Hot Christmas Nights

by Rachel Bailey

  He and Annabel had been thick as thieves when they were kids. But now they could have been distant relatives, strangers even. The fault for that lay squarely on his shoulders. He was the one who’d blown up at her for daring to change a thing about the beach house, which he’d had absolutely no right to do since he’d refused to even visit.

  Mumbling his agreement under his breath, he set to work cooking them breakfast. Egg-less French toast with a batter of milk, spices and a little flour. Luckily the stove was gas and after he located the matches they were able to get some heat going.

  He lit a few candles while he was at it, given the dark clouds didn’t allow much light into the kitchen. It was almost romantic. He pushed at the melting butter with a wooden spoon.

  “Will it work without eggs?” Neve asked, leaning against the counter and watching him prepare the toast.

  “Yeah, we used to make it like this all the time because my mother was allergic to eggs.” He dipped the now thawed toast into the milky batter. “I don’t have much of a taste for them anyway because I didn’t eat them very often growing up.”

  “No eggs and bacon?” She shook her head. “What’s the point of living?”

  “I’m more of a pancakes kinda guy.” He dropped the first piece of toast into the pan and it sizzled, the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg wafting up into the air. “I’ve got a sweet tooth.”

  He finished cooking the toast and they carried a pile of it to the table along with the jug of maple syrup and the candles. Neve tucked into her breakfast with gusto.

  “This is delicious,” she said, through a mouthful of toast.

  The compliment kindled in his chest. “Glad you like it.”

  She chewed for a moment before looking up at him. “What are you going to do when you go back to work?”

  “Gee, you don’t waste any time with the hard hitting questions, do you?” He hacked into the toast with more vigor than was required.

  “We’re stuck here with no electricity and no entertainment. What do you want to do? Talk about the weather?” She gestured with her fork.

  Point taken.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said, keeping his voice smooth and unemotional. “I was hoping to figure that out during my peaceful holiday.”

  “We’ll you’re shit out of luck.” She reached for the maple syrup.

  “In a manner of speaking.” The corner of his lip twitched. It was hard not to smile watching a girl consume her body weight in French toast.

  “Use me as a sounding board. I don’t know you, so there’s no need for me to judge, and it sure as hell beats sitting here in silence. Besides, if we talk about your problems I don’t have to think about mine.” She winked. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  Even his assistant—who knew the ins and outs of his work—hadn’t been privy to the internal battle going on since the judge’s verdict had been handed down. He knew how to talk a problem out—hell, he brainstormed with people at work all the time. But this was different.

  It was personal. And Damian didn’t do personal.

  “Let’s talk it through,” Neve continued, as though she had a clue about anything to do with his life. But, call him curious, he was interested to see where she went with it. “What do you want out of your career?”

  The question hit him square in the chest. It had been a long time since he’d thought about. The last couple of years were a blur of doing rather than thinking.

  “I want to help people who can’t help themselves,” he replied.

  “I’m sure that answer will do well when you enter the political arena, but I’m interested in the truth.” She tapped her fork against the edge of her plate.

  He studied her for a moment. People never spoke to him like that, but he found her candor refreshing. It was about time someone called him out.

  “I don’t know what I want out of my career anymore.” There it was, the honest truth.

  He’d started out wanting to help people, wanting respect, wanting to be revered like his father. But along the way he’d lost himself chasing case after case until his life was nothing more than a set of identical days and the four white walls of his office.

  “Why did you become a lawyer?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.

  “My dad was a lawyer.” The sound of cutlery clicking filled the silence. “I was studying for my Bachelor of Law when he was killed.”

  Her eyes softened. “Was he a good lawyer?”

  “The best.” He could say it without a trace of doubt. His father had a reputation shinier and more spotless than a perfect diamond. “He was a name partner at a big firm in Melbourne and he guest lectured from time to time. People think all lawyers are slimy bastards, but he was a good guy. He defended those who couldn’t defend themselves.”

  “Is that why you got into class action law?”

  “Yeah.” It seemed the perfect way for him to bury himself in other people’s problems rather than dealing with his own. “I wanted to keep his good name going.”

  “You know that trying to be him won’t bring him back, right?” Her voice was soft, soothing.

  He grunted. “Of course I know that.”

  It seemed that even ten years hadn’t quite allowed him to move through all five stages of grief. He’d bounced through bargaining and depression, but no matter how much progress he made he always slid back into anger and isolation. Acceptance was the final stage, one he’d not yet figured out how to reach.

  At least that’s what the psychologist had said the one time Annabel had managed to drag him along to a session. But he’d put a stop to that bullshit. Therapy was one of the many things he’d fought over with his sister. Their ideals and ways of dealing with pain were so polar opposite that he sometimes questioned whether they were actually related.

  For him, it was easier to be a workaholic than it was to deal with emotional risk.

  The last conversation he’d had with Annabel swirled in his mind. “You’ve changed,” she’d said, “you’ve become hard. I don’t even know who you are anymore. This is not what Dad would have wanted for you.”

