Instead, he’d come home in a flag-draped box.
You look after her if anything happens to me.
And so Nate had.
She’d never been quite the same, some laughter gone from her forever, but the baby had helped. Still, they had had a good relationship, a strong partnership, loyalty to each other and commitment to family.
Her loss had plunged him into an abyss that he had been able to avoid when David had died. Now he walked with an ever present and terrifying awareness that all a man’s strength could not protect those he loved entirely. A man’s certainty in his ability to control his world was an illusion. A man could no more hold back tragedy than he could hold back waves crashing onto a shore.
Nate felt Cindy’s loss sharply. But at the same time he felt some loss of himself.
Still, thinking of her now, Nate was aware Cindy would never have flinched from such a mild curse as damn.
And he was almost guiltily aware Cindy’s scent per-meating the interior of a vehicle had never filled him with such an intense sense of longing. For things he couldn’t have.
Someone like Morgan McGuire could never fit into his world. His was a world without delicacy, since Cindy’s death it had become even more a man’s world.
“So, no more.”
What about Ace in this world that was so without soft edges?
Well, he told himself, it had changed from the world of his childhood. It wasn’t hardscrabble anymore. It wasn’t the grinding poverty he had grown up with. The merciless teasing from his childhood—about his worn shoes, faded shirts, near-empty lunchbox—sat with him still. And made him proud.
And mean if need be.
Not that there had been even a hint of anyone looking down their noses at him for a long, long time.
Partly in respect for his fists.
Mostly because within two years of Nate taking over the forge—pouring his blood and his grit and his pure will into it—it had turned around.
The success of the forge was beyond anything he could have imagined for himself. He did commissions. He had custom orders well into next year. He sold his stock items as fast as he could make them.
Nate’s success had paid off the mortgages on this property, financed his parents’ retirement to Florida, allowed him things that a few years ago he would have considered unattainable luxuries. He could have any one of those antique cars he liked when he decided which one he wanted. He even had a college fund for Ace.
Still, there was no room for a woman like Morgan McGuire in his world.
Because he had success. And stuff.
And those things could satisfy without threatening, without coming close to that place inside of him he did not want touched.
But she could touch it. Morgan McGuire could not only touch it, but fill it. Make him aware of empty spaces he had been just as happy not knowing about.
He was suddenly aware she was there, in the forge, as if thinking about her alone could conjure her.
How did he know it was her?
A scent on the air, a feeling on the back of his neck as the door had opened almost silently and then closed again?
No. She was the only one who had ever ignored that Go Away sign.
Now, based on the strength of their shared shopping trip—and probably on that kiss he so regretted—she came right up to the hearth, stood beside him, watching intently as he worked.
Her perfume filled his space, filled him with that same intense longing he had become aware of in the truck. What was it, exactly? A promise of softness? He steeled himself against it, squinted into the fire, used the bellows to raise the heat and the flames yet higher.
Only then did he steal a glance at her. Nate willed himself to tell her to go away, and was astonished that his legendary discipline failed him. Completely.
Morgan’s luscious auburn hair was scooped back in a ponytail that was falling out. The light from the flame made the strands of red shine with a life of their own.
The schoolteacher had on no makeup, but even without it her eyes shimmered a shade of green so pure that it put emeralds to shame. She did have something on her lips that gave them the most enticing little shine. She watched what he was doing without interrupting, and somehow his space did not feel compromised at all by her being here.
“Hi,” he heard himself saying. Not exactly friendly, but not go away, either.
“Hi. What are you making?”
“It’s part of a wrought iron gate for the entrance of a historic estate in Savannah, Georgia. A commission.”
“It’s fantastic.” She had moved over to parts he had laid out on his worktable, piecing it together like a puzzle before assembling it.
He glanced at her again, saw she must have walked here. She was bundled up against the cold in a pink jacket and mittens that one of her students could have worn. Her cheeks glowed from being outside.
Nate saw how deeply she meant it about his work. His work had been praised by both artists and smithies around the world.
It grated that her praise meant so much. No wonder she had all those first graders eating out of the palm of her hand.
“I just wanted to drop by and let you know what a good week it’s been for Cecilia.”
“Because of the clothes?” he asked, and then snorted with disdain. “We live in a superficial world when six-year-olds are being judged by their fashion statements, Miss Morgan.”
He was aware, since he hadn’t just told her out and out to go away, of wanting to bicker with her, to get her out that door one way or another.
Because despite his legendary discipline, being around her made that yearning nip at him, like a small aggravating dog that wouldn’t be quiet.
But she didn’t look any more perturbed by his deliberate cynicism than she had when she told him not to cuss. “It’s not just because of the clothes, but because she feels different. Like she fits in. It’s given her confidence.”
“I have confidence. I never had nice clothes growing up.”
Now why had he gone and said that? He glanced at her. Her eyes were on him, soft, inviting him to say more.
Which he wasn’t going to!
“Thanks for dropping by. And the Ace update. You could have sent a note.”
She still looked unoffended. In fact, she smiled. He wished she wouldn’t do that. Smile.
It made him want to lay every hurt he had ever felt at her feet.
“We both know you don’t read my notes.”
If he promised he would read them from now on would she go away? He doubted it.
“I actually needed to see you. I need you to sign this permission slip for Cecilia to participate in The Christmas Angel. Rehearsals will be starting next week.”
“I’m sick of hearing about The Christmas Angel,” he said gruffly. “The whole town has gone nuts. I don’t like Christmas. I don’t like Wesley Wellhaven. And I really don’t like The Christmas Angel.”
She was silent for a moment. A sane person would have backed out the door and away from his show of ire. She didn’t.
“Perhaps you should post a Grinch Lives Here sign above your Go Away sign.”
“My wife was in an accident on Christmas Eve. She died on Christmas Day. It will be two years this year. Somehow that takes the ho-ho-ho