by Marie Force
Cameron’s mouth fell open in shock. She quickly closed it and tried to think of something witty she could say to counter that. Nothing. She had absolutely nothing.
“I got you this from the store,” he said, producing a mask-shaped item from the brown bag he carried. “It has eucalyptus and other stuff that’s supposed to aid in the healing of facial bruises. You heat it up in the microwave or in hot water.”
He was hesitantly adorable as he handed it over to her.
“That’s really nice of you. Thanks.” Once again, he’d caught her completely off guard with his thoughtfulness. She had no idea how to handle this guy, and she always knew how to handle guys. This one, however . . .
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Stunned, she made the mistake of looking up at him. Yep, he was still the most perfectly perfect example of male beauty she’d ever laid eyes on. “Why?”
“Because we have business to discuss. Among other things.”
“Business? What business? What other things?”
“That’s three questions. Which one should I take first?”
“Business.”
“The website isn’t off the table.”
Cameron was truly shocked by that news. “Oh. It isn’t?”
He shook his head.
“I was pretty certain after the meeting that it was a dead subject.”
“It’s not, which is why I thought we could have dinner and talk it over some more.”
“You, me and who else?”
“No one.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. I thought you all were partners.”
“We are. The others have already voted.”
Cameron shook her head as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. “So wait, that means—”
“It’s down to me.”
“Oh.”
“So . . . Dinner? Yes?”
“Um, okay. Sure. What time?”
“Pick you up at seven?”
“What should I wear?”
His gaze took a slow, lazy journey from the top of her head to her feet encased in the boots he’d given her. By the time he once again made eye contact, Cameron felt like she’d been undressed. “Anything you want.”
“That’s too vague. Are we talking jeans or dressed up or what?”
“Whatever you want. Just make sure you wear your new boots.”
“Don’t blame me if I’m overdressed or underdressed.”
“I won’t.” He straightened out the slouch and began to walk away. “I almost forgot,” he said, turning back to hand her the bag he still held. “See you at seven.”
As he headed for the stairs, Cameron snuck a quick peek at the back of him, which was still just as awesome as the front. Releasing a sigh, she watched him until he turned the corner to head downstairs. The man wore a nice pair of jeans. That was for sure. She hoped he kept them on for dinner so she could do some more looking.
Inside the room, she closed the door and realized she was still holding the bag he’d given her. She opened it and gasped when she saw one of the Icelandic sweaters she’d admired in the store. He’d chosen the red one for her, which made her smile as red was one of her favorite colors. Not that she wore it very often in all-black-all-the-time New York City.
She pulled the sweater out of the bag and something fell on the floor. The moose pajama pants.
Delighted by the gifts, she sat on the bed and tried to figure him out. He’d shown her gruff, rude, concerned, helpful, seductive, thoughtful, cranky, generous and mysterious, and she’d known him all of twelve hours.
Her phone rang, making her laugh at the vagaries of Vermont cell service. She took the call from Lucy.
“How’d it go?” Lucy asked.
“It was . . . interesting. The store is incredible, Luce. If we get the job, I’m going to be here awhile. It’s way too much to capture in a couple of days.”
“Wait. If we get the job? How did you leave it with them?”
“That’s the interesting part.” She explained the split vote and how it had come down to her gruff, sexy rescuer. “We’re having dinner tonight to talk about it some more.”
“Dinner, huh? What’s the deal with that? What’s his name?”
“Will.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Cameron . . . Hello, it’s me, Lucy. I’ve known you a long time. If you think I can’t sniff out a bigger story even hundreds of miles and a bad phone connection away, you don’t know me at all.”
Lucy was like a dog with a bone when she sensed a story, and Cameron had long ago learned not to fight her friend’s need to know everything.
“He’s . . . Well . . . He’s very handsome in a rugged sort of way.”
“Ohhhh,” Lucy said on an exaggerated sigh. “I love rugged. By handsome, are we talking drop-dead gorgeous or fall-on-your-back-and-spread-your-legs sexy?”
Cameron couldn’t stop the gurgle of laughter that escaped, despite her effort to hold it in so as not to encourage the incorrigible Lucy. “Sort of both. No, definitely both.” The thought of falling on her back and spreading her legs for Will Abbott made her feel warm and tingly all over so she quickly squelched the thought and all the images that came with it.
“Oh, man. This I’ve got to see. I need pictures.”
“I can’t just take pictures of him. How weird would that be?”
“Find a way. You’re not . . . you know, doing what you do with him, are you?”
“No, Luce, I’m not falling madly in love with a guy I met on a muddy road and setting myself up for massive heartbreak later. I’m here temporarily at best, and he’s something nice to look at while I’m here. That’s it.”
“Promise me you won’t forget you said that.”
“Can we please talk business while I’ve got an elusive signal?”