  But the law was all he had. He’d craved the boundaries it set. Craved the certainty and the solidity it provided his life. Until all those rules and guidelines had started to feel like a prison.

  “Have you thought about taking a break? Maybe you need some time away from the stress and pressure of it to figure out what you really want?”

  “I can’t quit,” he said, quashing the idea like he did whenever it cropped up. “I didn’t study for all those years to pack it in now.”

  Besides, what else would he do?

  And yet…her suggestion lifted his mood. The niggling idea that there was more to life than the constant battle against corporate bullies called to him, as it had done for the last few months. His mind toyed with the possibility of a fresh start.

  “You wouldn’t be the first person to do it. People change their careers all the time.” She shrugged. “Besides, I said you could take a break. Not quit. Do you want to keep doing what you’re doing?”

  No.

  The immediate, strong reaction rankled him. It was stress, it had to be. Sleepless nights had become a bit of a regular thing lately and that made him grumpy. Which in turn made him have less patience. He didn’t want to quit…not really.

  Keep telling yourself that.

  “What was your mother like?” she asked.

  “Oh, she was great. She and Annabel are very alike, all sunshine and roses. They were the jokers of the family, the social butterflies.”

  He missed his mother, a lot. But her death hadn’t broken him the way his father’s had…and for that he felt guilty. His father wasn’t only a parental figure, he was an idol. A model.

  A life goal.

  Perhaps that’s why he got so mad when Annabel started to change things. Like renovating the beach house and tossing some of the old furniture. She was able to move on while he couldn’t. It probably ma
de him the worst brother in the world, but he resented her for it.

  “How did your parents die?” Her voice was so soft he wondered for a moment if he’d imagined it.

  “Does it matter?”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re right. It was an intrusive question, I shouldn’t have asked. Annabel never told me and I know I shouldn’t pry so much—”

  “It was a car accident.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “It was late at night and they were coming home from some charity event. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel…”

  His father had died at the scene and his mother had been rushed to the hospital. But it had been too late, she’d been unconscious for too long. The brain damage was too extensive. There was nothing the doctors could do.

  “That’s awful.”

  “One of my dad’s friends looked after us. We sued the trucking company and that’s how we were able to keep this house.” He cleared his throat, fighting back the vicious memories that wanted to drag him down.

  Neve was pushing him to open up, more than Annabel ever had. His willingness to oblige had come at a surprise, but now he was well out of his comfort zone and without a life raft. Without an edge to cling to. Put him back in the courtroom, in front of a merciless judge, and he’d feel safe again.

  But this? Talking, opening up. It wasn’t him.

  After they’d washed and dried the dishes by hand, Damian disappeared. Though to do what, Neve had no idea. The battery on her phone had charged overnight but she couldn’t get a single bar of reception. The internet connectivity wasn’t much better and after trying for a third time to load Facebook, she gave up.

  Swiping her thumb over the screen, she scrolled through her saved messages. The last she’d heard from her family was a text from her brother, Nate, two weeks ago. He’d sent a happy snap of him and his fiancée, Shelby, wearing their furlined coats. Their smiles wide and their noses pink-tipped. A diamond sparkled on Shelby’s finger, the stone only outshone by the love in her eyes as she looked at Nate.

  Her chest squeezed. How much would have changed by the time she got home? What if she didn’t fit in anymore? What if her friends resented her for leaving and not keeping in contact?

  Worse still, what if they didn’t care that she’d been gone?

  Neve brushed the worries aside. Her flight was booked for New Year’s Day and she’d be going home, regardless. Whether she knew how to handle her family and her hometown, however, was another thing entirely.

  As if conjured up by her desire to avoid her thoughts, Damian reappeared. The emotion she’d seen earlier was gone from his face, stripped as though he’d taken a razor to it. How did he do that?

  “It doesn’t feel very festive in here without electricity,” he said, surveying the room. “Probably not how you envisaged spending Christmas Eve.”

  “You don’t even have a tree.”

  “We do, I just didn’t put it up.”

  She gaped at him. “What’s the point of Christmas without a tree?”

  “It just creates more work for when I head home.” He perched on the edge of the couch.

  She rolled her eyes. “Annabel didn’t tell me your middle name was Grinch.”

  “You don’t hold back, do you?”

  “Nope.” She held out a hand and he hesitated before taking it. “We’re going to put up your tree.”

  “Is that a euphemism?” His tone was dry, clipped. But his eyes crinkled as he held back a smile.

  “Ugh. You’re such a guy.”

  Her hand was warm in his, the grip firm. Sure. It was easy to imagine how those hands would feel elsewhere on her body, learning her curves. Tracing the gentle rise and fall of her breasts.

  Would he be the kind of man to take it slow, to savor her? Or would he be demanding, furious and relentless? Her sex clenched.

  “Besides, what else are we going to do?” She tugged him off the couch, hoping to hell her face wasn’t revealing any of the dirty thoughts playing in her mind. “Come on, get up.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re really bossy?”

