LITMIR.BIZ

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the lousy tires into town while they were discharging you and swapped with the key you gave me. I hope you don’t mind.”

      “I don’t mind. What about your rental?”

      “I called them to pick it up,” he said grimly, “with a few choice words about renting out an unsafe vehicle.”

      She would not like to be on this man’s bad side.

      After he made sure she and Maddie were both settled securely, he pulled out into the snow.

      Within the first few minutes of observing while he drove along at a crawl, the wipers valiantly trying to beat back the snow, she realized driving back to Boise would have been a nightmare. She wouldn’t have made it, not with the headache still throbbing through her to the same rhythmic beat of the wipers.

      “Are you doing okay?” he asked after a few moments.

      She shrugged then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark interior of her SUV. “Yes. Fine.”

      “Thank you for giving me this chance to try to make things up to you,” he said, his voice low. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened today. I’ve been having flashbacks ever since that terrible moment when I thought I had hit both of you. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget it.”

      She relived that moment of helpless terror when she had seen Maddie racing directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle and realized he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. A fine-edged shiver rippled down her spine. “I doubt I will, either.”

      If she had any doubts about his competency behind the wheel, they were quickly allayed as he drove through the snowy night around the lake. Though they encountered few other vehicles on the road, he was cautious, alert, leaving plenty of time for braking at the few stop signs they passed through on the way out of town and then progressing at a sedate pace.

      She had a feeling this was more a reaction to the events of the afternoon than his usually driving patterns. That didn’t make her appreciate his vigilance less, given the dangerous conditions.

      “Tell me again about what you were doing in Haven Point, the job you were supposed to be starting,” he said after a few moments without taking his gaze off the road. “I only caught bits and pieces of the story at the accident scene and then a little more at the hospital.”

      She released a long breath and shifted in the seat. Just that slight movement hurt and she sincerely wished she had taken the doctor up on her offer to write a prescription for pain medication.

      “I have a degree in hotel management and was hired to take charge of the Lake Haven Inn.”

      “What were you doing before today?”

      “Until yesterday I’ve been working as the assistant manager at a small hotel in Boise. I’ve been there for three years, since my husband died.”

      “I’m sorry. About your husband, I mean.”

      “Thank you.” Manners compelled her to acknowledge the condolences, though it felt strange, wrong somehow, when they were coming from Aidan Caine.

      She stared straight ahead at the snow blowing against the windshield. When she was a little girl, she used to think the snow reflecting in the headlights looked like stars and she would pretend her dad was piloting a rocket ship through hyperspace.

      That time of imagination and fun seemed a long time ago. Now driving through snow was at best an inconvenience, at worst, an experience fraught with tension and peril.

      “It seems an odd time to start a new job, right before Christmas,” he observed.

      “I suppose. I was actually hired in early November but it took a little time to tender my resignation and end the lease on my apartment.”

      “You really did pack up everything, didn’t you?” He jerked his head to the back, piled high with boxes.

      “Most of our things are in storage. These were only the essentials. Moving to Lake Haven was supposed to be a new start for us. I guess that didn’t work out so well.”

      That panic hovering just beneath the surface since the moment she’d seen that blackened building seemed to bubble up all over again. For a moment, she wanted to just close her eyes and wallow in self-pity. She had pinned such high hopes on this move. Running a hotel in a small town had been her dream since she was just a girl working the front desk at the Seaswept Inn on the Oregon Coast.

      She loved the idea of raising Maddie in this small town, finally putting down roots after Trent had moved them from job to job, opportunity to opportunity, always in search of pay dirt.

      The charming town of Haven Point and the whole Lake Haven area had seemed the perfect location—quiet part of the year, bustling during the summer months, and close enough to Maddie’s specialists in Boise that they could still go to appointments with relative ease.

      She had loved Haven Point on previous visits and had felt welcomed from the first moment she stepped into town.

      She was so tired of disappointments, of constantly being forced to rechart her life’s direction.

      “I’m sorry about your job situation,” Aidan said quietly. “I can only imagine how upsetting that must be for you and for Maddie.”

      What did he know about upsetting job situations? He came from a completely different world and probably had no idea what it was like to struggle, to wonder which bills she could afford to pay off that month and which she would have to make token payments on until a better time.

      “Upsetting. Yes. It certainly is.”

      “If you don’t mind me asking, what are your plans beyond the next few days?”

      She didn’t have a fallback position. Why would she ever have imagined she needed one?

      “I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “I haven’t exactly had a great deal of time to go over my options, considering I’ve been at the hospital since five minutes after I found out the inn burned down.”

      “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

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