Jeff returned from the kitchen with two more mugs and chose to sit in an armchair. Moira handed out gifts, which they all had to unwrap one at a time and ooh and ahh over. The siblings exchanged the usual sort of sibling-like gifts, plus a voucher to a popular clothing store for Karen from Jeff who was completely clueless, and a butt-ugly ceramic llama from Moira. Jeff passed Art a wonkily wrapped All Blacks rugby team shirt, and he was enamored with Moira’s plastic container of buttery home-made shortbread.
“Only a couple more,” Moira said, picking up one of the remaining gifts. She flipped it over to read the tag. “‘To Art. From Karen.’” She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, K, spare us the gooey stuff.” She tossed the small package over to him, and he noticed a faint spot of color appearing on Karen’s cheeks.
He tore it open and a hand-knitted beanie in the softest wool he’d ever felt fell out. This must have been the alpaca or llama yarn she’d told him about. He pressed it against his mouth, the soft fibers tickling his lips and the faintest sent of Karen’s perfume tickling his nose. Something crackled inside the hat, and he opened it to see a little scrap of paper.
Keep your ears warm and think of me when you look up at the night sky.
Moira rose on her knees and craned forward. “What’s it say?”
Karen’s cheeks were now a definite Christmassy red. “Gooey stuff and none of your business.”
Moira, not at all offended, laughed and picked up the final gift.
Art caught Karen’s gaze and, this time, his smile wasn’t forced. If they’d still been alone, he would have kissed her senseless. “I love it.” He tucked the note into his shirt pocket and jammed the beanie on his head. “Thank you.”
“Thank Barry for the yarn.”
Before he could tell her that he would like to thank Barry himself and not too far into the future, Moira handed Karen the little white gift box he’d slipped under the tree before he went to bed.
“‘To Karen, from Art. X, X, X.’ In capitals, no less.” Moira twitched her eyebrows at her friend.
“Oh, go suck on a candy cane.” Karen pried open the box and her teasing expression vanished. She lifted the greenstone pendant with inset chips of pāua shell from the box, letting it dangle from her hand. “Art, it’s beautiful.”
Not as beautiful as she was. The slight sag of her mouth was replaced with an angelic smile that nearly rendered him speechless. He found his voice, and instead of telling her how beautiful he found her, facts and figures dropped off his tongue.
“The flecks represent Matariki, the constellation you saw last night—not to scale, of course. One of our local artisans sources the greenstone from the Milford Sound and he’s very talented, don’t you think?” His voice trailed off and for the first time in a long time, he felt as gawky as the thirteen-year-old boy he’d once been, trying to make a girl like him by offering to do her science homework. “I hope you like it.”
“I do. Thank you.” The huskiness in her voice caused a flash of heat to supernova through him. And screw the unspoken rule of PDA—it was Christmas. So he tugged her forward and kissed her, with laughter and wolf whistles in his ears.
Chapter 6
“Are you sure this is okay?” Karen whispered as she, Moira, Jeff, and Art slipped through the service gate and into the spa grounds.
“Trust me, it’s fine. When have I ever led you astray?” Jeff grinned at her and waggled the champagne bottle in his hand. “Actually, don’t answer that.”
Karen rolled her eyes, hugging her tote bag containing her towel. Just her luck someone would see them trespassing on private property and report them, so that they would spend the last few hours of Christmas day in the slammer. Even though Jeff’s caretaker mate had given him a key and told him to lock up once they were done, it still felt kind of illicit to be the only ones at the hot pools.
Moira didn’t have the same hesitation, streaking ahead to choose which pool offered them the best view of the lake and the stars.
“I’m having teenage flashbacks,” Karen confessed as she followed Jeff’s flashlight beam along the manicured paths between the hot pools.
Art’s smoky chuckle rose behind her, sending a rash of goose bumps under the light coverall she wore on top of her swimsuit. “Were you a bit of a rebel in your teenage years?”
“Wild child, more like it.” Jeff grinned over his shoulder at them as they arrived at the pool Moira had selected.
