A Man Worth Keeping

“You investigating me?” Max asked, kicking snow off his boots, where it had gathered.

“No. That’s what I’m saying. I could look you up. Ask around. It wouldn’t take much to figure out where you’ve been.”

“So? Why don’t you?” Max squinted up into the sky. Here he was outside, no ceiling, no walls. Nothing but trees and clean air and snow. Still, he felt his failure like a weight on his chest. He hauled in a deep breath. Another.

“I keep hoping someday you’ll tell me.” Joe’s voice dropped an octave and was coated in uncomfortable pity.

Max didn’t say anything.

“Were you FBI? Undercover? Vice?” Joe asked.

“I was just a cop. That’s all.”

“I get that it was bad, but—”

“Nothing worse than usual.” Max faced Joe and got to the heart of the matter. “Why are you asking?”

“Ted Harris is retiring.”

Max smiled. “You’re here to celebrate? That idiot’s been a thorn in your side for—” Something in Joe’s face, a stubborn mix of hope and concern, made Max stop and shake his head. “I don’t want the job, Joe.”

“Juvenile Parole Officer. You’d be perfect.” Joe put his hand on Max’s shoulder and Max struggled not to shake it off. Joe continued, “We’ve got a juvenile crime problem in this county and Ted didn’t do jack—”

“I don’t want the job, Joe.”

“But between the program you ran here and the help you gave me with the break-ins over at the community center, you’re perfect. And from what I can gather, you’re qualified.”

Max nearly laughed. He was qualified. More than qualified. But he was utterly unwilling.

“I don’t want the job.”

“You like this?” Joe asked, flinging an arm out at the half-built building and the barely visible lodge through the trees. “This is satisfying?”

Max blinked. Satisfying. He didn’t think in those terms anymore. This, what he did here with his dad and brother, it was easy. If something went wrong, everyone still woke up in the morning.

Those were the terms he lived by these days.

“Sorry, Joe.”

Joe stared at him for a long time and Max avoided his gaze. The guy was too wily and he didn’t want or need the man as a surrogate father—he had a great one kicking around. And he didn’t need a counselor, or a friend from the force. He needed to be forgotten, left alone.

“I just thought you might be interested. It’s a chance to do some real good,” Joe said, the disappointment like a neon sign in his voice.

Max couldn’t stop the harrumph of exasperated, black humor. He’d been told that once before, three years ago. And maybe he’d done some good—he just didn’t care anymore.

“Son—” The pity was back in Joe’s voice.

“Gotta frame that roof, Joe. So?” Max faced the old sheriff, kept his eyes empty, his heart bleak. “Unless there’s something else you need.”

Joe tried to wait him out, no doubt looking for a crack he’d never find.

“Stubborn cuss,” Joe grunted.

“I could say the same.”

Joe brushed his hands together like he was cleaning Max off of him. A good decision, all in all. “I’ll see you around.” Joe tipped his head and turned, heading back up the trail toward civilization.

Max wondered if he’d burned a bridge there. He liked Joe. Liked helping him in the small ways he was willing to take on.

Max opened his mouth to call him back, to apologize or explain why he couldn’t take the job. But just the thought of saying the words shut his mouth for him.

He watched Joe walk away until he was replaced by snow, by gray sky, by the isolation Max cultivated like a garden.

Chapter Two

“HI,” DELIA SAID to Gabe Mitchell as she entered the dining room from the kitchen, her daughter in tow. “Sorry about the interruption.”

“No apologies necessary,” Gabe said with a smooth smile. The man had a dangerous charm and was painfully easy on the eyes—a potentially lethal combo and one that in the past would have had her panting at his feet.

Thank God she’d grown up some in the past few years.

From what she could tell, the two brothers could not be more different. Max had been kind enough but she’d bet her car he didn’t know how to roll out the red carpet like Gabe. Stupidly, she found herself liking Max’s quiet intensity better. But she’d married her husband thinking the same thing and look where that had gotten her.

Delia would make a point to stay away from Max if she landed this job.

“I would have done the same thing if my daughter had run off.” Gabe smiled at Josie, who had the good sense to look chagrined.

“Did you see anything interesting?” he asked Josie.

“Max.”

