“IT STOPPED SNOWING!”
Ella made the joyous announcement when Noah stirred the morning after they’d kissed. She’d been tiptoeing around the cabin starting the shower and the coffeemaker. But the sun!
The sun bounced off pristine snow and leaped through the cabin windows with an energy Ella wasn’t feeling. She was certain she hadn’t slept a wink last night. Penny had woken early, her coughs not as wracking, unaffected by the bright morning and content to lie on the couch and talk quietly to Woof, who’d slid from Noah’s lap to sit closer to Penny.
Ella had hoped the kiss yesterday would have cleared the air. It hadn’t. After that kiss, she and Noah didn’t talk, but they looked. They didn’t touch, but they sighed with longing. They didn’t kiss. They kept their distance. Or maybe all that detached mooning had been on Ella’s part. Noah had whistled while he cleaned the kitchen last night. Whistled!
“What a beautiful day,” Ella said with forced cheer, taking a coffee mug from the cupboard.
“You say that like you can taste freedom.” Noah tried to look wounded, but he just looked rumpled and cute, while Ella was convinced she looked as frumpy as she felt.
“In a few minutes, I’ll be tasting coffee.” The coffeemaker was heating up. Ella hoped that was the only heat exchange the cabin witnessed today. “Do you have shoes I can borrow so I can help you dig a path out of here?”
“Hiking boots and extra socks.” He pointed to a pair of boots and thick socks near the door.
When had he put those there? She didn’t remember them being there last night.
“But you won’t be helping me clear a path.” He got out of the recliner slowly. “I’ll snowshoe to Roy’s and then he and I will make a path to the coffee shop. If I know Mitch, he’ll clear the sidewalk from the inn to the diner.”
Both Noah and Woof shook out the kinks from a night spent in the recliner. Woof was more vigorous in his technique, but Noah got points in Ella’s book for slow, languid movement. Plus, Noah still wasn’t wearing his gloves.
The coffeemaker sputtered. Noah turned to look at Ella.
Why? Because she’d lost the thread of conversation. What had he been talking about?
He kept looking. She didn’t look away.
This was where her brain should have been instructing her mouth on what words to say. But her brain was numbed by the snow-radiant sunshine and the man-hunk before her. And her mouth…
His gaze drifted to her lips. She felt dizzy.
Say something. Say something. Say something.
He kept looking. She couldn’t look away.
She wanted his arms around her, if only to put a halt to the vertigo that was her tilting heart, and keep her on her feet. Only she feared she’d already fallen most of the way down. She feared she was falling under the spell of the attraction between them before she ever knew how he liked his eggs, how he spent the holidays, and what he was looking for when he trekked across the snow around Second Chance. Those were the kinds of things people said were important when you loved someone.
Her cheeks were heating. Her mouth was dry. And her lips seemed to be glued together.
She glanced at Penny. Her little girl’s lips were wrinkled.
I need to put lip balm in the diaper bag.
She unstuck her lips and laughed, shaking her head.
Leave it to a single mom to break the mood with pragmatism.
Her feet pivoted. She reached for the coffee cup and the friend zone. “Do you want coffee? I can get you a cup. Or a shovel. I can help shovel. Just show me where you keep your equipment and I’ll…”
Noah grinned, closing the distance between them like a cat who hadn’t been fooled by a mouse trying to play dead. If she didn’t move in the next ten seconds, he’d kiss her. She was certain of it. She should move. Seriously. Because she didn’t want to kiss him… Er, him to kiss her.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
“Here’s your coffee.” She thrust the coffee mug at him. “I always enjoy a cup in the morning, don’t you?”
He looked down at her. He looked down at the mug. And then he leaned in…
Ella braced herself. She really didn’t want that kiss, but if it was coming she’d take it like the trouper she was.
Noah reached past her for the coffeepot. “I do enjoy a cup in the morning. Just not an empty one.” He filled the mug she’d given him and walked to the window, presumably to enjoy the view. “Say what you will about Second Chance, but the views are amazing.”
Slug-brained Ella couldn’t agree more.
Wake up, Ella. Single moms don’t drool over their daughter’s doctor.
