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Hope prayed that Kirby was right as she filled the coffee carafe at the sink, the spray of water into the empty container ringing in her ears. She shut off the faucet and looked down at the smooth, shiny handles Matthew had installed, and the worry eased away, which made no sense because she was still angry at the way he’d treated her in the restaurant. His behavior toward her had been so different from when he’d helped her to the top of the McKaslin’s barn roof, when he’d held her safe and kept her from stumbling.
He didn’t want his sons near her, and he didn’t want to be seen in the same café as her. Well, that was perfectly fine. She wasn’t looking for a man, especially not a settling-down widower with three kids in tow. Really, that’s not what she was looking for. And it didn’t matter how cute those little boys were. Not one bit.
She didn’t need a family. She didn’t need love. She didn’t need to start seeing a fairy tale where none could ever exist. At least, fairy tales didn’t happen to her and she was wise enough and old enough to know it.
After spooning ground gourmet coffee into the filter and turning the coffeemaker on, she grabbed an old knife and headed outside. The sweet gentle warmth of morning breezed against her as she hopped down the steps. She then knelt alongside the flower bed that ran the length of the house.
Untended since Nanna’s injury, weeds were taking a firm hold in the rich soil. Tulips vied with dandelions and thistles, and Hope vowed to do some weeding, maybe later today when Nanna was doing better. The thought strengthened her, but even as she cut flowers, her mind kept drifting back to Matthew Sheridan and her heart clenched.
Yesterday, as he worked to keep his little boys from playing with their food, he’d handled them with tenderness and patience. Something she wouldn’t have thought a man, even one as good as Matthew, could have possessed. And this was the man who hadn’t wanted her befriending his boys, and the man who didn’t want half the town thinking he was with her.
Good, fine, get over it, she told herself. But part of her felt hurt and angry. Hurt because she wished he didn’t look at her and see her mother’s daughter. Angry because it was easier than admitting the truth.
She gathered the cut flowers, arranged them in a vase and carried them upstairs. Nanna slept on her side, one hand curled on her pillow, her gray hair swept back from her eyes making her look as vulnerable as a child.
Yesterday had been tough on Nanna, although she would never admit it. Hope had seen the look on her grandmother’s face when Helen had walked into the café with her hand on Harold’s arm. There had been a brief flicker of sadness and regret, and then she’d invited Helen to sit down next to her. Nanna had let go of her hopes, just like that, for the sake of her lifelong friend.
There had to be a way to make her happy. But what? Feeling lost, Hope scooted the vase onto the edge of the nightstand and nudged it into place, bumping into a gold-framed photograph.
Hope’s heart melted when she saw her grandfather’s picture, a man she’d met only twice as a child, and Nanna’s love. They’d met in grade school, Nanna told her, and they played together in the creek that bordered their family’s properties.
He’d been her true love, one that didn’t fade even after his death. Nanna had been newly widowed when Hope had visited the year she’d turned seventeen—it felt so long ago now, but the memories filled her with emotion. She remembered how two females, one old and one young and both hurting, forged a bond of love that summer.
She looked at the kind man in the photograph, taken at a summer picnic, maybe the town’s annual Founder’s Days celebration. It was easy to recognize the love in Granddad’s eyes as he danced with a younger Nanna beneath an endless azure sky.
For the first time, Hope let herself consider that maybe Nanna meant what she said about love. That sometimes, it was honest and true. It didn’t hurt or belittle but made the whole world right.
Sometimes.
With Kirby’s words of warning, Matthew negotiated the narrow staircase as quietly as he could in his work boots. A few boards squeaked as he reached the top, and he felt odd prowling down the hall, drawn by the splash of light through an open doorway.
No sounds of conversation came from the room at the end of the corridor. No soothing music or low drone of a television broke the stillness. There was only Hope perched on a chair at her grandmother’s bedside, head bowed as she read from the Bible held open on her lap, the light from the window pouring over her shoulder to illuminate the pages.
