Enchanted Spring (15 page)
Jonah threw on an extra layer of dry clothes, still chilled after the soaking he'd gotten changing a tire for the woman stranded out on Rangeley Way. He couldn't get her out of his head.
She'd been driving the latest model BMW. Though evening had been setting in, he'd still been able to see that her outfit looked like something straight off a boutique store mannequin. A fitted wool jacket, tall leather boots (oh, yeah, he'd noticed how high those went!) and brand-new jeans that still had a crease down the middle.
She'd taken perfectly nice honey-blonde hair and had those professional highlights painted on to make it blonder. He couldn't understand why women did that to themselves. Waste of good money, if you asked him.
So why was it that she looked so “city” and still seemed “small-town” approachable? Unbidden, Jonah suddenly pictured her in one of his old plaid, flannel shirts and nothing else. She'd have her fancy hair all piled up on her head, and her bare toes painted some ultra-feminine shade of pink.
Whoa! Down boy!
It wasn't like him to react so physically to a stranger he happened to meet on the road.
Refocusing the direction of his thoughts, Jonah felt a pang of guilt. Lots of tourists missed the turnoff to the highway and ended up lost out on those back roads. He should have offered that woman directions. Wait, what was he thinking? He hadn't noticed it, but surely a fancy car like that would have state-of-the-art GPS. Frowning over how much time he was spending obsessing over soft brown eyes and lush curves, he shook the woman from his thoughts and headed down to his workshop.
He'd lived his whole life in this house and had learned woodworking beside his father as soon as he'd been old enough to safely wield the tools. They had started out making birdhouses and spice racks, the usual father/son woodworking stuff. Then as his skill set grew, his dad had taught him how to make furniture.
Jonah wished his dad were still alive. He'd love to be able to show him how he'd improved on some of the basic designs they had worked on together. He liked experimenting with the lathe, creating more and more intricate designs.
Tonight he had some sanding to do on a cradle he was making for the neighbors across the road. Ken and Thea were having their first baby in January. Thea had seen some of his previous work and gushed over the detailing. He hoped they hadn't bought a cradle yet, because this was going to be a gift from him and Lily.
Settling down on the cold cement floor, Jonah winced, thinking he should have brought down a nice, hot cup of coffee. He drew the cradle onto his lap as best he could, and gently began to buff the surface smooth. If he had a wife, she could sew a nice quilt to go inside. Now that would make a fine gift.
If he had a wife. He'd been thinking about that a lot lately. Not the wife part, really, but a mother for Lily. The older his daughter got, the more out of his element Jonah felt. Lily wasn't a baby anymore. Now she wanted her hair braided, she wanted to wear fairy costumes, girl things that he didn't have the first clue about. She needed a woman's influence.
But before he could convince someone to take them on and be a mother for Lily, he had to learn to read. Pure luck had allowed him to skate through life so far. The only person in his adult life that had figured out what he kept hidden from the world was his wife, Paige. She'd taken his secret to the grave.
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This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 1968 by Peggy Gaddis
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7418-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7418-4
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7417-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7417-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
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