good. A man who could cook, and better yet was actually professionally trained in the culinary arts, was a keeper. Even undomestic goddess Amory could see it and was coming around to our small-town ways. In Evergreen, if someone cooked you food, you damn well ate it. There was no I’m on a diet here. People would frown like you were insane if you so much as uttered the words put the dressing on the side… or hold the butter.
Once upon a time there’d been zero chance Amory would have sat down and consumed so many varieties of carbs – neither would I, for that matter! In New York we’d been so accustomed to following fads. So much had changed in just a few months being back home and now she was much more lax about restrictions and would end up fighting me over the last gingerbread cookie. Another positive to living out here meant we got plenty of exercise – zooming around the grounds and inside the lodge all day every day, including trudging up the stairs a million times, sure worked up an appetite, that and the abundance of fresh air, or that was my excuse anyway. Sure, it wasn’t a gym on the Upper East Side, but it was a hell of a lot prettier and a lot more fun.
An hour later the table was laden with the biggest Christmas breakfast I’d ever seen. I touched my belly in apology, because there was no way I was going to be able to hold back from demolishing it all: from the monkey bread and caramel sauce to the crisp berry nice Christmas tree; the steaming cheese and chili tamales; and a helping of eggnog pancakes with lashings of butterscotch cream. And that’s what I could see in front of me. Cruz was still stirring pots and flicking frying pans. We’d be living on leftovers for a week at this rate.
Beside me, Kai sent a look to the heavens as if he was also apologizing, then helped himself to a huge serving of the pastry tree, the bright berries as fragrant as they were pretty. With a grin, he took up a slice of monkey bread and drowned it in caramel sauce.
“Your body is your temple, hey?” Amory teased him.
I grinned. I could hardly believe it. Kai – who ran up mountains for fun, practiced yoga at midnight and waxed lyrical on the pros of fermented vegetables – had a sweet tooth? It was good to see he was a mere mortal…
He blushed. “Well, I’ll be extra nice to my body tomorrow.”
“And what a body it is,” I said, and instantly wanted to slap my forehead. I coughed. “What I meant was…” Yeah, Clio, what did you mean? “…You can obviously see that you work out, and um… eat well, and that reflects in your… erm, physique.” Kill me.
He winked, which of course provoked what I’d come to call tremble-leggedness, and I wondered if there was actually something wrong with me. Honestly, my brain was betraying me in the worst way. I didn’t dare look at Amory, even though I could feel her gaze on me like a laser beam.
Heat crept from my toes to my nose, and I concentrated really hard on staring into the coffee in my mug. I’d have buried my head in it if I could have. It was like being a teenager all over again… Was it glaringly obvious to those around me?
It was kissing him again that had done it. My lips twitched every time I remembered, and he’d even stolen into my dreams. It was almost impossible to eat because my nerves were fluttering in my belly like the tips of butterfly wings, but I made an effort, since it was Christmas and Cruz had cooked such a feast. I couldn’t possibly let any of it go to waste…
After the gargantuan breakfast we’d put away, we were about to head off and somehow eat more. I already felt like napping, a surefire sign it was Christmas, because I was floppy with relaxation and a very full belly.
Kai and I piled the backseat of my car with gifts and bottles of wine for Mom and Aunt Bessie. The sudden need to be organized and make sure we didn’t forget anything calmed my nerves. It was only a fifteen-minute drive to Aunt Bessie’s, but with icy roads it would probably take twice as long to get there.
All set, we jumped in and turned the heat to high. We wove through the slushy streets, passing children bundled up in scarves, puffer jackets and mittens making snowmen in their front yards. Others tried out their new sleds, careering down long driveways and landing in a giggling heap amidst piles of snow. I smiled, remembering the excitement of Christmas as a child, waking up to find Santa had visited, discovering reindeer footprints in the snow, left by Aunt Bessie, who always made the magic real, despite whatever was going on at home.
“What are Australian Christmases like?” I asked, breaking the silence. Did his parents fuss over him, wearing beaming smiles, proud that they’d raised him right? The thought of them missing him today of all days hurt my heart.
“Hot.” He grinned and his eyes lit up as if with memories of merry Christmases. “We have a traditional lunch with turkey and all the trimmings, but we also do seafood on the barbecue, and eat outside to escape the heat in the kitchen. My parents live by the beach so we usually go for a swim at some point, and share a bottle of wine as the sun sets. It’s always a scorcher of a day. Summertime in Australia.”
“It must be so strange being here – all the snow and cold?”
He laughed. “It is, yes, but I like the change. It’s good to experience that American Christmas you see in the movies.”
We lapsed into another silence as we drove the snowy route. “I wanted to thank you, though, for inviting me to spend Christmas with your family. It means a lot, Clio.”
His gaze was intense, as if he wasn’t only thinking of my family. “They must be missing you this year,” I said, sensing he was thinking of his parents. His body stiffened slightly. Bingo. Part of me was relieved he cared; of course he cared, he was Kai after all. Maybe he just needed a push to reach out to his parents again. Someone to be the voice of reason? “Did you speak to your parents today?”
He took a full minute to answer. “No, I haven’t called yet.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t feel great about it either. I dialed so many times, and then hung up before it connected. Like, what do I say? ‘Hey, Merry Christmas! It’s your son who’s not actually your son.’” There was a bitterness to his voice, and real pain shone in his eyes. I knew he didn’t want to hurt them; he just didn’t know how to be this new Kai who’d found out he was adopted.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I turned a corner. What would I do in the same situation? Probably retreat too. Isn’t that what I had done when things had got too hard with my mom? Packed a suitcase and headed to New York, and I hadn’t looked back until I’d been forced to.
But I couldn’t help think that, whether Kai was related to them by blood or by love, did it really matter in the long run? Love was love, right?
“You should call them, Kai. They’re probably heartsick over it all too, you know. I don’t think it matters much what you say. Just call them, for their sake, if not your own.”
What I was picturing was my own mom, sitting at the table on Christmas Day for the last few years, missing her absent daughter. Guilt roiled inside me that I’d left her alone so long. I had left for good reason and stayed away for self-preservation, but that didn’t change the fact that I should’ve reached out sooner. While our relationship hadn’t been normal in any sense of the word, I knew she wouldn’t ever ask for help, even if she desperately needed it – and I’d simply packed up and left without so much as a backward glance. Maybe I could stop Kai doing the same thing; he shouldn’t have to live with the regret, or wishing things had turned out differently.