Ella didn’t move. Noah looked different this morning. Stronger. Taller. Prouder. She couldn’t look away, certain this image was being implanted in her memory more permanently than if she’d taken a picture and put it in the slow scanner she had at home. At the Monroe home. Her temporary home.
Her father-in-law’s stern face came to mind.
Ian…
What would Ian say if he knew I’d been in Second Chance a few days and was falling for a new man?
He’d wonder if Ella’s love for Bryce had been real. He’d question the things he’d done to help her be a single, stay-at-home mother. He’d feel justified in kicking her out.
As would the rest of the Monroes.
Ella poured herself a cup of coffee.
“I appreciate the offer to help shovel snow,” Noah said, the humor in his tone hard to miss. “But do you trust Penny in here unsupervised with Woof?” He pointed to the corner of the cabin.
Ella must have slept at some point last night because Woof had ripped up Ella’s other boot.
At this point, she wouldn’t trust the dog or her daughter unsupervised. “When you put it that way, it makes it easier to allow you to do all the manual labor.”
And then the morning routine inserted itself. Sitting in the steamy bathroom with Penny. Waffles for breakfast. A brief shower.
Suddenly, Noah stood before her, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “I know you need space, but Second Chance is a small town and the three mountain passes are undoubtedly closed.” He was taller than she was, broader than she was, more confident in what he wanted than she was. A trifecta of male magnetism.
“Noah—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. A scarred finger. “Let’s not start the day with all the logical reasons why we should ignore this.” He walked away, put on his snow gear, patted Woof and then kissed Penny. “Give that kiss to your mommy.” He left Ella with a smoldering glance.
She collapsed on the couch, both disappointed and relieved he was gone, and was immediately joined by Penny and Woof, both of whom were eager to give her kisses.
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER, Ella and Penny were back at the inn.
She’d strapped modern snowshoes onto Noah’s large boots and followed him across the packed path he, Roy and Mitch had made.
The process of creating a trail was intriguing. First Noah would make a square as a platform with his snowshoes. Then he’d walk sideways to tamp down the snow. He hadn’t fallen. Not once. And he’d even carried Penny down the hill, across the highway and over the parking lot to the inn.
She’d returned his boots to him once she was inside the inn, but he’d refused to take the borrowed snowshoes and poles.
“We’ll use them soon,” he promised. “Besides, Roy said to keep them as long as you need them.”
While he spoke, Ella’s calves and hips were tightening. Someone needed to promote snowshoeing as the next big thing in fitness. Ella was sweaty. It didn’t help that being with Noah was exhilarating and exhausting. Still, she had to thank him for his hospitality, so she said, “I may need to reconsider the snowmobile thing. I won’t be able to walk up those stairs tomorrow.”
“We’ll see.” He left.
She’d been half hoping he’d sweep her off her stocking feet and carry her upstairs.
The lobby was deserted. Ella took Penny by the hand and approached the stairs. “This will be good exercise for you since you had a ride home.”
Penny coughed a few times, but gamely took the stairs.
Laurel, Sophie and the twins descended upon them as Ella was unlocking the door to their room.
“Tell us everything,” Sophie demanded, letting her boys climb on Ella’s bed and bounce.
Ella plopped Penny on the bed in between two pillows. Her little munchkin giggled at the bouncy ride the twins gave her.
“You were snowed in with a hot doctor.” Laurel sat on the edge of the bed. She wore slim-fitting overalls and an oatmeal-colored sweater that toned down her bright red hair. “Come on. Spill.”
“Oh, that’s not fair.” Ella dug in her suitcase for a clean set of clothes and to hide her blush. “You were snowed in with a handsome innkeeper. You know, the one with kind eyes?”
“The one who’s been hiding in his apartment downstairs?” Laurel murmured. Maybe it wasn’t the oatmeal-colored sweater that muted her presence. She seemed washed out. “It’s not like we shared living quarters.”
“That Mitch is a cranky-pants.” Sophie poked her head in Ella’s bathroom and out again. She wore black leggings and a chunky fisherman’s sweater. “Mitch shushed the boys yesterday afternoon like an old man whose nap was disturbed.”
