gave a rough laugh. “You could say that. Five brothers and one sister.”
She blinked. “Seven children. Oh, my. Your mother must have been a saint.”
“She was. The closest thing to it I ever knew, anyway. She died when I was in college. Cancer.”
Though he spoke in an even tone, she sensed an undercurrent of lingering grief that shouldn’t have touched her but somehow did, anyway.
“I’m sorry. My mother died the summer before my junior year of high school.”
Unlike Aidan, she didn’t offer an explanation. Not only did she dislike discussing it but he already considered her an object of pity, the poor widow with the ill child who had lost her job and been hit by a car within minutes. She didn’t need to add to that extremely unappealing picture.
She didn’t consider herself a victim of anything. She preferred to see herself as a survivor, someone who had been through some tough things—and who hadn’t, really?—but who endured with dignity and strength and tried to move through the hard times to the other side.
Yes, it was a little Pollyannaish, maybe, but she liked that narrative better than the pathetic alternative.
“Do you still have your father?” she asked.
He smiled, his teeth flashing white in the dim light. “I do. And a new stepmother, as of a few months ago. She’s quite wonderful.”
Eliza was aware of a twinge of envy. She also had a stepmother but theirs was an awkward, tense relationship—mostly because of her.
“Does your family live close by?” she asked, wondering if that explained why he had purchased Snow Angel Cove.
He shook his head. “My dad and most of my siblings live in a little town in Colorado. Hope’s Crossing.”
So much for that theory. “And yet you chose to buy a house several hundred miles away from them on a remote Idaho mountain lake.”
He was silent for so long, she wondered if her question had been unforgivably rude. After a long moment, he sighed. “I love my family. Don’t get me wrong. We’re all very close and I enjoy being with them. I consider my brothers my best friends. I’m flying the whole crew here for Christmas, aren’t I?”
“But?”
He sighed again. “But when a guy is the middle of seven children, he can sometimes have an overwhelming need to find his own way. Whenever I go to Hope’s Crossing, I’m always Dermot’s boy, the one who invariably had his nose pressed to a computer. There’s something very appealing about the fact that nobody in Haven Point knew me when I had braces on my teeth and bad acne and a crush on the head cheerleader, who was only interested in my younger brother, Jamie the stud—which, by the way, is fairly traumatic to the ego when you’re fifteen and would like to think you’re the stud, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
She couldn’t help a startled laugh, shocked that he would reveal something so personal to her.
“Did I just say that out loud?” he asked ruefully. “I must be more tired than I realized. I don’t believe I’ve ever shared that with another human being on the planet. Or articulated it so clearly, even to myself.”
She knew perfectly well she shouldn’t find the man appealing here in the quiet hush of the night when the rest of the world slept, but this evidence of past vulnerability made him seem less like a mythical, larger-than-life personage and more like someone who had weaknesses and insecurities.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Caine. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
He made a face. “I told you to call me Aidan. When I divulge embarrassing secrets to somebody, I usually insist they call me by my first name.”
It felt strange but she did her best. “Aidan, then.”
“Eliza,” he mused. “It’s not a very common name anymore.”
“My mother’s name was Elizabeth and everyone called her Betsy. She wanted to be called Eliza but nobody ever did so she decided to give the name to me. I always thought it was old-fashioned. My friends in school called me Ellie but it seemed a little young-sounding as I grew up.”
“I like it. Eliza. It fits you, somehow.”
They lapsed into a not uncomfortable silence. She knew she should probably muster the energy to go back to her bedroom but she couldn’t quite manage it. She found something strangely appealing about sitting in this darkened hallway with him, talking softly about nothing in particular while the storm raged outside.
“I hope the snow stops soon or it will be an interesting drive back to Boise in the morning.”
He rubbed at the side of his head. “I’m glad you brought that up, actually. I intended to wait until the morning to talk to you about this but the time somehow seems right.”
“Oh?”
He gave her a long look. “How would you feel about staying here longer than just one night?”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “but I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of an extended vacation. I need to return to Boise and start putting my life back together. I need to find a job.”
“I actually had a great idea earlier tonight.”
“What sort of idea?” she asked, with no small amount of wariness.
“You could work for me.”
Her mind seemed to spin in a hundred different directions. She wasn’t exactly a Luddite but her technological skills were limited to remembering that email password she had mentioned earlier and knowing how to reboot her laptop.
“Doing what?”
“I told you my entire family is coming for Christmas. This is the first time we’ve all been together for the holidays in years, for various reasons.”
“That will be lovely for you.”
“I hope so. It’s important to me that everything is perfect for them.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“My family has suffered some tough things in recent years. My brother nearly died fighting in Afghanistan. In the middle of all that, my other brother’s wife did die of pregnancy-related complications. We’re finally finding our way back from all the heartache. I’ll admit, I haven’t been there for my family during everything. Not really. I was always too busy and figured they didn’t need one more Caine brother getting in the way.”
He rubbed the side of his head again, just behind his ear. That must be why his hair was a little rumpled there, she thought. It was actually a rather endearing habit, one she wasn’t sure he even realized he was doing.
“These last few months, I’ve...come to realize how necessary that connection is to me. I’ve missed it. I have this new house this year that’s finally big enough to fit us all. We’ve had several new marriages and a lot to celebrate
