We could barely get the door open to the garage in order to get the pickup truck with the plow. We finished clearing around the house. Now Jim is working on clearing the drive to the main road.”
“I was just showing Eliza the cook’s quarters.”
“Have you made a decision, then?” he asked her.
Despite Sue’s avowal, Eliza wasn’t convinced her help was actually needed. She was almost positive he only wanted her to take this perfect position because he felt sorry for her and to ease his guilt.
Her pride urged her to tell him she didn’t need or want his pity. But this provided such a better situation for Maddie than any other alternative. Snow Angel Cove could provide a sanctuary for them for a while, at least a place where Maddie could be free to enjoy the holidays. How could she let pride stand in the way of that?
She forced a smile. “Yes. If you’re serious about your offer, I accept. We will stay through the holidays and help you with your family.”
A fierce, satisfied expression crossed his handsome features. He didn’t look particularly surprised, however. Why should he be? What woman in her right mind could refuse such an offer?
“I’ll contact my assistant immediately and have her email you some forms to fill out. Nondisclosure, confidentiality, the standard employment requirements. I don’t want you doing anything but resting today and even tomorrow. Shall we say you’ll officially start in a couple of days? Monday?”
“I am feeling fine, I promise. There’s no reason I can’t start today, especially since time is limited before your family arrives.”
“Don’t overdo anything. I want you and Maddie to both feel comfortable here. You’re welcome to use any of the facilities—the horses, the pool and spa, the game room. Sue can tell you, I like the people who work for me to feel more like family.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind Maddie underfoot? She loves to help me and when I’m doing a task where she can’t help, she’s usually very good at entertaining herself.”
“I don’t mind at all. In a week, this place will be crawling with kids. She’ll fit right in with everyone else.”
For an instant, she could picture it with vivid clarity—children filling the big house with laughter and excitement, Christmas music ringing through the space, the air rich with the smells of cinnamon and vanilla and pine.
She had hoped to give her daughter a memorable Christmas but this one might turn out to be more amazing than she had ever imagined.
“GET ME THE projected specs by Friday, then make sure your team takes time with their families over the holidays. They can hit it hard again after the New Year. Yeah. Same to you.”
He hung up the phone with one of his project managers then turned back to the trio of computers in his home office, almost a complete duplicate of the setup at his office at the Caine Tech headquarters and his home office in San Jose.
The furniture was the same style and arrangement in each location—one which he found most productive to his workflow—and he used the very same brand and model of office chair.
Aidan had long ago accepted that he knew what worked for him. Messing with that structure only erected mental roadblocks that wasted his time and energy.
His brothers sometimes accused him of having obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They were usually teasing when they said it but he wasn’t bothered by it. A man didn’t amass a fortune out of nothing without careful attention to detail and a healthy self-awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses.
Afternoon sun pierced the thick cloud cover to slant through the vertical blinds. With a flick of a remote, he turned on the gas fireplace—a unique but necessary feature of this particular one of his three offices—and dialed Louise, his very efficient assistant.
They spent a few moments going over details of a pending merger before he turned the conversation to his family’s upcoming visit.
“Yes. All the arrangements have been made,” she said briskly. “The pilots will pick them up at the Hope’s Crossing airport on the twenty-third and will return them all Sunday evening, the twenty-eighth.”
That was as long as he could manage to convince them all to stay, as Pop didn’t want to be gone from the café too long and others had work and volunteer obligations at home.
“Great. Thank you. And your holiday plans are in place?”
“Yes. Ken and I will fly out to South Carolina that same day, on the twenty-third, to meet up with Stephanie, Lane and the children for Christmas and then we’re all driving down to Orlando together the day after. The kids didn’t think Santa could find them if they weren’t in their own house.”
He absently doodled on the unprinted edge of a report. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good weather. We were completely socked in last night and this morning with a blizzard. It’s still coming down here.”
“You don’t have to tell me, I already know we’re crazy to travel this time of year. Even without a storm, the parks are going to be completely packed over the holidays. We won’t be able to move—and don’t even get me started on the lines. The kids are so excited, I hope it will be worth it. Every time we Skype, they don’t want to talk about anything else.”
Louise’s son-in-law had recently been transferred to Charleston. Aidan knew how hard it had been on his longtime assistant—and good friend—to have her grandchildren so far away. He suspected within the next few years she would be retiring to move closer to them.
“Enough about me,” she said after a few minutes of discussing her vacation plans. “How are you feeling?”
His pen jerked across the edge of his doodle. “Fine,” he said.
“Is the headache any better?”
“Some.”
Out of a habit he couldn’t seem to shake, he reached his index finger to the spot just behind his left ear. The hair in that particular spot hadn’t completely grown back, it was about an inch long now, bristly and itchy. Fortunately, the scar was in a spot where his hair was long enough to camouflage.
Pop was going to tell him he needed a haircut. He was going to have to preemptively come up with a strategic response. He wasn’t sure his father would believe he wanted to audition for a rock band or he was going on the road as a competitive snowboarder.
“The new medicine Dr. Yan prescribed is helping,” he answered Louise now. It was partly true. The pain was a dull, constant ache most of the time instead of a piercing, howling roar.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Worry threaded through her voice.
Maybe because she knew him too well. “Don’t concern yourself about me,” he told her. “Just enjoy the holidays with your family.”
He was doodling a Christmas tree now, complete with little curlicue ornaments.
“Same
