sliced into the brownie. “All your girls will be home for Christmas this year, Suzanne?”
“That’s right.” Suzanne wrote a label for the St. Clement’s cake she’d baked that morning. “It’s great Hannah is able to make it.”
Great that her sister had found time in her busy life to finally remember she had a family.
Posy realized she was grinding her teeth and made a conscious effort to relax her jaw. If she ground her teeth every time she thought of her sister, she’d be reduced to chewing her Christmas lunch with her gums.
Jean beamed at Posy. “I bet you can’t wait to see your big sister again.”
Posy beamed back, although it took some effort.
She knew that by the end of it she’d want to drive her sister to the airport early.
Beth would come bearing gifts and goodwill. She’d willingly help with everything and anything.
Hannah would bring emotional turmoil.
Memories of Christmas past grew in Posy’s mind.
There had been the year Hannah had barely left her room except to eat a Christmas lunch that other people had prepared. And the year she’d spent most of the time in the café, not helping as Beth had done, but availing herself of the free Wi-Fi, which was unreliable in the lodge.
Posy didn’t really understand what it was her sister did. The conversations she’d overheard might as well have been conducted in a foreign language. She knew nothing about strategy, economics or five-year plans, but evidently her sister did and people were prepared to pay a great deal for her expertise.
Posy found Hannah a little intimidating, but the root of the problem was that her sister hurt her feelings. Posy was naturally affectionate and Hannah was distant with her.
Jean and Moira went back to their coffee and chat, and Posy strode into the small kitchen and started making up lunch items with Duncan, their chef.
“Today is curried parsnip and winter vegetable.” Duncan pointed to the board and she nodded.
“Got it.” Every day in the café they offered two soups, and they changed daily so that regular visitors didn’t end up eating the same thing.
Posy loved chopping vegetables. There was nothing like attacking something with a sharp knife to let off aggression.
Damn Hannah, she thought as she slaughtered a helpless onion. This year she wasn’t going to let herself be upset. She wasn’t going to be sensitive.
The parsnips suffered the same fate as the onion, as did the potatoes.
Duncan glanced across at her. “Promise me if I ever annoy you, you’ll tell me before you reach for the knife.”
“You have my word on it.” She’d been Duncan’s babysitter when she was a teenager, so seeing him working in the kitchen always made her feel old.
Her life was slipping through her fingers. At this rate she’d still be here when she was ninety, taking the minibus to the store.
With a sigh, she dropped the vegetables into the pot.
She would rather have been climbing a rock face than cooking, but her work as a mountain guide was sporadic, and working in the café brought in an income, as well as helping her mother. It was a family business, and family was everything to Posy. It was a warm blanket on a cold day, a safety net when you fell, a chorus of support when you attempted something hard.
The vegetables and spices were simmering when Suzanne walked into the kitchen.
“I’ve written today’s specials on the board.” She gave the soups a stir. “You should have brought Luke to the café for a bowl of hot soup, poor man.”
“There’s nothing ‘poor’ about him.” Posy rinsed tomatoes. “He has a log burner, a stocked freezer and the facility to heat up his own bowl of soup if that’s what he wants.” And apart from that, her feelings about him were complicated.
Still, Luke’s presence here was temporary, so if something did happen, at least she didn’t have to worry that she’d be bumping into him for the rest of her life.
Posy chopped herbs and sliced tomatoes while her mother helped Duncan with the leek and ham pies.
Suzanne rolled out pastry. “You and Luke seem to be getting along fine.”
Posy threw herbs on the tomato salad. She knew what her mother was asking, and the one thing she had in common with Hannah was that she wasn’t prepared to discuss her love life with her mother. “He’s paying us good money to rent the barn. I make sure I stay on good terms with him.”
And yes, she liked him.
Take this morning. How many men would volunteer to lie buried in snow while patiently waiting for a dog to find them? And he loved mountains, which made him interesting as far as she was concerned.
Right now, he was writing a book on the great climbs of North America.
Posy had never climbed in North America.
Once, when she’d been doing her weekly clean and bedding change in the barn, Luke had come back early and she’d asked him to tell her about Mount Rainier.
“Why do you want to know?”
She wasn’t ready to tell him that. “It’s going in your book?”
“Rainier? Yes.” He opened his laptop and hit a couple of keys.
An image appeared on the screen of a white snowcapped mountain.
She’d seen the same, or similar, before of course, but somehow the fact that it came from his own photo collection made it more real.
She stepped closer, studying the heavily glaciated faces of the mountain. She had so many questions, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer any of them. “You’ve climbed it?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
“Many times.”
“And it’s a volcano. Dormant, though.”
“We call it episodically active.” He saw her surprised glance. “I worked for the US Geological Survey after I graduated. Lived just outside Seattle. I could see Rainier from my bedroom window.”
She’d almost confided in him then, but something stopped her. She didn’t want to risk him raising it with Suzanne. “Which route did you climb?”
“I’ve climbed all of them, at different times of the year. In the summer you have wildflower meadows. In the winter you find yourself waist deep in snow. You’ve never climbed in the US?”
“No. Scotland, and the Alps.”
“You should come to the US.”
One day, she thought, although she wasn’t sure she was ready for Mount Rainier. Maybe she never would