“Here we go again,” Laurel murmured.
“You’re going to defend him?” Sophie raised her voice, drawing sharp looks from her boys.
“The twins woke me up from my nap and I was upstairs. When I came down they were screaming like little heathens.” Laurel smiled, but it was a wan smile. “At least, until Mitch told them to be quiet.”
“Can I help it if my boys need an outlet?” Sophie adjusted her glasses, the better to glare at her cousin. “They’re energetic.”
“They never sit still,” Laurel said. “That’s for sure.”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed. “Just you wait until you have kids of your own. It’s not so cut-and-dried.”
“My kids will behave,” Laurel insisted, in the tone naive people who didn’t have kids spoke about overly energetic children.
“Are you saying I’m a bad mother?” Sophie drew herself up, looking like she was about to launch herself on Laurel. “How could you say my kids are heathens?”
“Don’t say a word. There’s no right answer here,” Ella counseled Laurel. When Sophie gave her a defeated look, Ella added, “Laurel didn’t mean it like that.”
Laurel continued to be bounced on her corner of the mattress and raised her eyebrows as if to say, The proof is bouncing on bedsprings.
“I don’t hear you defending my babies, Ella.” Teary-eyed, Sophie swung her boys from the bed to the floor. “I thought single moms were supposed to stick together.”
“I’m sorry. I’m tired.” Ella stared longingly at her pile of clean clothes. “You know I love the boys.” Sophie’s ex-husband had spoiled the twins, doing no one any favors, especially now that he wanted little to do with them.
“You didn’t say they weren’t heathens,” Sophie charged and hustled the boys to the open door. From the hallway, she shouted, “We’re going to the sled hill, so the Hollywood princess can have quiet for her nap!” She slammed the door.
Penny’s face crumbled. She began to cry. And then her sobs turned into coughs.
“Sophie,” Ella called after her, but their footsteps echoed as if far away.
“What’s wrong with Sophie?” Laurel picked up Penny, who was still coughing and crying at the same time. “Don’t cry, little heathen.”
“Well, you did call her boys heathens.” Ella took Penny, resting her on her shoulder, and rubbed her back, not stopping even when the coughing subsided. “It’s hurtful to a mom. We like to think our kids are perfect, not just in our eyes, but in the eyes of everyone else.”
Laurel smirked. “Even when Sophie knew the twins were out of control?”
“Especially then.” Ella kissed the top of Penny’s head. “Meltdowns and wild behavior are going to happen, particularly when kids can’t get outside to play. It’s the people who say, ‘That’s all right,’ when you apologize for your child, who earn your unending gratitude.”
“But the boys are just so…destructive.” Laurel went to the window and stared at Sled Hill. “I can’t trust them with anything.”
“They’ll grow out of it.” As would Woof. “Try to be patient.” Ella put down Penny. “I need to change and then we’re going to lunch. Would you like to come along?”
“No. I’m still feeling funky.” Lauren patted her abdomen.
Ella went into nurturer mode. “Have you been drinking enough water? You might have altitude sickness.”
“I’ve got something.” She sighed. “Besides, I should make my exit before I say something insensitive to you about Penny.”
Penny lifted her head and gave Laurel a sad look as Bryce’s cousin left the room.
“Laurel,” Ella called, without hearing an answer. She looked at Penny. “Is everyone suffering from cabin fever?”
She hoped it wasn’t that the family was disintegrating. If Grandpa Harlan had sent them here to map a new future and become closer knit, the exercise was turning into an epic fail.
On the way to lunch, Ella and Penny stopped at the general store. Ella needed another pair of snow boots if she was going to explore Second Chance’s buildings.
“Can I help you, ladies?” Mackenzie glanced up from a large hardcover book she had open on the cashier counter.
“Snow boots?” Ella took in the cornucopia of items, from motor oil to fishing poles to candy and clothing.
“To your right.” Mackenzie rested her blue-flannel-clad elbows on her book as she leaned forward. “I’m afraid I don’t keep any quality boots. When travelers need boots, they want them cheap because they forgot theirs at home. When residents want boots, they order durable ones online.”
