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Eli Whittaker stood at the window, watching the snow drift down. While this was a pretty fancy lodge, with all the best materials, he could still hear the excited squeals of his son, Stockton.
Moving to Wyoming was definitely the right thing to do, and Eli was glad he’d done it. Relieved to be closer to family, who could help him with his son, though he had Meg for that.
Meg Palmer, the best nanny in the world—at least according to his six-year-old.
Eli sighed and turned away from the glass as it fogged from his breath.
Meg. What was he going to do about Meg?
“Don’t need to do anything,” he muttered to himself as he moved through the large master suite and out the door. He walked a few steps down the hall and into the office he shared with his brother.
Graham had not arrived yet, something that meant he was eternally happy with his wife, step-daughter, and the new baby that would be here by summer.
Eli exhaled again as he sat at his desk, in no mood to try to get more people up to the lodge for snowshoeing and Christmas tree cutting. He’d been back in Coral Canyon for eleven months now, and he hadn’t had a problem getting tourists and locals alike up to the lodge in the spring, summer, and fall.
But winter was another beast altogether, and Eli wondered if he ought to just take the season off. But as it happened to last for months on end, he honestly wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
His thoughts wandered as they were wont to do when he didn’t have something big to focus on. And these days, they went straight to Meg and lingered there. Ever since she’d found him late on Thanksgiving Day and told him she had real feelings for him, Eli hadn’t known how to act around her.
Someone knocked on the office door, and from the light, hesitant nature of it, he felt sure it would be the woman who’d been plaguing him for months now. Yes, months. A lot longer than just the few weeks since Thanksgiving.
“Yeah, come in,” he said, because ignoring problems was Eli Whittaker’s specialty. Meg hadn’t brought up her crush again—in fact, she’d told Eli to forget she’d said anything.
She entered the office carrying a tray with coffee and toast, a quick, nervous smile on her face. That had definitely changed—the way she seemed so anxious around him now—but Eli didn’t know what to do about it.
“Celia asked me to bring you this.” She took one, two, three steps, and her foot caught on the edge of the rug.
Everything happened so quickly and yet so slowly at the same time. Gravity grabbed onto Meg, a petite woman, and pulled her down fast. Panic crossed her face and her knees hit before Eli could even move a muscle.
Since she had the tray in her hands, she couldn’t catch herself. Hot coffee splashed his jeans in the same moment her elbows hit the hardwood, and then her face.
Time spun forward, and Eli leapt to her aid, his skin bristling a bit at the hot liquid soaking into his pants, shoes, and the rug.
“Meg.” His heart reverberated through his whole body, bouncing against the back of his throat. “Are you okay?”
What a stupid question. As she righted herself by rolling onto her backside, pain flashed in her eyes, and she cradled her face with her now-free hand. Tears appeared, and she turned those beautiful, dark eyes away from him.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine, and Eli put his hand on her elbow. The simple touch sent fire flowing through him, and he pulled his hand back. So he had a crush on his nanny too and had for a few months now.
But she was his nanny, and he wasn’t going to be one of those men who fell for a woman because his kid loved her so much.
Meg tucked her dark hair behind her ear and slid away from him.
“Let me—”
“I’m fine, Eli. I’ll tell Celia about your breakfast.” She used his desk to support herself as she got to her feet, and she limped out of the office while Eli stared after her.
He hung his head, wishing he could go back in time and change how he’d handled things at Thanksgiving. He’d made a right mess of things between him and Meg, and he was actually quite surprised she hadn’t found another job.
Celia arrived just as Eli picked up the fallen toast and coffee cup. “Are you okay, sir?”
“Don’t call me sir.” He told her that every day, and yet she continued to address him in such a formal manner. It felt weird coming from the woman he’d known his whole life, who used to serve him pancakes at the diner.
“You sign my checks.”
“I do not. Graham does that.”
Celia tilted her head and reached for the tray. She took the dishes and toast and set them on it. “I’ll get Annie in here straightaway. And I’ll set more toast for you.”
Eli focused on the dark stain on the rug. “How’s Meg?” he asked.
“She’s…disappeared into her room.” Celia turned back toward the doorway. “I’ll check on her in a minute.”
“I’ll do it,” Eli said.
Celia gave him a quick glance over her shoulder but said nothing other than, “Stockton’s in the basement with Andrew.”
“Thank you,” Eli murmured, his attention already wandering down the hall and around the corner, past the master suite, to the bedroom in the corner of the lodge where Meg lived. She had two days off every week, and today was one of them. Dared he go and check on her?