Gabe nodded. “Well, he’s interesting all right. Did he scare you?”

Yes, Delia thought. He scares me.

“No,” Josie said. “He was nice.”

“Nice?” Gabe pretended to be doubtful. “We’re talking about the same guy? Big and tall with black hair and—?”

“That’s him.” Josie was smiling.

Gabe leaned forward and whispered, “Did he show you his scar?”

Josie’s eyes went wide and she shook her head.

Gabe lifted his chin and drew a line across part of his throat. “Pirates got him.”

Immediately Josie looked dubious and Delia stifled her own smile. Gabe had just insulted Josie’s tenuous status as a big kid.

“There are no such things as pirates.” She looked scornful. “You’re fooling around.”

Gabe sighed and straightened. “You’re too smart, Josie Johnson. Too smart for me. I think we’ve got some coloring books around here somewhere. My wife’s idea.” Gabe’s eyes twinkled.

Ah, yes. The wife.

Smooth smiles or not, there was no way any woman could combat the love Gabe clearly had for his wife, Alice.

Delia hadn’t met Alice yet, but Gabe’s feelings for her practically filled the room.

Gabe turned to the cabinets near the bar to look for the coloring books and Josie rolled her eyes at Delia.

Josie thought she was too old for such things and maybe she was, but Delia lifted her eyebrow anyway. The kid would sit and play with rocks or stare quietly into space or whatever it took for Delia to finish this interview.

They needed this job. They needed it bad. They had no cash and nowhere to go.

Gabe turned around armed with puzzles, books, coloring books and big boxes of crayons and colored pencils.

“After a few dinner-hour disasters, Alice bought this stuff for the guests with kids,” he said, handing everything over to Josie, who perked up at the sight of the puzzles.

The girl was a sudoku fanatic.

Josie settled herself at one of the tables and Delia gripped her hands together behind her back, in an attempt to stem the anxiousness whirling through her stomach.

“Where were we?” she asked, while Gabe watched Josie.

“Sorry.” Gabe shook his head and laughed. “My wife and I are expecting and I just…It’s nuts to think I’m going to have an eight-year-old kid at some point.”

He’d told her about the baby maybe a million times when they should have been talking about the inn’s new spa services. But Delia smiled. “It goes by fast, that’s for sure.” She paused for a moment and channeled some of her mother’s graceful social niceties. “You were talking about the new addition to the lodge—”

“Right, right. Sorry.” Again the lethal smile and she hoped this Alice woman knew how lucky she was. “Follow me.” He led her to a door in the back corner of the dining room, next to the elegant desk, where guests checked in. The door had a discreet sign on it: Spa.

“We’re still adding the finishing touches, but here it is.” He pushed open the door to a dimly lit hallway, painted a soothing gray-green. “There’s a little bit of paint and electrical work to do. We wanted to leave it fairly unfinished so whoever we hired could make the space their own.”

Delia stood on the threshold and let the chills run through her. Her gut, her head, her heart—they all said, This is it.

Daddy always said his momma had the sight. Delia didn’t believe in those things anymore—not since Jared had taken a sledgehammer to her life—but she could see herself here. Working. Raising Josie.

This couldn’t be a better situation.

Autonomy and security, at least for the time being.

Gabe stepped down the hallway and Delia turned to shoot her willful daughter a look then followed him through the door.

“Our reservations fell so dramatically once the fall colors ended we knew we had to do something.” He opened the door to a massage room with a big padded table positioned in the center. There was a shelf for her lotions and even an outlet so she could plug in her hot pot to do hot-stone massages. “We’re getting a few cross-country skiers but it’s still not enough. So—”

“So, you’re an inn and spa.”

“Exactly. We were going to wait a few years before adding the spa, but we figured sooner rather than later would help us all keep our jobs.” He grinned again and Delia wondered if anyone ever said no to the guy. No wonder his wife was pregnant. “We’re ready to start advertising the services, but we wanted to get the right person in, someone who we knew could handle the work and had the right philosophy.” Gabe paused, offering her an opportunity to tell him her philosophy.

Funny, she used to have one of those. Now her whole philosophy was surviving the day.

