A Heartwarming Thanksgiving

by Amy Vastine

  He focused on her braid, another intricate twist that curved around her head, beckoning him to unravel the honey strands. Was that sweat dampening his forehead? “You’ll be missed.”

  “No one will miss the killjoy with her bug spray and doggy waste bags and worries.” Ruthie stuffed more clothes inside the bag. “Even my sweet, put-together mother believes a hike to her daughter’s ceremony will be refreshing and thrilling.”

  Matt jammed his hands into his jean pockets. “She’s just excited about her daughter’s marriage.”

  “Mom is excited one of her daughter’s won’t be an embarrassment.” Ruthie stopped packing her bag. Her chin dropped toward her chest. “And this time, if anything happens at the ceremony, mother’s friends won’t be there to witness her humiliation.”

  Matt seized Ruthie’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “You aren’t an embarrassment to your family.”

  “I was left at the altar.” She fisted her fingers in his shirt and pressed her knuckles into his chest as if trying to push some truth into him. “Alone at the altar with the priest, a three piece orchestra and a ten person bridal party.”

  “Justin Cook is the embarrassment.” He tipped her chin up with his fingers. “Never you.”

  “Did I mention the four hundred bewildered guests seated in the pews. Every one of them left staring at the pitiful, abandoned bride?” Her words dipped into a whisper as if the memory squeezed the life from her voice.

  “That’s not what I heard.” He framed her face with both of his hands. “I heard there was a stunned bride left at the altar who handled herself with class and dignity.”

  “All those motorcycle rides have damaged your hearing.”

  He ignored her. “I also heard the groom’s own family called their son a crazed lunatic for leaving Ruthie Cain and that they enjoyed the after party with the other guests.”

  “We’d already rented the ballroom and paid for the DJ. Dad thought it would be a waste not to make use of the venue he’d paid in advance for. The Cook family always liked a good party.”

  “I also heard the bride was stunning, but her real beauty, well, that shone through when she took the leftover food from the reception to the homeless shelter in her wedding gown.”

  “All that food was going to be wasted,” Ruthie said. “The gown hardly mattered at that point.”

  “But you mattered, Ruthie,” Matt said. “To all those guests who stayed to support you afterwards. To all those people you helped that night at the shelter.”

  “But…” Ruthie said.

  Matt pressed his thumb against her mouth. “You matter.”

  Her lips tensed beneath his touch as if she readied her argument. He held her stare, kept his gaze fixed on her pale eyes, willing her to listen. Willing her to believe him. She mattered, more than she could ever know. Finally the tension shifted from her face, her palms relaxed against his chest and her gaze softened to the color of the ocean in the height of the summer. One of his favorite sites.

  He released her, walked to the door and turned back. “Ten minutes and we’re hitting the road.”

  * * *

  Ruthie’s front teeth bit into her lower lip. Matt’s voice boomed in the family room as he commanded Duke’s attention. The scratch of nails against the hardwood was followed by Matt’s quick laughter.

  He’d told Ruthie that she mattered. She believed him. She’d discovered that truth in London, discovered she was worth more than being left at an altar. Worth more than Justin Cook could ever have given her. She pressed her fingers against her bottom lip where Matt’s touch lingered. She mattered, but did she matter to Matt? Could she matter to him?

  But that was only her heart misleading her again. She blamed jetlag for her weak resolve.

  She didn’t want to matter to Matt Wright.

  Ruthie crammed her clothes into her duffle and shoved the pink glittery tennis shoes on top. She used her foot to hold everything inside while she pulled the zipper closed. Nothing fit like it had before Duke attacked her carefully packed bag and before Matt attacked her carefully guarded heart.

  “Five minutes,” Matt called out from the hallway. “We’re going to need every minute of the three and a half hour drive to write down your extensive shopping list.”

  Ruthie was going to need every minute of the three and a half hour drive to remind herself why charmer Matt Wright was all wrong for her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Ruthie,” Matt said.

  There was more warmth in the way Matt said her name than in the sun shining through the passenger window on her arm. “No, you can’t have another macron.”

  “You’re very talented, but mind-reading is not one of your skills.” He grinned as he changed lanes. “You can’t know I was going to ask for one.”

  “I saw your greedy look when I set the bag in the car,” she said. “Admit it. You liked them.”

  “I like you,” he said.

  And that warmth flared through her whole body. “Have you forgotten that I’m immune to your charm?”

  “But you weren’t immune to Justin’s charm.” His grin faded. “And I was always sincere.”

  “You were sincere with every female in our high school.” She grabbed his jacket from the consol and covered herself.

  “I was nice to everyone in that school,” he said. “There’s a difference between all those other females and you.”

  “What is that?”

  “I wouldn’t have left you at the altar.”

  “You’d never get close to an altar in the first place,” she said. “It doesn’t suit your lifestyle.”

  “Ouch. What is my lifestyle exactly?”

  “Motorcycles, freedom, and no commitments.” She pointed to the back seat where Duke and Lady slept. “I bet you don’t even have a pet, not even a gold fish.”

  “Did Justin have a dog, two cats and an aquarium?” he asked.

