CHAPTER FOUR

      AIDAN LED THE WAY through the house toward the bedroom suite Sue had suggested might be best for Eliza and her daughter. He really hoped he was going in the right direction. How embarrassing would it be if he got lost in his own home?

      He couldn’t believe all the work that had been finished since he’d last seen the house. Though Sue and Jim had kept him apprised of the progress with pictures and even a few videos, the change was remarkable.

      When he first saw the house, the logs had been dark and dreary. Since then, an army of workers had sanded and varnished them until they glowed a warm honey.

      The changes he had wanted to make to the bones of the house had been completed in record time and Snow Angel Cove now boasted new paint, new carpet and updated electrical and plumbing systems.

      A decorating team had come in with new furniture over the long Thanksgiving weekend. He was happy with the result as he studied the furnishings, though he couldn’t help thinking something still seemed missing.

      He wasn’t very good at that sort of thing, which was why he tried to hire people who were.

      “Is this our room?” Maddie asked when he paused outside the guest suite Sue had suggested.

      “Yes. Do you like it?”

      She walked into the room, with its gas fireplace, four-poster bed and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lake. “I like rooms that are pink, usually, but this one is nice,” she said. She looked tired, he thought, more concerned about her than ever now that he knew she suffered from a heart condition.

      “It’s a lovely room,” Eliza said. “Thank you.”

      Like her daughter, she showed clear signs of exhaustion. Her mouth drooped a little at the corners and she gripped the back of the armchair in the room to steady herself.

      The bruise above her temple looked dark and ugly against the pale loveliness of her features. He couldn’t look at it without guilt drenching him like somebody had tossed a bucket of ice water in his face.

      He could have killed her and Maddie both.

      Yeah, the tires had been terrible on the rental vehicle and black ice had contributed to the accident, but some part of him would always wonder if his own reflexes had somehow been slower than they should have been.

      Could he have stopped a few seconds earlier than he had and avoided hitting her altogether if he were a hundred percent back to normal?

      He couldn’t know the answer to that, for all the metrics and algorithms in the world.

      “I thought you might like a bedroom on the main floor so you don’t have to tackle the stairs, but if you would prefer one with a better view of the lake, those are on the second floor. I’m having an elevator installed but it won’t be done for a few months.”

      “This should be fine. It’s very nice. We can share the bed.”

      “Not necessary.”

      He reached down and pulled a wheeled trundle mattress out from underneath the bigger four-poster.

      “I wanted these rooms designed with flexible bedding for when my family comes to visit.”

      “Oh, I love it! Look! My very own little bed.”

      “Nice.” She smiled at her daughter, though she hadn’t moved from her spot where he suspected she would fall over if she moved away from the chair propping her up.

      She belonged in the hospital. He frowned, wishing he could pack her up and drag her right back there. At least she was here, where he could watch out for her, and not trying to drive back to Boise. It was small comfort.

      “Your home is lovely,” she said.

      “It’s a work in progress,” he said.

      “All the best homes are. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

      “I suppose.”

      Purchasing a home on a mountain lake in Idaho had never been on his radar. He enjoyed the home he had built in San Jose and had leased another property on the coast near Big Sur for his recovery.

      For some time, he had been thinking about buying a ranch, maybe something closer to Hope’s Crossing and his family, until a friend and business partner mentioned his family property here on Lake Haven.

      One quick visit later and a look at the stunning, restful view of the lake and mountains, and Aidan had purchased it on the spot, along with the other property that came with it.

      He might not have been a hundred percent in his right mind but he refused to regret it. He needed a retreat, a place away from the constant pressure and stress of his regular world—especially now. He was on strict orders to rest and be patient with himself as he healed and slowly returned to his regular activities.

      Where better to do that than this sleepy little Idaho town where he could ride horses and cross-country ski on untrammeled snow during the winter and stand hip-deep in the Hell’s Fury River with a fly rod in his hand during the summer?

      His scar itched like crazy and he wanted to reach back and scratch it but he curled his hand into a fist at his side instead.

      “It lacks many of the finishing touches I want,” he said after a moment, looking around the room. “I have family coming for the holidays the Tuesday before Christmas. I’m hoping we can whip it into shape before they arrive.”

      “The other guy, Jim, said you have six horses,” Maddie said, bouncing her bottom a little on the trundle bed.

      She was really an adorable little girl, with those dark curls, dimples and the big green eyes she had inherited from her mother.

      Cardiomyopathy. Poor thing. Sometimes life really sucked.

      “I do indeed have six horses.”

      He loved to ride and had since he was a kid spending a few weeks each summer with his maternal grandparents, who had a ranch in southwest Colorado. All his brothers would stay with their grandparents but he was the best rider of the six of them. He didn’t need a psychoanalyst to explain his enduring affinity for horses. It was rare for him to excel at anything physical that one of his brothers hadn’t already conquered.

      Even at his house in San Jose, he had a few horses and would take them up into the mountains along the coastline whenever he had the chance.

      “I love horses,” Maddie informed him. “I have a horse named Bob. Mom calls him my imaginary