Claiming the Single Mom's Heart (Hearts of Hunter Ridge) Read online

  Please, God.

  And then...the little girl was safe in his arms.

  * * *

  Heart pounding, barely able to breathe, Sunshine descended the slide steps and ran to where Grady had her daughter clasped tightly to his chest. A crying Tessa had a death grip around his neck.

  Sunshine stretched out her arms and, with only a slight hesitation, Tessa loosened her hold on Grady. He lowered her to the ground where Sunshine pulled the trembling body close.

  Thank God, thank God.

  Whatever would she have done had Tessa been seriously hurt? Or even— No, she wouldn’t go there. Not while she had the most precious possession of her heart wrapped in her arms. She tightened the embrace. Thank You, Lord.

  A sniffling Tessa wiggled loose, pulling back to cup her mother’s face in her small hands. “Don’t cry, Mommy. Grady saved me.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, he did.” Wiping away her own tears with her hand, she looked up to where he was watching them silently, his eyes filled with unmistakable relief. And something more...

  “Thank you, Grady.” Tears again pricked her eyes as she ran her hand along the gaping hole where the sleeve had torn away. “Tessa, you know you aren’t supposed to go on the big one yet. You promised, remember?”

  “I forgot, Mommy. I wanted Grady to see me go down it.”

  Sunshine exchanged a glance with him, catching the flinch in his expression. Her daughter’s desperate hope of being noticed by a father figure had spurred her to a dangerous decision. But there would be plenty of time for chastisement later.

  Grady held out a handkerchief and, with a wobbly smile, she took it from him and dabbed at her own eyes and Tessa’s. Then let the little girl blow her nose.

  “Looks as though you’re our hero twice in one week, Grady.” But the word hero didn’t express half of what she was feeling toward him. The rush of emotion that only with willpower did she keep in check, stopping herself from leaping to her feet and throwing her arms around him, seeking solace in the strong arms that had saved her daughter.

  How would she ever repay him for what he’d done for her today?

  Pull out of the campaign against his mother, her conscience pricked. Drop pursuit of compensation on your great-great-grandfather’s behalf.

  Pushing aside the nagging accusations, she managed a smile. “I’ll wash your handkerchief when I do laundry this week.”

  “No rush.” He glanced behind her, his eyes narrowing. “I’ll let Parks and Rec know they need to cordon off that slide until they can get it fixed. We don’t want some other little kid getting clothing caught on it.”

  “No, the outcome might not be so fortunate.” She gave Tessa another hug.

  There was nothing she could do that would ever repay Grady, but surely there was a way she could demonstrate appreciation for rescuing her daughter from harm and herself from heartache. To somehow release her from the heavy weight of indebtedness to a Hunter.

  Her mind raced, searching. And then, a possibility dawned.

  But would he allow her to do it?

  Chapter Seven

  By Saturday Grady was still dealing with the impact of the rescue that left him more shaken than he cared to admit.

  Too many times he’d relived—in excruciatingly detailed slow motion—that heartrending moment when he’d seen Tessa go over the edge of the slide. Again felt the fear that he wouldn’t cover the distance in time to break her fall to the hard ground below.

  But by God’s grace, all was well.

  So he should be happy, shouldn’t he, that he’d see Tessa today? Her mother had called last night to ask if he could show them the historic cabins on the Hunter’s Hideaway property and he’d agreed. But for a number of reasons, he was far from happy about it.

  “Earth to Grady.” Seated next to him, Rio bumped his shoulder with hers.

  “What?” His attention jerked to the breakfast meeting underway in a conference room at the Hideaway. A roomful of curious eyes focused on him. Warmth crept into his face.

  From the head of the table, his father repeated, “I asked how the game supply store is coming along.”

  “Extremely well.” Grady met Dad’s steady gaze with a reassuring nod.

  At age sixty, Dave Hunter was a man who in both manner and appearance had long reminded Grady of the steady, hardworking father seen on reruns of The Waltons TV show. But for many years—since Luke had headed off to the army when Grady was fifteen—his father had expected more and more of his youngest son. Without fail—except for once—he’d always stepped up to deliver on those expectations.

  “Even with stopping the weekend work,” Grady added, “Ted and his crew are making solid headway.”

  “Good to hear.” Dad rewarded him with a smile.

  “I anticipate we’ll be right on target for a mid-October opening. The security systems are being set up at both the store and the off-site storage facility. Worker bees are lined up to process online sales, including Trevor and one of his high school buddies, and a few to man the shop and demonstrate equipment. Stock is set for delivery and the website’s being finalized.”

  Trevor, Luke’s eldest child of three from his first marriage, was over-the-top excited about being a part of this new venture.

  “You’ve done an excellent job overseeing this, Grady.” Grandma Jo’s eyes warmed. “We can always count on you.”

  “Hear, hear!” Luke, now back from his honeymoon, raised his glass of orange juice in tribute. Grady knew what effort that took. Although Luke and Dad were mending fences, it had to hurt at times that his younger brother had been running the show, heading up the enterprise alongside their father during the years he’d been gone.

  “I appreciate you being my backup right now, son.” His father paused, ducking his head slightly and Grady knew he was having difficulty expressing himself. “You know, freeing me up to be with your mother.”

