The Road Not Taken

“Yeah, well, I do. It will take twice as long. At least.” This time he tempered his tone. “Don’t worry about Bess here. She’s a gentle giant.”

The woman pointed back toward her car. “What about my bag?”

It was all he could do not to roll his eyes. “How big is it?”

“I don’t need the luggage that’s in the backseat if that’s what has you worried. But I’d appreciate the toiletries bag that’s on the floor on the front passenger side.”

He glanced through the window and grimaced. It was small enough to fit the definition of a carry-on at the airport, but since this short trip was going to be precarious enough without adding baggage, he said, “I’ll have to come back for it.”

He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. Instead, she trudged through the snow to the horse. Over the howl of the wind, Jake thought he heard her chant, “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”

He helped her into the saddle before swinging up behind her. Bess shifted, unaccustomed to accommodating one rider on her back, much less two. He knew how she felt. He wasn’t accustomed to riding alone, much less with a beautiful stranger all but seated on his lap.

“Steady now, girl. It’s all right,” he said, reaching around the woman to give the mare’s thick neck a reassuring pat. “Just give us a chance to get settled.”

The woman turned toward him. “I just realized that I know your horse’s name, but not yours.”

“It’s Jake. Jake McCabe.” He braced for her reaction. For a while his name had been synonymous with Satan, at least back in his hometown of Buffalo. But her expression never changed.

“I’m Caroline … Franklin.” Her tone sounded oddly defiant when she added, “My friends call me Caro.”

“Well, Caro, are you ready?”

She nodded and they set off.

It took longer than he’d expected to get to the inn and not only because he went a little slower than he would have if he’d been in the saddle alone. The conditions definitely had worsened. The wind had nearly erased the horse’s earlier tracks.

He let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the inn, dilapidated as it had become. The place had a soothing effect on him, nestled as it was in a stand of towering trees and out of view of the main road. The wide porch was covered with several inches of snow, even though he’d shoveled it off not long before leaving. In the summer, he envisioned it dotted with the rocking chairs he’d been making in his workshop.

He’d always enjoyed woodworking, and he was pretty good at it thanks to his father’s patient tutelage while he was growing up. Where some cops turned to alcohol to unwind after a bad day, Jake had turned to his band saw, sander and other tools of the trade.

He credited them with saving his sanity last year while he’d awaited the outcome of the internal affairs investigation that had followed the fatal shootings of a woman and her child. They’d been killed during a raid on a house where a major drug dealer was believed to be hiding. Jake hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he’d been the one in command.

His team had gone to the wrong address.

Before the investigation was complete he’d crafted two chairs. He’d taken more care with his design and workmanship than ever before, determined not to overlook any detail. He didn’t need the department’s shrink to tell him it was about regaining control. In the end, he was satisfied with the chairs, but left reeling by the department’s findings.

They claimed he’d been given the correct address, but had misread it. No way, was his first reaction. He’d done no such thing. But certain paperwork went missing and, haunted as he was by the tragic deaths, he could no longer be sure. After the inquiry, an official reprimand went into his permanent file, but he was allowed back to work. No other action was to be taken, but then things took an even uglier turn.

The rookie cop who’d fired the shots committed suicide, unable to handle having the blood of two innocent people on his hands. In the court of public opinion, Jake was responsible for that, as well.

In Buffalo, where he’d worked as a police officer for nearly a dozen years after graduating from college with a degree in criminal justice, he’d become a pariah. Oh, some folks rallied around him, both in public and on the force. And the union had vowed to fight the investigation’s outcome. But when the captain came to Jake and quietly offered a severance package, he’d accepted it. In truth, he’d already planned to walk away.

He hadn’t seen the point in fighting. A woman was dead. Her baby killed along with her. A rookie dead. Even if Jake hadn’t screwed up the address, it had happened on his watch. And then there was Miranda …

So he’d packed up and gone, not only from the force but also from Buffalo.

Six months ago, he’d stumbled across the inn. His family had gone there a lot when he was a boy, both in summer and winter. It was located in the shadow of Camel’s Hump in Vermont’s Green Mountains. He’d loved the place back then and he’d been hoping it would hold the same magic for him as an adult. But it wasn’t open for business, and a for-sale sign had been stuck out front. One look at the inn’s sorry state and Jake’s heart had sunk, but that hadn’t stopped him from buying it.

The local people were the same as he remembered them being: polite, if a little standoffish to outsiders. That was fine by him. He wasn’t there to make friends. He just wanted peace. He wasn’t, as his brother claimed, running away from his problems and hiding out.

“Is this … is this it?”

It took Jake a moment to realize that the horse had bypassed the inn and stopped at the door to the small outbuilding that housed her stall.

“I guess Bess is ready to get out of the storm, too.”

“She lives here?” Caro turned in the saddle then so she could see his face. “You live here?”

“I do. I own it.”

Her brows shot up, and no wonder. Not only was he not the friendly owner one would expect of such a small establishment, he knew the place didn’t look habitable with its peeling paint, loose boards and overgrown shrubbery.

“It’s not open for business right now. But it’s warm and dry. I’ll see that you’re settled inside before I go back for your bag.” He spoke to the horse then. “Sorry, girl, but your day’s not through.”

It was snowing harder now. The flakes so big it was as if the heavens were engaged in a snowball fight. He hopped out of the saddle and reached for Caro. Even through the bulk of her clothing, he could tell her waist was small and she barely weighed what a child would. She was probably on some silly diet, eating only fruit or drinking special shakes. Women, he thought on a sigh. He’d never figure them out, not that he’d had much practice trying lately.

When they reached the relative safety of the back porch, Caro smiled at him. Surely his dry spell was what accounted for the kick of interest he experienced. Her expression wasn’t born of anything more than politeness, yet he found it sexy and a little too inviting.

It didn’t hurt that she was saying, “Don’t go.”

“Don’t go?” he repeated absently as he took in her flushed cheeks.

“Nothing in that bag is important. The weather …” She swept a hand through the air. “You’ve done enough already. I’d feel horrible if something happened to you on my account.”

Jake blinked at her. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have someone—a woman—worry about him.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and bits of melting snow shook loose from her damp hair. He reached out to free some more and she shivered. Her gaze slid to the side, giving him the impression her reaction wasn’t completely due to the cold. Interest, as unwelcome as the late-winter storm, stirred a second time. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, but he recalled perfectly what he was missing.

The door swung open behind them before he could do anything he’d have to apologize for. He was grateful until he realized it was his mother standing there. Her hands were planted on her hips and the look on her face would have left a drill sergeant shaking in his boots.

“Jacob Robert McCabe, don’t you ev—” Doreen McCabe halted her diatribe midword as soon as she spied Caroline. Blinking in surprise, she switched gears and tones. “Oh, hello. I’m Doreen. Jake’s mother.”

“This is Caroline Franklin,” he said.

“Caro.”

“Right. Caro.”

Doreen nodded, splitting her gaze between the pair of them. “I didn’t realize Jake was expecting company.”

“I wasn’t,” he said at the same time Caro replied, “I’m not.”

“Company, that is.” Her laughter was tight.

If his mother found the situation confusing, she didn’t let it show. Using the same tone that had kept him toeing the line for the first eighteen years of his life, she shouted, “Good heavens, son! Have you no manners at all? Bring that poor girl inside before she catches her death of cold. She needs to get out of those wet clothes.”