“No,” he said.
She laughed. “No?”
“The truth is…I freaked out for a second. I wasn’t expecting you to be a virgin and it…it threw me.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“It’s the same way you’re freaking out right now,” he said. She looked back down at her laptop and he saw what she was going to do. How she was going to freeze him out.
He’d messed up. Sure. But they weren’t going to go out this way. Not again.
He crossed the room and leaned down, bracing one arm on the couch beside her head, getting so far into her space that she had no choice but to look at him.
“I can still taste you in my mouth,” he whispered and watched her eyes dilate, her lips part on a breath. “I can feel you against my body.” He flexed his fingers. “On my skin. And I know you feel the same way. Because I know you…” She swallowed audibly and blood pounded to his dick. “You need a second. Okay. I can give you a second. Because I needed one, too. But we’re not done. We will talk about this. We’re not going to do what we did last time.” He stood up, watching her face. Watching her heart pound in that part of her neck he’d coveted for so long. Now he knew how she tasted there. How that heartbeat felt under his lips. Against his tongue. “We have so much to talk about.”
We’re not done. We are far from done.
“You hungry?” he asked.
She blinked but was stubbornly silent. Oh, the Josie silent treatment. I remember it well. Childish but effective.
“You work, I’ll be back.” He turned toward the kitchen. There were the cinnamon rolls to start, and he thought about Josie and what he knew she’d eat.
But he also knew what she would love. He smiled. For almost every person the path to their heart was through their stomach. And for Josie, that path was made with cheese.
“Hey…Cameron?” He turned to see her. So small on the big couch, swaddled in the blankets. Her pale skin surrounded by the fall of her dark auburn hair.
“Yeah?” What do you need? he wanted to ask. What do you want? Because he would do it for her. Anything. For her.
“Can you…” She looked at the huge stone fireplace, cold, the fire long since out. “Do you know how to build a fire?”
“I do,” he said with a smile, and he walked back over to the hearth. “And I learned the same time you did.” Max had taught them.
“I haven’t made a fire in years,” she said.
He sat on the stones, stirred the ashes to see if there were any embers. And there were. Hot and pink. He gathered kindling from the basket, built his teepee and blew gently, coaxing the embers to glow brighter. Hotter. The kindling caught and he slowly, patiently, fed it larger pieces of wood until it was kicking out proper heat and crackling away.
“There,” he said, standing back.
“Thank you.”
She was flushed and unable to look at him, and he walked out of the room wondering what kind of fire they were building. The kind that blazed hot and then turned to ash? Or one that would last?
And which one did he want?
Alice’s kitchen was bigger these days, but not much else had changed. Everything was in the same general spot. Properly labeled. He pulled the stand mixer out and began making two doughs. The first, once prepared, he set to rise in a bowl covered with the old tea towel that had always been used for such things. Then he started on the cinnamon rolls. When that was done he blanched little purple potatoes he found in the cupboard. As well as some asparagus. He started mixing up goat cheese, feta, and shredded cheddar with a little bit of water.
When the first dough had doubled in size he punched it down, rolled it out, and created an odd-shaped boat, filled it with the cheese, brushed it all with melted butter, and put it in the oven to bake. He sliced up apples and found some cornichon pickles, carrots, and a couple of red peppers for dipping.
He made this food for her and tried hard not to think about all the years he’d dreamed of cooking for her. How long it had taken him to stop thinking Josie would love this after he tasted something new that blew his mind. Years. It had taken years for the ghost of her to stop traveling with him.
And now, after today, how long this time? he wondered. Before he stopped thinking about how she felt in his arms. Before he stopped thinking—oh, I’ve got to tell Josie… More years? Forever?
Could he survive that again?
Did he want to?
He took out the bread boat filled with melty cheese, slipped a raw egg yolk on top with a hunk of ice-cold butter. Loaded the dippers onto the tray with the bread boat and took it all into the living room.
“Something smells amazing,” Josie said, looking up with a careful smile. He laid a tea towel on the ottoman, set the cookie tray on it, still hot but loaded with vegetables and potatoes and fruit, and then whipped the egg and butter into the cheese until it was all stretchy and perfect.
“What in the world is this?” she asked with the kind of wonder that made him happy.
“It’s based on a Georgian dish that I had a million years ago. I’ve bastardized it here with the cheese Alice had, but the idea is all the same.”
“A melted cheese bread boat?”
“Basically. The bread bakes while the cheese melts.”
She dipped a slice of apple into the cheese, put it in her mouth, and closed her eyes with a moan. He smiled and looked away, fiddling with a pickle. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About earlier. The truth is, Josie, I’ve spent—” he shook his head “—years thinking of what I would say to you after making love. Years. And in the moment…I freaked out.”
He laid down his silence against her and waited for her to lay down hers. Talk to me, he thought.
