by Sylvie Kurtz
Time to leave.
"Wait, don't go yet."
Already halfway down the hall, he waited. Paper bag in hand, she rushed after him. "Here. I thought you might like some breakfast. One meal a day really isn't enough when you're working so hard."
All bright-eyed and pink-skinned, she looked at him expectantly, the bag of muffins dangling between them like laundry on a line. The scent of brown sugar and peanut butter and something else altogether drifted toward him, teasing, taunting, stirring.
"It's not charity," she said, thrusting the bag into his chest. He had to lift an arm to catch the muffins before she released the bag. "I told you, I experimented. There's no way we can eat three dozen muffins on our own. And you need it more than the squirrels."
As if to prove her right, a hunger pang twisted his gut and his stomach growled. Embarrassed, he nodded once and turned to leave. As he wrenched the doorknob, her presence buffeted him with its warmth. The unexpected need to draw her nearer rattled through him.
"Thanks," she said.
"For what?"
"For coming over when you thought we needed help." She blushed. "I'm not used to—" her voice caught "—having someone worry about us."
He shrugged and shifted his weight against the warmth creeping into his solar plexus. He itched to go, but couldn't seem to make his feet move. "Thanks for the muffins."
"You're welcome."
She smiled, and the bright punch of it hit him square in the stomach. His breath vanished. His thoughts scrambled. But he managed to step through the door without stumbling. "I'll let you get to work."
"We should be back by three-thirty."
He nodded, turned away from the cozy house, from the warmth, from the confusion, and hunched his shoulders against the crisp bite of morning air. The bag of muffins thumped against his thigh as he walked, adding a lively swish to the crunch of snow beneath his boots.
Dawn pinkened the horizon. It would be a sunny day. And already he was looking forward to the afternoon.
Chapter 6
"How do you like your new neighbor?" Eve MacDonald chirped before Beth could even say hello.
Ignoring her best friend, Beth made her way up the walkway to the cottage located just off the town center. With its pale-pink paint and off-white trim, Eve's tiny home reminded her of a dollhouse. Jamie ran ahead and launched himself into Eve's waiting arms.
Chic as usual, Eve was already dressed in black pants, a raspberry wool jacket and a matching raspberry turtleneck. She kept her gray hair—Eve didn't believe in coloring—closely cropped. Her only requirement in a hairdo was that it be easy to coif. But on her the boyish style looked good. From afar, she looked younger than her fifty-five years, but upon closer inspection, her lined face revealed the hard road her life had traveled. Abandoned by a fiancé, she had supported her mother after her father's early death and nursed her mother through the last years of her life.
Eve's life hadn't held much joy until she'd discovered her skill at selling real estate. She'd done well for herself in the past few years, bought the little cottage of her dreams, and had chosen to slow down and work when it suited her.
And work never suited her if she had an inkling either Beth or Jamie might need her. Because Jamie's grandparents refused to visit and because Eve relished her role of surrogate grandmother, Beth had allowed the relationship to flourish.
The one tiny thorn between them was Eve's propensity toward matchmaking—a sorely deficient propensity, judging by her past efforts.
Eve greeted Jamie with a bear hug and a kiss. "Hi, sweetie. I have hot cocoa waiting for you in the kitchen."
"With marshmallows?"
"Of course."
"Yippee!" Jamie discarded his coat and zipped toward the kitchen.
"You're spoiling him." Beth dropped Jamie's backpack by the door.
Eve beamed as she closed the front door. "What do you expect from a free baby-sitter? So what do you think of your new neighbor?"
"Logan? He's the grouchiest bear I've ever seen." She hung Jamie's coat on the rack beside the door and fervently hoped Eve wouldn't notice the sudden heat burning her cheeks.
"Logan, hmm." Eve crowed with delight. "I knew you'd like him."
"Like him! Are you nuts?" She stuffed Jamie's mittens in his coat pockets and found it hard to concentrate on her usual routine to make sure Jamie wouldn't forget anything when Logan's grim face kept popping into her mind.
