swirled around them and dust motes floated in the air like gold flakes.
AIDAN TOOK HIS TIME checking on Jemma, their foaling mare, talking to her, making sure she had the special feed mix the vet had recommended.
He knew his efforts were completely unnecessary as Jim did an excellent job managing the horses, but it gave him a good excuse to keep a little distance between him and Eliza and to work on trying to rein in this crazy attraction he hadn’t been able to shake all day.
This stupid season—this time for family, for connection—was seriously messing with him, especially this year, when he had almost lost everything.
He didn’t want to be so drawn to her and her cute little girl.
Yes, Eliza Hayward was a lovely woman—soft, curvy, with an air of delicate vulnerability he found intensely appealing.
She made him want to take care of her, to tuck her close and protect her from the hardships of life—an impulse he knew was completely ridiculous, not to mention chauvinistic and also unnecessary. He had only known her a day but he already knew Eliza Hayward had a fierce independent streak and seemed to be doing a fine job of managing life on her own, including raising a child with health challenges.
He admired many things about her, including her willingness to jump right in where she saw a need—specifically decorating his Christmas tree.
He had never been so immediately and forcefully drawn to a woman. Even BethAnn the Betrayer had taken a few months to pierce through his natural defenses and gain his trust—and that had happened when he was a naive college student living far from the security of home and still raw and grieving from his mother’s death.
He wasn’t that dumb, hungry kid anymore. BethAnn had taught him to be cautious and vigilant, especially when it came to women who appeared sweet and needy on the outside but could be cold, calculating, soulless bitches beneath the fluttering eyelashes and shy smiles.
Eliza had secrets. He hadn’t missed the shadows in her eyes or the way she carefully evaded certain topics, like her husband. In all likelihood, she was exactly as she appeared—a widow who had sustained some tough breaks lately.
Or she could be a con artist who had manipulated him and the events of the past twenty-four hours to her best advantage.
He couldn’t quite believe that one, but he would be a fool to let the magic and wonder of Christmas overshadow his own hard-won common sense.
He hadn’t been a fool in a long, long time.
Okay, he might have made a few irrational decisions during the summer—like purchasing three hundred acres on an Idaho lake, along with six commercial buildings and a factory he didn’t know what the hell to do with. But that had been a fluke, a medically induced anomaly. He was all better now, back on track, clearheaded and completely rational.
Maybe this attraction to Eliza—this yearning he also didn’t know what the hell to do with—was simply an unexpected side effect of that brush with mortality. Maybe she represented the world he had consciously given up when he set out to create the dynasty that would become Caine Tech.
Whatever the reason, he needed to keep his distance from her until his family arrived. After that, he would be so busy keeping all the Caines happy and entertained, not to mention avoiding Pop’s entirely too perceptive gaze, to have time to do something crazy like fall for a woman he barely knew.
He fed Jemma one of the apples he had also filched from the kitchen. “Here you go. There’s a good girl,” he murmured to her and received a nuzzle in return.
With a wish that all females could be so uncomplicated, he headed back to Eliza and Maddie. Eliza was on the bench in the middle of the barn petting Argus, who was clearly infatuated, while Maddie carried on an in-depth conversation with Cinnamon about Santa Claus and whether the horse might be able to talk on Christmas Eve, along with the rest of the animals.
He remembered his mother telling him and his brothers that old folk belief, that the magic of Christmas extended to animals being able to talk only on Christmas Eve. One year when he was about seven, he and Brendan had stayed up past midnight trying to get their big yellow Lab, Chester, to say something besides woof. Chester hadn’t been the brightest bulb on the tree under the best of circumstances and apparently Christmas Eve hadn’t suddenly endowed him with any particular linguistic skills.
“Are you ladies ready to head back to the house?”
Eliza nodded. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s put your mittens back on.”
“I don’t want to leave yet. Cinnamon is my second best friend now, after Bob.”
“You can visit her another day,” Eliza promised.
“Can I ride her sometime?”
“We’ll see,” Eliza said as she finished putting on the mittens. “Okay. We’re ready to go.”
He opened the door for them and immediately snowflakes swirled inside.
“It’s snowing again?” Maddie exclaimed. She sounded not quite as excited about the continuing storm as she had earlier in the day.
“Looks like it,” he answered.
Eliza lifted her face up to the flakes. “I can’t believe this. At least another two inches of snow fell in the half hour we were in the barn.”
“It’s supposed to taper off tonight.”
Maddie gamely trudged through the heavy snow for a few feet, until he reached down and lifted her up and onto his shoulders again. She didn’t weigh much, probably not even fifty pounds.
“Look how pretty it is,” she said, her voice soft and almost reverent. “The snowflakes look like little angels with parachutes.”
“If that’s the case,” her mother said from beside them, “you’ve got an angel on your nose.”
Maddie giggled and lifted her hand from his head. He couldn’t see her but he assumed the wriggling he felt behind him came from her wiping it away.
“There. Is it gone?”
Eliza smiled softly at her daughter. Snowflakes tangled in her eyelashes and her pale pink beanie and the little pale freckles on her upper cheekbones. She was so lovely and he had a feeling she was completely oblivious to it, which somehow made her all the more appealing.
“That one is gone. You’ve got about four more all over your face.”
“Ack! Get off me, angels! Get off,” Maddie exclaimed with more giggles, which made Eliza smile.
He loved that about kids, he thought, as he led the way up the path to break a trail for Eliza. They had such a clear insight into the magic and wonder around them, a perspective that adults surrendered when worry over mortgages and car payments took over their imaginations.
When they neared the house, an unfamiliar beat-up pickup truck was parked under the porte cochere. He frowned, wondering who
