Somebody's Hero

His gaze dropped to her hand—she felt it as much as saw it—but he made no effort to shake it. Instead he looked at her again. “You’re not planning to live here, are you?”

She felt foolish standing there with her hand out. She tugged the glove on again, slid her hands into her coat pockets, then pulled them out and folded her arms across her chest. “Yes. Probably. That was the plan, at least.” And still was, she told herself. She needed a change of scene. Lucy would be better off growing up in Smalltown, Tennessee, than in Chicago. And Jayne’s writing career, barely alive the past few years, desperately needed the boost that time, inspiration and isolation could give it.

“Yes. We’re going to live here.”

“We?”

“My daughter and me—I—we. Lucy and me.” She dragged in a cold, musty breath. “I didn’t get your name.”

He scowled harder and said, “Lewis.”

“Lewis,” she repeated. He didn’t look like a Lewis. Naming characters was important in her work; sometimes it took longer to find just the right name for a character than it had to name Lucy. A Lewis should be older, heavier, less brooding. This Lewis was tall, lean though broad-shouldered, scowling and somewhat handsome. Not knock-your-socks-off gorgeous but attractive in a dark, brooding sort of way.

Dark and brooding always appealed to a romance author.

But at the moment she was in mother/woman mode, not romance author. “Well, Lewis, it’s nice meeting you, but I’ve got to see if Gran left any firewood around here or head back into town and get a motel room for the night. I, uh, forgot to make arrangements to have the power turned on.”

Though she took a step forward, he didn’t move. “The nearest motel is thirty miles back north, not that it matters. You’re not getting off the mountain today. The road’s impassable. My truck’s stuck at the bottom of the last hill.”

That explained the snow that coated his shoulders. She glanced past him and saw that her SUV was shrouded in the stuff. “Well, then, that makes the firewood more important. If you’ll excuse me…”

Still he didn’t move. “Wouldn’t matter if you had called ahead. The power’s off. And there’s not any firewood here. I’ll bring some over.”

Jayne swallowed hard. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, I appreciate the offer, but if you’ll just tell me where it is, I can bring it over myself. You probably want to get out of the cold.” Probably almost as much as she wanted out of it. Lord, this had been a stupid move on her part—Greg-stupid, which was about as irresponsible as it got. But it had been seventy degrees that morning. How could she possibly have known they’d be in a snowstorm by midafternoon?

Lewis looked as if he wanted to take her up on her offer, but his mouth tightened and instead he said, “Go ahead and get what you need out of the truck. You did bring food and blankets, didn’t you?”

I’m not stupid, she wanted to say, but hadn’t she just admitted that sometimes she was? “Yes.” She’d stocked up when they’d stopped for lunch—chips, peanut butter and crackers, cookies, canned soup, bottled water and chocolate. She and Lucy could live for days on that.

Finally he moved out of the doorway, but instead of leaving, he came inside. He took something from the table pushed against one wall, then went to the fireplace and removed the globe from the lamp there. There was a strike, a flare of sulfur, then the odor of burning oil as the flame caught the lamp wick. A moment later the second lamp was also burning. “You might clean those globes before you put them back on,” he said shortly, then left before he could hear her faint “I will.”

Jayne went to the door to watch him. He moved with long strides, paying no attention to the snow that crept halfway up his calves. She hadn’t really given any thought to neighbors when she’d decided to move here; she’d just assumed there would be more than enough. After all, in Chicago, neighbors were in plentiful supply. Lewis had the potential to be a good one—not too friendly, so he wouldn’t interrupt her work the way Greg had, but willing to help when needed. She and Lucy wouldn’t be alone up here on the mountain, but they could feel as if they were. That was a big plus.

Then she turned back and looked at the drab, dusty room that was even more depressing with the lamplight shining on its shortcomings and sighed. She really needed a big plus right about now.

The last thing Tyler Lewis wanted in his life was a neighbor—no, make that a neighbor with a kid, he grumbled as he stacked a load of logs into a canvas carrier. When he’d built his house, he’d bought the most remote piece of land he could find around Sweetwater. Granted, he’d had old Edna just down the road for three years, but she’d pretty much kept to herself, and he’d done the same. He’d chopped wood for her, picked up her stuff at the grocery store when he did his own shopping and made a few repairs around her place when she needed them, but that hadn’t made them friends. He hadn’t been looking for any intrusions into his life, and neither had she.

Maybe her ex-granddaughter-in-law had that in common with her. A man could hope.

Jayne Miller. A plain name for a far-from-plain woman. Tall, with long legs, long brown hair and a husky voice… If he was a weaker man, he might be in trouble. But he’d had a lifetime of experience at keeping people at a distance. He excelled at it.

Not that he didn’t have his weaknesses. He hated every one of them.