“I was trained in San Antonio,” she said. “I apprenticed at the Four Seasons there and am a registered massage therapist and yoga instructor.”

“The last month and a bit?” he asked. “You have a gap in your résumé.”

Delia forced herself to smile and let the lie slide right off her tongue. “I went to France. Personal reasons.”

“Ah, nothing better than personal reasons that lead you to France. Josie must have loved it.”

The implication that she must have taken her daughter slid through her like poison. “She did. We both did.”

It didn’t even faze her anymore, the lies. Her heart didn’t trip, her hands didn’t go cold, and her face didn’t go hot.

She was thirty-seven years old and a liar, now. Another black mark on Jared’s hell-bound soul.

“I ran my own business for five years previous to France and at the same time worked at a holistic health center as part of an integrated care system for people suffering from terminal illness.”

“That’s all right here, Delia.” Gabe looked down at his clipboard, where she guessed her résumé was. “I’m hoping to find out a little bit about you. About what you think you can offer and what you think we can offer you.”

Right. She felt desperation well up in her gut like sticky tar, clinging to her courage and will, dragging her down to someplace scary.

“I want to be a part of something that people love. Something generous and good,” she said, the truth like an elixir, clearing away the fear and despair, the hunger and sleeplessness. Jared used to mock her for thinking she could help people with her “rubdowns.” But she’d seen the proof firsthand.

But even as she said the words, they felt like a lie. She hadn’t been living a generous life in far too long. Jared’s poison had infiltrated her being and she felt small and bitter. So she reached deep into the reasons she’d become a massage therapist, trying hard in this beautiful place to reconnect with the woman she’d once been. “I want to work side by side with people who work hard to do their best, to provide the best experience for guests. I want to help people recover, to feel better, to step lighter and maybe laugh a little more. That’s why I loved working at the holistic center. I want to make people’s lives a little bit easier—”

“Done. You’re hired.”

Delia blinked and Gabe laughed. “It’s why I started this inn. I wanted to give people a home away from home and you fit into that perfectly.”

She eyed him skeptically. Nothing. Nothing in her life lately had been this easy. When she’d read the ad for this position on the Internet, it had read like a dream come true considering her suddenly changed circumstances—seasonal, middle of nowhere, starting immediately.

She’d applied on her first day in South Carolina and the second she got the e-mail from Gabe asking her to come up for an interview, she’d packed Josie into the car and driven north.

Gabe finally shrugged. “Truth is, we haven’t had that many applicants. Not many people are excited about living in the Catskills in the middle of winter.”

That made her laugh. She wasn’t all that excited about it, either. And she certainly never would have come here if she didn’t have to. But it would be the last place anyone would look for her. She was a Southern woman, with blood as thin as sweet tea.

“But,” he was quick to state, “even if we’d gotten the résumés I do believe you’d still get the job. You’re a good fit—I could tell when you walked in. I have instincts about people.”

You and me both, buddy. She just hoped he trusted his more than she did her own.

She clenched her hands a bit tighter behind her back to stop herself from throwing her arms around him.

“I suppose you’d like to know the particulars?” he asked, and she pretended to be interested.

“Of course.”

“On paper the salary isn’t much but it includes room and board. Tips, of course, are yours. You need to let Chef Tim know of any dietary problems—”

“That’s great.”

“As per your request, you’ll be a contract employee. So no health benefits. Taxes will be your problem. Checks will be made out to Delia Johnson.”

“That’s no problem.” As a contract employee they wouldn’t need her social security number and since Delia Johnson didn’t have one, that seemed altogether best. She could wait to cash the paychecks—living on tips for as long as she could. She could take a paycheck in and get an ID made, maybe. God, she’d never had to worry about this before.

But with food and lodging covered, all she really needed to pay for was gas and the odds and ends that she and Josie required.

Delia shook her head. She didn’t need any more. A roof, food for her daughter, someplace safe for her to catch her breath and figure out what to do next.

“It would be a real pleasure to work here,” she said. “A real—” relief, blessing, gift, godsend “—pleasure.”

Gabe held out his hand and Delia put her clammy palm into his. “Welcome aboard, Delia Johnson. We hope you’ll stay awhile.”

Not likely, she thought, but shook on it anyway.