“Only if you’re going to say more than three words to her,” he lectured himself. Their conversations, which used to be so lively and a bright spot in his day, had become stiff. And he hated that more than anything.
In this lodge, with a cook, a housekeeper, a decorator, his brother, his nanny, and his son, Eli felt utterly alone. So lonely. When Graham showed up in the office, he and Eli sometimes talked about something besides the lodge, the horses, or Springside Energy, the family company Graham ran.
Eli had always been able to count on Meg providing a few minutes of laughter, a ray of sunshine. Now, he had hardly anything to remind him what was good about the world.
Caroline.
Caroline.
Caroline.
The name haunted him as he walked slowly out of the office, down the hall, and around the corner. He couldn’t believe he’d used his first wife as a shield against his own feelings for Meg.
She’d nodded and clenched her hands together when he’d said his late wife’s name on Thanksgiving. “I understand,” she’d said, but even Eli didn’t understand so he wasn’t sure how Meg could.
“Meg?” He knocked on her bedroom door. She had a suite too, though not as large as the master. “It’s Eli, and I just want to make sure you’re all right.” He couldn’t hear anything behind her door, not even a sniffle.
He tried the doorknob, and it wasn’t locked, so he gently pushed open the door. “Meg, I’m coming in.”
The door swung wide and he took a slow step inside, locating her in the armchair next to the bay window, facing away from him. The sniffling met his ears now, and he hesitated. “Meg?”
“I’m really fine,” she said.
“You hit your face.” Four words. He’d gotten up to four words. He crept closer, noting that her room was absolutely spotless. She was organized, punctual, and practically perfect in every way. It was no wonder Eli had started feeling soft things for her.
With her dark hair and dark eyes, quick smile and keen intelligence, Eli had liked Meg from the moment he’d met her. Four years ago now since he’d been looking for a nanny after the death of his wife.
Stockton had only been two years old when Caroline had died, and Eli spent a lot of time making sure the boy knew who his mother was. But she was fading inside Eli’s mind too, and a pinch started in his stomach.
A pinch that would grow, expand, swell until it consumed him. He’d had so little time with her, and he’d loved her so very much.
He honestly didn’t know if he could love someone else as much as he’d loved her, wasn’t even sure he could love another woman. But Meg had made him start to question all of that, and Caroline had been fading faster and faster since his return to Coral Canyon.
“Can I bring you some painkillers?” Eli asked. “A cold bottle of water? Some ice?”
She kept her face turned away from him, softly crying. She pulled in a deep breath in an obvious attempt to calm down. “I’ll take all of those.”
With a purpose, he turned to go do as requested. But he turned back to her and rounded the armchair so he faced her. He bent down and ran his fingertips down the side of her face. “I’m so sorry, Meg. Are you sure you’re okay?”
She lifted those beautiful eyes to his and said, “I think I’m just in shock, you know? I’ve never fallen flat on my face before.” Fresh tears slithered down her cheeks, and he wiped them away on her non-injured side.
“I’ll get your pills and the ice. You can come sit by me in the office.” It felt so nice to talk to her like normal again.
She shook her head, agony making her face crumple. Eli wanted to take her pain and endure it for her, and he hated that he couldn’t do anything. But he could. Get the pills, the water, and the ice.
“I just want to stay here,” she said. “Until I feel less shaky.”
“I’ll be right back then.” He pulled her door closed behind him though her room was about as far out of the way as a room could get. He found Celia in the kitchen with a bag of ice all ready to go.
Eli selected a bottle of water from the fridge and shook four painkillers into his palm from the bottle in the cupboard beside the fridge. “She’s okay,” he said. “She’s going to stay in her room and rest for a while.”
“Good idea.” Celia flipped a page in the cookbook in front of her. Eli started to leave when she added, “And Eli, talk to her, please. She’s so miserable.”
Eli blinked at the older woman. “I talk to her.”
“You know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes and turned another page.
Eli left her in the kitchen, took the items to Meg, and retreated back to his master bedroom so he could call his mother in private.
“Mom,” he said when she picked up. “I need your advice.” He cleared his throat. He’d always been very close to his mother, but it had been a while since Eli had needed her quite so badly.
“Advice about what, dear? Is Stockton okay?”
Eli half laughed and half exhaled. It would be so easy to just ask something about Stockton, hang up, and go sit back at his desk.
Instead, he said, “No, it’s not about Stockton. It’s about a woman.”
“A woman?” The curiosity in her voice filled the whole room.
Eli sat down on the bed heavily, his heart feeling as though someone had filled it with cement. “I feel like I’m being disloyal to Caroline, but I like this other woman, and I don’t know what to do about any of it.”
