don’t you see if you can find a snowman wearing a purple scarf before we arrive at the parade,” she suggested. Sometimes little distractions like this were the only parenting ploy that kept her sane.
“A purple scarf like mine? Does it have to have pink flowers, too?”
“Any shade of purple will do, flowers or not,” she answered.
Maddie immediately turned her attention outside the vehicle, frowning in concentration as she looked.
“Sorry,” Eliza murmured to Aidan, pitching her voice low so her daughter couldn’t hear from the backseat.
“For what?” he asked in the same low tone.
“Maddie likes to talk. I’m not sure if you noticed.”
He gave her a half smile. “I don’t mind. I have a few nieces and nephews, remember? Maggie and Ava could probably give lessons in chatter to all comers. Little Faith isn’t much for conversation but her younger brother, Carter, will talk both ears off and your eyeballs, too, if you give him the chance. Maddie will fit right in with all the craziness.”
She didn’t anticipate her daughter spending too much time with his family, though she imagined some interaction would be inevitable.
“She is entirely too comfortable with adults, probably because she has spent so much time in the hospital, around doctors and nurses.”
“She’s a delight, Eliza. Full of life and joy. You should never apologize for raising a child who rushes out to embrace life the way she does.”
His words seemed to resonate right into her heart. “You know, you’re right. I should remember to appreciate those moments, especially in contrast to those moments when she’s too sick to say much. Thank you for the reminder.”
He gazed at her, a warm light in his eyes that gave her a strange ache in her chest. “You’re welcome.”
“I can’t see a purple scarf anywhere,” Maddie exclaimed dramatically.
“I’ll help you look,” Eliza said.
“Too late. We’re here,” Aidan said. “And look at that. This must be our lucky night. A perfect parking spot.”
He skillfully parallel-parked between a minivan and an SUV with Oregon plates. It really was the perfect spot, close to what looked like the main viewing area.
“We are lucky,” she said. “I can’t see your name on it but maybe the Chamber of Commerce saved it just for you. A sign of their goodwill and all.”
He gave a short laugh as he opened the door and walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle to let them out.
He reached a hand out to help her over an icy patch on the sidewalk as she climbed out and she tried to ignore the little spark as his skin brushed hers.
He gazed at her with that strange light in his eyes that made the butterflies twirl again.
“Do you have gloves?” he asked. “It’s cold out here.”
She swallowed. “Yes. Right here.”
She pulled them out of her pocket while he opened Maddie’s door and lifted her out onto the sidewalk. While she adjusted Maddie’s scarf again, Aidan pulled out a black wool hat with red stripes and planted it on his head.
“I like your hat,” Maddie said.
“Thanks, bug.”
He smiled that devastating smile of his. To Eliza, he added, “I’m not much of a hat-wearer but the neurosurgeon recommended it out in the cold as I continue to heal. My sister, Charlotte, made this one for me. I believe she is a better candy maker than she is a knitter but I still like it.”
She shouldn’t be so charmed that a man who could probably afford to buy an entire hat factory would wear a slightly lopsided beanie because his sister made it.
“Where can we see the boats? Is it time?” Maddie asked as Aidan pulled a couple of blankets out of the backseat. She was practically jumping up and down with excitement
“Almost. We’ll go find a good spot.” He pointed toward the long, skinny parkway that ran through most of the town along the lakeshore. “Looks like that’s where most of the action is taking place.”
They headed toward a much bigger crowd than she had yet seen in Haven Point. Maddie huddled a little closer to her side as they walked past the charred pile of rubble that used to be the inn.
Eliza sighed. It was only a small sound but it must have been loud enough for Aidan to hear. He took her arm to help her over the curb and gave it a comforting little squeeze before he released it.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out as you planned when you came to Haven Point.”
“Things rarely turn out the way we intend, do they?”
“True enough.”
“That’s not always a bad thing,” she observed. “Sometimes the unexpected is better than what we might have otherwise known. For instance, you probably never imagined when you were in high school that one day you would be running your own company, did you?”
“No, and if someone had told me, I never would have believed it. In retrospect, I guess it wasn’t that much of a stretch. I always knew I had serious skills when it came to tech things and I fooled around on computers from the time I was little.”
“A Geek God, even in elementary school.”
He laughed. “Something like that. My parents always supported me—Mom, especially. Whenever Pop would grouse about me spending the money I earned working at the café on a faster processor or a beefier hard drive instead of saving for college, Mom always managed to calm him down.”
“I would say that was a good gamble on her part, since all that computer time probably helped you get the full-ride scholarship to MIT.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Have you been reading my press bio?”
Oh, crap. She could feel herself blush and hoped he would attribute it to brisk color in her cheeks from the cold. “My daughter and I are living in your house. You don’t think I would do a little homework about you before I agreed to put my child and myself in a situation I might come to regret?”
A Google search didn’t constitute cyber stalking. Exactly.
“Find out anything else interesting?”
Her blush intensified as she thought of the pictures she just might have looked at more than once, where he had looked gorgeous in a well-tailored tuxedo at some charity event in L.A., with a sexy, skinny model-type on his arm.
Fortunately, she was spared from having to answer as they neared the park when she heard someone calling her name.
She turned and spotted Barbara Serrano, one of the ladies she had met at McKenzie’s shop, bundled onto a lawn chair next to a man who wore a scarf in exactly the same garish colors as Barbara’s.
