—was a black horse named Bob, for reasons Eliza had yet to determine.

“Do you think I could see the horses?” Maddie asked, as if the prospect was far more exciting than even meeting Santa Claus on Christmas morning.

“Don’t see why not,” Jim answered. “Maybe you could even help me feed them in the morning.”

“Oh, could I?” she asked Eliza with eager entreaty.

“We’ll have to see.”

It was her traditional maternal nonanswer but Maddie barely heard her, too enthralled by the idea that Snow Angel Cove had six horses, including a girl-sized pony.

“I have a horse,” Maddie declared. “His name is Bob.”

“Is it?” Jim looked interested.

“Yes. He’s black with a white nose and he can gallop as fast as the wind. He says hello.”

The couple exchanged surprised looks. “He...says hello?” Sue asked.

“Yes. Didn’t you hear him? He’s right next to you.”

They both looked baffled, until Eliza mouthed imaginary friend.

She had been concerned enough about Bob to speak with the unit mental health counselor during Maddie’s last hospital stay, who assured her imaginary friends were both normal and healthy for children, whether or not they had chronic conditions.

“I guess I must have missed him,” Jim said. “Black with a white spot, you say. That must be why. He blends right into the dark window there.”

“He likes it here. So do I.”

“Maybe he’ll like making new friends with the other horses tomorrow,” Jim suggested.

“He will. He loves new friends. I do, too.” She beamed at the grizzled man, who seemed to visibly melt. People tended to do that around Maddie.

An alarm suddenly went off on her phone. She and Maddie both knew what it was without looking and her daughter gave a little groan.

“Do I have to?”

“You know you do, honey.”

Eliza reached into her purse to find the four medications Maddie took twice a day, morning and evening. She shook them out and set them on her daughter’s plate. Maddie sighed but obediently picked up her water glass and swallowed them, one after the other, with the ease of long practice.

“My goodness,” Sue exclaimed. “What’s all this?”

“I have to take pills for my heart,” Maddie said. “It doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to and the pills help it, plus I have a little machine in there to make sure it beats the right way. When I get bigger, I might get a new heart like my friend Paige.”

“Oh. Oh, my.”

Jim and Sue both looked astonished. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction. Maddie seemed healthy most of the time. She was healthy, just like other children—to look at her, it would be impossible to know she had a rare, idiopathic form of juvenile cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the lining of her heart.

For the past few years, her condition was wonderfully stable. While the disease was incurable, the pacemaker helped steady her irregular heartbeats and the medications she took slowed the progression of her condition but she would probably need to be put on the heart transplant list before she hit puberty.

The harsh reality constantly prowled through Eliza’s thoughts like a huge, voracious beast that never slept. With the help of her specialists in Boise, Maddie was a happy, well-adjusted girl who was hardly bothered by the fact that she lived with such a serious condition.

Eliza intended to keep it that way.

“She has a heart condition,” she explained. “It required the implantation of a pacemaker when she was two. But she’s doing very well now.”

“I’m a trouper. That’s what my mom calls me.”

“Sounds like that’s exactly what you are.”

She looked up at the voice to find Aidan had returned to the dining area while her attention was focused on Maddie. He watched them with an inscrutable expression.

“You’re a trouper with a horse named Bob,” Jim said.

“Bob comes to the hospital with me when I have to stay there. He likes the nurses a lot, especially when they feed him candy.”

“Well, sure. Who wouldn’t?” Aidan said as he sat back down.

Eliza shifted, uncomfortable that he had overheard the discussion for reasons she couldn’t have explained. She was, no doubt, already an object of pity to him, the widow who had just lost her job and had been hit by a car within five minutes. Throw in a daughter with a serious heart condition and it was a wonder she didn’t have her own personal violin trio following her around playing mournful tunes.

This man had everything he could ever want or need. He was insanely wealthy, powerful, successful. She, on the other hand, probably presented a pathetic picture to him and she hated it.

Aidan Caine, of all people. Why did her path have to cross with him?

She had nurtured a completely unreasonable resentment toward him and Caine Tech since Trent’s death. Logically, she knew he wasn’t to blame directly. He hadn’t even been at the fateful meeting that afternoon.

Her emotions weren’t very rational, however. It was easier to blame him than to accept that her husband had been on a self-destructive path since Maddie’s diagnosis.

She took another spoonful of soup as she listened to Aidan speak with Jim about one of the horses. She had to get over this. The man had been kind enough to give her and Maddie a comfortable—even luxurious—place to stay for the night. She could manage one night in his home and then she would move on without having to speak with him ever again.

Maddie yawned suddenly and set her spoon down with an impolite clatter that made Eliza wince a little. “I’m tired, Mama,” she announced. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

Aidan set down his own spoon and slid his chair back from the table. “You both look like you’re ready to drop. I’m sorry to keep you so long out here. Let’s go get you settled.”

She wanted to protest that he could at least finish his dinner but in truth she was exhausted and was more than ready for this miserable day to be over.

