LITMIR.BIZ

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McBride had been a schoolteacher for more than thirty years. When she got started on one of her famous lectures, there was no stopping her. And when that lecture was directed toward one of her three adult children, there was no point in trying to interrupt. Though Trent had recently turned twenty-six, his mother could still reduce him to a sullen adolescent.

      “If you think for one minute that I’m going to let you live out the rest of your life brooding in this cottage like some sort of crusty old hermit, you are very mistaken,” she said flatly. “Do you want to end up like Carney Stewart, old and alone? I’ve given you more than a year to pull yourself together. It’s been eighteen months since the accident. It’s time for you to stop sulking and get on with your life.”

      Trent kept his gaze focused on the unadorned wall in front of him. “I’m not sulking. I’m living exactly the way I choose.”

      “You sit here alone for days. You rarely go out in public. You neglect your family and rebuff your friends. You aren’t eating right and you aren’t doing the exercises you were given. This is the way you choose to live?”

      “Yes,” he answered simply.

      She shook her gray head in exasperation. “Well, I’m not going to stand by quietly while you ruin your life.”

      “Too late, Mother.” He tried to sound bored, but he was aware of the undertones of self-pity. “I did that eighteen months ago.”

      “Sometimes,” she said after a moment, “what I think you need most is to be taken behind the wood-shed.”

      He was surprised to feel one corner of his mouth twitch in what was almost a smile. “You just might be right.”

      Bobbie reached for her coat. “I have to be going. Annie will be here Tuesday morning at nine. You two can work out the details of this arrangement then.”

      As tempted as he was to refuse, he knew it wouldn’t be worth the effort. “All right. I’ll give it a month, but that’s it, Mother.”

      Satisfied with her limited victory, Bobbie allowed him to usher her out of his house. Closing the door behind her, Trent growled and shoved a hand through his shaggy blond hair—his usual reaction to a visit from his mother. Now what had she gotten him into?

      IT WAS A GLOOMY February morning, windy and gray, the heavy clouds overhead threatening a cold winter rain. Looking from the glowering sky to the darkened cottage in front of her, Annie Stewart tried to decide which seemed the most sinister.

      She almost chose to risk the elements. Judging from the whispers she’d heard about Trent McBride during the past six weeks, she wasn’t at all sure what she would find inside his cottage.

      Rumor had it that he’d been injured in a plane crash—one he had barely survived. They said the crash had left him scarred, physically and emotionally. He’d changed, they whispered, from the town’s golden boy to an angry, withdrawn hermit. Martha Godwin, one of Annie’s new clients who was known as the town’s primary source of inside information, had hinted that Trent hadn’t been “quite right” since the accident.

      “Sits in that house out in the woods all by himself,” she had elaborated darkly. “Doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t see anyone but family. Every time I ask his parents about him, they just shake their heads. There were plenty of local single women who were more than willing to nurse him back to health. Heck, there was a regular parade of them trotting out to his place with casseroles and silly smiles, but he sent them all packing. I tried to visit him once myself—just to be neighborly—but he wouldn’t let me in. Said he was busy, though I can’t imagine what he was doing.”

      Since Annie had experience with Martha’s relentless prying, having fielded quite a few personal questions of her own, she didn’t blame the guy. But it did seem strange to her that a young man, not even thirty yet, would isolate himself from everyone this way.

      Reaching his front door, she looked for a doorbell, but didn’t see one. Her hand was actually shaking when she lifted it to knock. She sighed in exasperation. What was wrong with her today? Why did she have this weird feeling that her life was going to change when she knocked on this door? She had made a lot of changes during the past couple of months. How hard could it be to add a new name to her growing client list—even if she had been warned that this client was different?

      Gathering her courage, and castigating herself for her cowardice, she knocked. She was being ridiculous to let her imagination run away with her this way. Whatever Trent McBride’s problems, this was hardly a scene from Beauty and the Beast. For one thing, she didn’t consider herself any great beauty. And Trent might be wounded, but he certainly wasn’t a beast.

      She knew his family, and they were all nice, normal people. How different could he be?

      She knocked again, thinking perhaps he hadn’t heard her first timid effort. After another moment, the door opened.

      A man she assumed to be Trent McBride stood in the shadows inside the darkened house, so that she couldn’t quite make out his features. She could see that he was tall—around six feet—and thin, perhaps a bit too thin. Blond, she decided, catching a glimmer of gold in the shadows. “Mr. McBride?”

      “You’re the housekeeper?” His voice was deep, and slightly rough.

      Though it still felt strange to hear herself identified that way, Annie answered simply, “Yes. I’m Annie Stewart.”

      After another pause, he stepped out of the doorway. “Come in.”

      When she instinctively hesitated, he reached out to snap on the overhead light. The cavelike room was instantly transformed into a more welcoming environment. The few pieces of furniture were very nice, she noted as she walked slowly inside, but the room had a spartan air to it. Even motel rooms had more personality.

      Having procrastinated as long as she could, she turned to face Trent. She thought she had prepared herself for anything—scars, disfigurement, whatever evidence a plane crash might have left. She certainly hadn’t expected to be facing sheer masculine perfection.

      Thick golden hair framed a face that Annie suspected had received more than its fair share of feminine attention. No wonder so many local women had been anxious to visit him after his accident. Behind the lenses of a pair of gold-tone metal glasses, his eyes were very blue. If he ever smiled—which she saw no evidence of at that moment—she imagined that his angled cheeks would crease appealingly. Whatever damage his accident had caused—and Martha Godwin had led her to believe it was extensive—it certainly hadn’t been done to his face.

      If they had been playing a scene from Beauty and the Beast, she thought wryly, she suspected she knew who would be cast as the beauty—and it wasn’t her.

      “You’re younger than I expected,” he said, studying her with an intensity that unnerved her.

      You’re prettier than I expected, she would have liked to respond, but that sort of flipness didn’t fit her new position. “Is that a problem?” she asked instead.

      He shrugged. “My mother said you need some repairs done.”

      “Yes. My great-uncle’s house was in worse shape than I thought when I first moved in, and I’m afraid I can’t afford a lot of improvements just yet. She suggested that you could take care of some of the most pressing problems while I work for you, and I told her it seemed a fair trade, if you’re agreeable.”

      She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t look overly enthused by the arrangement, but he nodded. “I’ll head over to your place now. Anything you want done there first?”

      “I’d really appreciate it if you could fix the front step,” she answered tentatively. “I’ve almost tripped a couple of times because it’s loose. I tried to stabilize it, but I’m afraid I’m not very good with that sort of thing.”

      Another nod. “Do whatever you want around here—dust, vacuum, fluff—but don’t rearrange the furniture. I like everything

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