Snow Angel Cove (Hqn) by RaeAnne Thayne

likes to lay her head next to my husband’s—I guess I’m funny that way—and
he
likes to stay close to his horses. We’re in a cozy little house just off the barn that used to be the foreman’s cottage, which means the cook’s quarters are completely available for you and Maddie. It couldn’t be more perfect. After you finish breakfast, we’ll go take a look and see if the rooms might work for you.”
    Sue was right. So far this job offer seemed made to order for her particular circumstances, she thought, as she and Maddie ate the hearty breakfast—complete with pancakes that were so perfectly heart-shaped, Eliza didn’t know how she ever again would have the guts to make her own paltry attempts.
    Maddie chattered away about her other favorite foods and other delicious pancakes she had tried, which led to a conversation about the berry pancakes she had eaten when the two of them had driven to the Oregon Coast during the summer and how she had chased a hermit crab around the beach and had looked at tide pools and touched a starfish.
    Eliza would have tried to divert her attention in some way but Sue seemed to enjoy whatever conversational detour Maddie meandered down, watching her with a kind, indulgent expression.
    When they both had finished breakfast, Sue took their plates and loaded them into one of two gleaming stainless-steel dishwashers Eliza could see.
    “Should we go take a look at the cook’s quarters?” she asked.
    She nodded and slid away from the table. Sue led the way to a door just down the hall from the kitchen. As Eliza looked around at the comfortable space with twin beds, a basic but well-equipped bathroom and even a sitting room, she had to fight the inappropriate urge to laugh.
    Call her a pessimist, but she had to wonder about what fine print she must be missing. The position seemed almost too good to be true—a jaw-dropping salary, a beautiful home in which to spend the holidays and the ideal apartment for her and Maddie. It was better, even, than the slightly larger but more outdated space they would have shared at the Lake Haven Inn.
    Who would have guessed that being hit by a car might turn out to be a lucky break?
    She was still shaking her head at that irony when she saw movement outside the window and spotted Aidan, bundled up against the cold, heading for the outside door that led into the mudroom.
    He stomped his boots off on the mat outside the door and brushed snow from his coat, then pulled off a wildly colored knit hat, leaving his dark hair sticking up in tufts. Oddly, seeing him like this, slightly wild and tousled, made him seem somehow more human and approachable than the carefully groomed executive who appeared on the business magazine covers.
    “What do you think?” Sue asked.
    She thought the man was too darn gorgeous for his own good. Or hers.
    “It should work very nicely,” she managed to answer.
    “You and the little one will have all your meals with the rest of us, of course, so you needn’t worry about having a kitchen of your own. As you can see, you’ve got a microwave and a little refrigerator in here. If you have something special you’d like to fix in the kitchen, of course you would be welcome to. I’ll also set aside space in one of the refrigerators for you to keep things of your own that might not fit in here.”
    “Great. I appreciate that.”
    “When we have a minute, I’ll sit down with you and find out a few favorite foods you and Maddie might enjoy.”
    “That’s not really necessary. We can eat anything. But thank you.”
    They headed back out into the mudroom, to find Aidan taking off his coat.
    “Oh. You’re back,” Sue said. “How is it out there?”
    “Deep. We could barely get the door open to the garage in order to get the pickup truck with the plow. We finished clearing around the house. Now Jim is working on clearing the drive to the main road.”
    “I was just showing Eliza the cook’s quarters.”
    “Have you made a