  An uncomfortable silence drifted over the table.

  “I’m there for you and Mom. Always.” He glanced around at his extended family—grandmother, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. Only Mom wasn’t in attendance. “We all are.”

  Everyone nodded. A united Hunter front.

  Dad looked up again, his lips tightening as he rose from the table. “Let’s get on with our day.”

  Once outside in the fresh mountain air, Grady climbed into his SUV and headed to his cabin. Although it was out of the way, he’d given Sunshine directions, thinking that her arrival would create less speculation if she didn’t march in the front door of the Hideaway’s main buildings.

  As he parked outside his cabin, he paused to look at the rustic dwelling he called home. It was a relatively new cabin. Built in the late 1950s, a porch stretching across its width lent a homey look, as did half barrels of red geraniums squatting on either side of the steps. Grandma Jo’s touch. What would Sunshine and Tessa think of it?

  And why should he care?

  Once inside, he gave his surroundings a final inspection. He’d been up late last night after Sunshine’s call—vacuuming, straightening up in the living room, cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms. Making sure his clothes were gathered up from the floor and stowed neatly in closets and drawers. Opening windows to freshen things up.

  He didn’t often have company these days. Certainly not feminine company. He didn’t want Sunshine to think he was a total slob.

  He’d just hung his jacket on a peg near the front door when he heard the slamming of car doors. Female voices. Without thinking, he hastily checked his hair in an antique wall mirror in the entryway. Then, realizing what he was doing, he grimaced at himself and opened the door to welcome his guests.

  “Grady!” Tessa raced up the steps to give him a hug. Which was exactly the reason why this morning’s outing made him less than hap
py. He couldn’t get attached to Sunshine’s kid, nor her to him. It was one thing to pour his heart into his nieces and nephews, but past experience proved it was better to keep other people’s kids at a distance.

  Sunshine had told him last night that Tessa’s shoulder was sore, but she seemed to be doing okay today. No worse for the wear. When she released him, she peered around him into the cabin.

  “This is where you live? Can I see inside?”

  “Now, Tessa—” Sunshine cast him an apologetic look.

  “No problem. Come on in.” At least the house was relatively clean now. Smelled good. He stepped back and, wide-eyed, Tessa joined him to take in her surroundings.

  “Oh, look, Mommy!” In a flash, she covered the ground between the entry and the far side of the living room, coming to stand beside an oversize wooden rocking horse. “Can I ride it?”

  “Sure.” It was sturdy enough. He’d made it for Jasmine’s then-four-year-old daughter, Allyson, so she’d have something to play with when they visited. There was a swing out back, too, secured to a big oak branch.

  Why hadn’t he gotten rid of that stuff?

  “Sorry to invade your space, Grady.” Sunshine stepped inside as well, looking around with as much interest as her daughter had. “This is nice. I love the open floor plan—how the staircase in the middle divides the front living area from the kitchen and dining room. It looks comfortable.”

  It did look nice, if he said so himself. The warmth of the wood. Sun streaming in the windows. “Well, any of the decorative stuff you can credit my sisters for. You’ve met Rio, who isn’t much into that, but the twins between Rio and me made sure I’m not living life with lawn chairs and a card table or a wall calendar as my only artwork.”

  “I noticed several of your photos here.” She inspected an enlargement of a doe and fawn, then looked back at him. “I’ve been giving some thought to your idea to incorporate a photography element at Hunter’s Hideaway. How you said you’re not sure where to start with a proposal. But I know exactly where you should start.”

  “You do?” Not surprising. She had a reputation for always having an answer and insisting others go along with it.

  “It starts by addressing the main issue your family will be thinking when you approach them about it. The same thing almost every person on the planet wonders when presented with a new proposition. What’s in it for me?”

  “I guess I need to figure that out, don’t I? I haven’t been free to invest as much time on it as I’d like.”

  “What if I helped? For years my mother has worked at artists’ cooperatives in the towns we’ve lived in. Jerome. Sedona. Triumph. In fact, Triumph is where Mom helped establish and still manages the local co-op. As a result, I had extensive experience working with her—which is how I landed this job.”

  “And that relates to my photography idea how?”

  “Mom and I’ve helped dozens of artists prepare proposals to get their work into exclusive galleries and shops. With tons of talent out there, the competition is huge. But the artists who can present well, who can convince people that featuring their work will be worth their while...well, they have an edge over equally talented artists who don’t know how to sell themselves.”

  “Makes sense.” The web designer for their new online store had talked about things like that. But he hadn’t thought about how it might apply to his photography proposition.

  “I’d be happy to help you drill down to the essence of what your family needs to know and solidify that in a proposal that will knock their socks off. So what do you say?”

  * * *

  From the resistance in his eyes, she’d thought Grady would flatly turn her down. But he’d said thank you and that he’d think about it.

  Now, slowly bumping along a rutted dirt track that wound its way through the forest, he appeared to be giving it more thought. Asked a few questions. Grew silent. Asked a few more. So there was still hope that she could somehow balance out the debt she owed for the two rescues that week.

  “Well, there it is.”

