“What’s waiting for you in Phoenix now except moving boxes and an empty apartment? Would you rather spend the holidays alone with Christopher there or here in Colorado in this house you’ve decorated so beautifully for the season, being with people who love you? Namely me and Winnie.”
At least she hadn’t included Ethan among that number.
“You would break Winnie’s heart if you left before the holidays,” Lucy went on. “While you were out shopping, my grandmother mentioned at least twice how much she was looking forward to having Christopher around this year to brighten the season.”
“I’m beginning to remember why I always hated arguing with you.”
Lucy grinned. “Because I can get my point across in eight languages?”
“That, and you don’t leave room for anyone else to get a word in edgewise. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never let anybody stand in the way of what you want. Even when they start out thinking they want something else.”
She wasn’t sure what she said but Lucy said nothing, only stared at her for a long moment with a strange look in her eyes.
“Thank you for that reminder,” she finally said. “I needed it.”
“Glad I could help,” Abby said, completely baffled.
“So does that mean you’re staying?”
Abby knew when she was beat. It didn’t help that she had been thinking many of those same things. “Christopher has loved his time here. I suppose we can stay until Christmas. Everything you said is true. We will be going home to moving boxes, chaos and a solitary Christmas. While we do have good friends in Arizona, they’re all busy with their own families this time of year.”
Lucy looked delighted. “Oh, yay. I’m so glad. And trust me, Winnie will be over the moon. We’re going to have so much fun. You’ll see.”
She didn’t doubt she would have a good time with Lucy and with Winnie. Now, if only she could figure out how to keep from ruining everything by falling hard for Ethan.
Lucy rose from the table with an air of suppressed energy, as if she had come to a decision about something.
“I know you said it was time for Christopher to take a rest and I know it hasn’t been a half hour yet. But would you mind terribly if I borrowed him this afternoon?”
“You want to borrow my five-year-old? First, of course. Second, why?”
Lucy shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “I have been sleeping all morning and now I have a lot of energy. I need somewhere to put it. Rodrigo and José were leaving here to go to the bowling alley in town and Christopher wanted to go with them. Right now, that seems like a lot of fun. Would you mind if I take Christopher?”
“Now?”
“I know, it’s a wild idea. We’ll be back in an hour. Maybe an hour and a half. Bowling doesn’t take too long. When we get home, he probably even would have time to rest before the big event tonight.”
Abby didn’t know what Lucy was doing, but she suspected it had something to do with José Navarro.
Was she a terrible mother that she loved the idea of having an hour to herself, with absolutely nothing to do but read the new paperback she had picked up at the supermarket?
“Sure. Knock yourself out.”
Yes, she had told Christopher he had to stay in his room for a quiet half hour. But once in a while there was nothing wrong with breaking the rules.
* * *
She shouldn’t have come.
Lucy stood just inside the bowling alley attached to one of the most popular pizza joints in town, wishing with all her heart she hadn’t been so impulsive.
What was she doing here? What was she trying to prove?
She had been struck by what Abby had said about her powers of persuasion. Maybe in some corner of her mind, she thought maybe she could wield those powers against José and convince him to bend a little. Maybe they could forget this heat between them and just go back to being good friends. Even better, maybe they could just have a steamy holiday affair, get it all out of their system and then go back to being friends.
Okay. She wasn’t thinking rationally. Now that she was here, she realized how impulsively shortsighted she was being. José wouldn’t bend on this. She knew him well enough to know that. It was all or nothing for José Navarro.
She should just slip back out of the bowling alley, climb back into her rental car and drive back to Holiday House.
Except she had dragged Christopher into this whole thing, and he was looking around the bowling alley with wide-eyed excitement.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “I always wanted to go bowling.”
She couldn’t back out of it now. She might be a terrible person but she wasn’t completely irredeemable. She could not offer a child a treat and then take it away simply because of her own poor decisions.
How could she deny Christopher something he was looking forward to, only because she had chickened out?
What was wrong with her? She was a freaking mess. José was right. She did not want him, but the moment she found out someone else was dating him all she could think about was kissing him again.
No. That wasn’t right, either. She absolutely did want him, she just knew the two of them together would be disastrous.
He was a sweet romantic who wanted happily-ever-after. She, on the other hand, was the world’s greatest cynic. Even her best friend said so.
She and José could never be together. She would break his heart and would wind up hating herself because of it.
So what was she doing here?
“Do you want shoes or not?”
The pimply-faced clerk behind the counter at the bowling alley was looking at her like she was a few pins short of a spare.
“Shoes. Right. I’m a women’s size seven and a half. What shoe size are you, kiddo?” she asked Christopher.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m five years old. Is that my shoe size?”
“Take off your boot.”
