LITMIR.BIZ

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knows? It might just be a sprain, just as you said, but you can’t know for sure until you have it checked out. I’ll just finish the breakfast and we can run over to the Lake Haven Hospital.”

      “Jim can take me. You’ve got plenty to do here.”

      Eliza started to tell Sue that everything else could wait but she heard the door of the mudroom open before she could, then Jim’s and Aidan’s voices.

      “Speak of the devil,” Sue said.

      A moment later, the two men walked into the kitchen. Eliza’s resident troop of butterflies started dancing around her insides again at seeing him for the first time since she had left his arms the night before.

      “Morning,” he murmured to all of them, but she was quite certain his gaze rested on her for much longer than was strictly necessary.

      “Hi, Mr. Aidan,” Maddie said cheerfully. “Sue needs to go to the hospital.”

      He blinked at Maddie’s casual tone. “What?”

      “It’s nothing,” the cook assured him. “I slid over an icy curb at the boat parade last night. I probably should go get a brace or something.”

      “I knew it!” Jim exclaimed. “I should have taken you there last night like I wanted to. Maybe if I had, it wouldn’t have been so swollen that you couldn’t even put your shoe on this morning.”

      “You’re right and I was wrong. There. I said it. Happy now?”

      She looked so miserable that Eliza couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Any trace of pity seemed completely inconsequential when Jim stepped forward and kissed the top of the woman’s graying head.

      “Now, how could I be happy when my darling girl is in pain?” the quiet cowboy said.

      Oh. Eliza’s butterflies stopped long enough to go as gooey as the rest of her. She glanced at Aidan and found him watching the older couple with a softness she didn’t usually see there.

      “Son, you mind if I take the Suburban?” Jim asked him. “She can stretch her leg out better in that.”

      “Not at all. I’ll go pull it around for you.”

      He gaze Eliza a quick, unreadable look, then hurried back out to the mudroom and out the door.

      “Can you go over to our place for my best black coat and my purse with the insurance information?” Sue patted Jim’s arm, apparently resigned to her fate now and in action mode.

      “You bet. Be back in a flash.”

      He practically galloped out the door.

      “I think the darn thing might be broken,” Sue admitted when it was just the two of them and Maddie in the kitchen again. “I’ve had sprains before and they never hurt like this one.”

      “I’m so sorry.”

      “What if it is? I’ll ruin everything for Aidan and his family.”

      “You’ll ruin nothing,” Eliza insisted. “I told you, we’ll figure it out. I can manage with a little help. You can sit right there at the work island with your cast up on a chair and tell me everything you need me to do.”

      “I wanted the holidays to be perfect for Aidan. It’s important to him. Especially this year.”

      “Because of his brain tumor?” Eliza asked, after making sure Maddie had gone back to her worksheets and was humming softly to herself, not paying any attention to them.

      Sue looked surprised. “He actually let you in on the big dark secret? Wow. I’m shocked. You’re one of only a lucky trusted few. He didn’t even tell most of his household staff in California. He leased a house on the coast to keep it a secret and called me and Jim out of retirement to go help him there.”

      “Why the big secret? Do you know?”

      Sue sighed and shifted her leg on the chair. Eliza caught a glimpse of her foot, swollen and discolored. It looked worse than a sprain to her.

      “He said it was because of how it might affect the Caine Tech bottom line if news trickled out. Make shareholders question the direction of the company and who might take over if his brain tumor turned out to be fatal.”

      “What do you think?”

      “I think he hates showing any sign of weakness. I don’t know, that might be from having so many tough brothers or it might just be part of who he is, the same way he likes to believe he doesn’t need anybody.”

      He was an independent, complicated tangle of a man and she was coming to care far too much about him.

      Before she could answer, Jim came in.

      “Is this the coat you wanted?” he asked.

      “That will do.”

      He helped her slip her arms in just as Aidan came in from the other direction. It must have started snowing, as his ranch coat had little sprinkles of snow scattered over the shoulders.

      “Your carriage awaits, madam.”

      “Thank you, darlin’.”

      She gingerly rose to her feet and started hopping to the door with the cane she had brought along. Aidan let her go only to the edge of the work island before he sighed and scooped her up in one smooth motion.

      “Put me down, you fool. You shouldn’t be lifting anything, especially not someone my size.”

      “You weigh no more than Maddie over there and I carried her to bed last night.”

      Maddie giggled as the wiry cook flushed brighter than a poinsettia. “You’re crazy. That’s what you are. Loony as popcorn on a hot skillet. Put me down! Right now!”

      “Stop wriggling around,” he said with a laugh. “You’re only making it harder.”

      She instantly subsided.

      “What do you need me to do while you’re gone?” Eliza asked.

      “Finish fixing breakfast for his orneriness here,” Sue said. “That should do it.”

      “You don’t need to fix me anything,” Aidan protested as he carried her out the door. Jim picked up Sue’s purse and headed out after them. He paused in the doorway and turned back to Eliza.

      “Whatever you said to convince her to see a doc, thanks a million,” he said gruffly. “I owe you.”

      “Anything you think you might owe me has been paid in full many times over with the kindness you and Sue have shown to me and to Maddie,” she said firmly. “Please call and let us know when you find out anything.”

      After they left, Eliza pressed a hand to her chest. How was she supposed to protect her heart against Aidan? Every time she turned around, she found more things to love.

      She stood there for only a moment as she fought the bleak realization that leaving this place was going to hurt worse than anything she had experienced in a long time, then she rubbed her hands briskly down her thighs, threw on an apron and went to work.

      Aidan came back inside a few moments later. He looked at her standing by the stove and frowned. “You really didn’t have to make me breakfast. Toast and coffee would have been fine.”

      “Too late. It’s already cooking. How do pancakes, bacon and eggs sound?”

      “Delicious, if you want the truth.”

      He walked farther into the room and approached the stove, bringing in the delicious scent of snow and leather and him.

      “What can I do to help?” he asked.

      “Not a thing,” she answered. “It’s under control.”

      At least the breakfast was. Tension seemed to sizzle and pop between them like the bacon

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