In the span of a breath, he saw the depths of her heart as she turned the page, searching for passages. Every opinion he’d formed of Hope Ashton faded like fog in sun.
“Matthew,” she whispered, startled, and closed her Bible with quiet reverence. “What are you doing here?”
He gestured toward the bed, where Nora barely disturbed the quilt. “I have the cabinets.”
“Now isn’t the best time.” Hope laid her Bible on the crowded nightstand and padded across the wood floor as quietly as she could manage. “Where’s Kirby?”
“Downstairs on the phone speaking with the doctor,” he explained once they were in the hallway. “She said her call might take a while and that you might be up here all morning, so if I wanted you, I’d better fetch you myself.”
“She’s right.” Hope led the way down the hallway. “I wouldn’t be able to bribe you into coming back another day, could I?”
“If it’s a good enough bribe,” he teased, wishing he could mend how he’d hurt her.
She almost smiled, but it was enough to chase the lines of exhaustion from her soft face. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the bright morning light accentuated the bruises of exhaustion beneath her eyes and surprised him.
He followed her through the front door and onto the wide old-fashioned porch where flowering vines clutched at the railing. The morning’s breeze tossed back the dark curls escaping from Hope’s ponytail and ruffled the hem of her T-shirt.
It was only then he realized what she was wearing—an old T-shirt with the imprint faded away and a stretched-out neck, and a pair of old gray sweatpants with a hole in the knee. She ambled to the old porch swing on stocking feet and sighed as she eased onto the board seat.
“Rough night?” he asked.
She nodded, this woman who could have hired a legion of nurses to take care of her grandmother. But she had come herself without nurses or help from the rest of her family. By the looks of it, she’d spent most of the night at Nora’s side.
“I know what that’s like. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep during the triplets’ first two years.” He headed toward the steps. “I better leave so you can get some rest. We’ll worry about the cabinets some other time.”
“I hope this doesn’t mess up your work schedule.”
“Don’t you worry about my work. Since I finished the McKaslins’ barn, I’ve got a few roofing jobs to do, but I’m always waiting on deliveries. I’ll just give a call when I’ve got time and head on over. When Nora is feeling better, that is.”
“I’m determined to feel optimistic—she’s going to be fine.” Hope offered him a weary smile. “You don’t have to run off, you know. At least not before I get a chance to apologize.”
“I’m the one who owes you an apology. I practiced it on the drive over here.” He leaned against the rail, arms folded over his chest. “I gave you the wrong impression at the café.”
“No, I understand. You’ve told me how you feel about your mom’s matchmaking schemes, and I shouldn’t have expected you to just shrug them off. You’re right, we shouldn’t encourage them.”
“Now wait a minute. I was going to say that you were right. That those two stubborn opinionated wonderful women can matchmake all they want, but it won’t do a bit of good. They can’t influence us. And if you can have enough grace and class not to be obviously insulted that my mom would try to marry you off to a working man like me, then I can do the same.”
“Yep, spending time with you has been torture. And those boys.” Hope managed a weary smile, but emotion glinted like a new dawn in her eyes and told him what her words didn’t. “Those sons of yours are the cutest kids I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“You won Ian over. He loves a woman with truck knowledge.”
“I’m a working-class woman, so I’ve seen a lot of trucks in my day.” She glanced at him, chin up and gauntlet thrown.
“You’re not a working-class woman, Hope. Not with your family’s income bracket.”
“I was never a part of that family.” Her chin inched a notch higher. “I make my own way in this world.”
“So, that explains the outfit.”
“What?” Then she looked down at the battered pair of gray sweats with a gaping hole in the right knee and the white, so-old-it-was-graying T-shirt. “A true gentleman wouldn’t have said a word, but you had to, didn’t ya?”
“I’m tarnished around the edges.”
“No kidding.” Half-laughing, she swiped the stray curls that had escaped from her ponytail with one hand. “Who needs makeup, presentable clothes and combed hair, right?”