The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner she could wake up and begin to figure out how she was going to put life back on an even keel for her and for Maddie.

CHAPTER FOUR

AIDAN LED THE WAY through the house toward the bedroom suite Sue had suggested might be best for Eliza and her daughter. He really hoped he was going in the right direction. How embarrassing would it be if he got lost in his own home?

He couldn’t believe all the work that had been finished since he’d last seen the house. Though Sue and Jim had kept him apprised of the progress with pictures and even a few videos, the change was remarkable.

When he first saw the house, the logs had been dark and dreary. Since then, an army of workers had sanded and varnished them until they glowed a warm honey.

The changes he had wanted to make to the bones of the house had been completed in record time and Snow Angel Cove now boasted new paint, new carpet and updated electrical and plumbing systems.

A decorating team had come in with new furniture over the long Thanksgiving weekend. He was happy with the result as he studied the furnishings, though he couldn’t help thinking something still seemed missing.

He wasn’t very good at that sort of thing, which was why he tried to hire people who were.

“Is this our room?” Maddie asked when he paused outside the guest suite Sue had suggested.

“Yes. Do you like it?”

She walked into the room, with its gas fireplace, four-poster bed and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lake. “I like rooms that are pink, usually, but this one is nice,” she said. She looked tired, he thought, more concerned about her than ever now that he knew she suffered from a heart condition.

“It’s a lovely room,” Eliza said. “Thank you.”

Like her daughter, she showed clear signs of exhaustion. Her mouth drooped a little at the corners and she gripped the back of the armchair in the room to steady herself.

The bruise above her temple looked dark and ugly against the pale loveliness of her features. He couldn’t look at it without guilt drenching him like somebody had tossed a bucket of ice water in his face.

He could have killed her and Maddie both.

Yeah, the tires had been terrible on the rental vehicle and black ice had contributed to the accident, but some part of him would always wonder if his own reflexes had somehow been slower than they should have been.

Could he have stopped a few seconds earlier than he had and avoided hitting her altogether if he were a hundred percent back to normal?

He couldn’t know the answer to that, for all the metrics and algorithms in the world.

“I thought you might like a bedroom on the main floor so you don’t have to tackle the stairs, but if you would prefer one with a better view of the lake, those are on the second floor. I’m having an elevator installed but it won’t be done for a few months.”

“This should be fine. It’s very nice. We can share the bed.”

“Not necessary.”

He reached down and pulled a wheeled trundle mattress out from underneath the bigger four-poster.

“I wanted these rooms designed with flexible bedding for when my family comes to visit.”

“Oh, I love it! Look! My very own little bed.”

“Nice.” She smiled at her daughter, though she hadn’t moved from her spot where he suspected she would fall over if she moved away from the chair propping her up.

She belonged in the hospital. He frowned, wishing he could pack her up and drag her right back there. At least she was here, where he could watch out for her, and not trying to drive back to Boise. It was small comfort.

“Your home is lovely,” she said.

“It’s a work in progress,” he said.

“All the best homes are. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

Purchasing a home on a mountain lake in Idaho had never been on his radar. He enjoyed the home he had built in San Jose and had leased another property on the coast near Big Sur for his recovery.

For some time, he had been thinking about buying a ranch, maybe something closer to Hope’s Crossing and his family, until a friend and business partner mentioned his family property here on Lake Haven.

One quick visit later and a look at the stunning, restful view of the lake and mountains, and Aidan had purchased it on the spot, along with the other property that came with it.

He might not have been a hundred percent in his right mind but he refused to regret it. He needed a retreat, a place away from the constant pressure and stress of his regular world—especially now. He was on strict orders to rest and be patient with himself as he healed and slowly returned to his regular activities.

Where better to do that than this sleepy little Idaho town where he could ride horses and cross-country ski on untrammeled snow during the winter and stand hip-deep in the Hell’s Fury River with a fly rod in his hand during the summer?

His scar itched like crazy and he wanted to reach back and scratch it but he curled his hand into a fist at his side instead.

“It lacks many of the finishing touches I want,” he said after a moment, looking around the room. “I have family coming for the holidays the Tuesday before Christmas. I’m hoping we can whip it into shape before they arrive.”

“The other guy, Jim, said you have six horses,” Maddie said, bouncing her bottom a little on the trundle bed.

She was really an adorable little girl, with those dark curls, dimples and the big green eyes she had inherited from her mother.

Cardiomyopathy. Poor thing. Sometimes life really sucked.

“I do indeed have six horses.”

He loved to ride and had since he was a kid spending a few weeks each summer with his maternal grandparents, who had a ranch in southwest Colorado. All his brothers would stay with their grandparents but he was the best rider of the six of them. He didn’t need a psychoanalyst to explain his enduring affinity for horses. It was rare for him to excel at anything physical that one of his brothers hadn’t already conquered.

Even at his house in San Jose, he had a few horses and would take them up into the mountains along the coastline whenever he had the chance.