  “Frequently. Although I prefer proactive.” She nudged him with her elbow and he shook his head. “It’s tree time.”

  “Will you shut up if I let you decorate the tree?”

  “I’ll shut up if we decorate the tree…together.”

  The lighthearted sparring with Damian was more fun than she would have expected. He wasn’t her type—but there was something about him that captivated her and it went beyond his hard, bronzed body and heavy-lashed eyes.

  There was a rawness to him, an empathy and a nobility that called to her on a basal level. No one could deny that he was decent, down to the bone.

  “It’s in here.” He reached into closet and pulled out a tall white box, shuffling it out of her way. “I’ll put the tree together and you grab the ornaments down.”

  She let out a loud oof as she yanked a clear tub off the shelf. Inside, the contents clattered around.

  “You seem very interested in my life story but I haven’t heard much about yours,” Damian commented as he unpacked the pieces of fake tree. “Makes me wonder what you’re hiding.”

  “Spoken like a true lawyer,” she quipped. It hardly seemed fair that she was poking around in his life without offering anything up herself, but his issues seemed so deep compared to hers. She didn’t want to come across like a spoiled brat.

  She placed the box on the coffee table and opened it up. There didn’t seem to be a cohesive theme to their Christmas style—they had ornaments in gold, silver, red, green, blue, pink and white. Some were homemade and looked old, including an adorable circular picture of two gap-toothed kids surrounded by sequins—half of which were no longer attached.

  “Is this you?” she squealed. “Aww, it’s before you got all serious and Grinch-y.”

  “Hey, I made you French toast.” He reached for the top part of the tree. “So quit the name-calling unless you don’t fancy eating again.”

  “Empty threats.” She rifled through the container and located the lights. “We should put these on first.”

  “You do understand we’re in the middle of a power outage, right?”

  “I assume it’ll come back on at some point.”

  A smile curved on his full lips and her body hummed in response. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’re evading my questions.”

  “You didn’t specifically ask me anything.” She sniffed and got to work untangling the messy clump of rainbow string lights.

  “Let’s start with why you were planning to camp out alone here instead of going home for the holidays.”

  “Like you, I had a few things that I needed to sort out. I was hoping to have some peace and quiet to do that.”

  “What things?” He moved the tree into position, his muscles flexing beneath the faded cotton of his t-shirt.

  “Family things. Complicated, messy things that probably don’t make sense to anyone but me.”

  “Try me.”

  She blew out a long breath. How did one explain her niggling sense of dissatisfaction with her family life to a guy who had lost both his parents tragically? Without coming off like an ingrate, that was.

  The thing was, her story might not be as extreme as his, but it was big—no, huge—to her. Perhaps it would be easier to tell the story to an unbiased party, like a practice run for when she broke the news to her family.

  “I’ve been looking for my birth mother.” She stood on the opposite side of the tree to him and then fed the lights around, making sure they landed on the right branches and without tangling. “She left when I was a baby. Then my father remarried when I was twelve and I love my stepmother. But…”

  “You had to know why?”

  She swallowed against the sudden swelling of emotion in her chest. The funny thing was since finding her mother—and reliving the rejection all over again—she hadn’t cried once. Not a single tear. But now her eyes felt watery and hot. Ready
to spill over. Perhaps it was because she was finally starting to accept that the dream of a relationship with her mother was really over. She blinked the tears back, steadying herself.

  “I wanted to know if she regretted leaving us.”

  His hand brushed hers as he passed the last strip of lights around the side of the tree. She wasn’t sure if he’d done it on purpose, but the warm fleeting touch sparked something inside her. And the cavernous loneliness she’d been so good at filling—with bar hopping and parties and meeting new people—gaped wide open. Her chest felt as though it had been blown apart.

  The moment her mother had opened the door to her Paris apartment Neve had known she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Neve tightened her grip on the crumpled up piece of paper containing the final clue to the whereabouts of her mother. She’d gleaned an address from a Frenchman in a dingy bar when he’d recognized her mother’s face in an old picture. Turns out her mother had given up her dreams of the stage and was now a barmaid.

  The woman in the doorway of the apartment stared at Neve, her thin lips lined and a cigarette dangling from her fingertips. Her mother’s eyes were exactly the same as hers. Blue, like the ocean, with a fine rim of navy. They were unusual, a distinct feature.

  Proof of a bond that didn’t really exist.

  French spilled from her mother’s lips, but Neve had no idea what the words meant. She held up the picture—yellowed with age and creased down the middle where she’d folded it to keep in her wallet.

  “What are you doing here?” The American accent jarred Neve, it sounded so harsh after weeks of hearing melodic French.

  “I wanted to see you.” Her throat was so tight it almost snuffed out the words. “I want to talk about why you left.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.” Those eyes—her eyes—conveyed nothing. They may as well have been made from marble. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “But you’re my mother.”

  Her mother glanced behind her, as if checking to make sure that no one could hear them talking. She stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. “No, I’m not. Not anymore. You should go home to your father and Nathan.”

  “But—”