Yuletide Hearts

Gus’s wisdom reminded Matt that he wasn’t in this alone, that despite Gus’s death while Matt served in the desert sands of Iraq, he’d never be alone again, not in spirit anyway.

“You bought this house?”

The reality of the recent transaction tightened his neck, his look. “I bought the subdivision.”

“All of it?” The kid’s air reflected his mother’s again, a shadowed starkness making Matt feel like a crusty headmaster, cold, cruel and crotchety.

The cold part was accurate, his wet clothes and the brisk wind a chilling reminder of what was to come. He met the kid’s eyes and nodded. “All of it. Yes.”

“But, Mom—”

“Stop, Jake. It’s all right.”

“But—”

“I said stop.”

The kid’s baffled look made Matt feel like scum, but why? Why should it matter if…

“You bought Cobbled Creek?”

A new voice entered the fray.

Matt swung around.

Three older men stood at the back door opening, backs straight, heads up, their posture definitely not at ease.

Military men, despite the paunch of one and the silver hair of another.

The man in the middle stepped forward, drew a breath and extended a hand. “I’m Hank Marek.”

The name sent a warning bell of empathy. Hank Marek of Marek Home Builders, the now-defunct contractor that started this project over two years ago.

Matt wasn’t a sympathetic person by nature. He’d hard-scrabbled his way up the ladder of success despite illegitimate beginnings followed by a fairly miserable upbringing, but coming face to face with the man who lost his dream so that Matt could have his, well…

He hauled in a breath and accepted Hank’s hand. “Matt Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Construction.”

The older man’s face revealed nothing of what he must be feeling inside, the loss of his work, his livelihood, his well-designed subdivision the victim of overextended loans and the burst of the housing bubble.

The other men stepped forward, concerned.

Hank moved back, nodded and directed a look beyond Matt to the woman and boy. “There’s stew just about ready and the temperature’s supposed to dip lower tonight before coming back up tomorrow. Jake, can you help me fire up the wood stove?”

The boy scowled Matt’s way, scuffed a toe, huffed a sigh, then trudged past Matt, the dog trailing behind, their mutual postures voicing silent displeasure.

“Callie? I’ll see you at home?”

“I’m on my way, Dad.” She pivoted, her mud-slicked heel tipping the move.

Matt started to lean forward to stop her fall, but she managed to right herself despite the wet floor and the mud. High, flat, wedged heels marked her departure with a tap, tap, tap as she hung a right turn at the door. She strode up the drive to her car, the soaking rain deepening the pathos of an already melodramatic situation.

Matt watched her go, then headed to the back door opening. The older men and the boy trudged in measured steps across the banked field, faded flag stakes symbolizing the wear and tear of waiting through too many seasons of sun, wind, snow and rain.

Matt watched their progress, his brain working overtime, the reality hitting him.

Hank Marek lived alongside the subdivision he had tried to create in the beautiful hillside setting, the curving road nestling the homes in the ascending crook of the Allegheny foothills.

It was that eye for setting that drew Matt to the initial showing, then the ensuing auction, his appreciation for the timeless, reasonably priced and aesthetically pleasing housing, a plan that not only fit the terrain but added to it, a rarity.

But he had no idea Hank lived in the quaint, small farmhouse on the main road, just steps away from the sign labeling Cobbled Creek a community of fine, affordable homes.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered a prayer that combined a plea for understanding and a silent lament that he might be following the foolish imprint of the older man’s footsteps, and headed to his truck, the cold, soaking rain a reminder that winter loomed, and he had an amazing amount of work to do in a very limited time frame.

Which was probably something he should have thought a little more about before papers were signed and money exchanged, but the delayed closing was the bank’s fault, not his. Matt understood the time constraints he faced, but God had guided him this far. Someway, somehow, they’d get these sweet homes battened down for the winter.

As he crested the rise to his truck, the woman’s car backed toward the roadway, a wise decision on her part. Mud-slicked shoulders weren’t to be trusted in these conditions, and when she curved the car expertly onto the road, then proceeded to the farmhouse beyond, he recognized the meaning behind Hank Marek’s words.

The woman and the kid probably hated him for who he was and what he’d done. On top of that, they appeared to live across the street from where he would take over Hank’s dream because he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

The hinted headache surged into full-blown reality, a niggling condition spawned from a really nasty concussion while fighting in Iraq, a grenade explosion too close for comfort. But if occasional bad headaches were his worst complaint after a double tour in the desert, he really had no complaints at all.

Dad’s dream is gone.

Callie steered the car into the drive, angled it between the catalpa tree and Tom Baldwin’s classic Chevy, then headed inside, determined to put on a happy face despite what just happened. The smell of Dad’s stew reminded her of how often her father had been there for her, supportive, honest, caring and nonjudgmental.

Returning that respect was imperative now.

The men trooped in, their footsteps heavy on the back porch. Callie pulled out a loaf of fresh-baked Vienna bread crusted with sesame seeds, placed it on the table and settled a plate of soft butter next to the bread, her mama’s custom because cold butter seemed downright unfriendly.

Right now a part of Callie felt unfriendly, but not to Dad and the guys. Or Jake, her beautiful son, her one gift from a sorry attempt at marriage to a fellow soldier.

Hank dropped a hand to her shoulder. She looked up, sheepish, knowing he’d see through her thin attempt at normalcy. “It’s okay, Cal. He’s young. Looks competent. And he must have the numbers behind him because the bank signed off. Those homes need someone now, not next spring when things might look better for us.”

He was right, she knew that; she’d been handling his books for three years, and truth be told she did as well with a nail gun as she had with an M-16 and a computer spreadsheet, but—

“The important thing now is to save the houses. I’m hoping Matt Cavanaugh and his crew can do that.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Hank had personally planned that subdivision to honor her mother, the name reminiscent of her mother’s childhood home along the shores of Lake Ontario, the quaint family cobblestone a salute to artisans of old. Hank had been determined to carry that classic neighborhood warmth throughout Cobbled Creek, his plans lying open on a slant board he’d erected at the back of the family room. He didn’t glance their way now, and neither did she, the thoughts of all that time, effort and money gone in the blink of an eye, a slash of a pen.

Hank lifted the stew pot onto the center of the table. Tom and Buck grabbed bowls, napkins and utensils, the old-timers a steady presence at the Marek homestead. Jake put The General on the back porch and shut the door. He ignored the dog’s imploring whine and triple tail thump, a sure sign The General would rather be curled up on the braid rug alongside the coming fire, but the smell of wet dog didn’t rank high on Callie’s list.

An engine noise drew her attention to the north-facing kitchen window.

Matt Cavanaugh’s black truck sat poised at the end of Cobbled Creek Lane. Sheeting rain obscured her vision, but something about the truck’s stance, strong yet careful, imposing yet restrained, reminded her of the man within, his shoulders-back, jaw-tight stance just rugged enough to say he got things done. His dark brown eyes beneath short, black hair hinted Asian or Latino, maybe both, his look a mix that defied the Celtic last name. She’d faced him almost eye-to-eye in three-inch heels which put him around five-eleven, not crazy tall, but with shoulders broad enough to handle whatever came his way.

She refused to cry, despite the disappointment welling inside. Stoic to the end, she’d been practicing that routine for years now.