You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(76)

“God, this is amazing,” he said when she caught up with him at the overlook.

Walking up to the rim made her heart race. Black rock jutted out from the sides of the canyon, obscuring the view of the river in places, which snaked hundreds of feet below them. Then there was a harsh cry—seemingly out of nowhere—and a large bird flew directly overhead before plunging into the canyon.

“Holy shit,” Marc said as they both jumped back. “What kind of bird was that?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, her tone echoing the amazement in his. “I didn’t read the sign that closely.” She’d been too busy looking at the landscape and Marc.

“I did.” He shook his head. “And I still don’t know what the bird is. Big. And I think maybe a bird of prey.”

She smirked and raised a brow at him. “Well, this is a refuge for birds of prey.”

His laugh at her smart remark rang delightfully in her ears. “Since neither of us remember what the birds are, we can give them our own names. Big for that bird was an understatement. And it was brown, I think. So I name it . . . Big Brown Bird.”

“That’s . . .” She was about to say a stupid name when she turned to look at him and saw the mischievous glint in his eyes. “We can do better than that.”

He gave an easy shrug. “Well, Terry is the encrypted texting app Curtis and I developed. My phones are Veronica, Megan, and Holly. It seems I name things after women, so if I name the bird, I’m going to assume it’s female. Hope that’s okay by you.” He smirked again.

“Why do you do that?”

He cocked his head. “Name things?”

“Name things female names.”

“The tech industry is a bit of a boy’s club. It’s nice to have women around, however they come along.”

His explanation made some sense, but there was a better way to address that issue. “You could make a point to hire women.”

His amused face fell into seriousness. “I could have, I guess, if I’d taken the offer to stay on with Terry after the sale.”

“A goal for the future,” she offered.

“Whatever mine might be.” Behind the lightness in his voice was a slight tinge of loss and emptiness. A restlessness that his winter of travel and leisure wouldn’t fill.

She took a couple of steps closer to him. He stretched out an arm, and she slipped in even closer to him. He was a buffer against the wind. That was the lie she told herself as his hand rested on her shoulder and she leaned her head against him.

A night spent cuddling on the back seat of his SUV. The touch of his hand on her knee. The solid, comforting weight of him next to her. None of these moments came without cost, she knew. She enjoyed his touch too much. She’d had boyfriends, but she hadn’t felt as comfortable with any of them after three months as she did with Marc after less than twenty-four hours.

But they would get to Salt Lake City and go their separate ways—Marc to his travels, and Selina to her new life. One that, if she was lucky, would include a job surrounded by beautiful things in a world she couldn’t have imagined living in Athol.

Marc wasn’t to be relied on. She was not going to repeat her mother’s mistakes.

A gust of wind whipped past them and she leaned closer to him.

“We should assume the bird’s a woman,” she said, returning to the lighter conversation. “And name it something majestic. Like after a goddess or a queen.”

“Elizabeth,” he offered. “Both generations of queens are impressive.”

“I was going to say Cleopatra, but I like your suggestion better. Less tragic.” Right now, focusing on strong women who lived long, successful, independent lives seemed like a better talisman than a queen who’d committed suicide.

A flock of birds passed below them, darting and dancing about the cliffs of the canyon edge.

“What shall we name them?” she asked with a nod of her head.

“Pleiades, I think. The seven sisters who were turned first into doves and then into stars.”

She liked that. As she watched the birds, their freedom made her heart sing. She had that freedom now, too, thanks to Marc. She only needed to use it wisely.

Wisely could include flirting, though, couldn’t it?

“Those aren’t doves,” she said with a gentle nudge.

“Oh?” His voice rose, amused and teasing. “Did you read the sign?”

“Well, no.”

He nodded. “Precisely. My limited expertise says doves, if only because it fits better with the name I gave them.”

His rationale was silly and made no sense at all, but it made her laugh. “You can insist that they are doves when we see a . . .” She tried to think of a bird as unexpected as a dove in this sparse landscape. “A heron,” she said, finally.

At that moment, a great blue heron flew past them, its head tucked back against its body and its neck curved into an S.

They both stood stunned for a moment, then laughed, holding on to each other for support. When Selina finally caught her breath, she said, “That’ll teach me to make predictions.”

“When I left for this trip,” he said, his voice deep and serious. “I never could have predicted this. Or you.”

She wondered if he was going to acknowledge the connection between them, but his voice turned light again. “Well, Selina, you summoned the heron, so I think you should get to name her.”