The Scrooge Of Loon Lake

“Colorado. I settled here after leaving the navy three years ago.”

Her gaze went to his white American foursquare home with its hip roof, black shutters and wide brick steps leading to the front entrance. The house seemed large for one person and she wondered if he’d planned to share it with someone when he’d invested in the property. Tavie had mentioned he lived alone. Again, not her business if he had a dozen girlfriends. “So have I changed your mind about those ornaments?”

“Not a chance, Ms. Pierce.” He took a step back as if needing to put distance between them. “Don’t waste your time on a lost cause.”

Great. She’d managed to kill the camaraderie they’d shared moments ago. She plastered a smile on her face. “I gotta warn you. I’m a champion of lost causes. A regular St. Jude.” Holding out her hand, she said, “Come along, Sam, I think we’ve taken up enough of Lieutenant Gallagher’s time for one day.”

Chapter Two (#u24534361-fb8c-5ee2-990c-421ecc2793bc)

Des watched them walk away and felt…what? Relief, that’s what you feel. He shook his head and limped toward the house. He didn’t need or want a woman in his life, especially one with a child. Sam was a cute kid and seemed bright and curious, despite his lack of verbal skills. No, this had nothing to do with Sam. His reluctance was all down to Natalie. She was making him feel things, think about a future he’d given up wanting a long time ago.

Natalie’s gingerbread men.

Halfway toward the house, he stopped. That plate of delicious cookies was still on his workbench. Heaving a sigh, he turned back toward the barn. Those were too good to take the chance of some critter getting them. He’d caught a crow hanging around the barn and had had small items go missing from his workbench. No proof the bird was the thief but he had his suspicions. Yeah, that wasn’t crazy or anything.

He retrieved his cookies, eating one on the way back to the house. In his mind’s eye he could see Natalie’s striking blue eyes, pert nose and Cupid’s bow lips that kept forming a smile. From the first words she’d uttered, her voice had grabbed him in the gut…and elsewhere. Damn. He needed to stop thinking about the beautiful Natalie Pierce. A blind man could see she was a white-picket-fence-kids-dog-soccer-practice type of woman.

He might have had a similar dream once upon a time, but it died the day he had to punch out of his aircraft. Those three seconds, the most violent experience of his life, had changed the course of his future. That was the amount of time it had taken from pulling the lever until he was under the chute. A textbook low altitude ejection. Except for the part where his parachute lines had gotten twisted and he’d lost precious time correcting them while plummeting toward the earth.

He’d hit the ground hard, shattering his left leg and fracturing his spine. After two surgeries and endless months of PT, he’d regained his ability to walk but not to fly jets. Although Ashley had stuck by him during his recovery, once she realized he’d no longer be flying jets, she began voicing concerns over their engagement. She’d said perhaps they wanted different things from marriage. Evidently being married to him wasn’t her dream so much as being the wife of an aviator. Any aviator.

As a last-ditch effort to salvage their relationship, he showed her the horse farm he’d stumbled across and had admired while visiting Riley Cooper in Loon Lake. Stupidly, he had thought maybe the beautiful family home and the prospect of having room for horses would appeal to her. At one time she’d claimed to be a horse lover, but she’d taken one look and said she hadn’t signed on to live in small-town Vermont. The place wasn’t even on Google Maps for heaven’s sake. She’d thought after a career in the navy, he’d work for a major carrier, they’d live in a metropolitan area and would take advantage of all of the travel perks. Yeah, she’d had their future all planned out, except he wasn’t sure where his wishes fit in.

Going into the house he’d gone ahead and purchased after their final split, he set the plate of cookies on the counter and slipped another one off the stack. He had a crazy thought that he would never confess under the threat of torture, but he swore he could taste the love Natalie put into her baking. He suspected she put her heart into everything she did. Sam, with his big grin, was proof of that. A woman like Natalie deserved someone who had a heart.

He glanced around at his state-of-the-art kitchen with its stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops and the off-white cabinets with glass inserts on the upper doors. The kitchen had been remodeled by the previous owner. When he and Ashley had toured the house, he’d figured the updated kitchen would be another point in his favor, but like everything else it had gone bust. So for the past three years, he’d rattled around in the immaculate kitchen using the refrigerator, microwave and coffeemaker.

Too bad he had nothing more than a dream kitchen to give a woman like Natalie.

Des set the pliers back down. His new piece had stalled and it had nothing to do with the fact that Natalie hadn’t returned for two days. Two days and no cookies, no pleas for him to make something for her auction. He’d listened for the sound of a car but all he heard was the silence. Silence was why he’d chosen this place. He liked silence. Huh, he and Sam would get along fine. It sure beat her chattering nonsense.

And he didn’t care if Natalie’s blue eyes reminded him of the adrenaline rush he’d gotten—and missed—when successfully landing his jet on the rolling deck of a carrier. He would’ve sworn there was nothing in the world to compete with going from one hundred and fifty miles an hour to nothing in the two seconds it took for the arresting wires to do their job. But looking into those clear eyes… He shook his head to shake some sense into it. What was he doing thinking that way about this woman? Hadn’t he learned his lesson? First his mother, then Ashley. How long would it take for Natalie to see the flaws in him?

His mother still lived in Colorado, in the bungalow he’d grown up in. Although he dutifully called on a regular basis to see if she needed anything, the answer was always no. But he called anyway, just as he’d contacted the man who’d fathered him and been rebuffed. So he lived half a continent away and used his acres as a buffer between him and the rest of the world.