“It’s like seeing you in a whole new light.” The old impressions of the remote, pampered girl he’d known in high school and the expectations he’d had of a rich woman fell away, shattered forever. “It’s not bad from where I’m standing.”
“Sure, try to make me feel better. Yikes, I need a shower and, wow, I can’t believe I look like this.” Embarrassed, laughing at herself, she hopped to her stocking feet, leaving the swing rocking. “I have to go and…and…do something, anything.”
“You look the best I’ve ever seen you.” Maybe he shouldn’t have spoken his heart, but it was too late, and Hope stopped her rapid departure.
She turned, and he saw again the woman seated at her grandmother’s bedside, head bowed over the Bible in her lap. The exhaustion bruising Hope’s eyes and the comfortable clothes she wore to care for an old woman through the night made her all the more beautiful to him.
“Tell anyone about this, and I’ll deny it,” she said.
“So, you are worried about your reputation, after all.”
“You bet, buddy. Guess what your mother will assume if you tell her that you got a good glance at my bare knee?”
“It’s not a bad knee,” he confessed, but before she could answer Kirby stepped into sight and whispered something to Hope.
Alarm spread across Hope’s face, chasing away the smile until only worry remained. “I have to go, Matthew.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Hope’s gaze latched onto his, filling with tears. “She’s in a lot of pain, and the doctor isn’t certain that the fracture is healing. Prayer would be a help.”
“You’ve got it.” Chest tight, Matthew watched her spin with a flick of her ponytail, and she was gone. Leaving him feeling both lonelier and more alive than he’d been in what felt like a lifetime.
At sixteen minutes before noon, Hope heard a car rumble down the long gravel drive. Patsy Sheridan climbed out into the brisk spring sunshine and, leaving the triplets belted into their car seats, carried a steaming casserole to the front door.
She’d handed the meal over to Kirby before Hope could make it downstairs, but the gratefulness washing over her didn’t diminish after Patsy’s car drove out of sight.
Later, flowers arrived and cakes and Helen brought supper by, a potluck favorite that was always the first to go at the church’s picnics, according to Kirby.
As the dusk came, bringing shadows and evening light, Hope knew that in all her travels, all the places she’d been and photographed, home was here in Montana, in this small town where neighbors took care of one another.
She knew who to thank. Matthew Sheridan had spread the word of Nanna’s relapse. And she owed him the world.
Chapter Six
“Is that Matthew’s truck?” Nanna leaned toward the edge of the bed, fighting to see out the window.
“Hey, careful.” Hope gently caught Nanna’s elbow. “All we need for you is to fall and break another bone.”
“I may have broken my leg, but I’m not fragile.” Nanna nodded with satisfaction as Matthew’s dark red pickup gleamed in the sun in the driveway below. “At least, not anymore. This bone will heal, or else. I’ve lost nearly a week in this room, and it’s time to get a move on.”
“Just remember what your doctor said, Nanna.” Hope reached for the hairbrush and knelt on the floor, gently swiping the smooth-bristled brush through Nanna’s soft cloud of gray hair. “Want me to braid this for you?”
“I’d love it, dear heart. I’m in a festive mood, as long as young Matthew Sheridan can get my cabinets right.”
Hope bit her lip so she wouldn’t smile. Fretting over the cabinetry work might give Nanna something to think about other than her injury. “I don’t know if I’d trust Matthew. He’s one of the only carpenters in town. Without much competition, how good can he be?”
Nanna’s eyes sparkled. “So, you like him, do you?”
“Keep dreaming.”
“A girl’s got to try.” Nanna fell silent, allowing Hope to part and braid her hair, then finish the thick French braid with a cheerful pink bow.
As Hope pulled a comfortable pair of clean pajamas from the bottom bureau drawer, the sound of a second vehicle coming up the driveway drew their attention.
Nanna tipped sideways again. “Goodness, that looks like—”
“Harold.” Hope couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched the distinguished-looking older man climb from a restored 1950s forest-green pickup. A carpenter’s belt hung at his waist as he headed for the back door, his deep voice carrying as he greeted Matthew.