"As soon as I saw him, I knew he'd be perfect for you."
Had Eve orchestrated Logan's purchase of the house? Of course not, even Eve wasn't that calculating. But she wasn't past using her real estate contacts to try to set up Beth. Beth could never understand why, because Eve seemed to have an aversion to marriage. Hadn't she turned down Gus's offer twice now? And the last thing Logan Ward was perfect for was marriage.
Beth snorted. "Perfect? Just what have you been putting in your coffee?"
"So you don't like him?"
Frowning, she searched through her purse for change and came up with enough for Jamie's milk purchase at lunch. Like Logan? "Of course not. He's rude and socially inept."
Nodding once, Eve smiled. "That's what I thought."
"You're wrong." She waved a finger at Eve. "Just like you were wrong about Alex Green, and that horse doctor you sold the Borealis Farm to and that businessman who bought the townhouse from you."
Eve shrugged. "If you say so. But I have a feeling..."
"I don't have time for one of your 'feelings' this morning, I'm already running late." She handed Eve Jamie's milk money.
Eve pocketed the change. "He's a hero, you know."
"What?"
"Logan Ward. He's a hero."
Curiosity tugged at her, but time was short, and she had to get to work. Still... "How do you know that?"
"You'd be surprised at the information you can find when you're surfing the net."
"Surfing the net? Eve, you amaze me."
Eve feathered the short hair over one ear with her fingers. "Well, I couldn't sell my home to just anybody. It's been in my family since eighteen-sixty-five."
"So you checked him out?" Now Beth's curiosity tripped at hyperspeed. What else had Eve discovered? Maybe she'd have an answer to her most burning question—what had caused Logan so much grief? Would she have time to visit the middle school's computer lab after work and run a search of her own?
"Mom, Mom, where are the muffins?" A running Jamie collided with the decorative table in the hallway. The phone crashed to the floor with a series of choked rings, the glass bowl with a mighty shatter. Leaves and pinecones and bits of cinnamon bark scattered all over the hardwood floor and the blue-and-burgundy runner.
"Jamie!"
Her son, skidding to a belated halt, had the decency to look crestfallen. "I'm sorry, Miss Mac."
He bent down to pick up the broken pieces, but she and Eve both pushed him away.
"That's all right, sweetie," Eve said. "Why don't you go get me the broom and dustpan."
"Let me." Beth tried to pick up the bigger glass shards, but the bandages on her hands made the task awkward.
"Why don't you take care of the phone?" Eve said as she gave her hands a gentle nudge away from the glass mess. "You'll have to tell me all about your little adventure."
"Adventure?"
"Your hands. You ran out before I could catch you last Thursday. The rumors running around town range from third-degree burns from one of your experiments gone bad, to having been attacked by a drifter, to a mauling by a wild dog."
"Wow." Beth straightened the lace doily and reset the telephone on the table. "Not even close to the truth."
"That's what I figured."
Jamie sheepishly handed Eve the broom and dustpan.
"Here," Beth said as she gave her son the bag of muffins. "Walk, please."
"Yes, Mom."
She strode to Eve's desk by the window and picked up the wastebasket.
"I heard you had to pay for Logan
's dog supplies. Something about his wallet being at your house..."
Beth shook her head. "You're too much. How was your weekend trip to Boston?"
"Obviously not as exciting as yours."
"Eve..."
"Did you hear about Big Bill?" Eve swept the glass and potpourri with bold strokes into the dustpan.
"No, what happened?"
"A pipe burst in the town hall basement last week and it flooded."
"I heard about that." She crouched and held the wastebasket for Eve, wondering where her friend was going with this unexpected sidetrack. Letting go of such juicy gossip just wasn't like her.
"Big Bill slogged through all that cold water, and now he's in the hospital with pneumonia."
"How awful! I'll have to make him some chicken noodle soup."
"All the decorations for the downtown beautification were ruined. Might have to go without this year."
"I'm sure the town'll figure something out."
"That new superstore is already affecting sales along the common."
