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“Your own mother? That’s hard to believe. I remember how sweet she was.” Hope disappeared in the shimmer of the midday sun.
“Sweet? Sure, she once was, I suppose. Then she became a grandmother and started meddling.”
Hope breezed back inside, swinging the empty bucket, and her smile looked genuine enough to make his heart flip. She lifted one delicate brow. “Meddling?”
“Yep. Mom decided she wanted more grandchildren so I needed another wife to provide her with some.” He concentrated on coaxing the broken faucet out from the tiled wall. “It’s a desperate situation.”
“I understand that completely. Poor Nanna won’t be happy until she thinks I’m taken care of.” The mop smacked against the floor. “She isn’t satisfied when I say I can take care of myself. As if any man will do.”
Any man. A common, middle-class working man. Matthew knew it wasn’t a fair way to think, but even though Hope Ashton looked kind and casual and goodhearted and even though she was mopping a floor, she was a millionaire’s daughter. She was a renowned photographer. She wasn’t looking for just any man.
The pipe stuck, and he gave it a hard tug. It split into pieces and tumbled into the sink. “These pipes look as old as the house.”
“I’m sure they are.” Hope swept past him, leaving a lingering trail of sweet, light perfume. “Grandfather was notoriously frugal. Do you think you can get the water at least running today?”
“Sure can.” He shook his head at the rot where the pipes had been leaking for some time. Better to concentrate on his work. “This wall is going to have to be replaced. And this set of cupboards.”
“Nanna is going to be heartbroken. Grandfather made those cabinets for her. They’re custom—”
“I’m not a bad carpenter. I bet I can match them.” He couldn’t help teasing her, she looked so serious, so concerned. “Have a little faith, Hope.”
“I’m trying.” She smiled, soft and sweet, and he noticed the way her dark curls caught the light, shimmering like rare silk.
Heaven help him.
A bell rang, spinning her toward the front door. Long locks flicked over her shoulder, glimmering with such beauty he couldn’t look away. She hustled from his sight, padding across the damp floor and into the dim recesses of the entry hall.
He recognized Helen’s voice and then heard only silence. Hope must have taken her out to see Nora in the flower garden. Matthew headed out the back door to grab what he needed from his truck. He’d put in new pipe, valves and a faucet.
An older lady with a broken leg needed running water. He figured the McKaslin family wouldn’t mind if he was a day late finishing their barn.
“How are you and Matthew getting along?” Nanna asked after she’d greeted, Helen, her lifetime friend. “Did you notice how wide his shoulders are? I just love a man with broad shoulders.”
“Then you flirt with him,” Hope teased as she tucked a cushion in the black metal chair for Helen. “Let me fetch some iced tea. I’ll be right back.”
“She’s hurrying back to him.” Nanna’s loud whisper carried on the sweet breezes.
“To look at his shoulders,” Helen teased.
Okay, so his shoulders were broad. Hope hopped up the back steps and she couldn’t help it—her gaze found and traced the strong line of Matthew’s muscled arms, corded as he worked to set the new pipe in the wall.
“Would you like some iced tea?” She reached into the cupboards for three glasses, determined not to notice his well-honed physique.
“Sounds good.” He didn’t look up from his work. As if he were afraid to make eye contact with her.
Why now? Then she noticed the windows were open, and Nanna’s voice lifted on the breeze through the window. He couldn’t have accidentally overheard what they were talking about, right?
The curtains fluttered with a gust of wind. “Goodness, Hope is so alone. Matthew’s mom and I thought since they were both so lonely, we’d try to toss them together—”
The curtain snapped closed, cutting off the rest of Nanna’s words.
A cold feeling gripped Hope’s stomach. She felt her heart stop as she met Matthew’s gaze.
“I guess that’s as close to a confession as we’re going to get.” He stretched a kink in his neck, flexing the muscles in his left shoulder and arm. “Our own families are working against us.”
“Nanna just promised to stop—” Hope’s knees felt weak. “No, she didn’t exactly say that. She sort of skirted the issue and changed the subject. You heard her. She doesn’t sound one bit sorry.”
“It sure didn’t sound that way.”
Hope set the pitcher on the counter. She remembered how he’d looked in the coffee shop, lost and sad and brokenhearted. “I’m sorry, Matthew. This must be painful for you.”
“I’m used to it.” His words were as warm as spring rain. “This is what I’ve been up against ever since the boys wanted a mother for their third birthday. My mom has been on a nonstop campaign to find me a wife, and now she’s involving her friends in the search.”
“Like any woman will do, right?” It hurt to see the shadows in his eyes, so deep hazel and mingled with pain. She didn’t know what to say. How to comfort him.