Was this what Matthew had tried to tell her on the phone the night she’d been so abrupt with him? Hope leaned against the window frame and felt the sun warm her face. In the yard below, Matthew and Harold appeared, talking jovially as they unloaded the heavy wood pieces from the back of Matthew’s truck.
The sun gilded Matthew’s powerful frame and heaven knew, she shouldn’t be noticing. A tingle zinged down her spine, and a yearning she’d never felt before opened wide in her heart.
“There’s no way I’m going downstairs in these.” Nanna’s two-piece cotton pajamas landed with a thunk on the end of the bed.
Hope turned from the window. “Nanna, have you ever thought about falling in love again?”
“Goodness, child, a woman my age doesn’t waste what’s left of her days wishing for romance. You have the greatest happiness life has to offer ahead of you. Marriage and children. Now don’t lie to me, you have to want children.”
Hope felt the warmth inside her wither and fade at the word marriage. Her stomach burned at the memory of exactly what that word meant to her, the old ulcer always remembering. Endless battles, bitter unhappiness and her parents’ habitual neglect of her.
She tried to put the memory aside of the unhappy child hiding in the dark hallway, listening to the hurtful words her parents hurled at each other as if they were grenades. Fearful that this argument would be the one to drive Dad away.
And it reminded her of her own attempt at marriage, ended before it began. And her stomach felt as if it had caught fire. No, she wouldn’t think about the time she was foolish enough to think that love could be real for her.
Determined to distract herself, Hope paced the sunny room. “Where’s the shorts set I bought for you when we took that cruise last summer?”
“Try the drawer chest, second to the bottom.”
Sure enough, the soft blue-and-pink print knit shorts and top were folded amid Nanna’s summer wear, surrounded by sachets of sweet honeysuckle. As she helped her grandmother into the clothes, she wished Matthew had told her he’d invited Harold over.
Kirby tapped down the hall and into the room and together they carried Nanna downstairs. “No, the garden,” she insisted when they tried to situate her in the living room. “I need to feel the warmth of the sun on these old bones.”
“Let me help.” Matthew strode into the room like a myth—all power, steel and hero. He lifted Nanna into his strong arms, cradling her against his chest. “Nora, it’s been a long time since I’ve held such a beautiful woman in my arms.”
“That’s a line you ought to use on my granddaughter, not on an old woman like me.”
“I’m partial to older women.”
Now I’m going to have to like him. Really, really like him, Hope thought as she held open the wooden framed screen door for Matthew. I’ve run completely out of excuses.
There was no turning back her feelings, especially when he set Nanna onto the shaded, wrought-iron bench with the same care he showed his sons. Tender, gentle, kind, he grabbed one of the matching chairs and drew it close. Watching him made that tingle zing down Hope’s spine again.
No doubt about it, she was in trouble now. As she accepted the pillows Kirby had thought to fetch, she tried not to look at him, but he drew her attention like dawn to the sun.
“Are you going to give me that last pillow?” His mouth curved into a one-sided grin as she handed it over. “I’ll have you ladies know that this service is entirely free. It won’t show up on the bill.”
“You’re a real bargain.” Hope tried to sound light but failed as he laid the pillow on the seat of a chair and lifted Nanna’s leg into place.
Their gazes met and Hope heard the morning breezes loud in her ears. Awareness shot down her spine again.
His slow grin broadened. “I’ve been told that before. I never overcharge.” He stood, towering over her, casting her in shadow. “But I do accept tips. Cash or baked goods.”
He was kidding, but Hope couldn’t smile. Kirby arrived with Nanna’s Bible, reading glasses and the cordless phone.
They were shooed away by the old woman who thought she was matchmaking by sending them off to be together. “Take your time, Matthew. I don’t need the cabinets today.”
Hope shook her head, taking the lead down the garden path. “Sure, she’s been fretting over the cabinets all week.”