He sat on the ground, slipped off one of his cute little snow boots and handed it to her. “Looks like he’s a youth size one,” she said.
A moment later, the clerk handed her two pairs of oh-so-attractive bowling shoes. “You’ll be in lane six,” he said.
Lucy found a bench and helped Christopher into his shoes.
“Why do we have to wear special shoes?” he asked.
“Regular shoes might damage the floor,” she said. “Plus, these are supposed to help you bowl better.”
“Do they have magic powers?”
A legitimate question. “Not that I know of, but we’ll have to see.”
Soon they were both ready to go. They stowed their own footwear in a cubby, then selected a couple of balls she thought would be sized right for them before heading to their designated lane.
In some corner of her mind, she had been hoping she and Christopher would be positioned on the opposite side of the bowling alley from Rodrigo and José, and the two Navarro brothers would never even know she had been there.
She should have known fate wouldn’t be that kind to her. Lane six happened to be right next to their lane. Naturally.
Oh, this had been such a mistake.
With a sigh, she made her way over to their lane, which was already set up with bumpers for Christopher.
She had just set her ball into the return when Rodrigo spotted her. “Lucy! You came bowling with us!” Rodrigo hurried over and enveloped her in a huge hug, joy radiating from every pore.
José didn’t look nearly as thrilled.
His mouth was set in a line, his eyes dark and cloudy.
“It sounded like so much fun that Christopher and I decided to come, too. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No!” Rodrigo assured her. “But we’re almost done. I won one game and José won the other one. He’s really good.”
Yes. She
could attest to that, at least if she were judging the way he kissed.
“This ball is so heavy.”
She glanced down and saw Christopher red faced, arms straining to hold the bowling ball.
“Sorry, kiddo.” She quickly took it from him and set it on the ball return along with hers. “Should we bowl?”
He threw a fist up in the air. “Yes! Winner gets an ice-cream cone. That’s what you said.”
“That’s right.”
For the next while at least she was able to focus on Christopher as she taught him the basics of bowling—how to line up the ball and release it at precisely the right moment and with just the right momentum.
Each time his ball made any contact whatsoever with a pin, he jumped around as if he’d won an Olympic gold medal, which she found adorable.
She had just taken a turn when she heard a shout of happiness from the next lane over.
“Winner winner chicken dinner,” Rodrigo crowed, dancing around his brother.
“You rocked it, dude,” José said good-naturedly. “Somebody’s been working hard on their bowling game.”
“It’s me.” Rodrigo held up a hand. She had to smile. Rod was a lucky guy, actually. He was loved and supported by his family, who all worked hard to help him live his best possible life.
Differently abled people in some of the other parts of the globe where she had worked didn’t always have the same opportunities, sometimes facing prejudice and even superstition.
“How’s it going over here?” José asked, interrupting her thoughts. She was glad to see that he seemed to have put away his annoyance for now.
“Chris is a natural, aren’t you, bud?”
“I knocked down six different pins on my first try!”
“Wow. That’s terrific.” José smiled down at the boy and she felt something catch in her chest.
“And on my second try, I knocked down two more. That’s—” he counted on his fingers “—eight all together.”
“Good job.”
“Can we watch Lucy play?” Rodrigo asked his brother.
José looked torn. She could tell he didn’t want to but he looked at Rodrigo then back at Lucy and Christopher and shrugged. “Sure. We still have a little while before I have to take you home.”
This felt much worse, having him sit behind her when she tried to bowl. She was ultra aware of him, long legs stretched out as he talked to Christopher and Rodrigo, who were apparently the best of friends already.
Still, she managed to make it through the match with a respectable score. It wasn’t as good as Christopher’s, though, since he had the advantage of the bumpers, which were lifted for her.
Seeing the jubilation on his features took away any sting of defeat. “I won!” he exclaimed. “That means I get an ice-cream cone.”
“You sure do. Let’s put away our shoes and balls and we can go get one.”
“I won, too. Can I have an ice-cream cone?” Rodrigo asked his brother.
“Sure,” José said. He pulled a bill out of his wallet. “Here. Why don’t you take Christopher over and the two of you can pick what you want.”
The two walked to the concession stand, chattering about Christmas, from what she could tell.
As soon as they were out of earshot, José rounded on her.
“What are you doing here, Lucy?”
She had been asking herself the same thing for the past hour. “I told you. When you mentioned that you were taking Rodrigo bowling this afternoon, I thought it sounded like fun.”
He looked around to make sure no one was around before he spoke in a low, intense voice. “You’re not going to change my mind, Lucy. No matter what games you play. I’m not sleeping with you.”
She yanked her boots on with more force than necessary. “Is that really what you think of me? I’m going to spend the entire holiday break chasing you all over town because I am desperate for a man?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I think too few people have said no to you and you don’t like it.”