“I get it,” she finally said. “It’s not like we planned this.”
“Well…” He decided on painful truth. Absolute truth. They owed each other that. “The truth is, I might have been.”
“Since when?”
“Really, probably the second I saw you when I first came in.”
“You were going to have sex with me and…what…?”
“Say goodbye.”
She set down the carrot.
“It was a bad plan,” he said. More truth. Truth upon truth. “And maybe I created that bad plan because I don’t know how to frame us. In my head. I don’t know how to do…this.” He waved a hand between them.
“Well, you did pretty great earlier.” Her smile wobbled. “The sex part, anyway.”
She was trying to make a joke, and he appreciated it but he couldn’t laugh.
“We never got to tell each other how we felt,” he said. “And I loved you, Josie. I really, really loved you.”
Her breath hitched and broke and she sighed. “I loved you, too.”
“So,” he said, “my plan was stupid.”
“Not stupid,” she said. “The sex part was good.”
“It really was,” he said with a laugh.
“Really?”
There was something unsure in her voice and he looked at her with his eyebrows raised. “Josie,” he murmured. “You can’t have doubts about how good that was.”
“Well, as you know, it’s not like I have a lot of experience.”
“Please tell me I didn’t hurt you,” he whispered.
“You didn’t,” she said. “It was just…a lot. All at once.”
“How…?” He let it trail off because he didn’t know how to ask the question.
“How am I a twenty-four-year-old virgin? Because it took me a long time to get over what happened the night of my birthday. And then, when other men touched me, I was just…so aware they weren’t you. And then, I don’t know, it got easier to simply turn it all off.”
“Why now?” he asked.
“Because…” She sighed. “Maybe this is how we end. This is how we fix what went so wrong. And maybe it’s how we become friends again. How we’re in each other’s lives again.”
He held his breath, wondering what she wa
s saying.
Does she want…?
“Not like a relationship. I mean, that wouldn’t work. Even a little.”
She laughed, and he smiled, though it stung. Why not? he wanted to ask. What’s stopping us from trying? Her job? His lifestyle? Those weren’t big problems. But her laughter indicated something else, something fundamental, and so he let the idea go.
“But as a goodbye?” She looked at him. “The goodbye we should have had? I don’t know what would have happened that summer if we’d gotten together, but we were just starting our lives. And a goodbye between us was inevitable. And we never got to have it.”
I would have followed you, he thought but didn’t say. I should have followed you. Those were the things he never said out loud.
“This is goodbye, then?” he asked.
“I figure we have until our family comes barrelling through those doors.”
“When the storm passes.”
“Weather channel says we’ve got another day before the blizzard is over.”
“A day? A whole day?”
It sounded good. Like a dream come true, really. And also like heartbreak all over again.
“How do you want to say goodbye?” he asked.
“Not by eating cheese,” she said and kissed him.
16
CAMERON
Hours later, the room completely dark except for the fire crackling in the hearth, he brought the reheated cheese back to her where she lay on the couch, covered only by the blanket he’d tucked around her. She was at the edges of a puddle of warmth and light that they’d created. And—he wasn’t going to lie—that he wished would never end.
He paused in the cold darkness, looking at her. How much time did they have left? An hour. Four? Six? Was that enough.
“Come on,” she said, lifting the blanket. “You must be freezing.”
“You are the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“That can’t be true,” she said, and he set down the food he’d made, pushed the ottoman closer so they could reach it, then scurried under the blanket with her. Her body was hot to the touch. She shrieked and flinched away from his cold hands but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
“Mean! So mean!” she cried.
“The cost of the Georgian cheese boat.”
“Well, in that case…” She reached over and tore a piece off the bread boat and dipped it in the cheese. She handed it to him over her shoulder. As she reached for another one he could hear the buzzing and humming of her laptop where she’d slipped it beneath the couch.
“Were you working?” he asked.
“Just checking emails and…” He pressed the cold of his foot against her leg. “Yes. Yes. I was working.”
He shifted his leg away but pulled her closer, the swells of her naked body filling the dips in his perfectly.
“I’m going to ask you five questions—”
“No!” She laughed. “Cameron, have you ever actually gotten to the fifth question?”
“With you? No. I don’t think so. But hope springs eternal. Now, do you remember the rules?”
“Of course, Cam. I do watch your channel.”
“As a reminder, you have to answer honestly and right off the top of your head. If you take longer than five seconds to answer you have to pay a penalty.”
“That’s new. What kind of penalty?”
“The kind I decide.”
“You do love this game.”
“Hey, it’s served me well. Ready? What’s the best part of your job?”
“Solving problems,” she answered honestly.
“What’s the worst part?”
She was silent.
“One…” He rolled her onto her back so he could see her face clearly. “Two.” He lifted his hand, fingers extended and wiggling.
“Tickling?” she said. “Really? Tickling is the penalty?”