Disgusted with his unproductive thoughts, he got up and put another log into the woodstove in the corner of his work area. They’d had some unusually warm days at the end of November, a truly long autumn, but December had come, bringing much colder temperatures.

Back at his workbench, he held up the piece he’d cut this morning when he’d first come to his workroom. The curve of the glass still wasn’t to his exacting standards. He’d have to redo it. Again. Maybe he should abandon adding the loon—except he’d gotten the idea the day Natalie had barged into his barn.

I follow through on my promises. Natalie’s words, in that lilting, slightly husky voice, taunted him as he worked.

Yeah, right. Forty-eight hours and she hadn’t been back. He tossed the piece of incorrectly cut glass into the box that held rejects. Those could be recycled and used another time. The pile had grown since yesterday, but he could use them in a future glass sculpture. Yeah, that was putting a good spin on the situation. He barely knew this woman and her absence for two days didn’t give him the right to mope.

I’m a champion of lost causes. A regular St. Jude.

Maybe he was one lost cause too many. Maybe Natalie saw the same thing in him that his mother did so that no matter what he’d accomplished, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough because he wasn’t his half brother. Though he and Patrick shared the same mother, they had different fathers. He chose another piece of glass, determined to get this one right. His muse had returned and he wasn’t going to let a couple of mistakes stop him. He’d—

A car door slammed in the distance. He started to rise from the stool he’d been perched on but forced himself to sit back down. What is wrong with you, Gallagher? He ground his back teeth, but deep down he enjoyed sparring with Natalie, enjoyed being the kind of guy who could attract a wholesome single mother, even if that was temporarily. Even if it was because she wanted something from him.

“Hello? Lieutenant?”

His heart thudded at the sound of her voice and he scowled, angered by his reaction. Making a fool of himself was not on today’s agenda.

She appeared around the corner, her straight, blond hair billowing out behind her as if she were a model at a photo shoot. Once again she carried a tin in one hand and had a tight grip on Sam’s hand with the other. The boy’s bright blue eyes danced above ruddy cheeks as he held up a fistful of colorful candy canes and grinned. Des shifted in his seat and his throat clogged up with emotions at the sight of Natalie and her winsome son.

“Boy, it’s windy today. Don’t you think so?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer before rushing on. “Sorry we’re late but we stopped at the store and well, you know how Tavie is. Talked our ears off, didn’t she, Sam? Anyway, that’s why we’re so late today. Have you wondered where we were?”

Only for two freaking days. “No.”

She stepped farther into the barn. “Sam’s pediatric neurologist wanted a colleague to exam him, so we drove to Montpelier.”

“What’s there to do for two days in the state capital?” Damn. He hadn’t meant to ask that and he detested the thread of need evident in his voice. What was that about not making a fool of himself?

“You’d be surprised at how much there is to do.” She gave him a blinding smile. “Maybe you should check it out.”

“Humph.”

“Grumpy again today? Maybe these will help.” She set the tin on the bench. “I made you my special homemade minty shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate and topped with sprinkles. Sam put the Christmas sprinkles on them, didn’t you, Sam?”

The boy grinned and nodded his head and Des bit back the snark that threatened to roll off his tongue. It wasn’t Sam’s fault he was such a dumbass around the boy’s mother.

“Huh, maybe I should’ve asked if you liked mint before I inundated you with it, but I see you ate all the bark, so I guess that answers that.”

She opened the tin and the scents of peppermint and chocolate wafted out. The green cookies were partially coated with chocolate and red, white and green sprinkles on top of that. They looked delicious, but Des scowled at them, refusing to be coaxed out of his mood by her or her baked goods.

“Problem?” Her gaze flicked between him and the cookies.

He fisted his hands to keep from reaching out and caressing her cute little frown. Or better yet, running his tongue over those furrows in her forehead. He swallowed a groan. “If I keep eating what you bring, I’m going to end up as a carnival sideshow.”

She broke into a wide, candid smile, transforming her from attractive to unforgettable. “Didn’t you get the memo? Calories don’t count in December.”

He grumbled but grabbed a cookie and took a bite, closing his eyes as butter, mint and chocolate exploded in his mouth. These were the best yet. No doubt left, he was a goner.

Natalie gave him an expectant gaze. “What do you think?”

That I’ve died and gone to heaven. He shrugged. “They’re pretty good.”

“So…” She met his gaze. “Have you given any thought to making ornaments?”

“Yeah,” he said and winced at the hopeful expression on her face. “The answer’s still no, but—” he held up the half-eaten cookie “—I applaud your effort.”

“Ah, you have a sweet tooth.” She gave him a smile that had him wishing he was the kind of man she deserved. “Good to know.”

“You can bring a whole bakery and the answer would still be no,” he warned and grabbed another cookie. He did not need her getting under his skin any further. The fact that he’d been looking for her for the past two days rankled. And she never quite answered why she’d been gone that long. How many appointments did Sam have? Yo, Gallagher, none of your business. So why was he fixating on it? She didn’t owe him an explanation, just as he didn’t owe her one for refusing to make Christmas-themed glass art pieces.

“But don’t you enjoy the feeling you get from doing a good deed?”

Give the lady points for tenacity. He shook his head. “It might alter people’s expectations of me.”