Moira had already slid into the steaming water, happily relaxing against one edge, the four champagne glasses she’d carried from the house ready to be filled. She’d also brought a container of iced sugar cookies, though goodness knew how any of them were expected to eat after all the amazing food Moira and Jeff had made earlier. They had a traditional roast turkey lunch with all the trimmings, then the store-bought pavlova which the siblings had graciously pretended Karen and Art had made. After a walk around the lake and a vicious game of Trivial Pursuit—which Art won—they had leftover turkey subs for dinner.
“Wild child, huh?” Art teased as he stripped off his T-shirt.
There was enough moonlight falling from the sky to highlight the hard planes of his upper body. He looked like a Greek statue. Orion, maybe? Karen shivered as she set down her tote bag and peeled off her cover-up.
“It was a phase,” she said, and she didn’t miss Art’s appreciative glance. The heat in it as he took her hand and helped her into the pool was hotter than the steaming water that swirled around her. “The usual sneaking out at night, skipping school, lying to get my own way. Being a selfish little cow.” She sank onto one of the concreted seats beneath the water and gave a little laugh that she hoped sounded carefree but grated in her ears. “I grew out of it.”
“I never would’ve pegged you for a bad girl.” Art sat beside her, his eyes only reflecting a teasing humor. She wanted to keep it that way, and laughed again, just a little too loud, when Jeff popped the cork on the bottle of champagne.
Jeff poured the fizzing golden liquid into the four plastic flutes and handed them around.
Karen lifted her glass in a toast before the conversation took a turn she didn’t care for. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”
The others toasted her in return and they tapped glasses. Cool bubbles tickled her throat on the way down.
Phew. Dodged a bullet.
She set her glass down, and leaned back to admire the stars above. Not as impressive as the night before, since it was earlier in the evening and Tekapo’s streetlights distorted the clarity of the sky, but still amazing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made an effort to go out at night in Christchurch solely for the purpose of looking upward. Art had given her more than just a beautiful greenstone pendant as a gift. He’d taken her out of her little comfort zone and made her feel both tiny and yet somehow important in this vast universe.
The four of them chatted easily about all manner of things until Jeff and Moira decided to cool off in one of the pools with a lower temperature.
“Back soon,” Moira said. “Behave.”
Silence prickled between them as Moira and Jeff waded out of the pool and disappeared through the greenery out of sight. She knew Art well enough to guess he wouldn’t ask about that chaotic period of her life, but he’d shared a deeply personal part of himself this morning—an invitation to grow the intimacy developing between them. She could keep things light and focus on the upside of Christmas, as she usually did, or she could allow herself to be vulnerable and real before a man she was beginning to fall for.
“About my rebellious stage…” she said. “It started when I was fourteen—a really awful age for teenage girls, believe me. The only place I ever felt good about myself was on the farm, where the animals didn’t care if my clothes weren’t brand names or if I had a giant pimple on my nose. I was nothing out of the ordinary, just an everything is about me world view.” Her stomach gave a sudden plunge to the bottom of the pool. “I was responsible for most of Mum and Dad’s gray hair, I’m
certain, and I didn’t stop being so self-centered until I found out the hard way that I wasn’t the center of the universe after all.”
Art shifted closer, buffeting a wave of warm water around her. He tucked her into his side, and she rested her head on his shoulder, grateful that he didn’t speak. Hearing his voice would’ve unraveled her.
“After Mum and Dad’s accident, I didn’t have the luxury of being irresponsible anymore. My welcome to adulthood was being dropped in an ice bath that rocked my worldview to the foundations. Losing them was one hell of a reality check. I’d never realized how much I took them for granted—how much them being there for me had become expected.”
A hand stroked up her back and settled gently, fingers spanning her nape. “I’m sorry, honey.” And unlike anyone she had allowed close enough to her true self before, he didn’t follow it up with empty platitudes or clichés she’d heard many times before. He knew, because he’d been there, too.