“Can’t rely on an online purchase when the delivery truck can’t get here.” Ella wandered toward the section of snow gear.
While Ella poked her way through boot boxes, Penny grabbed a pink wool scarf and ran back and forth in the aisle with it trailing behind her like the tail of a kite.
If I buy that for her, am I spoiling her?
Penny giggled and coughed and giggled and coughed.
Ella decided then and there the wool scarf had found a new home.
The only pair of boots in Ella’s size were neon pink with Velcro nylon tops. Woof had enjoyed expensive leather. If he got a chance at these boots—which he wouldn’t—her thirty-dollar loss wouldn’t sting as much as losing her good leather boots had.
“Did Doc talk to you while you were snowed in?” Mackenzie asked while ringing up the boots and scarf. The book she’d been reading was still open. It appeared to be a volume about restoring old truck engines. “Doc doesn’t say more than two words to me—‘yes, please’ and ‘no, thanks.’”
“We had long conversations.” Ella was proud of that. “He has a great sense of humor.”
“Really?” Mackenzie cut off the sales tags from their items and the elastic joining Ella’s pink boots together. “What did you talk about?”
Ella’s mind went blank.
Oh, she could remember all of the kissing exchanges, but a verbal one?
“We, uh, talked about Penny’s condition and—”
“No!” Penny pressed her face to the glass at the store’s front door. “No-No-No.” She turned to Ella and pointed outside.
Ella joined her at the door.
No, er, Noah and Woof were heading toward the highway and their cabin.
“It’s all right, honey. We’ll see them later.” Much, much later if Ella had her way. After all, she had snowshoes and she knew how to use them.
“No!” Penny repeated his name and banged the door with her palms.
Noah turned and spotted them. He ambled over with the same deliberate steps he’d used to close the distance between them yesterday when he’d kissed her.
Ella’s heart began to pound faster.
Penny danced. “No-No-No!” Happy cries this time.
Noah’s eyes were bluer than the sky. Warmer, too. He locked his gaze on Ella’s until he stood just on the other side of the door.
“No!” Penny shouted, demanding his attention.
Woof licked the glass near Penny’s face. Penny returned the sentiment, licking the glass in front of Woof’s face.
Noah waved at Penny and then returned his focus to Ella, a question in his eyes: Should I come in?
Ella gave a little half shrug.
He quirked a dark eyebrow, which Ella interpreted as: You don’t know what you’re missing.
Ella crossed her arms, which would have communicated her dismissal if her gaze hadn’t dipped—for one second—to his whisker-rimmed mouth.
He laughed, a booming sound that lightened every worry in Ella’s chest. And then he turned and left.
“Bye, No,” Penny said wistfully. “Bye, Woof.”
Mackenzie grinned. “Now I know why you couldn’t remember what you’d talked about. You guys have a language all your own. The language of love.”
“It’s not like that,” Ella protested, albeit weakly as she watched Noah disappear into the snow hedge and cross the road.
But it could be, a small lonely voice in her head whispered. It could be.
* * *
THE CABIN WAS quiet when Noah and Woof returned. Noah fed wood to the stove and stared out at the beauty of the Colter Valley without seeing anything.
The cabin wasn’t just quiet. It was empty.
There was no Ella filling it with her softly told truths and self-deprecating laughter. No Penny with her toothy grin and open affection. His refuge for the last six months didn’t feel much like a refuge anymore. Not without those two.
Had they only been snowed in for a few days? It seemed much longer.
Where’s your pride? Dr. Noah Bishop tried to gather his pride and rally. Where’s your independence?
Independence? Noah laughed and removed his gloves. He flexed his right hand, willing it to close tight. When it didn’t, Noah moved to the exam table, splaying his hand on top. He traced his scars with his left hand, much as Ella had done, except he applied pressure, trying to loosen the fascia and heat the muscles and tendons beneath. Everything was tight. It was painful.
And what was the point? He’d never pick up a scalpel again.
But I wouldn’t drop Penny.
Noah pressed harder into the thin layer of tissue and groaned.
Woof came immediately to his side, his gaze sorrowful.
“That brace gives you a false sense of normalcy,” Noah told him. “You’ll need surgery to get better. But me? I need this.” He pressed harder.
