One More for Christmas(76)

“Because you hated the book?”

“Yes. Apparently she’d been boasting about—” he paused “—how brainy I was.” He reddened, embarrassed, and she smiled.

“And you ruined it by admitting to reading books that smart people aren’t supposed to read?”

“Something like that. She wasn’t impressed, but I don’t read to impress people. I gave up on trying to impress people decades ago. I read what entertains me, and what interests me.”

“What does interest you?”

His gaze lifted to hers and lingered there. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe properly. Her throat tightened. Her skin heated. She could feel her own heartbeat. She kept wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

For a long moment neither of them spoke. And then finally he stirred and turned his attention back to the food.

“What interests me? Apart from good crime fiction, World War II. Code breakers. Bletchley Park. Fascinating stuff.” He reached across and helped himself to one of her fries and she pushed her bowl into the middle of the table.

Had she imagined that moment? Was it just her? Was she so desperate for a wild affair that she was no longer able to have a conversation with a man without wondering what it would feel like to kiss him?

He paused, his hand hovering over the bowl. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have done that without permission.”

“What—? Oh, you mean the food. It’s fine—fries are best when they’re shared.”

“Shared? You mean when I eat all of mine and half of yours?”

“That works for me. And they are good.” Even though her stomach was too full of nerves to leave room for food. “So that relationship died?”

“Mutual agreement.” He helped himself again to her fries. “You’re sure about this?”

“Go for it. You weren’t brokenhearted?”

“No. Which says a lot, doesn’t it? As you said on the phone, in a good relationship you want to feel things. Mostly we felt—” he paused, thinking as he finished her fries “—irritation I suppose. And my father died and my priorities changed. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to work at a relationship while I was grieving for my father and supporting my mother and sister. You’re obviously pretty close to your mother.”

She could lie, or at least gloss over the truth. She could make some glib comment about the distance between Boston and New York, pressure of work, busy lives. There were any number of ways to redirect the conversation, but the hours they’d spent together had softened her, like butter left in the sun.

“Up until last month, we hadn’t seen each other for five years.”

“You had a falling-out?”

“I suppose you could call it that. It’s always been a difficult relationship.” She tugged a corner off her burger. “We disappointed her. She had a very clear idea of what she wanted for us, and neither of us wanted that. I didn’t realize it had been five years. Time passes—you wait for the other person to contact you, then things change in your life and you’re in a different place and you’re not even sure how to move on from there—”

“So what brought you back together?”

“There was an accident—” Samantha told him all of it, and he listened with no visible signs of surprise or judgment.

“I haven’t read her book, although the title is familiar. Seems ironic that she writes about choice, and yet didn’t encourage you to make your own.”

“I know. I grew up thinking that, and I suppose it stopped me looking deeper. I suppose it all stemmed from losing my father when she was so young. She had no family support so it can’t have been easy. But she doesn’t talk about it, so it’s all guesswork. Until you asked her that question, we didn’t know she’d been to Scotland on her honeymoon.”

“So she only discovered she had a granddaughter a few weeks ago, and you’ve gone from nothing to spending Christmas together.”

“That’s right. And now you’re probably wishing you’d never invited us.”

“What I’m thinking,” he said, “is that this is the most relaxed I’ve been in a year.” The way he was looking at her made her feel breathless and sixteen years old.

“We are not an average family.”

“Does such a thing exist? I could have pretended that everything was perfect here and that my whole family is excited and positive about welcoming strangers into our home. As I said, honesty works better for me. Whether it’s reading, feelings, skills—I prefer people who are what they seem to be.”

She thought about her mother not knowing about Michael and Tab. The fact that she still didn’t know that Ella had chosen to be a stay-at-home mother. The fact that Gayle didn’t talk about her marriage. Filtering your life was exhausting.

“You’re right. And the truth is I’m still anticipating a disaster. We’re very different from our mother in so many ways.” She realized that her stomach muscles had been tense since she’d stepped off the plane in Inverness. “My mother’s style of parenting is very different from my sister’s. At some point, there is going to be a major clash. I’m braced for it. I’ve had a knot in my stomach since the airport. My sister is totally focused on her family. It’s everything to her. Building that nest and making it cozy. Me? I’m more about work, and—damn.” She pushed her plate away, appetite gone. “I guess I have my mother to thank for that. So maybe we’re not so different after all.” Ella was right. It was unsettling to admit it. “I’ve turned into my mother, and I didn’t even see it happening. I might need that whiskey after all.”