Chapter Seven
HOLLY LOVED LIVING IN THE MOUNTAINS OF IDAHO. SHE REALLY did. She loved the people, she loved the splendor of the scenery and she loved the recreational opportunities from living next to a beautiful body of water.
She did not, however, love shoveling snow.
If she ever won the lottery—probably unlikely to happen since she never played—the first thing she planned to do was hire somebody to clear her driveway and sidewalks in the winter.
“I’m helping, Mommy.”
She looked at the area Lydia tramped through, her little snow shovel dragging more snow across the section Holly had just finished clearing. Snow that would probably melt and freeze again into a treacherous line of ice.
No bother, she would come back after Lydi was in bed and clear it all away again.
Raising a daughter willing to help her and one who felt appreciated for her efforts was far more important than perfection.
It was one of the first and most enduring lessons she had learned as Lydia’s mother. Perfection wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be anyway.
“Thank you, darling,” she said with a grateful smile. “I don’t know what I would do without your help.”
Lydia grinned, her cheeks rosy in the moonlight and the reflection from the nearby streetlight.
“I can help more.”
Lydia headed off to “shovel” another section of sidewalk while Holly continued working on the driveway.
She was making slow progress when she saw a black truck she didn’t recognize pull up.
When the passenger door opened, Audrey hopped out, followed by Ryan coming around from the driver’s side.
Her heart gave a silly little kick hat made her want to roll her eyes. She hadn’t seen him in a few days. Somehow she had forgotten how gorgeous he was, all hard muscles and lean angles.
“Need a hand?” Audrey asked.
About a dozen of them, as long as they were all pushing snow shovels.
“You don’t have to do that. We’re almost done and I’m sure you have snow of your own to shovel. Thank you, though.”
“We don’t mind,” Ryan said. “Do we, Audrey?”
“Not me,” she answered. “I love shoveling snow.”
“Do you have another shovel?” Ryan asked.
Holly knew she should argue with them. She was a strong, independent woman who could shovel her own snow.
But one of the other important lessons she had learned from her time as Lydia’s mother was to accept help when it was offered. Sometimes it required her to swallow her pride, yes. That was a small price to pay for all the benefits, both to herself and to the person offering their help.
“I do, actually. Right inside the garage door, I have a few more shovels.”
Ryan headed in that direction while Audrey went to praise Lydia’s efforts, which made her daughter glow with pleasure.
A moment later, he came out carrying two more snow shovels. He handed one to Audrey then went to work alongside Lydia with the heavier one.
“I noticed you also have a snowblower in the garage. Any reason why you aren’t using it?”
She could feel herself flush and hoped the cold air disguised it.
“I can’t figure it out,” she admitted. “Troy bought it used right after we were married, when we were living in a rental with a long driveway that he hated shoveling. He left it with me after he moved to Portland, figuring he wouldn’t need it as much as I would. ”
“Makes sense. Except it’s sitting in the garage while you’re out here with a shovel.”
“I don’t know how to even start it up. And yes, I’ve tried. I even watched a couple of videos online but couldn’t make it work. I think maybe something’s broken.”
“I could maybe take a look at it for you while I’m in town,” he said, then looked as if he regretted the offer.
“You don’t have to. I’ve been meaning to have my dad or one of my brothers come take a look at it but I always forget to ask them until it snows.”
“I guess for now we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”
They worked together in silence for a few moments while the moon popped in and out from the clouds, gleaming on the ice-covered trees.
It was a beautiful night, she had to admit. Each breath puffed out in the cold, clear air. Though she was tired from working all day at the shop, she was grateful for the chance to be outside breathing in that faint metallic tang of winter.
“I met your sister the other day at the grocery store.”
She looked up, surprised. Hannah hadn’t mentioned it to her during their frequent text exchanges or when she had stopped in at the store earlier that day on her lunch break.
“Did you?”
“Yes. She had a lot to say. She seems very protective of you.”