Grimacing, he finished filling a second canvas bag, then picked up one in each hand and trudged around his house and across the snow to Edna’s house. She came out as he dumped his load on the porch. He didn’t speak when he passed her on his way back, and neither did she as she heaved a carton from the cargo area of the truck.

By the time he’d delivered and stacked a good supply of wood, she was finished with her unloading. He took the last load inside, got the fire going, then piled the rest of the logs nearby. When he turned, she was watching him. Her smile was tentative as she huddled in her coat for warmth. He could relate. He’d lost contact with his feet a long time ago.

“Thank you.”

He shrugged it off, then glanced at the little girl asleep on the sofa, bundled in so many blankets that only part of her face was visible—pale skin, pale brown hair. His sister teased that he wasn’t a kid-friendly person, and he didn’t argue the point. He didn’t think he’d ever been a kid himself, and helping raise his brothers and sister had been enough exposure to small people to last a lifetime.

Still, he nodded toward her. “What’s her name?”

“Lucy. She’s five.”

There were worse names for a five-year-old—Edna. Bess. Tiffany. If he had a preference, it would be for nice, common names like Sarah, Beth or Kate.

Or Jayne.

Still hugging herself, she eased a few steps closer to the fireplace. He thought he should say something before leaving but didn’t have a clue what. He settled for gesturing toward the fire. “Try not to let it go out.” The moment he heard the words, he grimaced. His sister would unload on him if he said something so patronizing to her.

But Jayne just smiled tightly. “I won’t. Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it.”

He nodded, walked outside and pulled the door shut behind him. Stopping on the porch, he tugged on his gloves, adjusted the collar of his coat, then stepped out into the snow. Inside he would have said the house was no warmer than outside, but even those few moments of heat had made a difference that he could feel to his bones.

His own house, though, really was as cold as outside, and much darker. The dogs met him at the door, sparing a few seconds for a sniff and a lick, then darting outside before he could close the door. Out of habit, he flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. He found the matches in the gloom, lit the oil lamps that sat on tables around the room, then crouched in front of the woodstove. It didn’t take long to get a fire burning, though it would be a while before the room warmed to the comfort zone. He removed his coat and hat anyway, hanging them near the door, where the snowmelt could drip on the tile, then kicked off his boots. After fixing a cup of instant cocoa with hot water from the tap, he wrapped up in a quilt and settled on the sofa.

The ring of the phone seemed out of place in the still, dark room. It seemed only fair that if he lost power and heat, the phone should go out, too, but he knew better than most that life wasn’t fair.

“Enjoy your walk home?” his sister, Rebecca, asked in place of a greeting.

“You bet. Sliding uphill in the middle of a snowstorm has always been my idea of a fun time,” he retorted, then asked, “How’d you know I wound up walking?”

“Because you always think you’ll get home before the road gets too bad and you always wind up walking.” Her tone turned sly. “Anything new to report?”

“Like what?” he asked, though he knew exactly what she meant. Sweetwater, with a population not worth counting, had the most effective gossip network around. Jayne Miller had probably stopped in town for supplies or directions, which meant that everyone within a ten-mile radius knew Edna’s long-absent heir had put in an appearance before she’d even reached Sassie Whitlaw’s four-foot-tall metal chicken. Everyone but him.

“Come on. Jayne Miller. From Chicago. Writer of some sort. Has a five-year-old daughter named Lucy. Divorced from Edna’s grandson and got the house in the divorce. What do you think of her?”

“What makes you think I met her?”

She made a pffft sound. “Tell me you didn’t haul firewood for her.”

Tyler shifted uncomfortably. Rebecca knew him too well—all his secrets, all his shortcomings. “Just enough for a couple days.”

“So? Tell me about her.”

“Hell, you already know more than I do.” She hadn’t said anything to him about being a writer, though she had spilled out everything about how she’d come to own her ex’s grandmother’s house. Being a city girl, she probably wouldn’t have much appreciation for country living. Maybe he could persuade her to do what Edna had always refused—sell the property to him. He’d bought the rest of Edna’s land before she’d died. If he could have that small section, his privacy would be complete.

The slyness returned to Rebecca’s voice. “Is she pretty?”

“I didn’t notice.” Just as he tried to not notice the heat in his cheeks that always appeared when he lied. It was better than any lie detector, his mother used to tease.

When she’d recovered enough to learn how to tease again.

There was a moment of silence, then Rebecca heaved a sigh. “You know, what happened with Angela was an aberration. It doesn’t mean you’re like…” The silence that followed was heavy. Final.

When had they agreed that they would never mention their father again? They hadn’t actually discussed it or anything. One day not long after his death they had just stopped talking about him, and the younger kids had followed their lead. Delbert Lewis had stopped existing for them.