LITMIR.BIZ

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bulb on the tree under the best of circumstances and apparently Christmas Eve hadn’t suddenly endowed him with any particular linguistic skills.

      “Are you ladies ready to head back to the house?”

      Eliza nodded. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s put your mittens back on.”

      “I don’t want to leave yet. Cinnamon is my second best friend now, after Bob.”

      “You can visit her another day,” Eliza promised.

      “Can I ride her sometime?”

      “We’ll see,” Eliza said as she finished putting on the mittens. “Okay. We’re ready to go.”

      He opened the door for them and immediately snowflakes swirled inside.

      “It’s snowing again?” Maddie exclaimed. She sounded not quite as excited about the continuing storm as she had earlier in the day.

      “Looks like it,” he answered.

      Eliza lifted her face up to the flakes. “I can’t believe this. At least another two inches of snow fell in the half hour we were in the barn.”

      “It’s supposed to taper off tonight.”

      Maddie gamely trudged through the heavy snow for a few feet, until he reached down and lifted her up and onto his shoulders again. She didn’t weigh much, probably not even fifty pounds.

      “Look how pretty it is,” she said, her voice soft and almost reverent. “The snowflakes look like little angels with parachutes.”

      “If that’s the case,” her mother said from beside them, “you’ve got an angel on your nose.”

      Maddie giggled and lifted her hand from his head. He couldn’t see her but he assumed the wriggling he felt behind him came from her wiping it away.

      “There. Is it gone?”

      Eliza smiled softly at her daughter. Snowflakes tangled in her eyelashes and her pale pink beanie and the little pale freckles on her upper cheekbones. She was so lovely and he had a feeling she was completely oblivious to it, which somehow made her all the more appealing.

      “That one is gone. You’ve got about four more all over your face.”

      “Ack! Get off me, angels! Get off,” Maddie exclaimed with more giggles, which made Eliza smile.

      He loved that about kids, he thought, as he led the way up the path to break a trail for Eliza. They had such a clear insight into the magic and wonder around them, a perspective that adults surrendered when worry over mortgages and car payments took over their imaginations.

      When they neared the house, an unfamiliar beat-up pickup truck was parked under the porte cochere. He frowned, wondering who was crazy enough to brave the poor roads and snowy conditions. The pickup had a snowplow on it, half full of melting snow, and giant studded tires. Whoever was here must have plowed their way up the hill to Snow Angel Cove.

      “Expecting somebody?” Eliza asked when they neared the house.

      “Not that I know of. I suppose it could be someone with a delivery for Sue.”

      “Great service, if it is.”

      “Let’s find out.”

      He opened the door leading into the mudroom and heard the sound of female voices coming from the kitchen. He swung Maddie off his shoulders to more of her giggles—man, a guy could get addicted to the sound of a kid laughing—then hung up his coat and the wool hat his physician insisted he wear against the elements. Eliza helped Maddie out of her coat and mittens and hung them and her own outerwear on a hook near his.

      When Aidan went into the kitchen, he found Sue in the sitting room off the kitchen, along with the auburn-haired doctor from the emergency room and the woman who had come out of the store to help Eliza after the accident.

      They were sipping coffee, a tray of pastries on the table between them, and seemed on the best of terms with Sue.

      “Dr. Shaw!” he exclaimed. “And Mayor Shaw.”

      They must be related, he suddenly realized as the surname finally clicked. He hadn’t made the connection until right then because they looked nothing alike—the doctor with her pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair and the incoming mayor with the dark hair and complexion that spoke of some sort of Hispanic or Native American heritage. They did share a similar bone structure and their mouths were the same, but the resemblance ended there.

      “I’m not mayor until the first of January,” she said. The laughter in her dark eyes faded and she gave him a polite smile.

      “How did you make it up the hill to Snow Angel Cove?” he asked them.

      Dr. Shaw’s smile was slightly warmer though still not quite cordial. “Best investment I ever made, trading a year of waived office deductibles for Maisy Perkins and her kids in exchange for that old pickup. My nurse and office assistant both told me I was crazy, since Maisy herself is a hypochondriac and out of her six kids, two have asthma and two have brittle bones. Joke’s on them, right? Already this winter I’ve used that old pickup to get to the hospital more times than I can count when my own car was stuck, not to mention saved a fortune plowing the parking lot of my office. Hi, Eliza. Hi, Maddie.”

      “Hi, Dr. Shaw,” Maddie said, skipping forward. “Guess what? I have a new best friend named Cinnamon. She’s a red horse.”

      “Do you?” The doctor smiled kindly down at the little girl, no more immune to her charms than any of the rest of them.

      “Hello,” Eliza said. “You’re sisters. I should have realized.”

      “We are,” the physician said.

      “Half sisters, actually,” McKenzie offered. “Same father, different mothers. And a long story.”

      To him, her smile was the temperature of Lake Haven—colder maybe, since the lake never quite froze over—but to Eliza, her smile was as warm and welcoming as a mug of hot cocoa, with whipped cream on top.

      “Devin was saying she wanted to check on you and I offered to tag along.”

      “And here we are,” Dr. Shaw said. She reminded Aidan of a much calmer version of her sister, who seemed to vibrate with energy—along with the antipathy toward him he couldn’t miss, even though he didn’t quite understand it.

      “I’ve been dying to see inside this place since Mr. Caine here took it over. We played here a lot when we were kids, when the Kilpatrick family used to own it. I hardly recognize the place now. With all the building permits that were railroaded through the town council the last few weeks, I knew it had to be spectacular and I was absolutely right. It’s just stunning.”

      He didn’t miss the caustic edge in her tone. What beef did the mayor have against him? Yeah, he had caused an accident in front of her store but she had said herself the road conditions were at least partly to blame.

      “I’m sorry you went to so much trouble,” Eliza said, a delectable hint of color on her cheekbones. “Especially unnecessary trouble. I am really doing much better, as you can see for yourself. A phone call could have saved you time and effort.”

      Dr. Shaw studied her carefully. “I’m glad to see you’ve got a little color back. Yesterday you were so pale, I thought you were trying to camouflage yourself into the snow. Staying here at Snow Angel Cove appears to agree with you.”

      Eliza cast a sideways glance in his direction and he was almost positive her blush intensified.

      “It’s a lovely home and Sue is a fantastic cook, as I’m sure you have figured out.”

      McKenzie, in the act of choosing another of Sue’s delicious lemon bars, grinned. “You know it, sister.”

      “I love it here,” Maddie declared. “Did you know Mr. Aidan has six horses? And one is a pony

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