both our names. The lawyer I used to work for helped me separate my finances from Jeff’s, but my credit’s shot, and the money’s gone forever.”
“But you must’ve been making decent money as an office manager. I don’t understand how things got so bad.”
“I was okay at first,” she confirmed quietly. “Then I found out I was pregnant, and the stress I was under gave me some pretty serious health problems. Because of that, I couldn’t work consistently, and even the temp agency stopped calling. The lease on the apartment was up, and there was no way I could make the payments, so I had to move out. When I left Cleveland, I had just enough in my wallet for the fare to Liberty Creek and a couple of sandwiches.”
Trusting the wrong guy had all but ruined her life, Brian mused sadly. And now, her flair for poor choices and running away when things got tough had left her well and truly alone. Part of him still had a soft spot for the troubled girl he remembered all too vividly and was inclined to help her.
The other part—the smarter one—recognized that once again she’d fled from her problems without much thought about what she’d do when she reached her new destination. That had always been her MO, and apparently her tendency to dodge the hard stuff hadn’t changed.
For all his wild ways, Brian knew he’d been blessed with a large, loving family that supported him no matter what he did. They’d even warmed up to his crazy idea of reopening the archaic blacksmith shop that had lain dormant for so long the equipment was caked with rust and bat droppings. Knowing that Lindsay was slogging through such a difficult time completely on her own made him sadder than anything ever had.
But he wasn’t about to trust his fledgling business to someone who’d shown such poor judgment and was a proven flight risk. He had a large payment due on his business loan in just nine weeks. If the forge didn’t start turning a profit soon, he’d have to stop his improvements halfway through and find another way to keep the place going. He knew that his family would contribute to the cause, but he didn’t want to do it that way. Quite honestly, he’d rather sell everything he owned to pay the bank rather than beg for cash from anyone.
Thoughts of being strapped for funds prompted a sobering thought. “When did you last see a doctor?”
“About a month ago, when I was six months along. I’m not due until mid-March, and he said everything was fine.”
But it wasn’t fine now, Brian thought grimly. Anyone could see that. She was pale, and now that they weren’t sparring with each other, he noticed the tired circles shadowing her eyes. Hopeful and hopeless at the same time, her cautious demeanor got to him in a way that he’d never experienced before. He barely resisted the urge to take her in his arms and reassure her, but he knew better than to let his guard down around her again.
Standing to put some distance between them, he picked up her coat and held it for her. “It’s not a good day for walking anywhere. I’ll give you a ride to that house you mentioned.”
The hopelessness he’d picked up on finally won out, and she frowned. “You’re not going to hire me, are you?”
He felt like a complete heel, but every alarm in his head was going off, and he couldn’t ignore his instincts. “I really think it’d be better if I find someone else.”
“Of course,” she replied as if that was the result she’d been expecting all along. “I understand.”
There was the professionalism she’d promised him, he mused as she slipped her well-worn coat back on. Calm and competent, it was the kind of temperament that he was looking for in the person he would be trusting to run his front office.
Crazy as it seemed, Lindsay would have been perfect for the job. The problem was, he just couldn’t convince himself to trust her.
Brian refused to let her carry her bag.
Lindsay couldn’t remember the last time someone had helped her with anything, so seeing him with her oversize duffel slung over his shoulder did something funky to her stomach. Or maybe she was just hungry, she thought wryly. The effects of that stale candy bar she’d bought in Cleveland had worn off long before she reached Liberty Creek.
The town she’d vowed to leave in her rearview mirror, she recalled as they got into his big black four-by-four and headed to the address her new landlord had given her. Well, there was no help for that now. It was the dead of winter, and since she had no car, she was stuck here until the baby was born. After that, she could make some plans to move away, for good this time. Until then, she’d just have to figure out a way to make do.
The house wasn’t far from the forge, in a nice, quiet neighborhood with a clear view of Liberty Creek’s iconic covered bridge. She knocked on the front door of a small Colonial that was typical of the homes in this town that had come into existence shortly after the American Revolution. Tucked in for the winter behind wrought iron fences that were almost invisible beneath the snow, many of the chimneys had smoke drifting lazily up from fireplaces that must keep things warm and cozy inside.
Family places, she thought with a pang of envy. Kitchens filled with home-baked cookies and pot roasts, the kinds of food that her own mother had never made because two waitressing jobs had left her with no energy by dinnertime. Lindsay remembered how her friends’ moms had been—warm and kind, taking care of their husbands and kids every single day. She’d never met her own father, who’d bolted long before she came into the world.
Like Jeff.
More than once, she’d wondered if she was cursed to continue her mother’s path of destruction in her own life. Pushing the gloomy thought aside, she plastered a smile on her face as footsteps sounded on the other side of the heavy door.
A petite woman slowly pulled it open and squinted out at Lindsay. “May I help you?”
“Hello, Mrs. Farrington. I’m Lindsay Holland,” she explained, offering her hand and her friendliest smile. “We talked last week about your spare room, and I sent you a money order for the deposit. When I asked about moving in on Monday, you said that would be fine.”
“And that’s today?” the woman asked, seeming confused. When Lindsay nodded, she shook her head with a slight grimace. “I lose track sometimes. Please come in.”
“Thank you.”
The elderly woman gave Brian a quick once-over that settled on his boots. Grinning, he set Lindsay’s bag down and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll stay on the mat.”
“I’d appreciate that. All this ice and snow makes a mess of the wood floors.”
“When I spoke to you on the phone, you said that you and your husband are from Georgia,” Lindsay commented. “How are you liking New Hampshire?”
“It’s cold and wet,” a man’s voice replied from an open archway that led into a living room that still sported its original wood paneling. He did the assessing thing, too, but while he instantly dismissed Brian, his gaze swept over Lindsay twice, and his jaw tightened. “May I take your coat, Miss Holland?”
The stiff tone seemed to contradict his polite request, and she couldn’t put her finger on what was going on as she slipped out of her coat. When she held it out for him to take, he pinned her with a scowl that was colder than the air outside.
“You’re pregnant.”
“Yes, I am.” Glancing at his wife, she got no help whatsoever, so she focused back on him. “Is that a problem?”
“You didn’t mention that when we spoke,” he reminded her in an accusing tone.
“I didn’t think to. Does it matter?”
“Will your husband be joining you?”
“I’m not married,” she answered, bewildered by the sudden hostility.