And the woman now—so in control. So polished and careful with a slick surface you couldn’t get hold of.
Everyone was always surprised that Josie had gone into the television the way she had. Reality TV, drifting away from writing and into producing. But Alice understood. That job combo gave the girl total control. And total control over a terrible reality television show was at least total control over something.
“I do have to keep apologizing,” Josie said. “Every time I step into this place I’m reminded of everything I need to apologize for.”
“No.” Alice rushed to the girl, arms outstretched, desperate to hug her, but Josie flinched away so powerfully that she nearly fell over a box and Alice stopped, horrified by how wide the chasm was between them.
I can’t believe I let it get this bad.
“I made Cameron leave,” Josie said.
“No. Cameron made a choice—”
“Because of what I did.”
“Because of what we did. Max and me.” And that was really the truth. Alice could tell herself all day long that Cameron made the choice—and that it was the right choice looking back. But she knew the truth. She and Max hadn’t given him a choice at all.
They’d made him leave.
Josie shook her head, not buying any of this.
“I want to make this right,” Alice whispered.
Josie laughed, a harsh bark. “You know how you can make it right?”
“Tell me,” Alice said.
“Don’t pretend anymore. Don’t pretend you’re not mad. That you don’t blame me. Everyone here pretends like I didn’t ruin everything that night. You be the person who doesn’t.”
“Honey,” Alice whispered, her voice dripping with all the sympathy she felt.
Josie shook her head. “Nope. That’s not what I need from you, Alice.”
“You want me to be the thing that punishes you while you’re here?” Oh god, Alice thought, her hands shaking at her sides. Her lips trembling. “I won’t be the sword you fall on, Josie. I love you too much—”
“You know, forget it. Forget it. Sorry, I can’t help you decorate the tree,” Josie said and turned right around.
Alice sighed so hard her knees actually gave out, and she put her hand against the back of the couch and then just sat down on the arm. Her eyes burned and her heart ached and she’d done this to the poor girl.
And she didn’t know how to make it right.
“Alice?”
It was Gabe standing in the shadowy hallway. Gabe was one of those men getting better-looking with age, and he hadn’t exactly been ugly when he was twenty-eight. It was enough to make a woman crazy if she thought about it. So she didn’t. She just counted her blessings every day she had with the man.
“You saw all that?” she asked, embarrassed a little, but also glad he’d seen it so he knew what they were all up against with Josie.
“I did.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to make this right. That she’ll leave and she’ll never come back.”
Gabe walked over to her, put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her up against his body. He was warm and strong and smelled familiar and safe. His hands on her body were a comfort. And Alice pressed her face to his shirt and waited for him to say the right thing. Because that was Gabe’s superpower. Infallible. Unflappable. Positive in the darkest darkness.
Come on, honey, she thought. Hit me with some bright side.
But he was silent.
JOSIE
Dinner was served by the light of a completely decorated Christmas tree. And Josie wanted to ask who’d finished decorating it, but after one look at Gabe and Stella, she knew Alice’s husband and daughter had stepped in when Josie ran.
She’d gone back to her room in Mom and Dad’s house and told Belinda, the casting agent, that maybe an all-asshole cast would be perfect. Maybe it would be exciting.
I won’t be the thing that punishes you.
Yeah, Josie didn’t need Alice to punish her when she had this job.
Helen came waddling into the dining room wearing a yellow sweater and black leggings, and carrying a big salad bowl. Dom followed with a big platter of parsley-flecked rice and crispy roasted potatoes. Garth and Iris followed, with Garth carrying a platter of meat.
“I will have you know,” Alice said, bringing up the rear with two bottles of red wine. “I stood outside and grilled for you people.”
“And for that,” Jonah said, looking down at the dinner and rubbing his hands together, “you have my undying gratitude.”
“You know,” Daphne said. “You don’t ever react to my dinners like this.”
“I don’t?” he asked, his face twisted like he was confused about something.
“You don’t.” Daphne lifted a white-blond eyebrow.
“Is there a way for me to get out of this conversation without being in trouble?”
“Yeah. You can promise to cook.”
“Done,” Jonah said and leaned over to kiss Daphne.
“How are things at Haven House?” Josie asked as they all sat down to a beautiful Greek feast. The green salad was full of chunks of salty white feta cheese and the pita had been brushed with olive oil and toasted over the fire. Josie lived in one of the most exciting food cities in the world, but when you grew up with Alice cooking for you, it was all a little anti-climactic.
She made it seem so easy.
“It’s going pretty well,” Jonah said, looking over at Daphne who nodded in agreement. “We’ve brought in a few more teachers for both the mothers and the children. Daphne’s work program at the farm has been at capacity since we started.”
“I’ve hired two full-time employees from the program and we’ve been able to move the mothers and their kids into permanent housing in town.”
