A Man Worth Loving

The echo of Dana’s whispered sentiment brought him crashing back to the present, and he found Aubrey staring at him, an uncertain expression on her face.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a strangled tone.

“I…took Ian for a walk and discovered the apple tree…and they were just dropping on the ground,” she said, faltering. “I didn’t think you would mind if I put them to good use.”

“Well, I do mind,” he said, shaking with pain. He had a vision of grabbing the ax and chopping the damn tree down so he never had to deal with this happening ever again. But then he noticed that she’d been very busy while he’d been at work. Not only had she baked a pie but she’d made applesauce for Ian and that’s what she’d been doing when he walked in, putting the sauce into small containers for later use. He choked down the angry words that bubbled to the surface as he remembered Dana talking about how she’d hoped to do that very thing for their child. She’d been so excited to be a mother, she wanted nothing but the best for the baby—and apparently the best had included homemade applesauce.

Aubrey stiffened and her mouth tightened as she offered a terse apology. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about letting the apples go to waste. I won’t do it again,” she said.

“Forget it,” he bit out, hating the gruff quality of his voice. “I…” He tried to apologize but he couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he just turned on his heel and headed to the shower. She was his employee. He didn’t owe her explanations.

TEARS STUNG AUBREY’S EYES but she managed to hold them back until Sammy stalked from the room. It was ridiculous, she thought, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand before returning to her task. Did he have to be such an ass? She twisted a lid onto the last container and stuck it in the freezer with the rest she’d made. She wiped down the counter and put everything in its place then prepared Ian for his bath.

She took great care to avoid looking in the direction of Sammy’s bedroom, but she couldn’t help wondering what had caused him to snap like that. She didn’t want to but she saw the pain in his eyes, and it softened her just a little toward him. Oh, stop that. He’s not a stray, injured dog you can nurse back to health. He’s a grown man acting like a spoiled, selfish child. Steer clear. Odd, how that scolding came straight at her in the voice of her mother. She rolled her eyes at herself and repressed a grateful shudder that the voice was only in her head and not being delivered in person.

After a quick bath and a bottle of milk, Aubrey put Ian to bed. As soon as Ian’s eyes drifted shut, she went to Sammy’s bedroom and gave the door a soft knock.

“Mr. Halvorsen…. I’m taking off. Ian—” She was startled when the door opened abruptly and Sammy stood there, his eyes red-rimmed and his expression stark. She straightened and continued. “As I was saying, Ian has had his bath and his dinner. He’s asleep in his bed. Is there anything else you need before I leave?”

He shook his head and she turned. His voice at her back made her stop.

“I’m sorry for…snapping at you,” he said quietly.

She nodded, but the motion was stiff. Still, since he was extending an olive branch of sorts, she’d do the same. “I apologize for not asking first. I realize it was presumptuous of me to assume you wouldn’t mind if I put the apples to use.”

“Does he like the applesauce you made for him?” he asked.

“He does. Very much.”

He ran his tongue across his lip and it was then Aubrey noticed the swelling along his jaw.

“What happened to you?” she asked, appalled at the injury and his apparent disregard for his own care. “Come here,” she instructed, forgetting for the moment that she thought he was the lowest of all men who hardly deserved more than a cursory glance much less her help. She led him to the kitchen where the light was better and then set about putting together an ice pack. “Was this a fight?”

“Something like that,” he answered with a shrug.

“Kiss the wrong girl? One with a husband perhaps?” she muttered and he chuckled darkly as he accepted the ice pack and set it against his jaw.

“Nothing like that. My brother wanted to teach me some manners.”

“Your own brother did this?” she repeated, horrified.

“Yeah.” He paused, then added, “I said something I shouldn’t have.”

“So you deserved it?”

He lifted the ice pack. “Josh wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t feel it was justified. Now, if it’d been Dean…he has more of a temper. And he’s been known to swing a few punches here and there. Just ask Aaron Eagle. He’s felt the sting of my brother’s fist. But he had it coming, too.”

“Who is Aaron Eagle?” she asked.

Sammy tried to grin but the effort cost him and he winced instead. He waved away her question. “Nobody. Just a guy my brother Dean doesn’t much care for. Dean clocked Aaron one day at a construction site. But trust me, the guy had it coming.”

“Sounds like your brothers are a couple of violent ruffians,” Aubrey observed, not quite sure what to think of this information. She only knew Dean by association through Annabelle and Mary and it was hard to reconcile this image of the eldest Halvorsen brother with what she was hearing.

“Are you still fighting with your brothers?” she asked cautiously. She didn’t mean to pry—it certainly fell under the category of none of her business—but she was curious.

“Probably,” came his bleak answer. He studied the ice pack in his hand, turning it slowly. He looked at her. “You got brothers or sisters?” he asked.