Oh dear. What had Hannah said to him? Maybe that’s why she hadn’t mentioned their encounter to Holly, because her sister knew she wouldn’t like it.
“She can be. Protective, I mean. It’s pretty annoying. She thinks because she was born two minutes before me that gives her the right to boss me around for the rest of our lives.”
“It’s nice that she cares about you so much.”
He said nothing more and she fought the urge to throw a shovel full of snow at him. He couldn’t throw out a teaser like that and not follow through.
“What did she say?” she finally asked.
He seemed inordinately focused on the snow he shoveled and didn’t meet her gaze.
“She, um, suggested you might be looking for a plus-one for a family wedding later this month.”
“No, she did not .” She stopped in mid-shovel as a hot tide of embarrassment washed over her.
“Afraid she did.”
Oh, sweet baby Jesus.
“I am so sorry. Ignore her. Please.” She wanted to bury her head in a big pile of freshly fallen snow, though she suspected even that wouldn’t be enough to cool her mortification.
“Was she wrong? Are you saying you don’t need a plus-one?”
“I’ll be fine. I have a date. Lydia. She’s all I need.”
He studied her for a long moment then turned back to shoveling. “Okay. Probably for the best, since I didn’t bring anything to wear to a wedding.”
She swallowed hard, trying not to imagine Ryan Caldwell dressed up in something suitable for a wedding.
What was Hannah thinking ? Hadn’t Holly been clear that she wasn’t going to ask Ryan to go with her?
She had certainly thought about it since that day in her shop but had decided her life was complicated enough without adding a fictional boyfriend into the mix. Or a real man playing a fictional boyfriend.
She would simply tell Troy’s family something had come up, plans had changed and her date hadn’t been able to come after all. She could leave it at that without having to muddle the situation further.
“I’m sure you have a million things you would rather do than take a woman you barely know to the wedding of a couple of strangers.”
“At least a million.”
“I mean, I don’t even want to go and I know both the bride and the groom.”
“So why are you? Seems like a whole lot of unnecessary stress. If I were you, I would find any excuse I could not to put myself through it.”
She didn’t tell him how very tempting she found that idea of avoiding all of it.
She couldn’t, though. Any more than she could avoid shoveling snow when it stormed. Some things had to be faced, like it or not.
“My ex and I might not be together anymore but he is still Lydia’s father. His family will always be connected to her. I can’t miss celebrating the wedding of her aunt, who happens also to be a good friend, simply because I’m uncomfortable.”
“Many people would take the easier road.”
Sometimes she really wished her parents had raised children who could take the easier road, instead of those who always had to choose the right one.
“If I allowed my comfort level to dictate every decision in my life, I would never leave my house. I would be inside right now on my sofa, watching Hallmark movies and eating Christmas cookies.”
He was quiet as she shoveled. When he looked at her, she thought she saw a note of approval in his expression. “True enough. Too many people avoid anything in life they find hard.”
“I don’t want to go to Kristine’s wedding.
That’s not a lie. But I have every intention of going and being polite and eating substandard banquet food.
Who knows? I might even dance. Because it’s the right thing to do and I want to teach my daughter by example that doing the right thing is important, even when it’s hard. ”
He gave her an inscrutable look then returned to shoveling. “Maybe having a plus-one would ease the discomfort a little. If things get awkward with your ex or his family, you can always talk to me.”
She stared. Was he actually considering taking her?
“Why would you possibly agree to this? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your willingness. I’m only trying to understand why.”
After a moment, he inclined his head toward his niece.
“Audrey is pretty persuasive. She is convinced I owe you for taking her in after the accident, as well as for giving Kim time off to go to rehab. She basically thinks you’re a saint.
I believe she said you were next level, which I assume is a compliment.
She thinks that the least I can do is take you to a wedding to repay you for what you’ve done to help our family. ”
“Ha. I’m far from a saint. And I only did what any other friend would do. You’re under absolutely no obligation to put yourself through this level of misery.”
He set his shovel in the snow and leaned on the handle to study her, the moonlight catching silvery glints in his hair.