“That’s amazing,” Josie said. Haven House had been built while she was in high school and the program was up and running by her first year at college. They brought single mothers and their kids out of hard environments with few opportunities and started them off with a vacation in a beautiful inn with plenty of green space and even an indoor swimming pool. And then, slowly, they introduced programs on how to understand basic finances and their legal rights, as well as art and basic home repair, and then slowly branched into things like job training.
“We miss you, though,” Jonah said.
“Ha! Well, free labor and all that.” Josie felt Alice’s eyes across the room and just did not feel comfortable taking compliments in front of her.
“No, you were so good with those writing courses for the moms and the kids. You really struck a nerve.”
Josie’s birth father had been a violent guy—never to her, just to her mom—and Josie, when she worked at Haven House that summer, had really felt the ramifications of that. A lot of those kids had had the same kind of crappy experience.
“Remember when Cameron did that cooking class with the children?” Gabe asked, laughing. Josie felt her throat close up.
“The Riverview kitchen was the only kitchen big enough for all of them,” Jonah said.
“Yeah.” Gabe smiled at his brother. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Cameron was cleaning flour out of the tile for weeks,” Alice said.
So was I, Josie thought. And I taught that class with him. And when the kids opened the wrong end of the flour bag and the bowl fell on the floor, it was the two of us. We hit heads trying to grab the flour and he put his fingers around my wrist and my pulse beat against his skin and I was sure—sure–I was just going to die from him being so close.
She’d wished, like any sixteen-year-old girl deeply in love with a twenty-one-year-old man might wish, that he would apply the pressure to her wrist that would pull her closer to him. And then, when she was a breath away, he’d smile his half smile, hiding that crooked tooth he was embarrassed about, and press those smiling lips to hers.
She’d wished that wish so many times it was nearly a prayer.
Hele
n set a very big glass of wine down in front of Josie.
“Whoa.” Josie laughed. “You trying to get me drunk?”
“You’re drinking for two tonight,” Helen said with what seemed like a nervous smile.
“The second person is you, I take it?”
Helen nodded glancing backward at the door and then over at her parents.
“You all right?” Josie asked. She took a sip of the red wine and then another. She’d managed, so far, to keep the memories of Cameron at arm’s length. But she could feel them hovering tonight. Close enough to touch.
“Fine,” Helen said. “But look, whatever happens tonight, I just want you to know that everything is going to be okay.”
“You’re freaking me out, Helen,” Josie said, turning to face her cousin more fully.
“Alice?” Grandmother Iris was looking over her shoulder at the tree. “Did you do something different with the tree this year?” she asked.
“No. I mean, the lights are on a timer,” Alice said, putting green salad on her plate. “But I did that last year.”
“I think…” Patrick got to his feet, and over his shoulder Josie saw the branches of the tree shimmy. “…maybe the tree had a stowaway.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Max asked, leaning forward so he could see the tree too.
A squirrel poked its head out of the branches.
“Holy shit!” Dom swore. Mom smacked the back of his head.
Max, Gabe, and Jonah all got to their feet and the sound of all the chairs scraping back startled the squirrel, who jumped off the branch onto the floor.
Alice screamed and jumped away from the table. “It’s the racoons all over again!”
Mom stepped back too, but she had the good sense to grab the wine bottle and a glass as she went. Iris, Stella, and Garth were freaking out. Which also sent the squirrel into a tizzy, and the poor animal darted left and then right toward the fireplace.
“Don’t let it—” Max shouted, but the squirrel must have thought better of his plans and took an immediate right and jumped up onto the table.
Everyone screamed.
“Jesus,” Max said. “Someone open the front door.”
The squirrel ran right down the center of the table, over all the food, through the salad bowl, sending lettuce flying.
“Come on!” Alice cried, throwing her arms up in the air.
“I got it, Dad,” Josie said, walking backward toward the door. Without looking she opened it, hoping the cold air might lure the squirrel outside.
Max tried to scare the squirrel in the direction of the front entry, but all the squirrel did was knock over a candle. Helen, acting fast, threw her glass of water over the flame. And the squirrel, instead of heading for the front door, went running and then leaped off the end of the table toward the kitchen.
“Not my kitchen!” Alice cried and went running after it.
Dom and Max followed and from the kitchen there was the sound of glass shattering, and Alice swearing a blue streak.
The chill from the open front door behind Josie got to be too much, and she imagined other squirrels in the forest, hearing the plight of their brother, might come charging in to save the day. And Alice would have a conniption.
So she turned to shut the door.
But there was a man standing there.
Tall and wide, with a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like he’d walked himself here over a million miles, or perhaps through a bunch of years. He had a beard and a bright red hat pulled low on his head.
“Hi,” he said, and his voice sent chills down Josie’s spine. Across all her skin.
No. It can’t be.
At almost the exact same time she thought, Please. Please let it be him.
And then he smiled, his half smile hiding the crooked tooth he was embarrassed about.
“Cameron.” His name tumbled past her numb lips.
“Long time no see, Josie,” he said.
