It Started At Christmas…. Jo McNally

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      There was a fairy-tale princess sleeping in his bed, right down to the flowing locks of golden hair. She had the face of an angel. An angel princess. Blake scrubbed his hand down his face, leaning back in the tall chair.

      “You keep doing that and you won’t have any skin left on your face.”

      He glanced over his shoulder at Amanda Lowery’s cousin standing behind him. He gave a soft, humorless laugh.

      “It’s been one hell of a morning, Mel.”

      The tall brunette leaned her hip against the back of his chair. “For all of us. The doctor said she’s okay, though. He gave her a pill. She’s just sleeping.”

      Sure, she was sleeping now. But an hour ago, she’d taken ten years off his life. The panic had consumed her like wildfire, and there hadn’t been a damned thing he could do to stop it.

      He’d carried her up to his room in Halcyon while calling Julie, the assistant manager of the resort. Within minutes, a pissed-off brunette charged into his upstairs suite, ready to rescue Amanda and accusing him of all kinds of things. Fortunately, Julie had been just a few minutes behind Mel, along with a doctor staying at the resort. Julie convinced Mel that Blake wasn’t an ax murderer, and was actually the guy Amanda had an appointment with. Once Mel calmed down, she confirmed what Amanda had tried to tell him—that it had been a panic attack.

      “Why were you so insistent on keeping her here?” Mel asked. “After you knew she’d tricked you into interviewing her?”

      Mel sat carefully on the edge of the bed, looking first at Amanda and then at him. It had been no surprise when she’d reluctantly confirmed to Julie that she was the famous fashion model known as Mellie Low. Every move this dark-haired woman made was intentionally graceful, as if there was always a camera on her. If he was in the market for a relationship, she was far more his usual type than Amanda—tall, elegant and coolly confident. But he wasn’t in the market. That wall he’d constructed around his heart after losing Tiffany was high and solid. Completely impenetrable. He relaxed back into the chair and met her questioning eyes calmly.

      “I’m not a monster, Mel. She just about had a heart attack in my house, and nearly gave me one in the process.” He dropped his voice. “I keep a few furnished rooms here for when I’m in town, so it made sense to bring her up here.” He looked up and noted her skepticism. “At least it made sense at the time.”

      Mel studied him hard for a minute, and he felt sorry for anyone who got on the wrong side of this woman. Her eyes were sharp as razors. If she ever decided to be a cop, that violet glare would have suspects confessing their guts all over the place. She was trying to protect her cousin, and he respected that. It wasn’t the kind of family he’d grown up in, but it was the way families were supposed to be.

      “She’s safe here, I promise.”

      Mel’s shoulders relaxed a bit at his comment, raising a red flag in his mind.

      “That hasn’t always been the case, has it? She hasn’t always been safe?”

      “No.” She hesitated a moment and glanced at Amanda before answering in a hushed voice. “She’s had a tough summer. Lost her job. About to lose her share of a shared apartment. And she was…” Mel straightened as if she realized she was speaking out of turn.

      “Someone hurt her,” he said softly.

      She pressed her lips together and shook her head, but Blake could see the truth in her eyes. Someone had put their hands on the pretty princess sleeping in his bed. That’s why she told him not to touch her. Was it a boyfriend? A stranger? His fingers curled into fists against his legs.

      “And the panic attacks?” Blake was trying hard not to care, but he couldn’t stop asking questions.

      “You’ve seen firsthand how bad they can be.”

      He nodded. When she’d first landed on the living room floor, he’d thought she was having a seizure. Then their eyes had met and he’d known she was trapped in some nightmare he had no part of. The glassy terror in her eyes would haunt him for a long time to come.

      She’d been skittish before that, but he’d figured she was just feeling guilty about the little game she was playing. When she’d stumbled and he’d reached for her, there was nothing funny about the way she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. She’d scared the hell out of him, that’s for damned sure. He was still afraid. He couldn’t shake it for some reason.

      “How often does that happen?”

      Mel shrugged. “It’s a fairly new development, so I’m not sure.”

      “Is she getting help for it?”

      She started to nod, then caught herself. “That’s none of your business.”

      Amanda was getting help. That was good. But Mel was right. It wasn’t his concern.

      Amanda moved, and he and Mel froze, waiting until she settled on her side with a soft sigh, curled up like a child. Her hand lay on top of the blankets. He had the strangest urge to reach over and take her fingers in his, but he suspected Mel would disapprove. Besides, he’d never been much of a hand holder, except with his young nephew.

      “The two of you are close.”

      Mel smiled. “There are actually four cousins all together, and we Lowery women are more like sisters. I just happened to be the closest to Gallant Lake this week, visiting a designer in New York. I thought her plan was so crazy it might just work, but if it didn’t, I wanted to be here for her.” She looked at him. “Did it work?”

      Good question. “Well, she pulled off getting the appointment, but…”

      “She’s good, Blake. You’d be damned lucky to have her.” He glanced at the woman in his bed, and Mel frowned. “As your interior designer, I mean. Did she show you her portfolio? It should be in her bag…” Mel got up and searched through Amanda’s leather bag, pulling out a spiral-bound notebook. “I think her photos of other projects are on her tablet, but here’s her sketchbook.” She handed it to him.

      He opened the notebook absently. Hiring Lowery would be a colossally bad idea. He prided himself on making shrewd business decisions, and she couldn’t possibly handle this… He blinked. He was looking at a drawing of Halcyon. But not the Halcyon he knew. Not even the Halcyon he saw in her original proposal. This Halcyon had life to it. And color. The living room had a sectional sofa facing the fireplace, with a flat screen on the wall. And a gaming console in the far corner. In a castle. Could he really do that? He flipped the page. This was the room that had intrigued him the most about her original proposal—the one he thought came from David Franklin. She wanted to turn the dining room into a huge home office. He’d need that if he ever decided to live here.

      He’d never been one for settling down in one spot, but now that his nephew was going to be a part of his life, maybe it was time. And maybe this was the place. Amanda’s drawings made the old castle look like a home.