RaeAnne Thayne - Snow Angel Cove

“Not today, anyway.”

Was that a joke? It was tough to tell, since she seemed completely humorless.

“Can you tell me again how I get to the hospital?”

“Take a left and go a block until you hit Lakefront Drive, then head north about a mile. You can’t miss it. Big redbrick building. The storm is picking up. Drive slowly and leave plenty of room to stop, especially with those tires.”

He nodded and climbed back into the rental SUV. His headache had ratcheted up about a dozen notches. He wasn’t in any hurry to drive anywhere except his lodge at Snow Angel Cove after the trauma of actually hitting a person, but Dermot and Margaret Caine had raised him to do the right thing, even when it hurt.

CHAPTER TWO

AIDAN’S PHONE RANG with the signature ringtone for his father just as he pulled into a parking space near the sign for the emergency department at the modern-looking redbrick hospital along the lake.

He briefly entertained the temptation to ignore the call. He loved his father dearly but at the moment his primary focus centered on finding out Eliza’s condition and checking to make sure Madeline had someone looking after her.

On the other hand, after such a traumatic afternoon, he was drawn to the safe, warm, familiar connection with his father.

“Pop. Hi.”

He pictured Dermot Caine—hearty, strong, still handsome even as he headed toward seventy. Wherever his father might be when they spoke on the phone, Aidan always imagined him in his favorite environment, the Center of Hope Café, where he ruled as master and commander—pouring coffee and serving up pie and conversation to tourists and locals alike.

“Are you in the country?” Pop said. “I wondered if you might be abroad.”

Aidan winced a little as he watched the snow pummel the windshield with increasing intensity. Calling his father had been on his to-do list for a week.

“I’m here. I got your messages. Sorry we never connected. I’ve been in the middle of some pretty intense negotiations this week.”

“You work too hard, son.”

He couldn’t argue. He had been working twenty-hour days for the past week trying to iron out some contract disputes with one of their vendors in China and for several weeks before that, he had been neck-deep in product development projects.

Everything seemed harder since September. He wanted to think he was almost back to full throttle but he still had times when he had to collapse and sleep for almost twenty-four hours straight.

He didn’t tell his father any of that, of course.

“How 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.