  “Not that it’s your business, but no, he didn’t have pets either.”

  “And yet he was qualified to walk down the aisle with you.”

  “We matched on paper.” She put Matt’s jacket on, determined to capture that warmth from a few minutes ago.

  “Love can’t be coded like a computer program or formulated like a theory in a science lab.” He reached over and pulled her braid from inside the thick jacket. “It’s never that simple.”

  His hand settled on the steering wheel. She kept her hands in her lap. But she wanted to reach for him. To bring him back to her. Actually, what she needed was to bring back her sanity. This was charmer Matt. “If it had been that simple, I would’ve guessed ahead of time that Justin wanted my sister, not me.”

  “He told you that?” Matt asked.

  “His exact words were: Ruthie, you’re good as you are, but you’d be even better if you were Becca.” Still miles away from the mountains and already a chill settled deep inside her. She switched on the seat heater, zipped Matt’s jacket to her chin and opened her notes ap on her phone. “I need to recreate the shopping list.”

  Matt remained quiet. Duke and Lady snored in the back seat. Finally heat seeped into her thighs and lower back. With each breath Ruthie inhaled Matt’s spicy cologne. He surrounded her and if she closed her eyes, she felt as if he held her. Everything inside her calmed and settled. She checked the recipes she’d e-mailed herself for the week and added ingredients to a new shopping list. She fell asleep in the middle of re-constructing her list.

  The bang of a car door startled Ruthie awake. She blinked and watched Matt drop her cell phone in the cup holder.

  He smiled. “You need another ten hours of sleep to get fully caught up.”

  “That was the best or longest sleep than I’ve had in days.” She glanced at the mountains. “We made it then?”

  “With time to spare. Goodbye grocery store, hello rental house.” He started the car as Duke thrust his head between the front seats. “I think the sooner the dogs can stretch their legs, the better.”
/>   Duke nudged her shoulder. “You’ll be free in a few minutes,” she told him.

  “I got everything I could on the list,” Matt said. “They didn’t have whole nutmeg pits and asking the cashier was futile. So I picked up ground nutmeg and parsley instead of parsnip root.”

  Ruthie rubbed her eyes. “What recipe is that for?”

  Matt typed the rental house address into the car’s navigation system. “The Hochseitsuppe.”

  “You mean the wedding soup Steve’s grandmother wants to make, but that recipe was written in German.”

  “There’s this thing called the internet.” He pulled out of the parking lot onto the main street.

  “I didn’t even know how to spell it until last night and I can barely pronounce it now.”

  “It’s because you’re breaking it up into too many syllables.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him. “And you know this because you took German in high school. Oh wait, German wasn’t offered as an elective.”

  He laughed and turned right onto Cedar Drive, following the navigator’s directives. “I took it in college.”

  “Why? So you could speak to your father’s fourth wife?” She winced at the peevish note in her voice. But he’d known so much about her failed wedding; about her. Shouldn’t she have known he spoke more than one language with more than a passing fluency? What else had she gotten wrong about him?

  “Patsy Ryan was number four and she has only Irish blood in her veins. If you want to talk to her, you pour her a Guinness and refrain from mentioning my father’s name.”

  “Then why did you take German?” she asked.

  “I wanted to.” He stopped at a stop sign, checked the navigation. “And I needed it for my language arts minor.”

  “You rehab apartments to the glory of their former historical period.” And he rode motorcycles. And he traveled. She knew that from the pictures she’d seen of the house transformations he’d been a part of. Whenever Becca had referred to Matt over the past year, she’d always added: when Matt gets back in town. Her mother had informed her that Matt’s last girlfriend had moved to Nashville with her country singer boyfriend a month before Ruthie’s disastrous wedding day. And for the first time since high school, both Matt and she were single at the same time in the same city.

  “I work for Prestige Restorations when I’m home.” He turned around in a driveway and made a left on a street marked private.

  They passed through an open black rod-iron gate and continued on a single lane drive up the side of the mountain. Becca had sent Ruthie pictures of the private property with a main house that slept twenty and a guest house for ten. The reception would be at the main house with its four fire pits and outdoor kitchen. The five acre property would allow the dogs plenty of space to run. Ruthie felt like she knew more details about the rental estate than she did about Matt. “What about when you aren’t home?”

  “I consult on special assignments as a translator.”

  “That sounds like a secret agency thing.” She toyed with the zipper on his jacket and laughed. “Like a movie where you get called in to speak to crime lords and terrorists, but you can’t share the details or you risk national security.”

  “I can’t share the details.” He parked the car in the half moon driveway and opened his door. “The calls do come in from a special agency, but it’s nothing like the movies.”

  “You’re serious.”

  He jumped out and smiled at her. “Better get moving if you plan to be back on schedule. Becca and Steve arrive in less than an hour. And Becca’s salmon won’t cook itself.”

  Ruthie grabbed Duke’s and Lady’s leashes and released the pair in the fenced in back yard while Matt unloaded their bags. Ruthie picked up several shopping bags and followed Matt inside, staring at his back. He’d been around the Cain family since before his muscles started straining against his t-shirts and before heat wrapped his smiles in more than simple charm. Their mothers had become fast friends while chairing several parent committees at their children’s middle school and that friendship was even stronger now. Matt’s parents were the only non-blood relatives invited to the private ceremony on the mountainside.

