Page 62 of Winter Vows

“No,” he protested. “This place should be yours. It would be a wonderful place for Laura to grow up. She could have horses and a tree house. She could swim in the creek.”

“She would love it,” Trish admitted wistfully, then shook her head. “But you found it. It should be yours. I know it’s the place you talked about a few weeks ago. You said there were others you could show me. Let’s look at those.”

“You won’t even consider buying this one?” he asked, looking vaguely let down.

“No. I’ll look at whatever else you know about and then I’ll check out what’s available in town. That would be the sensible thing to do.”

He nodded. “If that’s what you want,” he said, not fighting her nearly as hard as she’d expected him to...as she’d hoped he would.

But there was a mysterious little gleam in his eyes that she couldn’t quite interpret. Since Hardy tended to be a man of many secrets, she finally dismissed it as just being one more.

As they drove away, she cast one last look back at the land he had shown her. Even though sacrificing it for Hardy’s sake had been the right thing to do, she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret that she wouldn’t be the one to build a home here. She almost wished she’d never seen it. Nothing they looked at afterward was even a poor second. In fact, she doubted she would ever find anything to compare to it.

Just as she was rapidly coming to understand that she would never find another man quite like Hardy.

Hardy bought the property that same night. He rousted the real estate agent out of bed to do it, insisting on putting his deposit down and making the deal right then and there.

Two weeks later the bank closing went off without a hitch, because of the sizable down payment he’d been able to make with all those years of savings he’d had no reason to spend.

For the next few weeks he spent every spare minute building his house. Because he’d told no one, because he wanted to do every last lick of work himself, it was incredibly slow going. It also cut into time he should have been spending courting Trish, convincing her that they might have a future together.

When the nonstop thoughts of her eventually crowded out everything else, he finally took an afternoon off and drove into town. He stopped by Dolan’s and picked up two thick chocolate shakes, then went next door.

There were several customers in the bookstore, all with armloads of paperbacks. Obviously Trish was fulfilling a need in Los Piños for new reading material. Everyone was chatting spiritedly with each other, except for Willetta who, to his astonishment, was sitting in a chair in front of the fire. Since Trish was busy. Hardy walked over to the seamstress.

“Hey, Willetta, I thought you’d be long gone by now.”

“Went,” she said succinctly. “And?”

“Didn’t like it. I’m back to stay.”

He grinned. “There’s no place like home, right?”

“Seems that way to me.” She gestured around the room. “You two did quite a job in here. Hardly recognized the place.”

“You aren’t thinking of trying to steal it out from under Trish, so you can go back into business, are you?”

“Heavens, no. Retirement suits me just fine. I do think I might enjoy coming in here to visit with your girl on occasion. May even take up baby-sitting for little Laura if Trish moves to town.”

“That sounds like a fine idea to me.”

She studied the container in his hand. “What’s that?”

“A chocolate milk shake. I brought it for Trish, but I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind if I gave it to you, instead.”

She gave him a mock frown, even as she reached for the drink. “Can’t bribe me, boy. I still intend to tell her you’re a rascal every chance I get.”

“I think she already knows,” Hardy confessed. “But I’m hoping she doesn’t mind.”

Willetta nodded. “So, that’s the way it is, is it? Nothing like a good woman to settle a man down. Have you asked her to marry you yet?”

The question had barely been uttered when Hardy heard a gasp. He turned to find Trish staring at Willetta in shock. Because Trish looked so thoroughly flustered, he winked at Willetta.

“Hush,” he warned her. “She’s listening.”

Willetta touched a finger to her lips. “She won’t hear a thing from me.”

Of course, she already had. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t get a real fix on her reaction. Was she merely surprised? Or dismayed?

---