“If we must, but I still want pictures.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Before I forget, Troy called to ask if I’d heard from you. I hope it’s okay that I caught him up on the accident with the moose. I forwarded him the picture of your face. He’s beating himself up because he thinks he should’ve taken you up there.”
Cameron rubbed the bridge of her nose and immediately regretted it when a flash of pain took her breath away. “I’ll try to call him, but if I can’t get through, tell him I’m fine and not to worry.”
“I’ll tell him, but you know how he is. Until he hears from you . . .”
“He’ll worry. I know.” Her close-knit group of friends in New York took care of each other because most of them had no real family to speak of. They had each other, and their bond was tight. Troy and Lucy, in particular, had seen Cameron through some tough times, and there was nothing the three of them wouldn’t do for each other.
“So let’s talk about how you’re going to knock the socks off Will Abbott at dinner tonight and close this deal.”
While Cameron wasn’t at all sure how she felt about knocking Will’s socks off, she was extremely interested in closing the deal, so she spent the next half hour talking strategy with Lucy.
• • •
Hannah Abbott Guthrie recognized the heavy footsteps on her front porch. She anticipated the slam of the storm door as he came into her home and sought her out in the studio where she spent most afternoons. The light was best here later in the day, and mornings were tough, as she didn’t sleep well at night, not that she’d ever told anyone that.
“Drink?” she asked her twin without looking up from the amber-colored glass beads she was stringing on fine filament.
“No.” Hunter flopped onto the love seat she kept in the studio for Homer and scratched Caleb’s aging mutt behind the ears. “How’s our homeboy doing?”
Hannah cast a loving gaze on Homer. “Slower all the time, but I try not to notice that.”
Homer expelled a contented sigh and drifted back off to sleep.
“What’s the matter?” Hannah
asked, tuned into her twin’s dismay over something other than her aging dog.
“I’m sure you’ve already heard about Dad bringing his friend’s daughter here from New York to build us a website.”
“A rumble or two about that has reached me. I heard she hit Fred on the way into town.”
“Her face took the worst of it. She’s got a couple of shiners, a banged-up nose and a fat lip.”
“Poor thing. So she met with you guys today?”
“Yep. We were treated to the whole dog-and-pony show about why we need a website and how it will grow our business. All of our businesses, even yours.”
At that, Hannah finally glanced at her brother. “How so?” His dark hair was the exact shade as hers, which is why she’d never had to tell anyone which of her seven brothers was her twin. That and the fact they’d grown up joined at the hip and stayed that way as adults gave them away.
“She digs the ten-kids-contributing-to-the-business angle big-time. Wants to bring that into the site and tell our family’s story.”
“Did you guys shoot her down?”
“Not exactly.” He got up and went over to the bank of windows that overlooked the town and the mountain in the distance, where ski runs resembled snow-covered ribbons winding through the trees. “Of course Dad’s all for it. Wade, Ella, Charlotte and I are not.”
“That leaves Will.”
“Right.” He turned to her. “Will likes her. He never took his eyes off her the whole time she was talking. I’ve only ever seen him look at one other girl that way.”
“Lisa?” Hannah asked, alarmed.
Hunter nodded grimly and combed his fingers through his hair in his trademark gesture of frustration. “I’d hate to see him get taken for a ride by another city girl who has no appreciation for his way of life.”
“He’s a lot older and wiser now than he was then. Give him a bit of credit.”
“Here’s the big question—will he vote to do the website because we really need it or will he vote for it to keep her around?”
Hannah laughed, which her brother clearly didn’t appreciate. “In the interest of preserving family peace and harmony, I’d recommend against posing that question to him.”
“I already made that mistake,” he said drolly. “Pissed him off pretty good.”
“I would’ve liked to have seen that.”
“Speaking of seeing people, I saw Nolan today. He came into the office to drop off something for the city girl.”
Hannah resented her immediate and powerful reaction to the mention of Nolan’s name. “How is he?” she asked, making an attempt to be casually uninterested, as always. Luckily, Hunter couldn’t tell her heart had skipped a funny beat or that her hands had quivered, making her drop a couple of beads.
“He’s good, and he asked after you.”
Now her mouth had gone dry, too. “Did he?”
“Duh, Hannah. He always does. You know that.”
She shrugged it off, not interested in pursuing that line of conversation. Before she could come up with another line to pursue instead, her brother pounced.
“When are you going to cut him a break and go out with him? Caleb has been gone almost seven years, honey.”
“I know how long my husband has been dead, Hunter. I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Sorry. Of course you don’t. I was out of line.”
Hannah immediately regretted her harsh tone, especially with the brother who’d stood faithfully by her side during the darkest days of her life. “No, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
“I don’t mean to push you, but I want you to be happy again.”
“I am happy.” She gestured to her worktable covered with beads and wire and tools of every shape and size. “This makes me happy.”
“There’s more to life than work.”
Again she raised a brow, this time to challenge. “Pot, meet kettle.” Hunter worked hideously long hours as the company’s chief financial officer, overseeing all the family’s many business interests.