He laid a packaged faucet, shiny knobs wrapped in plastic, on the counter. “It sounds to me like these women are pretty determined. Just how do you think we can stop them?”
“It’s going to be a long awkward summer unless we find a way.”
Matthew rubbed the heel of his hand against his brow. He looked tired. He looked as if a world of burden rested on those wide shoulders. Her heart ached for him.
She poured iced tea into the three tumblers, and then inspiration gripped her. “I know! Proverbs. ‘If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself.’”
“You mean…”
“Have you noticed how your mother and my grandmother have all this time on their hands? Notice how they both live alone.”
“I noticed.” Light began to twinkle in Matthew’s eyes.
“Poor lonely widows. With no one to take care of them.” Hope tugged the curtain aside and caught sight of Nanna in the garden shaded by the tall maple. “Nanna mentioned a certain older gentleman she thought was very attractive. Maybe there’s someone your mother might like….”
“Hope, you’re a genius.” Matthew laughed, relief chasing away the shadows in his eyes and the furrows from his brow. “We turn the tables on them. And why not?”
“That’s right. Why not?” She topped off the last tumbler and handed it to Matthew. “Your mother and my grandmother had no qualms about torturing us.”
“That’s right. We find the two of them husbands, and they’ll be so happy they’ll forget all about us.” Matthew leaned against the counter and sipped his tea. “It’s not deceptive. After all, we’re bid to let love be our highest goal….”
“Like Nanna said, it’s not good to be alone.” Hope felt the sunlight on her face, warm and sustaining. She knew Nanna wasn’t alone, not truly, but she also remembered how years had slipped from Nanna’s face at the thought of Matthew’s handsome grandfather-in-law.
Nanna had spent too many years in this empty house watching for the mailman to slip letters into her box or waiting for the phone to ring. That was about to change. Hope could feel it down deep in her soul.
Maybe that’s why the Lord had brought Matthew to her in the middle of that dangerous storm. And why Matthew stood here now.
If God kept watch over the smallest sparrow, then surely He cared about the loneliness in an old woman’s heart.
Chapter Four
The new morning’s sun had already burned the dew off the ground as Hope made her way through the neighbor’s fields. Dark green, knee-high alfalfa swayed in the warm breezes and brushed her knees as she spotted the Joneses’ barn and the man kneeling on its steep peak, tacking down new gray shingles with a nail gun.
She only had to look at him for her heart to flip in her chest. For one brief moment she noticed the wind tangling his collar-length hair and let her gaze wander over the lean hard height of him. In a white T-shirt and wash-worn jeans, he was a good-looking man. As if he felt her gaze, he glanced up from his work and shaded his eyes with one gloved hand. Then he waved in welcome.
A prairie dog gave a chirp of alarm and scampered out of sight as Hope hurried through the field, alfalfa shoots brushing against her bare skin. Matthew disappeared from the roof only to reappear circling from behind the weathered barn, stripping off his work gloves.
“Hey, I began to think you stood me up.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Nanna was in a lot of pain this morning and we couldn’t get her to eat. I finally tempted her with fresh cinnamon rolls, but it took more time than I figured.” She held up a paper sack. “I brought a peace offering, though. Figured you couldn’t be too mad with me if I brought sweets.”
“A wise woman.”
“No, a grateful one. You’ve helped me twice now, and I’m indebted. The cinnamon rolls are only a start.”
“You don’t owe me a thing.” Matthew flicked his gaze away toward the west side of the barn where shade stretched over soft grasses in an empty corral. “I’ve got a cooler with juice over here. Let’s get down to business.”
“Sure.” She followed him past the wooden posts, worn gray from time and the elements, and when she saw the blanket spread out on the small patch of wild grasses, she realized that Matthew had gone to some trouble. She regretted being late.
“Tell me how the new kitchen plumbing is working out,” he said over his shoulder as he knelt down in front of a battered blue cooler.
“Nanna’s happy with your work, but she’s fretting over the ruined cabinet.”
“It shouldn’t be long until I have the replacement for her. I planned on tooling it in my workshop at home this weekend. Tell her I won’t forget to come by and make the cabinet as good as new.”
“Oh, I think she can’t wait to get us in the same house together.” Drawing closer, Hope knelt on one edge of the fleece blanket. “After you left last night, she kept going on and on about all your wonderful attributes.”
“She had to resort to lying, huh?” His eyes twinkled with merriment.
And she felt that twinkle in her heart. “I can see a few good things about you, Matthew, not that either of us is interested in the way Nanna thinks. I tried to tell her that you were more interested in fixing her ancient pipes than in making small talk with me, but she wanted to know every single word we exchanged when we were alone in her kitchen.”
“She couldn’t hear us well enough from the garden, huh?”