MAX SHOOK the snow out of his hair and stomped his boots on the rug at the front door. Gabe hated when he used the front door, tracking in snow and mud from outside, which was pretty much why Max used it.

The winter months were slow. All he had to pass the time was building his shed and irritating his brother. And the snowstorm outside was making the former impossible.

I’m thirty-six years old, he thought. I should have more in my life.

He looked up and found the little girl, Josie, staring at him as if he were a wild animal coming in for dinner.

He almost growled just to see what she would do.

“Hi,” she said after a moment.

Max looked around for the mother bear but didn’t see her. Should she see him talking to her daughter, chances were not good she’d welcome that.

He didn’t blame her. Since the shooting, mothers seemed to have a sense about him.

But this little girl looked so forlorn and small sitting at the big table that he decided to risk the wrath of Mama Bear.

“Hi, again.” He stepped over to her table and pulled off his gloves, taking a look at the book she had open in front of her. “Sudoku, huh?”

“Yeah.” Her lip lifted in a half smile and her hair—hidden earlier under her pink hat—fell over her shoulder. Red. Like her mother’s, only a bit more blond.

Max was at loose ends. It was snowing too hard to work. There were no repairs that needed to be done. No point in shoveling snow while it was still falling. Dad had left yesterday for downstate to talk to his lawyer about something. Alice was lying around with her feet up. And his brother must be checking in Josie’s mother, so he wasn’t around to annoy.

“I’m bored,” he said, the words popping out before he’d finished thinking them.

“Me, too.” Josie’s sigh was long-suffering and pained.

“Yeah?” He pushed out a chair with his foot and sat. He liked kids and he especially liked kids with attitude, which Josie had in spades. “Want to hand me one of those puzzle books?”

“There’s only one,” she said, and tossed him a different book from the stack. “You can have this.”

“A Barbie coloring book?” He opened it and grabbed a crayon from the box between them. “My favorite.”

Josie smiled and bent over her book of math puzzles, but watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye.

He worked diligently on Prince Charming’s military jacket.

“So?” he said, coloring over the medals pinned to the cartoon’s chest, saving him the pain of the memories required to have earned those medals. “Where you from?”

Josie stopped looking at him, focused on the puzzle, running her pencil over the six she’d written until it was black. “We move around a lot.”

Warning sirens wailed in Max’s head.

“You sound like you’re from the South.”

“Texas,” she said.

“Have you ever seen this much snow?”

She shook her head.

“What do you think of it?”

She wrinkled her nose and he grinned then, changing tactics, he held out his hand. “I’m Max Mitchell. I live here.”

“I’m Josie G…Johnson.” The sirens wailed louder. Something wasn’t right. “And I think I live here, too.”

He blinked. “You and your mo—”

“Josie?” Mama Bear was back and she was not happy. Max put down his crayon and turned to look at Delia standing, all her feathers ruffled, beside Gabe.

“Hi, Mama,” Josie said, looking like a kid caught stealing.

“Max.” Gabe stepped neatly into the fray. “I want to introduce you to Delia Johnson. She’ll be our new massage therapist and spa manager.”

Uh-oh.

“You’re not a guest?” Max nearly cringed at his own question. He sounded angry that she wasn’t a guest and maybe, somewhere, deep down in places he couldn’t feel anymore, he was. He certainly didn’t need feisty Josie and angry, sexy Delia around for more than a weekend.

“No,” Delia said, stepping to stand next to her daughter. She placed a hand on the little girl’s shoulder as if to remind everyone what the teams were. “We’ll be here awhile.”

Back off, her blue eyes said, and Max stood, ready to comply.

“Welcome,” he said. “Both of you.” He turned to leave just as the kitchen door swung open and Alice, his very pregnant sister-in-law, waddled in.

Hot on her heels was Cameron, one of Max’s at-risk kids who now worked here. Formerly Alice’s assistant, these days he was more like Alice’s babysitter.

“I tried to keep her in the office, like you said. But she wouldn’t stay,” Cameron said, looking both panicked and pissed off. Which, frankly, was a pretty standard reaction to pregnant Alice. She was prickly when she was in a good mood—pregnant she was live ammunition.