  And Ruthie thought she knew Matt. He’d blown up beakers in the science lab more than once and had used three dozen rolls of toilet paper to cover the Cain’s front yard on Ruthie and Becca’s sixteenth birthday. He drove a motorcycle, broke hearts, and thought almost everything was a pretty good joke.

  Matt did not save the world. Or find suitable substitutes for Ruthie’s shopping list. Or make Ruthie’s heart flutter like it usually did when she’d proven one of her research theories right.

  Who was she kidding? She’d always found Matt fascinating. From the moment he’d crashed her friend’s pool party at the country club with a cannonball off the high dive. He’d been much easier to avoid back then. He’d never stepped inside the school library and she’d spent most of her free time researching something in the non-fiction section. College had granted an even wider divide. Still everyone around Ruthie, including her own mother, had kept her informed of Matt’s adventures.

  Except no one had mentioned the important things. Maybe because Ruthie had never asked.

  She’d never wanted to know. She’d wanted to believe there was nothing more to Matt than a great smile and carefree attitude. She’d needed to believe Matt was committed to the right now, not the long haul. Because falling for a charmer like Matt meant she’d stopped listening to reason and started listening to heart.

  But being left at the altar once was bad enough. She didn’t think she’d survive a second time.

  She set the grocery bags on the counter. It was time to set Matt back in the restricted section and return to her schedule. She had to plan dinner tonight, a Thanksgiving Feast tomorrow and a wedding in four days.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “The Petersons plus their three teenage sons and Mr. and Mrs. Nash will be joining us for dinner.” Nita Cain, Ruthie’s mother, filled three wine glasses with chardonnay.

  “Don’t forget we told the Henleys and Mr. Burke to join us at breakfast this morning.” Mrs. Wright, Matt’s mother, picked up one of the glasses.

  Ruthie stabbed a potato with her knife. “That’s ten extra people.”

  “We couldn’t let them be alone on Thanksgiving, Ruthie.” Her mother sipped her wine. “Since we’re celebrating this week, we need to open our doors to all of the guests.”

  Opening the doors for a drink and appetizer was one thing. Ruthie hadn’t planned the main meal with so many extra guests. She whacked the potato in half.” Any other last minute additions?”

  “I remember Nita texting you about the Harrisons and the Kents yesterday.” Steve’s mother clinked her glass against the women’s glasses.

  Ruthie changed the add-count to fourteen. She’d never received a text about any additional families. Already the mothers covered for each other as if they were old friends. How was it possible for the three women to become so close in less than a week? Steve’s parents lived in Arizona. Up until this week, the parents had only been to an occasional dinner together. But the three couples had traveled up to Tahoe last Saturday and were all staying together in the guest house. And it was clear the three couples had formed a tight bond.

  Mrs. Wright walked over to kiss Ruthie’s cheek. “It’s lovely not to have to cook on Thanksgiving.”

  Ruthie wouldn’t know. She’d suggested a caterer for the rehearsal dinner, but her mother and Becca wouldn’t hear of such a blasphemous suggestion. The Cains never catered Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother had argued it just wasn’t done. Becca had argued that no caterer could prepare the organic menu she’d planned. And Ruthie had argued that rehearsal dinners should not be scheduled on Thanksgiving Day. She’d lost and somehow not only become the recipient of the particular recipes the families requested for Thanksgiving, but also the chef.

  The mothers drifted onto the back porch with the other guest
s, leaving Ruthie alone in the spacious kitchen. She frowned at the empty wine bottle and looked out the wide window above the stainless steel sink. Matt stood in front of the commercial grill that took up most of the outdoor kitchen, a dozen people crowded around him. Matt waved a pair of tongs over his head as he captured his audience’s attention with his story. Even Sophie had defected to the fun team. She stuck a chip into the guacamole dip and laughed along with the rest of the crowd.

  Matt finished his story and glanced at the window. Ruthie stepped back, but she saw him hand the tongs to Zack and head toward the porch. Three breaths later and he strolled inside the kitchen, one of those iced beer mugs in his hand.

  Ruthie dumped a cutting board in the sink and ignored him.

  “You should come outside with everyone. There are real chips out there,” Matt said. “I know because I bought them myself. They’re disappearing faster than any of the others.”

  “There’s too much to do.” She wiped off the island, trying to wipe away her urge to run outside with him.

  “No one said you can’t have fun too.”

  She tossed the rag on the counter and faced him. “You can’t just laugh up more turkey.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  She wanted to believe him. But he twisted her up, trying to lure her away from her responsibilities. Thanksgiving was never fun. It took hard work to stay on schedule and make sure the evening proceeded without any glitches. What if she went outside with him? “What if there isn’t enough food and people are hungry?”

  He set his beer mug on the counter and shrugged. “Then we’ll order pizza.”

  She wasn’t going anywhere with him. He didn’t understand. “That’d ruin Becca’s carefully planned meal.”

  Matt pointed at the sliding glass doors. “It doesn’t look like Becca will mind.”