"There's the Holiday Fair in a couple of weeks. That's always a big draw."
"Um, maybe." Eve looked up from her task and speared Beth with an amused look. "You're not going to ask, are you?"
"And reward you for baiting me? I don't think so." But she was dying of curiosity. What had Logan done to become a hero? Was it related to his loss, to his move? She'd get Eve to spill her guts later. Under the spell of a brownie high, Eve might not even think to crow about her victory over Beth's interest in her surly neighbor.
Purely practical interest, of course. He was after all the biggest project on her Christmas to-do list. The more she knew about him, the easier it would be to help him find his heart again.
Eve scooped the last of the glass shards into the garbage can.
"I'm sorry about your bowl," Beth said. "I'll replace it."
"Don't give it another thought. I never liked the thing. Mildred gave it to me for my birthday, and I felt I had to put it out in case she came over."
"What'll you say when she asks about it?"
Eve gave a raucous laugh. "The truth, of course. That it was Jamie's fault."
Beth contained her smile and quirked an eyebrow. "She'll just replace it, you know."
"I'll casually mention my allergy to potpourri."
"You are something else." She reached across the garbage can and hugged her friend. "Thanks for looking after Jamie. It means the world to me to know he's safe."
"It's my pleasure. He keeps me young." As she straightened up, Eve's eyes twinkled with mischief. No wonder she got along so well with Jamie. They were two of a kind. "Drop by after school?"
"I'd love to, but I have too much to do."
"I see." Her smile took up most of her face. "Have to rush home, do you?"
She laughed. "You are an evil woman."
Eve shrugged as she hung the dustpan on the broom handle. "With the best of intentions."
"And that's your redeeming quality. But don't push it this time," she warned.
"I just want to see you settled and happy."
"I am settled and happy. Logan's just a project, not a prospect."
"If you say so."
"I just met him."
"He's already a project."
Beth shook her head. There would be no winning with Eve. "Don't linger too long at the park. I don't want Jamie to be late again."
"Who, me, linger?"
"Yes, you." Beth swung her purse onto her shoulder and exited the front door.
"So what are you cooking Logan for dinner?"
"Sole almondine with asparagus and dilled potatoes."
Eve frowned. "Oh, dear, that doesn't sound right."
Beth laughed as she waved Eve goodbye, then ran down the walkway to her car. "Got you! Have a good day."
"Try your parmesan chicken instead," Eve called after her. "I want a full report tomorrow."
Logan's status as a hero occupied her mind as she drove to the middle school. She would have pondered longer on the tantalizing tidbit Eve had offered her, but circumstances prevented anything more than a fleeting thought here and there.
The middle school's walk-in freezer had gone on the fritz again over the long weekend. Thankfully, the unit's stone floor had retained the cold, but she now had three hundred pounds of ground beef to rescue before it thawed all the way. To make matters worse, two of her workers had called in sick.
Lasagna, chili, chop suey, burritos, tacos. It was going to be a long day. And dissecting Logan's past would have to wait until later.
* * *
She was late.
Logan spackled another nail hole on the kitchen wall and resisted the urge to check the stove clock once more. Eve MacDonald's vast collection of bird prints—he'd seen them on the pictures she'd sent—had left a series of evenly spaced holes along one wall. He needed to take care of them before he could finish sanding the walls in preparation for a base coat of paint. As he scooped another glob of spackle, his gaze locked with the clock. Almost five.
It didn't matter. Beth was old enough, wise enough, able enough to take care of herself, he rationalized. But she had said they'd be back by three-thirty. Had something happened? Had working popped some stitches? She didn't strike him as the sort of person who did anything halfway—bad hands be damned. She'd probably overdone it.
"Just like her." He spackled another hole in the wall. "Not that it's any of your business, Ward."
Like a heat-seeking missile, his gaze fixed on the clock once more. At the rumble of a car driving up the street, he peered out the window. Beth's station wagon. He plopped the scraper into the can of Spackle, then wiped his hands on a rag.