“That’s what I thought, too.” Hope unfolded the neat crease at the top of her sack, and the fresh scent of frosting and cinnamon made her stomach rumble.
Matthew handed her an unopened juice box and knelt down a fair distance from her. “My mom was singing your praises last night when I went to pick up my boys. She had that same look in her eyes that Nora had.”
“You’re right, they are shameless meddlers and they need to be taught a lesson.” She held out the bag to him.
He reached inside and withdrew a gooey pastry. “Now I’m doubly grateful you came by. These cinnamon rolls are the best things I’ve seen in a long time. Nora’s baking is famous county-wide.”
“Nora’s recipe, but I baked them.”
“You?” Did he have to look so surprised?
“Hey, I have my uses. I packed enough for you to take home to your boys.” She took one sticky roll and plopped the bag on the blanket between them. “Now, wipe that shocked look off your face and tell me. Do you have any idea who your mom might be interested in?”
“Not one. I’ll have to pry into her life a little, like she’s been doing to mine lately.” He sank his teeth into the roll and moaned. “I took a long hard look at Mom last night, and I figure she’s got to be lonely. I’ve got my boys, but when the day is done, she’s alone.”
“Nanna’s the same way. It’s got to be sad. All the work they did and the sacrifices they made to raise their families, and now, when they should be enjoying their lives, they have no one to share with.”
“Do you know how we can fix that?”
“Not really. I was hoping you’d have a brilliant idea and get me off the hook.”
“Give me another cinnamon roll and we’ll see what I can come up with.”
He’s deeply lonely, too. Again, Hope felt it with the same certainty as the gentle breezes on her face. She wondered if he sat up at night, watching the late shows or reading to the end of a book just to keep from going to bed alone, as she did. She wondered if he, too, had a hard time sleeping with the dark and the silence of the night, when prayer could only ease the empty space….
“Nanna let it slip that she has a crush on Harold.”
“Kathy’s grand dad?” Matthew nodded slowly as he helped himself to another roll. “I noticed Helen fought to sit next to him at the Founder’s Days committee meeting, but I didn’t know Nora was interested in him, too.”
“He wouldn’t be lonely, would he?”
“He’s been a widower as long as I have.” Matthew stared down at the pastry and didn’t take a bite, the sadness in his eyes stark and unmistakable.
Maybe Nanna was right, Hope considered. Maybe, every now and then, true love was possible. Every now and then.
“I’m taking the boys to see him at his ranch this weekend. Between chasing after my sons, I’ll try to figure out if Harold is interested in Nora.”
“And if he is, we could casually set them up so they wouldn’t know it was us. Something not as obvious as what they did to us on the Founder’s Days committee.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Matthew took a bite of the roll, but the sadness remained in his eyes. The breeze tangled his hair, tossing a dark hank over his brow, and she fought the urge to brush it away, fought the urge to reach out and try to comfort him.
“How’s the roof coming along?” she asked, not knowing what else to say to change the direction of their conversation. She stood, drawn toward the ladder stretching twenty feet in the air, and studied the roof’s steeply pitched slope. “Do you mind if I climb up?”
“Yeah, I mind.” He leaped to his feet, all business, square jaw set and hands fisted. “You could fall, and then what would I say to your grandmother?”
“I won’t fall.” She spun around, taking in the expanse of the river valley bright with the colors of spring, and ached for her camera. “Okay, I’m not interested in your roofing job, but on the walk over here my mind clicked back to work and I could get a great view from up there.”
“You can get a great view of the valley from the road.”
“Yeah, but I’m already here.” She grabbed hold of the ladder and fit her sneaker onto the weathered rung.
“Hope, I’m not kidding. You’re going to break your neck.” But he didn’t sound too upset with her.
When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that he was holding the ladder steady for her and shaking his head as if to say women didn’t belong on ladders. Well, she wouldn’t be on for long. “I appreciate this, Matthew.”
“If you weren’t helping me out with my mom, I’d let go of this ladder.”
“Sure you would. You’re too nice of a guy.”
“That’s only according to rumor. You can’t trust everything you hear.”
“Nanna says a man who can raise three small boys at the same time has to have the patience of Job and the temperament of an angel.”
“Either that or he’s on psychiatric medication.”
Hope stumbled onto the roof, laughing, but Matthew hadn’t fooled her. Sure, he was joking, but there was no way he could disguise the patience and good humor lighting him up from within, not quite chasing away his sadness. It touched her somewhere deep inside her well-defended heart. How was it that this man could affect her so much and so quickly?
“Be careful up there.” The ladder rubbed against the weathered eaves with each step Matthew took as he climbed higher. “I don’t want to have to explain to Nora how I let her only granddaughter tumble off a barn roof. I’d never get work from her again.”