“Don’t give me that. I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. You’ve got a guy who’d lie down on hot coals for you if only you’d give him the time of day.”
“Listen to you,” she said, laughing at him. “So dramatic.”
“It’s true, Hannah. He has it bad for you.”
That fact was not news to Hannah, but she’d tucked it away in a corner of her mind where things she was unwilling or unable to deal with resided. “I’m not ready.”
“Do you think you ever will be?” This was asked so gently, so sweetly that Hannah couldn’t bring herself to get mad.
“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. She’d been asking herself that question more and more often lately. “The thought of being with someone else still feels weird to me. Disloyal.”
“Caleb wouldn’t want you to feel that way. He’d want you to be happy and to find someone else. You know he thought the world of Nolan.”
As her brother had been one of Caleb Guthrie’s closest friends, Hannah couldn’t take issue with Hunter professing to know him well enough to say what he would’ve wanted for her. And Hunter wasn’t wrong. Caleb would be furious with her for continuing to hole up in the house his grandmother had left to him and he had left to her. It was far too big for one person, but keeping it up gave her something to do when she wasn’t working—and it kept her connected to Caleb and the life they had shared. After college, when he’d been commissioned into the army, they’d used the house as a retreat whenever he was on leave or between deployments to war zones. Some of their happiest memories had been made here.
Her parents had once gently suggested she might sell the house he’d loved, that his grandmother had loved, but that wasn’t an option she was willing to consider.
So she stayed, and she worked, and if every day was exactly the same as the one before, well, that was okay.
“Hannah?”
“I’m fine. I promise. I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“Can’t help that.”
“We need to find you a nice young lady to settle down with. You’re not getting any younger.”
“Shut up,” he said, laughing. “Don’t forget I’m only three minutes older than you, old hag.”
“As if I could ever forget,” she said with a smile full of sincerity that she knew he’d understand. He got her better than almost anyone ever had—except for Caleb, of course. He’d gotten her best of all, and that kind of connection didn’t come along every day.
“Need me to do anything while I’m here?” Before she could reply, he was on his way to her porch. “You’re low on firewood. I’ll bring some in for you.”
She knew there was no point in reminding him she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She’d lost that battle years ago and knew better now than to tell him not to bother. “Thank you.”
He stocked up her woodpile next to the fireplace in the sitting room, set a fire in the hearth and then salted the ice on the back porch as well as the stairs leading down to the yard. When he came back in for the last time, his cheeks were red from the cold.
Hannah stood up to hug him. “Thank you.”
He kissed her forehead. “For what?”
“You know.”
“Call me if you need anything?”
She walked him to the door. “I will. And don’t sweat the website. Have some faith in Will. He’d never do anything that wasn’t in the store’s best interest. You know that.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Sometimes change can be good, you know?”
“You need to practice what you preach, sis,” he said with the charming grin that had made him one of the two most popular boys in their high school class. Caleb had been the other.
Hannah grimaced at the comeback she should’ve anticipated. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”
He gave her another kiss on the cheek. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
H
annah watched him hustle down the front walk that he’d also salted and get into the silver Lincoln Navigator SUV he’d bought a few months ago. After he drove away, she closed the door and locked it.
Tucked in for another cold, late-winter night, Hannah lit the fire her brother had laid in the hearth and curled up on the sofa with Homer to watch the flames. When Caleb was alive, they’d spent many a night together right on this sofa watching the fire, eating dinner, making love . . . Some of the best moments of their marriage had transpired in this very spot.
She’d taken a lot of comfort from those memories in the years since Caleb stepped on a land mine in Iraq and was killed instantly. Lately, however, the memories had begun to fade, despite her best efforts to cling to them with everything she had. She’d never admit to anyone, even Hunter, who’d feel compelled to do something about it for her, that the loneliness had been particularly difficult to bear during the long winter they’d just endured.
Still, she wasn’t ready to make any changes. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but definitely not now.
CHAPTER 5
Well, don’t you look prettier than a pat of butter meltin’ on a short stack.
—The gospel according to Elmer Stillman
Will appeared at Cameron’s door promptly at seven o’clock. With his coat unzipped, she could see that he’d worn a brown wool sweater over dark jeans with heavy mud-season-approved boots. He smelled of fresh air, soap and cologne so subtle she wasn’t sure it was cologne. No matter what it was, she wanted to get closer for a better sniff of the intriguing scent. His hair was damp and his face freshly shaven. That he’d gone to some trouble to prepare for their dinner pleased her.
“Looks nice on you,” he said of the Icelandic sweater she’d chosen to wear with faded jeans and her new boots.
“I’ll have a whole new wardrobe by the time I leave.”
“At least your trip won’t be a total loss.”
“True. Thank you for the sweater. It’s gorgeous, and I love the pajamas, too.”
“Glad you like them.”
“The mask really took the sting out of the bruises.”