“Where are you hurt? Can you tell us?” the storekeeper asked in a kind voice.
“Everywhere,” Eliza Hayward muttered. “But...I don’t think anything’s...broken.”
She again tried to scramble up but Aidan set a hand on her shoulder, careful not to apply pressure anywhere until they had a better idea of the extent of her injuries.
“Please. Just stay still. By the sound of it, help is almost here.”
She didn’t look thrilled at the reminder as the siren’s wail approached them but she subsided on the cold ground again. Heedless of the weather conditions, he took his coat off and folded it under her head so she didn’t have to lie on asphalt, just as the ambulance pulled up behind his rental vehicle.
A couple of frazzled-looking emergency medical technicians—probably volunteer firefighters, if Haven Point was anything like his hometown of Hope’s Crossing—raced over carrying boxes he assumed contained medical supplies.
The EMTs greeted the woman who had come out of her store to help.
“It’s that stupid patch of ice we’ve had such trouble with this year,” she said. “Mr. Caine couldn’t stop in time and he slid right into her.”
After quick, furtive looks in his direction that made him squirm, the EMTs turned their attention to Eliza. Aidan quickly stepped out of the way to give them more room.
He noticed Madeline—Maddie, her mother had called her—standing to one side, watching the activity with eyes that looked very large suddenly in her pale face.
He stepped closer and leaned down to her. “Don’t worry, Maddie. The paramedics are taking very good care of your mom. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She looked skeptical. “How do you know?”
He could appreciate someone who demanded verification. “Your mom was talking to us. That’s a great sign. She said she was okay. I think we’re going to have to believe her until we find out otherwise. What about you? Are you okay?”
The little girl’s chin wobbled a little, as if she had been trying all this time to be brave and had finally lost the battle. “My knee hurts,” she said with a sniffle. “My mom pushed me and I fell and now I think it’s bleeding.
“See?” She pulled up her purple jeans and he could see she had a scrape about the size of a quarter just below her little kneecap.
“Look at that. You are bleeding. I bet we can find a Band-Aid to put on that for you.”
“Will it have a princess on it?”
She reminded him forcefully of his niece Faith, which seemed odd as Faith was a few years older, slender and blonde. This little curly-haired imp with the big personality and the dimples probably had more in common with Carter, Faith’s younger brother. They seemed about the same age.
But there was something about her, a kind of fragile sweetness, that made him want to blindly promise her everything would work out—and then tuck her against him to protect her from further harm and do everything in his power to keep his word.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
He spent a few more moments talking to the girl while the paramedics were working on her mother and learned, much to his surprise, that she and her mother weren’t from Haven Point.
“We were just moving here. All our things are in boxes,” she revealed. “I was going to sleep in my new bed tonight, but then my mama’s new job burned down. See?”
She pointed down the hill toward the lake, where he could see the charred remains of the comfortable inn where he had stayed on his first visit to the area.
“Your mother was going to work at the Lake Haven Inn?”
Maddie nodded, curls bouncing. “Yes. Only now she can’t and the lady was really sad. She cried and my mama told her not to worry, that we would figure something out. That’s what she always says.”
He was still mulling that and the atrocious luck that had hit Eliza Hayward in the past hour when the woman who had first come out of the store to help after the accident approached him.
She was young, he could see now, no more than twenty-seven or -eight. This was the new mayor of Haven Point?
“You’re Aidan Caine, aren’t you?”
She said it bluntly and without any of the kind of embarrassing awe he sometimes encountered. In fact, her voice and expression were completely devoid of any kind of warmth.
“I am, yes. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”
She wasn’t overtly hostile but there was definitely a coolness in her tone and expression. “I don’t think I told you. I’m McKenzie Shaw. That’s my store over there. Point Made Flowers and Gifts.”
Was she trying to drum up business? This really wasn’t the time.
“I like your Christmas tree,” Maddie said.
The woman smiled at her with considerably more warmth than she had shown Aidan. “Thanks, honey. If you come in with your mom, I’ll give you an ornament made out of a pinecone. I make them myself.”
“Wow! Thanks,” Maddie said.
“You’re welcome.”
Ms. Shaw turned back to Aidan. “I’m also the newly elected mayor of Haven Point and will take office in January.”
“So you said.”
“I apologize again on behalf of the town for the poor road conditions,” she said stiffly. “You can be assured, it won’t happen again.”
Was she afraid he would pursue legal action against the town? The fault was entirely his own. If he had been driving a vehicle with better tires, this wouldn’t have happened. He was already planning on purchasing an additional vehicle besides the ranch Suburban and pickup truck—one with excellent tires—that he could leave at the Lake Haven airport and use for ground transportation on future visits.
Before he had the chance to tell her that, a police officer approached them. “I’m Officer Bailey with the Haven Point police department. I understand you were the driver of the vehicle that struck Mrs. Hayward while the light was red and she was in the crosswalk,” she said sternly.
“Yes,” he answered. By her unfriendly tone and set jaw, he had to wonder if he was going to end up behind bars over this whole thing. He wasn’t sure the town even had a jail but he had a feeling he was about to find out.
“I saw the whole thing from my shop window, Wyn,” McKenzie Shaw said. “He wasn’t speeding and definitely tried to stop in time.”
He blinked, shocked by the would-be mayor’s unexpected defense.
“It’s that stupid patch of black ice,” she went on. “How many times have I tried to get the road department to lay down extra salt solution there?”
