The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

shoulders drooped like I carried a lead weight. I’d never given much thought to her feelings about the legacy my father had left me. I presumed he’d left her a share too. It had been invested for me until I turned twenty-one and then I had reinvested it in a risky start-up and tripled the money. It was beginner’s luck and I knew it, but I’d done it out of spite – Mom had given me such a lecture about that money when I took charge of it so I did the exact opposite of what she advised. And luckily for me it had paid off; I took the money and ran, knowing it could have easily gone the other way. Much later I’d withdrawn the money to buy Cedarwood, and at the time it had felt right – like his legacy was always meant to bring me home.

      “It is a lot of money. I’ve gambled, there’s no question about it. But if I host one large function a month, I can make it work. Then there’s the chalets, the chapel for weddings, and renting the rooms in the lodge. I want to market it as the holiday destination in New Hampshire. I can’t say for sure, but I think Dad would be proud.”

      She sighed. “It’s too late now, Clio. It’s done, so you have to make the best of it. You could have gone anywhere in the world with that money, and you chose to come here. It’s mind-bending, that’s all.”

      “I’ve always loved Cedarwood Lodge. You know that. And I guess I hoped we’d be closer, not just in terms of distance…” My voice trailed off.

      I wished so much we could be the sitcom mother and daughter. The ones who knew each other inside out and didn’t have to guess at moods, or whims. The ones who met for coffee and cake and a shopping expedition; swapped novels we loved. But it would never happen. She was damaged somehow, and it was up to me to be there for her, no matter how hard it was. At the moment, though, it was hard to accept this was my lot.

      “Eat,” she said. “It’s going cold.” But she didn’t lift her fork again.

       Chapter Six

      “Micah!” I half-screamed, half-choked as I tried desperately to stop the water spurting from the kitchen faucet. “Micah!” He finally caught my eye, frowned, raced over and leap-frogged through the open window as I frantically threw my body in the way of the streaming water. “Shut the water off,” I shouted. He pulled a face and leaped back outside.

      After a minute or two the water stopped and I sank to the floor with relief, soaked through and shivering, but not quite drowned – which I counted as a win. Micah’s quick footsteps sounded back through the hallway as he returned, towel in hand. “You’ll do anything for attention.”

      “Right!” I said, swatting at him and reaching for the towel. “Give me that!”

      As I began to wring myself out, he offered me a hand up and we slipped and slid over the wet floor like we were roller-skating, before sinking into the safety of the kitchen chairs and falling about laughing.

      “It’s rusted through,” said Micah, who had managed to compose himself and was peering into the old spout. The kitchen was yet to be renovated, but must have last been replaced sometime in the fifties. It was lovely as it stood, with duck-egg-blue cabinetry and aubergine benchtops with chrome molding, but it was ratty around the edges, and needed to be updated with modern appliances. Still, it was like stepping back in time, and I half expected an apron-clad housewife from the fifties to appear brandishing a tray of prawn cocktails and devilled eggs.

      Having to be budget-conscious, I hoped the rest of the plumbing was in better shape – already we’d had an issue with the main guest bathroom in the lobby and we’d be stretched for cash if we kept having nasty surprises like that. “Can you rig something up for now? When the new kitchen is installed we’ll have all new tapware so there’s no point getting anything fancy to replace it.”

      “We’ve got a bunch of odds and ends in the storeroom. I’ll see what I can do.”

      I surveyed him from the corner of my eye. Micah was always a ball of energy, the type of person who couldn’t sit still, but he was more jumpy than usual.

      “You go clean yourself up, I’ll deal with this.” He motioned to the wet floor.

      “Thanks, Micah, but I can do it. Before you go, anything you want to discuss?” Smooth, Clio.

      He was practically itching to chat but, being male, tried to pretend otherwise. But he had forgotten how well I could read him. He made a show of scratching his chin, and thinking hard about what I could possibly mean. “Nope. Can’t think of a single thing.”

      The cold air was taking my breath away, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake, but the damn man was going to confide in me, even if my lips went blue while I waited to go upstairs and change. I’d witnessed love at first sight and I wanted information!

      “Nope, you say? Well, let me tell you what I observed and see if it rings any bells. L.O.V.E.” I sang the letters. It was in my nature to tease him. And we hadn’t had five minutes together alone for me to ask him outright.

      He guffawed. “You’re such a child.”

      “Shall I continue?” I sang a song about kissing.

      He held his hands up. “OK, OK. For the love of God, don’t sing. So, Isla may have taken me by surprise, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

      I huffed and puffed in disbelief. “It was love at first sight, that’s what it was.” I hugged myself tight, imagining Micah as the hero of the first love affair at Cedarwood, and Isla his stunning heroine. Would I plan their wedding? Their baby shower? I couldn’t help it, it was inbuilt in me to think of every stage as an event to celebrate.

      “Love is too hard,” he said gruffly, wearing a dark expression, which I knew meant leave it alone.

      But he should have known me better than that. “Micah, no! Love isn’t too hard. Is this because of Ronnie?”

      He sighed and folded his arms. “It’s not because of Ronnie. Well… maybe in part,” he admitted with a shrug. “The split with Ronnie taught me love is totally unrealistic. Because you place all these expectations on one person – of course it’s destined to fail! Eventually that person won’t make you smile any more. They’ll be the cause of the tightness in your chest, the reason you can’t sleep at night.”

      I frowned. It was unlike Micah to talk so pessimistically. “What expectations? Love can be as simple or as difficult as you want it to be.”

      He ran a hand through his hair. “There’s always expectations. The expectation you’ll follow them anywhere, you’ll forgo your dreams for them, and then they just leave anyway, even though you sacrificed it all.”

      “So, don’t have any expectations, and then you’ve got nothing to lose, right?”

      The kettle I’d been waiting for when the tap exploded suddenly screeched and I poured water into two cups, motioning for him to sit at the trestle table. While he ruminated I added a log of wood to the cast-iron potbelly stove and stood with my back to it, warming myself.

      His sighed and his mouth became a tight line. “I admit, it was nice to have that heady, heart-thumping feeling about someone again.”

      My damp clothes shrank against the heat, biting against my legs as they warmed. “So, that’s a good thing, Micah! What happened with Ronnie was obviously devastating, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start over with someone new.”

      The way his eyes filled with pain was enough to make me regret bringing Ronnie into the conversation again.

      “I didn’t see it coming,” he rubbed at his face. “It blindsided me. And I want to avoid ever feeling that way again.”

      “What exactly happened?” The hurt on his face was evident.

      The whine of a chainsaw buzzed outside. Isla was trimming something back in a frenzy. “That’s the thing,” he