LITMIR.BIZ

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was such a sweet girl, always so earnest and ready to please. With a heart full of gratitude, Eliza hurried to the guest bedroom. She hadn’t had time to move their things to the cook’s quarters off the kitchen yet but planned to do that before dinner.

      She shrugged into the wool peacoat she’d bought on clearance two winters before and picked up Maddie’s pink-and-purple parka. When she returned to the great room, she found Maddie and Aidan, heads bent together as they looked at something on the Christmas tree.

      She paused and watched them, a funny little ache in her chest. The only men in Maddie’s life were her doctors and Eliza’s dear friends Sam and Julio, a gay couple who had lived in the apartment across the hall.

      “This is my favorite ornament on the whole tree,” Maddie declared.

      “It’s a nice one,” he answered, “but why is this particular ornament your favorite? There have to be hundreds of angels on the tree.”

      “Because it’s a boy angel, just like my daddy. See?”

      He bent his head to see it better and Eliza couldn’t help craning her neck for a closer look. She remembered hanging that one earlier. The porcelain angel had looked antique to her so she had been extra careful with it and had let Maddie look but not touch. It did indeed have slightly masculine features, she recalled, though they looked nothing like Trent’s.

      “Mama says Daddy is watching over us from heaven. Whenever I have to go to the hospital, she tells me he’s there helping the doctors know what to do.”

      “I’m sure he is,” Aidan murmured. He must have sensed her presence because he looked up and met her gaze. His eyes were filled with compassion and a warmth she didn’t want to see.

      Something inside her seemed to soften and stretch like caramels left out in the sun.

      Don’t read anything into it, she warned herself. He only felt sorry for the poor widow with the sick little girl.

      “Here you are, honey,” she said, her tone more abrupt than she intended as she handed Maddie her coat. She didn’t look at him as she helped her daughter stick her arms through the sleeves and then her hands into the mittens.

      “Let’s go through the mudroom. My coat is there,” Aidan said when Maddie was bundled up. He led the way toward the kitchen, where Sue was rolling out what looked like pastry dough.

      “It smells de-lish-ous in here!” Maddie exclaimed. Eliza had to agree as the comforting smell of carrots and onions and chicken seeped into the air.

      “Oh, trust me, it will be,” Sue declared. She seemed to be back to her old self. Her features had lost that wan, pinched look of earlier when her migraine had attacked. “I’m making my famous chicken pot pie. Seemed just the thing for a snowy day and it’s always been one of Aidan’s favorites.”

      “Yours is even better than my pop’s, but if you tell him so, I’ll deny it to my dying breath.”

      She rolled her eyes. “As if I would ever say such a thing to that sweet Dermot!”

      “What did I tell you about my pop and women? Doesn’t matter if they’re seven or seventy,” Aidan said to Eliza, startling a smile out of her.

      “I’ll have to get his recipe when he’s here,” Sue said, pretending not to hear the exchange. “Never hurts to try something a new way.”

      “Why mess with perfection?” Aidan countered as he headed into the mudroom. He emerged a moment later, shrugging into the sheepskin-lined leather ranch jacket she had seen him in earlier.

      Sexy Geek with a side of cowboy. How was a girl supposed to resist that?

      “Are you ladies ready?” he asked.

      “Yes! I can’t wait to see the horses!” Maddie declared.

      When they walked outside, the air didn’t feel as cold as she might have expected, maybe because of the cloud cover and because the wind had died down. The lake shone blue, a vivid contrast to the snow all around. From here, she could clearly see the shape of the nearby cove, just like its eponymous snow angel.

      Through her research on the area before deciding to take the job at the inn, she had learned that Lake Haven rarely froze completely because of its depth and because of all the geothermal activity in the area feeding warm water into it. The minerals in the water gave it the lovely color.

      Whatever the reason, it made for a beautiful scene in the twilight.

      From here, she could also see lights begin to twinkle from the clustered buildings of Haven Point up the shoreline. In the fading remains of a stormy winter day, the pretty little town looked warm and inviting.

      The walk hadn’t been cleared since the snowfall resumed in the afternoon and walking through it took effort. Maddie struggled for only a moment before Aidan picked her up and settled her on his shoulders, much to her glee.

      She said something to him Eliza couldn’t hear and they laughed together. The sound warmed her even more than her wool coat.

      She inhaled deeply of air scented with pine and snow and resolved to simply enjoy the moment. Whatever her reservations about working for Aidan Caine—the tangled past she doubted he even knew about, her pride that balked at taking a job offered out of pity, this silly schoolgirl attraction—she couldn’t deny that Maddie seemed happy here.

      When they reached the barn, he opened a small door next to the huge double doors and set Maddie down inside before reaching a hand out to help Eliza over a patch of ice. He wore leather gloves but she could swear she felt the heat of his skin through them.

      She quickly pulled her hand away and looked around the cavernous space.

      Through her thirty-one years on the planet, she had spent very little time inside of barns. If someone ever asked her to design the perfect barn, however, she would have pointed him in the direction of this aging building at Snow Angel Cove.

      Made of weathered wood with a traditional gambrel roof, the barn smelled of hay and horses and dust. A mouse-fat calico tabby sidled out of view as soon as they spotted it but a black-and-white border collie wandered immediately over to them, long, busy tail wagging.

      “Oh,” Maddie exclaimed, shrinking away from the creature. She loved horses but dogs, on the other hand, freaked her out a little.

      “It’s okay,” Aidan assured her. “He won’t hurt you. This is Argus. He’s the king of the barn.”

      “Really?”

      “Well, he thinks he is, anyway. He bosses everybody around. But he’s really gentle. I promise, he won’t hurt you.”

      Her daughter didn’t look completely convinced but because her middle name should have been Spunky, she petted the dog’s head with ginger care then giggled when the dog licked her, his tail wagging even harder.

      “Mama, I think Argus likes me.”

      “Looks like it.” She knelt down to pet the dog, too, and was rewarded with a nuzzle and a lick.

      “Did he come with the ranch?” she asked.

      “No. He’s Sue and Jim’s baby. Goes everywhere with them.”

      “Do you have a dog?” Maddie asked.

      “No. But my whole family does.” He gave Eliza a rueful look. “I forgot to mention when I was giving you the guest rundown that they’ll be bringing a miniature herd when they come. Dylan would never travel without his dog, Tucker, a black-and-tan coonhound, Andrew has a chihuahua named Tina and Lucy and Brendan each have little mutt purse pooches who are less than a year. Daisy and Max. I hope you don’t mind.”

      “Not at all,” Eliza assured him. She loved dogs and always had. When she was a girl, she’d had a Labrador retriever named Frisbee. She had adored that dog and grieved deeply when he died at thirteen, just before Eliza went off to college. She had dreamed of having a half-dozen

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