When he couldn’t take it anymore and his hand ached like it was on fire, Noah glanced over to Odette’s. It’d been days since he’d seen her.
She didn’t answer her phone when he called, which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes she got so caught up in her crafting she didn’t communicate with anyone for days. Noah decided to snowshoe to her place. It was better than staring out his window hoping for a glimpse of Ella.
At Odette’s cabin he removed his snowshoes, climbed her steps and rapped on the door, stamping his boots to rid himself of excess snow.
“Who is it?” Odette called primly.
Please. As if she hadn’t seen Noah coming.
“Your doctor. Open up.” The wind was chilling. More because he was sweating beneath his layers.
The old woman opened the door and he burst in, closing the door behind him.
Odette’s coarse gray hair looked like she’d given herself a cut. It stuck out over her left eye and stood straight up in the back. But her skin color was good and she marched across the room to her chair by the window faster than Penny could have traveled the same distance.
Her cabin was awash in color. Quilts covered every surface—on the couch, on the chair, a quilted tablecloth, quilted kitchen towels, framed quilts on the walls. Fabric escaped from bags on the floor that surrounded her sewing machine station. Knitted scarves and caps hung from hooks on the wall.
Odette sat in her chair and picked up a pair of chunky knitting needles. The yarn she was using reminded Noah of sherbet. It was bright orange.
Despite being surrounded by color, the cabin was cold, which annoyed him. “Are you out of firewood?” Had she been so busy she hadn’t noticed the chill?
“No. I’m just cheap.” She wore several layers of socks and had a jacket on. “What’s happened? Why are you here? Have I taken a turn for the worse?”
“I’m here to check on you because of the storm. And it’s a good thing since you might freeze to death.” He couldn’t get her any more firewood. Her woodpile was buried under several feet of snow on the side of the cabin. But hers was a rare home in Second Chance, one with a treasured modern amenity—central heat. He turned her thermostat up a few degrees and when she grumbled, he pulled a twenty out of his wallet and slapped it on the table. “That’s for the difference in your heating bill today. Now, do you have enough food?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he opened her pantry cupboard. She had more than enough canned food and more than enough sodium to clog her arteries.
“Doc, just because you like it hot doesn’t mean you can come in here and jack up my thermostat.” The cold hadn’t diminished her cantankerous nature.
Noah removed his left glove and placed his palm on the back of her hand. “I know you aspire to be the ice queen, but if your hands are this cold when you’re inside…”
She glared at him, knitting needles clacking discordantly. Knitting needles, not her small, sharp quilting needle.
Noah changed the course of his lecture. “If your hands are this cold you can’t uphold the quality of your work.”
She harrumphed. “Like you care?”
“Why are you so mad at the world?”
“Me?” She made a sound of disgust, plucked his empty glove from his right hand and shook it at him. “We.”
“Odette—”
“We’re the same, you and I.” She set aside her knitting. “We’re done. Worn out. Waiting for the inevitable end. Watching the world with envy.”
He’d been about to refute Odette’s claims when Ella’s words came back to him: And you’re dying a slow death now.
“I saw you kissing that Monroe girl.” Odette’s voice was as hard as the ice on the lake over the next rise. “Holding her baby like it was your own.”
Anger welled inside him. Noah valued his privacy.
He snatched her binoculars from the window ledge and trained them on his window. Woof sat in a chair staring at Odette’s cabin, one ear cocked up as if trying to listen to their conversation.
“In New York, they have a name for peepers like you.” He set the binoculars on a table on the opposite wall, out of Odette’s easy reach by the window.
She was unperturbed. “If you want privacy, hang some curtains.”
“Maybe I will.” He snatched back his glove and shoved his hand inside.
Odette grabbed his wrist above his right hand in the same place Ella had, only Odette squeezed. Hard. “Don’t get attached to people. They always leave. And when they go, they take a piece of you with them until you feel like you’re dying inside.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” But his words lacked conviction, because he thought of Ella and doubted she’d want to stay in town, so he added more firmly, “I can’t go anywhere.”
“It’s a good place to die,” Odette murmured as he stomped toward the door.