“This sounds kind of insane, but I’m a lot like a llama or an alpaca.”
“Because you’ve got big, expressive eyes with long lashes and thick wavy hair that falls over your face every now and then? Or because you’re deceptively tough and can spit like a champ?” He squeezed the back of her neck gently, and she almost gave a very un-llama-like purr, momentarily forgetting what she’d been about to say.
“Because I figured out I’m a herd creature,” she said. “Llamas and alpacas don’t do well alone. It’s cruel to own one by itself; they need at least another for them to be happy. But if one of the pair dies, the animal will pine and often become unwell. That’s why three is the perfect number for llamas and alpacas.”
“So you need two other people at least to be a happy herd creature? Does that include men?” He teased a smile out of her.
“Like a reverse harem? I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm, the possibilities…” She laughed at his shocked expression. “Kidding. This hembra only needs one macho.”
“Macho?” Art’s brow crinkled in the cutest way.
“Ungelded male alpaca or llama in Spanish,” she supplied. “Which makes me the hembra.”
His mouth split into a wide grin and he hauled her into his lap with a slosh of water. “And what does macho mean in English? Help a guy out here.”
She twined her arms around his neck and saucily wriggled her eyebrows. “A stud, of course.”
And he kissed her until stars appeared on her closed eyelids, proving just how studly he was.
* * *
December 26
The next morning Art sent a video chat request to his older brother, Frank, while he drank his first coffee of the day. Early Boxing Day morning in New Zealand equated to after dinnertime on Christmas Day in the UK. Everyone would still be gathered at his parents’ place, still stuffed and lazy after Mum’s amazing Christmas lunch.
The chat window blinked open to Frank’s grinning face.
“Hey, Francis, how’s it hanging?”
His big brother’s mouth narrowed along with his eyes. “Sod off, Arty.”
“Is that any way to talk to your brother?” His mum’s voice scolded off camera. “Play nice, it’s Christmas.” His mum’s blue eyes suddenly appeared in close-up. “Hullo, darling. I’ll come sit and have a chat with you once I’ve poured everyone a cuppa.” Her face disappeared again, leaving him looking at Frank and their dad next to him on the couch.
“Hello, Dad.” Art’s stomach giving a yearning squeeze around his spine. “Have you had a good day?”
“Brilliant,” his dad hollered. The old man still hadn’t figured out that he didn’t need to yell to be heard across the thousands of miles between them. In a slightly lower tone he added, “Be better if your mum was offering whiskey instead of tea.”
“I heard that. You’ve had enough whiskey to sink a battleship.” His mum’s voice.
The edge of Charlie’s wheelchair rolled into view to the left of the screen and his brother craned forward, blocked from getting any closer to Frank’s laptop by the coffee table. “Did someone say whiskey? Hope you’re having one for me, mate.”
Art returned his younger brother’s cheeky grin and toasted him with his coffee mug. “It’s only seven thirty in the bloody morning here, you twit.”
Charlie snorted and flipped him the finger. Long blond hair tumbled over his shoulder as his fiancée, Meg, draped herself around him and gave Art a little wave. “Are you all alone there, Art? You shouldn’t be alone on Christmas.”
Frank and his dad’s eyes widened at the same instant, and their faces split into Cheshire Cat grins.
“Oh, I don’t think our lad’s alone,” his dad shouted, pointing at the screen, or as Art suspected, whoever had wandered into the kitchen behind him. And from his two brothers’ smug expressions, he could guess just who it was.
He swiveled on the barstool to spy Karen almost directly behind him, frozen like a deer in headlights. She was still dressed in a cute pair of candy-cane striped pyjamas, her hair in a messy bun as though she’d just rolled out of bed. His bed, was likely his mum’s conclusion. Art turned back to the screen to see her squeezing onto the couch next to Frank.
“Hello there,” she said. “We’re Art’s family, and you are?”
Art half turned on his stool, keeping peripheral attention on his family and the rest of his attention on Karen—who looked seconds away from miming the walking down the stairs disappearing act. A pretty rose color stained her cheeks.