“You’re supposed to be lying down,” Gabe said, his eyes shooting sparks at his wife.

“I’ve been lying down,” Alice griped. “I’ve been lying down so much my butt is flat. The doctor said small amounts of activity were fine as long as I took it easy.”

“Are you taking it easy?”

“No,” Cameron answered for her.

“Yes!” Alice amended, shooting Cameron a shut-up-ordie glare. As she turned, she caught sight of the audience and her fair cheeks blazed red. “Oops.”

“Delia,” Gabe said, his jaw clenched, “this is my wife. Six months’ pregnant and on bed-rest orders from her doctor.”

“Modified bed rest,” Alice said with a thin-lipped smile. She held out her hand to shake Delia’s and her smile became more sincere. “And we’re being so careful it’s ridiculous. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the inn.”

“Thank you,” Delia said. “I’m really looking forward to working with y’all.”

Max noticed that Delia turned on the charm for Alice and Gabe, which made her reaction to him all the more pronounced. He used to have a way with people, pretty redheads included. Now, he felt tongue-tied. Lost. As though he was hidden somewhere and by the time he found the right words to say the moment was gone.

Everyone had moved on.

“This is my daughter, Josie.” Delia stepped back and Josie stood to shake Alice’s hand, the total picture of good manners, with no eight-year-old smirk.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Josie said in her soft drawl.

She glanced at him and he rolled his eyes just to let her know he was on to her.

“I’m Cameron.” Cameron stepped forward, holding out his hand like a grown-up and Max couldn’t help but feel some pride. When Cameron had first arrived at the inn, he’d been sullen, angry and disrespectful. Looking at the sixteen-year-old now, he’d never guess.

“I’m going to show my wife back to her bed,” Gabe said, mostly to Alice, who rolled her eyes. “Max? Can you show them to the West Suite and give them the ten-cent tour?”

Max had been about to make his silent getaway, but now all eyes were on him. Including Delia’s wide blue ones.

“Sure,” he finally agreed, careful not to look at Delia or Josie.

He’d spent ten years as a detective and it wasn’t hard to figure out that things were not what they seemed with these two females. And Max hated that. It made his gut act up. He’d left the detective life behind and come here so that his gut could grab a rest.

He rubbed at his stomach and hoped that the beautiful Southern woman would get tired of the cold and isolation and leave. Soon.

GABE AND ALICE LEFT the room, arguing about the definition of modified and Delia and Josie were left alone with Max. Delia wanted to call the couple back, keep them close, because with their absence, Max Mitchell’s presence became all the more disconcerting.

He waited silently, a specter at a respectful distance. Still, for every moment that passed, she grew more and more uncomfortable. She wanted to holler, stop staring. But he wasn’t staring. He wasn’t even glancing their way.

I’m losing my ever-loving mind, she thought. Maybe this time her instincts were right. Maybe he was a good guy. A nice man. Someone she could trust.

Dear God, wouldn’t that be something, she thought.

Weirder things had happened.

She pressed her fingertips against the high neck of her shirt and the bruises along her neck pulsed with a sore, dull ache.

She was tired. Hungry. Obviously not thinking clearly. Max Mitchell was the least of her problems. Some food and some sleep and a new plan would clear part of this fog and doubt that Max seemed to create in her.

“If you could just show us to our room?” Delia said, making a point of not meeting his eyes. “We won’t bother you for a tour. We need to unpack and clean up, right?” she asked Josie, tucking an arm around her daughter, who nodded eagerly.

“Do you have any luggage?” Max asked. “I’ll grab it from your car.”

“I can do it,” she said, and quickly smiled to cover up the bite of her voice. The last thing she needed was Max Mitchell privy to the sad state of their garbage bag luggage. “I hate to put you out.”

He looked for a moment as though he was going to argue. Then he nodded, spun on his heel and walked over to the check-in desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a key, made a note in the old-fashioned register on top of the desk.

“Ready?” he asked, his thick black eyebrows arched over his dark eyes.

Delia nodded and Max was off, up the giant staircase that led up to the second-floor rooms. His long legs made short work of the steps and she and Josie practically had to quick march to keep up.

“Your room is back here,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re essentially alone in this part of the lodge.”