  Grady motioned to the left and she glimpsed an old gray cabin through a stand of ponderosas. A tingle of excitement sped through her as he pulled his SUV off the dirt road and onto an overgrown track through the trees. This was possibly the home of her great-great-grandparents. Where they’d lived. Loved. Had they started a family here? How long had they been settled before they’d lost everything to the Hunters?

  When they’d climbed from the vehicle and Grady had helped Tessa out of the back, she was immediately struck by how quiet it was. An unearthly quiet, not even the sound of the wind in the trees, the bark of a squirrel or the chirp of a bird. Not so much as the distant drone of an airplane overhead. What must it have been like to have lived here over a hundred years ago, far from civilization?

  An involuntary shiver curled up her spine.

  As if absorbing the atmosphere of the property as well, Grady let Tessa take his hand and together they approached the weathered cabin silently.

  “It’s not very big, is it?” Sunshine said softly.

  Likewise, Grady’s voice lowered. “Not big at all.”

  He paused to study the cabin, then released Tessa’s hand and pulled out a set of keys. Inserted them in a padlock. “We keep it locked up now. Transients found their way back here a few years ago and took up residence. They made a real mess of the place.”

  She didn’t like the thought of someone desecrating this historic home. “That’s a shame.”

  Tessa drew close. “Why are we whispering, Mommy?”

  Sunshine smiled as Grady pushed open the door to the darkened interior. “I guess because it’s so quiet here that I feel as if I need to be quiet, too.”

  Tessa’s nose wrinkled as she eyed the open doorway with suspicion. “I don’t like this place. It’s creepy.”

  “You don’t have to go inside, but stay close by, okay? Don’t wander off.”

  Grady motioned for Sunshine to precede him into the cabin.

  “Oh, wow. Dirt floors.” But at least natural light came in from the small paned windows on two sides of the room, and open rafters overhead reduced the claustrophobic feeling that might otherwise have dominated. She stepped farther into the room, inspecting the chinked log walls. It was cool inside, an earthy smell mingling with the faint scent of wood smoke from past fires. She moved to the soot-stained stone fireplace, noticing the charred remains in the iron grate. “Someone’s been here recently.”

  “Me.”

  She glanced at him curiously.

  “I occasionally spend the night out here so I can be up early to take photos.” He moved to one of the smudged windows, then looked at her again. “A twenty-or thirty-minute drive through the forest in this direction is far enough from the heart of Hideaway activity to put wildlife more at ease.”

  “And you said the other couple in that photo—Walter and Flora Royce—lived here? Why so far away from the current site of Hunter’s Hideaway where your ancestors settled?”

  He shrugged, his expression unexpectedly grim. “People needed elbow room, I guess.”

  She continued to survey the sparsely furnished room. A small table and chairs. Bench. Shelves. A lantern on a side table. “I don’t suppose any of this is original furniture?”

  “No, that’s long gone.”

  “So where do you sleep when you come here?” A bed frame or hammock was conspicuously absent.

  “Sleeping bag on the floor.” He grinned at her look of dismay. “No different than camping except you have more protection from the elements and critters in here.”

  “True.” She moved again to the fireplace, resting her hand on its cool, natural-stone surface. Had her ancestors roasted venison here? Stirred iron cooking pots of stew? Shared intimate hours in front of a crackling fire? “If only these
walls could talk.”

  “Mommy!”

  Startled at Tessa’s cry of alarm, Sunshine spun toward the door. “Oh!”

  Not knowing he’d come in close behind her, she’d run smack into solid-as-a-rock Grady. Startled, he gently grasped her upper arms to steady her. Heart thudding, her breath shallow, time seemed to stand still as she stared into his eyes. At the strong jaw and slightly crooked nose. He seemed to be studying her features with equal interest. And then, as if remembering what had sent her careening into him, he released her and stepped back. After only a moment’s hesitation, she rushed through the open cabin door and into the bright sunlight.

  Almost frantic, she searched for Tessa. “Where—?”

  “Over here, Mommy!”

  Aware that Grady was behind her, Sunshine hurried to where her daughter stood partially hidden, her chest pressed against a towering ponderosa, eyes wide and pointing to something on the far edge of the clearing. “What are they? Little hairy pigs?”

  Some distance away, Sunshine noticed motion down low, among the shaded clumps of tall grasses and boulders. Then, warily, two small creatures emerged and she recognized them at once.

  “Javelina.” Grady’s low voice echoed her thoughts.

  Tessa stared up at him. “Have-a-what?”

  “Javelina,” he repeated, amusement lighting his eyes. “And yes, they do look like hairy pigs, but they’re not pigs.”

  Sunshine eyed them warily. “They don’t usually come out during the daytime, do they?”

  “Actually, they can be quite active in the mornings and enjoy sunshine. They don’t usually venture into elevations a whole lot higher than the Mogollon Rim, though, so these may have gotten separated from their herd.”

  “Let’s leave them in peace, then, shall we? We need to let you get back to work, so the other cabin can wait for another time.”

  “Work will be there waiting whenever I return.”

  “What is it, exactly, that you do at Hunter’s Hideaway?” She’d been wanting to ask for some time.