“I’m Karen, a friend of Art’s roommate. His sister and I stopped in on our way farther south, but her car broke down and so we had to spend Christmas here. It’s been really lovely.” Her voice trailed off and she slanted a longing glance back the way she’d come.
Poor girl. It was far too late to escape the Donnelly Family Inquisition.
“Is that right?” A world of calculation was in his mum’s tone. The woman could sniff out one of her sons’ romantic interests like a bloodhound. Didn’t matter at all if that son was on the other side of the planet.
“Um.” Karen took a side step toward the nearest exit. “I’ll let you catch up with your son.”
“Oh, petal, don’t go. Come and sit down and have a chat with us while my handsome, housebroken son gets you a cuppa. We do love meeting Art’s new friends.”
“Quite right,” his dad added.
Defeated by her own politeness, Karen slumped onto the barstool next to his. Art slid off the hot seat and went into the kitchen, listening as his parents quizzed Karen about who she was, what she did, what the weather was like, and what they all did for Christmas Day.
By the time he returned with two fresh cups of coffee, his parents, brothers, and future sister-in-law were tag-team firing questions at Karen. Working up a profile on her, apparently. But sometime in the past two minutes Karen had got her mojo back and was laughing at something Charlie said. Her cheeks were still flushed but, oh man, she made his heart do funny little flip-flops at the sight of her sitting there, bonding with his crazy family.
He sat beside her, and beneath the camera’s view he linked his fingers with hers.
“What are you both doing for New Year’s?” Art’s mum asked. Like she’d had insider information that they were a couple.
Tension wired through Karen’s hands. They hadn’t touched on anything beyond the day after Boxing Day when Moira’s car should be fixed. In fact, they’d avoided anything beyond the moment—and there’d been some amazing moments. He didn’t want them to end, but like Christmas, the glitter and sparkle got packed away before New Year’s.
“Not sure,” Art said. “Think I’m working on January first, so it won’t be a late night for me on New Year’s Eve.” He didn’t dare glance at Karen, his gut knotting at the thought of their time together slipping through his fingers like sand through an hourglass.
“And Karen? What’ll you be up to, love? Having drinkies at the pub with Art and his flatmate?” his dad asked. Bugled, really.
And the silence after he spo
ke was deafening.
She cleared her throat. “I have to get back to Christchurch. One of the alpacas I was telling you about is due to give birth. If it’s a baby girl, we’re thinking of calling her Holly. After Buddy Holly, and because it’s close to Christmas.”
From the corner of his eye, Art saw Karen’s lips press together in a thin line.
“Always working, eh?” his father said. “No rest for the wicked.”
“Next year you’ll come back home for Christmas, yeah?” Charlie said.
“Since you asked me to be the best man at your wedding, I guess I’ll have to,” Art said.
His younger brother leaned forward in his wheelchair, a sneaky smile on his face. “You can bring a plus-one, remember? Karen should come. Let her experience a real slap-up British Christmas with all the trimmings.”
Exclamations and agreements and half-baked ideas of who could stay where and what sized turkey Mum would need erupted throughout the Donnelly living room.
Art turned helplessly toward Karen, who stared bug-eyed at the screen as if she’d been dropped into a live audience in some dreadful, trashy talk show.
“Ignore them,” he said.
But it was too late. Karen was already sliding off the barstool and backing away.
“Sorry,” she said. “But I need to—I have a thing I ought to—nice to meet you all.” And she bolted from the kitchen.
It took his family a few moments to notice she’d gone, since the usual debate on whether they should or shouldn’t include brussels sprouts in their Christmas dinner had once again raised its small green head.
“Where did she go?” His mother glared at the laptop screen as if it were Art’s fault.
“Was it something we said?” his dad shouted.
Charlie face-palmed while Frank just shook his head.
“Well, don’t just sit there, son,” his mother said. “If you like the girl, go after her.”
Beneath the Christmas Stars Page 6