“What if we made a bargain?”
She rested her own shovel and gazed at him, suddenly suspicious. “What sort of bargain?”
What could she possibly have to offer a man like Lieutenant Commander Ryan Caldwell?
“You need a date to your ex-sister-in-law’s wedding. I need help throwing together a decent Christmas for Audrey. I have no idea where to start.”
“I thought Kim expected to be home before Christmas.”
“She hopes so, but I don’t know when that might be.
Even if she is, I don’t think it’s fair to expect her to manage Christmas when she’s straight out of rehab.
I would like to have as much done for her as possible so she doesn’t have to think about any details, and she can simply enjoy the time together with Audrey. ”
That was surprisingly insightful, coming from a tough, intimidating man like Ryan.
“What did you have in mind?”
“The usual. Gifts. Decorations. Cookies, maybe. I would like Kim’s place to feel like yours does.”
He gestured to the window where her tree gleamed. Her house did look festive, she had to admit, with lights glowing in each of the windows and the front porch adorned with greenery and branches from the red-twigged dogwoods that grew along her fence line.
“We can help each other out,” Ryan said. “I’ll go with you as your plus-one to the wedding. Even better, I’ll pretend to be madly in love with you, to show your stupid ex-husband everything he’s missing out on.”
Her pulse accelerated with both awareness and alarm at the suggestion. “I don’t think we need to quite go that far,” she said quickly.
He grinned unexpectedly. “But only imagine much fun it could be to show everyone you’ve moved on.”
She gripped her shovel handle, telling herself sternly that she was a business owner and a mother who had absolutely no business going weak in the knees simply because a good-looking man offered her a sexy smile.
“In return,” Ryan went on, “you help me deck the freaking halls at my sister’s house so I can make sure Kim and Audrey have an unforgettable Christmas together. You help me with my problem and I’ll help you with yours. We both get what we need. It’s perfect.”
“You seem to have it all figured out, for a guy who claimed he has nothing to wear.”
He shrugged. “My dad probably has a closet full of suits. We’re roughly the same size. If nothing else, I can pick up a pair of dress pants and shirt and borrow a tie and a jacket from him.”
“This is crazy. You don’t have to do this, just because my sister was nervy enough to ask you—my sister, by the way, with whom I will be having a few strong words as soon as I’m done shoveling snow.”
“Hannah was only looking out for you. I get that. And I’m looking out for my sister too, by asking for your help.”
She didn’t believe he really needed her guidance. He and Audrey were perfectly capable of decorating a Christmas tree without her help. Still, she found it sweet that he wanted to give Kim a memorable holiday after her rough month.
Having him as her date for the wedding really was the perfect solution. Her in-laws wouldn’t have to feel awkward about having their son’s ex-wife there and she wouldn’t have to face the ordeal alone.
“This actually might work,” she said, though she couldn’t shake the feeling she was about to make a huge mistake.
She was already finding Ryan Caldwell fairly irresistible. Something told her that spending even more time with the man—especially pretending to be dating him—would only strengthen this silly crush she was developing for him.
“No might about it. It will work. We’ll make sure of it.”
She could only wish she shared his confidence. She shook her head and held out her mittened hand. “I guess we have ourselves a deal, Lieutenant Commander Caldwell.”
He smiled and shook it with his gloved hand. As he smiled down at her, looking big and dark and dangerous in the moonlight, she tried to ignore the little quiver of awareness.
“None of this Lieutenant Commander stuff. You’re going to have to start calling me Ryan, especially since we’re madly in love with each other.”
She gave a short laugh. “I’m not sure pretending to be in love with each other was ever part of the bargain.”
“It’s in the fine print,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve always believed that if a thing is worth doing, it’s damn well worth doing right.”
“Okay. I guess we’re in love,” she said.
Everything about this seemed wrong, she couldn’t help thinking, though she had to admit it felt great to know she had a man like Ryan on her side.
It made the prospect of the upcoming wedding far less intimidating.