is Katherine?” he asked, choosing a topic certain to distract his father.
“Lovely. Just lovely.” The delight and satisfaction in his father’s voice made him smile, despite the bleakness of his errand. “I had forgotten so many little things about sharing a home and a life with a woman. How she straightens up the towels in the bathroom and fills the house with fresh flowers and scented candles and little fancy soaps. She’s had such fun decorating for Christmas. The house is beautiful.”
His father, who had been a widower for most of Aidan’s adult life, had married just a few months earlier to a woman he had secretly cared about for years.
Aidan was deeply happy for his father, who deserved to find love and joy again after all these years on his own.
“And how are things coming there?”
“Good, I guess. I haven’t been up to the house yet.”
“Katherine is anxious to see it. We all are.”
“Everyone is still coming, then? I was afraid you might be calling to tell me you’ve decided to stay in Hope’s Crossing, after all.”
“No. We’re all excited to be together for once. No one else has any place big enough for all of us, now that we’ve absorbed all these new people into our midst.”
In the past year, two of Aidan’s siblings had also married and another had become engaged. When his family was already unbelievably large, every new person added a little more chaos into the mix.
“You’re sure about having us all, then?” Dermot asked.
“Absolutely. I’m looking forward to it.”
He was, even if he was beginning to have a few misgivings as the holidays approached. The whole plan to host everyone for Christmas had been his idea, actually, during that dark time in September while he waited for test results and feared the worst.
He had only recently come into possession of the property here at Lake Haven and his initial visit had convinced him the rambling ten-bedroom lakeshore lodge would be the perfect place for his overlarge family to gather.
Now that the reality of it all was sinking in, he was beginning to wonder if this was yet another decision he had made when he wasn’t precisely in his right mind. He loved his family best in small doses. Having everyone at Snow Angel Cove was certain to be noisy, chaotic and intense.
“I wanted to talk to you about the travel arrangements.” His father’s voice turned disapproving. “That’s the reason for my call.”
He braced himself for the lecture he knew was coming. “What don’t you like about the arrangements?”
“A private jet, son? Really? You’re sending a private jet for us?”
“Yes. And?”
“And it’s a ridiculous expense, that’s what it is. Why, we can drive there in no more than thirteen, fourteen hours, on a few tanks of gas.”
“Do you have a school bus I don’t know about, big enough for twenty people plus luggage?”
“Smarty. We could take separate cars. We could each drive our own and it would still cost less than a chartered flight.”
He sighed. His humble, hardworking father couldn’t quite grasp the fact that Aidan was loaded, even after all these years.
“I don’t want everybody to have to spend their whole holiday in the car. I can get everyone here from Hope’s Crossing in less than two hours.”
“It’s a big waste of money. That’s what it is.”
“It’s my money. If I want to waste it giving my family a happy Christmas, that’s my prerogative, isn’t it? I’m excited for everyone to be here. We haven’t spent a Christmas together in years. It’s too bad Jamie can’t make it.”
“Yes.” He could tell his father was still fretting about the expense.
“Just relax and let me worry about the details, okay? The flight is already arranged. It’s too late to back out now so you might as well just sit back and enjoy it.”
“I don’t see that you’ve given us a choice, if you’ve already paid for it.”
He would have smiled at Pop’s reluctance if he wasn’t parked outside a hospital, about to go in and check on the woman he had injured.
“I’ve got to go, Pop. I’m sorry.”
“I know. You’re a busy man.”
“I’ll see you in a few weeks, though, and we’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”
“You know I love you, son.”
“I love you, too, Pop.”
He had said those words whenever he spoke with his father since September. Each time, they seemed to carry a new weight, to ring with resonant depth.
He loved his family, each crazy one of them. His father had set a fine example of the way a man should live, with dignity, compassion and Dermot’s inherent goodness. As a result, his brothers were all men of honor and strength and he admired each one of them for different reasons—and the women they had chosen.
He only had one sister, the sweet and kind Charlotte, who impressed the hell out of him for the determination and courage she had directed toward turning her life around the past few years.
Aidan had neglected them all. For years, he had been immersed with single-minded focus on building Caine Tech into the powerhouse it was today. Something else had to slide along the way and his personal life had, by default, dwindled to nothing. As a result, he had missed countless birthdays, holidays and special occasions over the years.
This year, he wanted everything to be different. Life had taken an unexpected, disconcerting turn for him in the fall but he had emerged from it with a new determination to tighten and strengthen those ties binding him to his family.
He wanted this Christmas at Snow Angel Cove to be perfect for all of them, his way of making up for all those years of neglect.
First, he had to make sure the woman he had injured would be able to enjoy a merry Christmas of her own.
* * *
OH, HOW SHE hated this.
From the drafty hospital gown, to the smell of sickness and disinfectant, to the frustrating and unsettling sense of being completely out of control of her circumstances, Eliza heartily disliked hospitals.
She had a great respect for medical professionals and understood that certain instances required their services but she would rather be standing out in the middle of that storm out there in bare feet than be tucked here under warmed blankets in the emergency department of the Haven Point medical center.
Okay, she seriously loved the warmed blankets. They made her feel sleepy and cozy and safe. She probably should be ashamed at her fierce desire to just curl up on the uncomfortable exam bed and sleep for a few days.