6
CAMERON
In Italy, four summers ago, before YouTube changed everything, Cameron had been broke as broke could be. So he’d agreed to work for room and board for this absolute asshole of an artist. He was a glassblower high in the hills of Tuscany. And Cameron had worked like a dog for Carlo in his sweltering hot workshop and then ended up having to cook for the guy, too. Which wasn’t such a chore—the guy pressed his own olive oil and he had chickens and goats, and lemon trees and rosemary grew wild in the yard.
One afternoon, after the ovens were turned off and the hills had cooled down, and Carlo had finished his second, or more likely third, bottle of wine, he’d grunted at Cameron to accompany him.
With another bottle of wine and the juice glasses Carlo like to drink from, they gathered up the week’s successes—the glass pieces Carlo hadn’t smashed off the blow pipe—and carried them in their arms up the crumbling stone steps to the top of the hill behind the house. Lizards scattered and grasshoppers bounced out of their way.
The air had smelled like rosemary and sunshine, and the light was syrup poured over the hills, and it was—for a moment—worth the burns and the work and the crap mattress in the guest room.
And then Carlo, taking a great swig of wine, started tossing the glass over the side of the hill onto the flat patio stones below where they shattered. Spectacularly.
“What are you doing?” Cameron had asked.
Carlo explained—in a voice that was passionate but slurred—that the glass was not perfect. And therefore worthless.
Carlo lit a smoke and reached for the pieces in Cameron’s arms. Cameron, exhausted and burned and a little drunk on the Tuscan sunlight, but just figuring out who he was as a chef and a man, tried to hold onto the lime green squiggle pieces in his arms even harder.
Because he was realizing that perfection was cold. And destructive. And he was about the imperfect. The messy and flawed. The welcoming and warm.
But the old man did not give up and there was actually a tussle. One of the pieces slipped out of Cameron’s hands and fell onto the rough stones they were standing on, and for one second it really seemed like it wasn’t going to shatter.
It held its shape despite the awful cracking noise.
Phew, he remembered thinking. I saved it.
And then it collapsed into pieces.
The scene in the Riverview was exactly like that moment.
No one said anything.
No one moved.
No one was even breathing. They were frozen.
And for a second it was like this wasn’t even happening at all.
Am I dreaming this?
Josie, standing near the door, looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole, and he understood that desire so well he nearly said something about it. Nearly made a joke. Like everything that had happened between them hadn’t, and they were just the kids they’d been.
But then she turned away as if looking at him was too damn hard.
And he felt the echo of the slick shame he’d spent years dealing with. Faint, sure, but there all the same.
And Helen—who, it was good to see, was actually pregnant and not just throwing that card around willy-nilly, winced and lifted her hand in a tiny wave.
And the room absolutely exploded.
“Cameron!” Everyone was talking at once, yelling, running toward the door. Of course Alice was there first. He’d counted on that. Like walking into hostile territory and seeing one familiar face.
“What…what are you doing here?” Alice asked, holding onto him so hard he could feel the knuckles of her fingers wrapped in his shirt.
“A pregnant blackmailer was involved,” he said, smiling at everyone lined up over Alice’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe it,” Alice whispered, and he could feel her tears building in the hitch of her shoulders. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Come on, Alice,” he whispered in her ear. “This is hard enough.”
She sucked in a breath
and stepped away, nothing but smiles. Helen was next. Delia. Patrick and Iris. The kids, none of whom were really kids anymore. Gabe. Jonah and Daphne. Garth, a teenager, tried to help him with his backpack.
“It’s heavy,” Cameron warned him.
“It’s a backpack,” Garth said with all the assurance of a teenager. Don’t tell me what I don’t know. Cameron remembered that feeling so well.
“All right,” Cameron said and shrugged out of the bag, which immediately toppled Garth over the edge of a chair.
“Holy crap, what’s in that thing?” Garth asked, wrestling it down to the ground.
“My whole life,” Cameron answered. Which sounded dramatic and like an exaggeration, but really wasn’t.
There were more hugs and some tears. With every hug, he found himself pulling deeper inside of his skin. Farther away from anyone’s touch.
An old survival skill.
But then there was Max.
And there weren’t enough survival skills in the world to handle Max.
“Son,” he said in a low murmur, and Cameron flinched just as Max came in for a hug. And the flinch froze Max in his place and maybe…well, maybe that was fine. For the best.
They were men now, no matter how much Max might want to “son” him. And what had happened between them in the past made it a little hard to hug the man now. He still remembered the taste of shame in the back of his throat, the way he’d been unable to look Max in the eye that night.
Shit.
He was a man now, and the choices that had been made were all his own. And truthfully, he was grateful in a lot of ways for how that whole thing had shaken out.
But the memory was still a bad one.
He was doing his best to squash an older survival skill. Learned in his father’s house. From his father’s fists.
Anger. Anger at all of them. At himself. If he could just be angry he wouldn’t feel ashamed about that night. Or pained by the years. Or shocked at all the silver in Alice’s hair.
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 7