Startled by his question, she only stared for a moment. He mistook her hesitation and waved away her need to answer but for some reason she wanted to. “I have a twin sister,” she said.

He eyed her. “Someone who looks just like you or the other kind?”

“Someone who looks just like me,” she said, then added with a fierce glower, “but we’re nothing alike. She’s more like our mother. I take after my father.”

“Where are you from?”

How to answer…She supposed she was from Manhattan but really, her family had houses all over the place. They’d wintered in Manhattan, summered in the Hamptons, it was all so cliché. Her mother had made sure the Rose family was always in the right social circles, attended the right parties, dressed to impress. The whole shallow, superficial nonsense made Aubrey want to gag. Noting Sammy’s expectant expression, she made something up. “Vermont.”

Why she said Vermont she hadn’t a clue but for some reason she couldn’t just admit that she’d grown up a privileged nomad, living mostly in hotel penthouses and the occasional sumptuous cottage. Vermont sounded rustic and accessible. She tried to smile but gave up when it felt forced. Returning to what was safe, she gestured to the ice pack. “You need to keep that on or the swelling won’t go down. Tomorrow, your jaw will be sore,” she advised, grabbing her purse to leave. “Good night, Mr. Halvorsen.”

SAMMY WATCHED AS AUBREY LEFT, bothered by her stiff manner with him. She persisted in calling him Mr. Halvorsen, which made him feel like an old man, and she made sure there was an invisible line between them that she didn’t even come close to crossing. That’s a good thing, his inner voice reminded, but it still didn’t sit right with him. He was a lady killer of the first rate but this woman was immune to his charms. Well, to be fair, he hadn’t really turned up the wattage when it came to her. He wasn’t attracted to her sort, anyway. And what sort was she? the voice challenged. Not easy to reel in, he answered darkly. Pressing the ice pack to his face, he allowed a groan since he was alone. He suffered the pain while Aubrey was there but now…shit, that hurt. So Aubrey was a twin, he mused. Interesting. He couldn’t imagine two of her running around. She mentioned they were nothing alike. Did that mean her sister was prone to giggling, flashing bright pearly smiles and flirting? He tried to picture Aubrey being like that and it was too much for his meager imagination, not to mention the headache that had begun to pulse behind his eyeball. He sighed and tossed the ice pack in the sink to melt. It was probably a good thing Aubrey was a little on the uptight side. If pressed, he’d have to admit she wasn’t hard on the eyes. When she wasn’t scowling at him, that was.

CHAPTER FIVE

AUBREY GRIPPED THE PHONE a little tighter and pressed her lips together to keep the distressed sound in her brain from escaping through her mouth.

“Mother, you hate the country,” she reminded Barbie, silently wondering how on earth she’d been found. Then she remembered a short conversation with Arianna before she’d left, mentioning the small California town of Emmett’s Mill. “And you’d really hate it here. There is nothing but trees and country folk, two things that you find little to recommend. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be opening the Manhattan apartment for the season?” she asked, almost desperately.

“Aubrey, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were trying to keep me from visiting,” Barbie said with a sniff. “I am your mother. It’s my duty to see what you’re about, even if you’ve decided to exile yourself to the sticks of California.”

The way she said California made it sound as though she’d just compared it to Tijuana.

“I’m not exiling myself, Mother,” Aubrey said between gritted teeth. “I wanted a change in scenery and Emmett’s Mill seemed a nice getaway from the city.”

“Yes, but did you truly need to go so far? You could have easily taken in the country in the Hamptons, although this time of year it’s dreadful, as you know, but still it would’ve been preferable to this…what is the place called, Everest Hill?”

“Emmett’s Mill,” Aubrey corrected and mentally counted to ten.

“Whatever. What’s with the fascination with this town? I’d never even heard of it until Arianna mentioned that’s where you were. All this time when you said you wanted a change of scenery I thought you meant you wanted to go to Europe for a bit.”

Aubrey felt truly invaded with her mother poking and prodding at her personal reasons for moving and it chafed no end. She wasn’t about to tell her mother that she fell in love with Emmett’s Mill through the pages of a magazine. American Photographic had featured Emmett’s Mill in one of their annual Twenty Best Places To Live and Aubrey had worn the pages thin from the many times she’d gazed at the images, wishing she could just insert herself into those colorful, quaint photos. Everything in that pictorial had seemed so much better than the life she was living at the time. Of course, that was around the time that her relationship with Derek had started to unravel. Anything might’ve seemed like Eden as long as it was far from New York.

“It doesn’t matter what brought me here, Mother,” she said a bit sharply. “This is my home now and I love it.”

“No need to get snippy, Aubrey,” her mother admonished. “I was only curious. It just seems so random, that’s all.”

“Well, perhaps it was but now I’m quite happy.”

“Excellent. Then you’ll enjoy showing us the sights.”