“Three.”
He dug his fingers into her side, into that spot where she’d always been ticklish. And she did not disappoint. Howling and twisting, she tried to get away. “Okay. Okay!” she screamed, and he paused and repeated the question. “Worst thing about your job?”
“The people.”
That made him pause. “You work with?”
“They’re not bad. I mean, some of them are okay. But these contestants. Fame hungry and drama hungry, they make bad choices and we make bad choices and it just turns into…something ugly.”
“Okay,” he asked quietly. “Why do you do it?”
“Because they keep giving me more money and bigger credits.”
“You never cared about money before.”
She blinked at him. “Well, I grew up.”
“You wanted to be a part of telling people’s stories. That’s what I remember. You were excited about working in film and television because you wanted that to be the medium for people’s stories.”
“That’s not a question.”
“Okay. What would you do if you could do anything?”
“Honestly, Cameron. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Why?”
“Because it would make me sad.”
“Oh, Josie,” he whispered, his heart breaking for her. “You gotta quit that job.”
“And do what?”
“Figure it out.”
“Are you telling me you’re doing exactly what you want to do?”
He shifted, rolling over her, finding his way between her legs where she was warm and welcoming. “Now I am,” he said and kissed her. He kissed her and forgot that he had one more question to ask her.
JOSIE
Her body was toasty warm but her nose was cold. Without opening her eyes she tried to lift her hand to put it over her nose to warm it up, but her arms were caught against her body.
Cameron. Cameron was behind her on the couch, his arm over hers. His body heat under the blanket was like a furnace. Memories of the night curled through her. His lips. His hands. His body. The look in his eyes when she touched him. The way he said her name when she slipped him into her mouth. The grip of his hands on her hips. The growl of his voice when he told her how good she felt. How beautiful she was.
The remembered pleasure was this beautiful echo in her body, reaching out for her soul. Her heart.
This is goodbye, she told herself, because it didn’t really feel like it. It felt like a second chance and she needed to remind herself it wasn’t.
She blinked open her eyes and saw the fire was nothing but embers and bright sunlight was coming in through the big windows.
The sun was out. And long, long icicles were dripping from the roof down to the snow-covered ground. The mountains were blanketed in white.
She heard a very discreet cough, and her eyes flew to the edge of the fireplace closest to the door.
Patrick.
Patrick, who walked to the lodge early to light the fires every morning in the winter. He stood there in his thick deerstalker cap and his red and black checked winter jacket. He was pink-cheeked from the snow. Or from finding his granddaughter naked on the couch with a man who had once been like a grandson to him.
Oh god, please just let me die.
“The storm stopped around seven a.m.,” he said. “It’s nearly nine now. Unless you want everyone to know your business, you might think about getting up.” Then he started to blush. The tips of his ears got red. “I’ll give you some privacy.” He walked toward the kitchen and she immediately elbowed Cameron in the chest.
“Ouch,” he said, keeping his eyes shut and trying to pull her back into his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nearly nine and the storm stopped two hours ago.”
His eyes popped open. “Shit. Is anyone here yet?”
“Patrick,” she all but wailed.
“Okay. Okay,” he said. They threw off the blanket and in the chilly air of the lodge they scrambled into their clothes. She covered her torn shirt with an old flannel shirt of Max’s that
she found in the closet.
“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” she said. “Can you…?” She waved a finger over the empty wine bottle and the glasses and the remains of the demolished cheese boat. Condoms. There were condoms in that mess, too.
“I got it,” he said, and she ran for the stairs. As she hit the second floor landing she thought she heard him say her name, but when she turned he was already gathering up the mess and walking away from her.
CAMERON
He took a deep breath before walking into the kitchen. Cameron was a full-grown adult and so was Josie, but that didn’t make getting caught naked by a man he’d always considered a grandfather any easier.
He pushed open the door and found the old man standing at the coffee machine, watching as it gurgled and hissed.
“Hi Patrick,” Cameron said.
“Hello Cameron.” Patrick turned with a sparkle in his eye and Cameron found himself smiling.
“Probably not what you were expecting?” Cameron asked.
“Cam, I’ve been making the fire in this lodge every morning for years now and I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve caught some family member naked.”
“So nothing special then?”
“Well, I didn’t say that.” Patrick handed Cameron a mug.
Cameron set down the remnants of last night and took the coffee.
“I’m not supposed to have the high-octane stuff,” Patrick said. “But I figure if no one is here to see me, maybe it doesn’t count.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“Probably not.” Patrick took a sip of the brew made from Alice’s very good beans and smacked his lips with delight. “So?” he asked.
“So?” Cameron echoed, looking for the milk because Patrick made his coffee like tar.
“So that’s how you’re going to play this?” Patrick asked. “Like it’s no big deal?”
“There’s no other way to play it,” Cameron said.
“Says who?”
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 16