“Are you kidding?” she snapped, forgetting to keep her voice down. “People have been saying no to me my entire life.”
No, Lucy, you can’t stay in the same school two years in a row. You have to go back and live with your dad.
No, Lucy. You can’t stay with your grandparents this year. We’ve decided to send you to boarding school.
No, Lucy. I didn’t invite you to the wedding because my new wife doesn’t like that you’re older than she is.
“I’m sorry to be one more, then.” He did look regretful. She thought for a moment he was going to reach out and pull her into an embrace.
She was relieved when he didn’t. At least that’s what she told herself.
“We’re going to see each other again over this holiday season,” he said quietly. “Silver Bells is a small town and we can’t avoid it, with our families being so close. Can we both please try not to make this any harder?”
Christopher and Rodrigo returned at that moment, and she could do nothing but give a short nod.
As she bundled Christopher into her rental car to drive back to Holiday House, her throat felt tight and her chest ached. She told herself it was just residual exhaustion from two days of travel, but she knew better. She was grieving the loss of a dear friend and slowly coming to accept the hard, inescapable truth that she could do nothing about it.
Thirteen
“How did last night go?” Ethan asked his grandmother on a video call Sunday afternoon. “Was the second night as successful as the first?”
Winnie beamed at him. “Even better than Friday. We didn’t have a single no-show last night. At the end of the night, we even had several people donate more than the original price of the ticket.”
“That’s great. People seem to be raving. I’ve had several comments at the hotel.”
“And you were so worried about me. Maybe you should learn to trust your old grammy.”
“You’re not old. But you’re probably right. I should.”
“Probably?”
He smiled. “Definitely right. As always.”
“Darn straight.” As she tilted her head, the sunlight streaming into her room made her hair glow. “You’re still coming for Sunday dinner tonight, right? You haven’t even seen your sister since she got here.”
“I saw her for a few moments when she arrived,” he defended himself.
He would have stopped by last night, but he had been slammed with some last-minute problems at their Macau hotel that had kept him on the phone most of the night. Besides that, he had expected Lucy to be busy helping out with the fundraiser.
And, okay, he had been avoiding Abby.
He didn’t like the way she and Christopher kept wriggling their way under his skin, no matter how hard he tried to keep them out.
He had a long tradition of coming for Sunday dinner with Winnie or taking her out to the hotel restaurant. That practice had fallen to the wayside over the past month since her injury.
“You shouldn’t be fixing a big meal on the one day you have free from hosting your big event,” he protested.
“I’m not fixing jack,” Winnie told him with a grin. “Abby and Lucy put their heads together earlier and decided to try a recipe Lucy learned when she was in Morocco a few years ago. I think they’re cooking it in a tangerine, somehow.”
He did his best to hide his smile. “Do you mean a tagine? That’s a casserole dish from that area of the world.”
“Oh, you’re right. That’s what Lucy said. Tagine, not tangerine. And they’re making couscous.”
He did like Moroccan food. Lancaster Hotels didn’t have property in the country, but he had visited a few times to check out other luxury hotels and found the country beautiful and fascinating.
“They said there will be tons of food
. I think Lucy is planning on you being here.”
Ethan shifted, torn about what to do. While he did want to see his sister and knew his time with her was limited, he knew spending more time with Abby and Christopher was dangerous.
It was hard enough now to think of them leaving town soon. Spending more time with them would only make their inevitable parting harder.
“I don’t know,” he hedged. “I have a lot on my plate today.”
“Too much to even take time to have a meal with your family? You work too hard. Your grandfather would have been the first to tell you to slow down and enjoy life a little.”
He sighed. “I’ll see plenty of Lucy while she’s home. Did she tell you she’s agreed to work at the hotel all week as a translator? She’ll probably be sick of me by week’s end.”
“You know that’s impossible. Lucy adores you.”
He adored her right back. Though separated in age by three years—and his only full sibling amid a sea of halves and steps—they had always been close. He didn’t want to disappoint her. If that meant spending an evening with Abby and Christopher, he could probably manage it.
“Fine. Couscous sounds delicious. I should be able to break away. What time are you eating?”
“Seven.”
“I’ll see you then.”
That gave him four hours to figure out how to protect himself from any further incursions by Abby Powell and her adorable son.
* * *
“You know I’m happy to help you cook,” Abby said to Lucy as they worked together in the kitchen. “But I think Christopher and I should eat in our room.”
Lucy gawked at her. “Don’t be silly. Why would you even suggest that?”
Abby shrugged, feeling foolish. “I don’t know. This seems like a family dinner for you, your brother and your grandmother. The first chance you’ve all had to really get together since you’ve been back in town. Christopher and I really don’t need to intrude on your evening. I know he can be a bit of a distraction.”
Christmas at Holiday House Page 20
