Silent Night, Star-Lit Night (Second Chance at Star Inn)(13)

It didn’t make any difference tonight. When Mia got to the ivory-canopied bed in her room, she slipped into a long T-shirt Angel had set on her bed and tucked herself under the most comfortable blanket and quilt combination she’d ever known . . .

And fell sound asleep.





Chapter Six

December 20, Star Inn, Heywood, Oregon

“Are you dressed warm enough?” Jed didn’t mean to repeat the question, but it seemed wrong to bring a pregnant woman into the howling wind and slanted, frigid snow.

“I could spend the winter on Kodiak Island and never get cold in this getup,” she assured him. “Angel is amazing. And if you make fun of how ridiculous I look, I’ll be mad for a very long time. Got it?”

“My mother would call the parka and fur-lined hat quite sensible. And you look warm enough, which is all I care about.”

“Warm ears, warm heart,” she quipped, just before she slipped on a patch of ice hidden beneath the shifting, piling snow.

“Gotcha.” He did, too. He’d clasped her arm, then both arms, steadying her. And when she was steady in his arms, he was unsteady for an entirely different reason.

Those eyes. Light blue in the middle, rimmed in a darker shade.

Thick, long lashes, covered with the tiniest snowflakes he’d ever seen.

Rosy cheeks.

Perfect lips. Lips that made him think of how nice it would be to walk with Mia O’Loughlin when it wasn’t the dead of winter. When the opportunity to pause and taste those sweet lips wouldn’t mean frostbite. “You okay?”

She held his gaze, too, and when she smiled up at him it was all he could do to not kiss her right there. “Mostly.”

She whispered the word, and he understood what she meant.

She felt it, too, the magnetism between them. The comfort and delight of being side by side.

They’d been friends for years. Decades, even.

But he didn’t feel like this when he ran into other old classmates. This was nicely different, except the last place Mia wanted to be was back in Roslyn. And Roslyn wasn’t only his home—it was his life. A family and a tradition and a chain of intertwined businesses, working together. His place was there, in the thick of it all.

He gripped her hand and led her to the street. The local plow had gone through to give shelter organizers a chance to maneuver, but even with hourly passes, thick drifts reformed at the wind’s insistence. They got to the church just as an older woman came through the right-hand door with a shovel.

“I’ve got this.” Jed took the shovel from her before she had a chance to protest, and nudged Mia toward the door. “Go in and do what you do best. I’ve got outside duty.”

“Thank you.” The older woman pulled the door open for Mia, then followed her inside. Jed set to work doing something he’d been doing all his life between the ranch and the business in town. Clearing sidewalks and drives had fallen under his job description at an early age. It was much easier to grab a known duty instead of an unknown entity inside.

He knew how to clear a path.

Caring for displaced people was Mia’s wheelhouse. He was beginning to realize that together they made a good pair.

Guilt hit him because Daniel had been gone eight short months and here he was, attracted to his friend’s widow.

But she’d been his friend, too. And Daniel was gone.

Still, hitting on a pregnant widow at Christmas had to be the lowest of the low unless there were firm intentions behind the attraction, and she’d made it plain.

She wouldn’t stay.

He couldn’t go.

And that about summed things up, so he shoveled until his nose froze and his fingers went numb.

Then he went inside, looking for a cup of nice, hot coffee.

*

Mia knew the drill. She’d been a responder during her college summer breaks and on vacation, as needed. She liked helping others, but mainly she liked to keep things running smoothly, easing the path for people in trouble.

When she spotted the overwhelmed elderly woman with two small children huddled close to her side, Mia’s heart went out to them. Was that how she’d looked with Grandpa Joe? Desperate for love and befuddled?

She crossed the brightly lit church playroom and pulled up a stool. She took a seat and smiled at the elderly woman. “I’m Mia. I’m a disaster responder from California and I just happened to be in town when the lights went out. Do you guys live nearby?”

The woman’s gaze flicked from her to Reggie and back, then went straight to Mia’s baby bump. “You’re expecting.”

“Soon.”

The old woman sighed and snugged the children closer. “I loved having my babies.”

“Did you?”

“Absolutely. And then they grew up, and their kids grew up, and here I am.” She lifted heavy-lidded eyes to Mia. “It’s not supposed to be like this, is it? And yet . . . here we are.”

Let them talk. Mia remembered the experienced responder she’d shadowed years ago: Sometimes they just need to tell their story. Food will come. Cots will come. The world won’t end. Just let them tell their story.

Reggie came into the room, carrying an old-fashioned clutch bag. “Jude, I’ve got your knitting.”

The elderly woman’s interest perked up slightly.

“Charlie Ames dashed up to your house because he knows how we ladies like to keep our hands busy.” She handed the bag to the woman. “Mia, you’ve met Jude, I see. And these are her great-grandchildren, Brad and Ivy.”