frown thawed. “Now that you’re here, Christine, you can take over, and we can give Linda and Will a break.”
Christine blinked. Bathe her grandmother? She worked in a think tank, not a bathtub. She paused while indignity coursed through her, not for herself but for her grandmother. How did she feel having to allow others to help her with tasks most people took for granted? “And Mom will be here soon,” she said.
Ella lifted a warm gaze to Will. “Did I thank you for meeting Christine at the ferry dock?”
“No thanks necessary.” He set down his mug and rose. “I should get over to the studio. I have a big project I’m trying to finish.”
Christine watched him stride toward the door, then pause and look back at them with his casual grin. A young John Wayne, she thought again.
He wasn’t such a bad guy, she supposed, but he seemed way too familiar with her grandmother. He had to have an ulterior motive, and she felt determined to learn what it was.
Chapter Two
Will stood inside the small stable and placed the saddle pad on the horse. She whinnied and stamped her foot as if to say she wanted to go and wanted to go now. The action reminded him of Grandma Ella’s granddaughter. She seemed to lack patience worse than the mare. And trust? She had less trust than a mother bird. He pictured her clinging to her carry-on at the ferry station, as if she had the crown jewels inside the little case.
He shifted to reach the saddle and lowered it on the horse’s back, adjusting it on the pad to make sure it didn’t rub the horse’s withers. He gave Daisy a pat. Women. He didn’t understand Christine at all, and rubbing? He must have rubbed her the wrong way. She didn’t like him, and since the moment he’d met her, he’d trudged through his thoughts trying to imagine how he’d offended her. He must have, because she obviously had an attitude toward him with a capital A.
Still, she was prettier than the baroque glass he worked with in some of his stained-glass artwork. Like the glass, she had texture and lines—very pretty lines, he had to admit. Working with his art, he could lay out his pattern and select the most unique whorls and designs in the glass created by the melding colors, but with Ella’s granddaughter, he had to deal with the whole of her. He couldn’t lop off the parts that weren’t as nice. Her attitude fell into that category.
Will bent down and buckled the cinch snug around the horse’s belly. He checked the tightness, then adjusted the stirrups. When he rose, he paused a moment while Christine’s image filled his mind. When he’d stood beside her near the taxi, he’d noticed she was only a couple inches shorter than his six feet, and she was as slender as a bead of solder. She was a work of art with a bad attitude.
He could still picture how her golden hair fell in waves and bounced against her shoulder. In the taxi, he couldn’t help but admire her glowing skin, her wide-set eyes that studied him so intently. Hazel eyes, he guessed, as changeable as she seemed to be.
Will reached for the bridle and moved to the horse’s left side. He placed his hand on the horse’s forelock and pressed gently. Daisy lowered her head, and he grabbed the headstall, separated the mouthpiece from the reins and held it to the horse’s mouth. She opened it, and he slipped the bit gently inside, then pulled the headstall over the horse’s ears. After he adjusted the chin strap, he gave Daisy’s shoulders a pat.
“You’re not bad-looking yourself, young lady.” He tucked his hand into his pocket and pulled out a sugar cube. Daisy sensed it and lifted her head to nibble the sweet from the palm of his hand.
An unexpected thought came to him. What treat could he use to have Christine nibbling out of his palm? He wiped his hand on his jeans and gathered the reins. He leaned against the stall as once again his thoughts filtered through the morning’s events. The woman had a message in her eye, warning that she didn’t trust him and didn’t want to try. He’d seen the same look of disdain on his father’s face more often than he wanted to remember.
Will pulled his back away from the boards and led Daisy to the stable doorway, then shifted his focus toward the house.
He needed a plan. If he had to spend a week with this woman hovering beside Ella—her granddaughter no less—he had to find a way to get along with her. Daisy’s sugar cube entered his mind again.
He kicked a stone with the toe of his boot and grunted. Get along? He got along fine with everyone else. The problem belonged to Christine.
Christine stepped into her guest bedroom and found her suitcase lying on the bed. Will had placed her small bag on a table beneath the window. Will again. He was like a woodpecker—irritating but intriguing.
Winter sunshine spread a spiderweb design on the table’s wooden top. She wandered to the window and pushed back the lacy curtain. Will stood below just inside the stable doorway with a horse, saddled and ready to ride. Knowing he couldn’t see her, she watched him staring into space as if his mind were faraway.
Seeing him with the horse, his hand on the reins, brought the same gentle cowboy to mind. She grinned at her imaginings. She’d daydreamed as a teenager but not as a woman with brains in her head.
A ragged sigh escaped her. What was it about the handsome man that she disliked? From the moment she’d laid eyes on him, he’d set her on edge, and it made no sense. She could only reason she was killing the messenger. He’d picked her up at the island ferry—a place she hadn’t wanted to come.
She let the curtain drop and reminded herself the visit was only a week—eight days at the most. She had her laptop and her cell phone. Though it wouldn’t be easy, business could be conducted that way, she hoped, for a short time.
She thought of her friend, Ellene, who’d had a similar gripe earlier in the year when she was stranded on Harsens Island in Lake St. Clair. She’d blown off Ellene’s concern about island life, and now her friend was married to Connor and lived there. Amazing what love could do.
Love. She didn’t really like the word. She’d been bitten too badly to trust. At thirty-nine, marriage seemed an unlikely prospect.
Christine returned to the window and peeked out. Will had vanished from the doorway. She could see the horse’s imprints in the mounting snow. Perhaps he’d gone to work. Good. He needn’t worry about her grandmother any longer now that she was there. He could spend the whole day at his job.
Stained glass. A businessman and a creative type. He seemed too—she couldn’t find the word—too lackadaisical for a man who had to make a living running a business. Why hadn’t he dropped her off and gone back to work instead of making them hot chocolate?
The delicate stained-glass angel filled her mind—a perfect gift for her grandmother, who’d always been a strong Christian. She could only deduce Will was a believer.
Sadness wove like tendrils into her conscience. She was a believer, but—but what? “Admit it,” she mumbled. “The Bible says faith and actions work together, and faith is made complete by a person’s good deeds.”
Letting the thought fetter away, Christine slipped back the curtain again and scanned the yard. She had an empty feeling, thinking about her lack of compassion for others. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She just didn’t take the time.
She backed away and turned her attention to her luggage, slipped her pants into a drawer and her sweaters into another, then hung up a few items. Easy when she knew how to