"Max," he called to the dog, snoozing on the pillow. "Don't you need to go out for a business trip?"
She grumbled and recurled her tail around her body.
He tried bribing her with the ball, the bone and the tug toy and got not even the bat of an eyelash for his troubles. Which just went to prove you couldn't depend on anybody for anything.
He tied the leash around the collar and gave it a tug. "Up you go."
With a yawn and a back-rounding stretch, Max finally relented.
By the time he had the dog out the front door, the garage door at Beth's house was closing. Disappointment sighed through him, but he dismissed it with a careless shrug. He didn't care. Why should he?
He unleashed the beast and stood at the door, heat warming his back, cold frosting his front, watching the lights go on one by one at Beth's house. Max sniffed around, did her business, then trotted back inside and sat down next to him, looking up expectantly.
"What?"
"Woof!"
"You can go back to your nap."
She wagged her tail and danced around his feet.
"I don't know what you want."
"Woof!"
"Woof to you, too."
With a last glance at Beth's house, he reluctantly closed the door. Max followed him as he returned to the kitchen. She happily accepted the toy bone he offered her and chewed it with relish.
"Guess we're on our own for dinner tonight." He rummaged through the dry goods still packed in their Market Basket bags. "Soup or macaroni and cheese?"
Tipping her head to one side, Max actually seemed to ponder his question.
He dropped both back inside the bag. Neither sounded appealing. He went to the fridge, cracked open a can of Dr Pepper. A short, sharp grunt escaped him as he recalled Beth's lecture on the drink's nutritive value. He tipped the can in mock salute in the direction of the bay window. "Sugar and caffeine. Pure fuel for a working body."
But for some reason the soda didn't taste as good as usual and it irked him.
An hour later he was done with the spackling, had cleaned all of his tools and once again considered the merits of boxed macaroni and cheese versus canned clam chowder.
He saw her then, walking up his driveway, Jamie bouncing at her side. His heart gave a funny little lurch,
and his pulse quickened. Not for Beth, he decided as he tossed the can and box back into the bag, for her cooking. The woman did know how to put a meal together—even if her repertoire seemed limited to casseroles.
He moved away from the window and waited for her to ring the bell before he went to answer the door.
His palms were sweaty, and he wiped them on the side of his jeans. Ridiculous to be so nervous. It was just Beth. Annoying, busybody, chatterbox Beth. But he had scared her with his early visit this morning. And it was only right to apologize. And he couldn't do that unless he opened the door. Besides, he was hungry, and there she was with a hot dish in her hands. Hands that were hurt because of him. So it was only right he should ask about them, especially after her first day of work. And, damn it, she had gotten home late, making him worry about her for nothing.
He'd worked himself up to a barking mood. For Pete's sake, Ward, just open the damn door.
"Hi," she said a bit breathlessly.
She looked like a Christmas light, all bright and beautiful with her cold-reddened skin, candy cane earrings and reindeer-adorned sweater under that fuchsia coat. Her smile warmed him like a fire in the hearth. And whatever dish she held in her hands smelled divine.
"Can I play with your dog?" Jamie asked before Logan could say anything.
"She's not my dog."
When Max came trotting into the hallway, tail wagging, Jamie dropped to his knees and held out his arms. "Can I still play with her?"
This time the quickening of Logan's pulse, the sudden clamminess of his palms were due to fear. A kid. In his house. Get a grip, Ward. What can he get hurt on? A cardboard box? "Sure, sport."
Max had already taken charge. Jamie giggled while she gave his cheeks a good tongue-lashing. She then leaped out of Jamie's arms and trotted to the kitchen, looking back every few steps to make sure her entourage followed.
"We won't stay long." Beth raised the casserole dish in her hands. "I brought you some dinner."
Logan waved her in and closed the door behind her. "More testing?"
She looked down at the casserole in her hands. Was that a blush under the red kiss of winter air?
"Um, no. I've decided you're too thin. Besides recipes are usually for four, and there are only two of us. And I don't like eating the same thing two days in a row."