Outside was a view of snug German houses with tiled roofs, flower boxes and shutters at the windows, and lawns with manicured hedges. An old castle ruin and a beautiful city awaited them. Her sister should have been having a wonderful time.
With Mark. “Maybe he wants to work things out. Maybe that’s what he meant by that text.”
Sierra shook her head. “Then he would have said that.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Although she was probably right. Was it better to encourage her sister to delude herself or have her face the ugly probability right then? It was the emotional equivalent of slowly pulling off a bandage or yanking it off fast and being done with it.
“It’s over. I think I’ve known it for months. I just didn’t want to admit it.” Sierra wiped at a tear sneaking out the corner of her eye. “You know what really hurts is him waiting until I’m over here and supposed to be having fun to say this. No, I take it back. What hurts even more is how he pretended everything was okay before I left, like he felt so bad he couldn’t take time off. ‘Go, have fun with your sister,’ he said, making it sound like he was being such a good sport. I guess what he really meant was go.”
If Mark had been on the ship with them Sophie would have pushed him overboard. Of course, if he’d been on the boat it would have meant there was no problem. Her sister would have been happy.
“If it is over, then it’s all his fault and he’s a fool,” Sophie said vehemently.
Sierra gave her a watery-eyed smile. “You’re the best sister in the world.”
“No, that award would have to go to you. I wish I could make it all better.”
“I wish I could make it all better.” Sierra heaved a sigh. “I’ll get through this.”
“Yes, you will. Start by coming with me and seeing the castle.”
Sierra shook her head. “I’m just going to hang out on the ship. And eat. Maybe Trevor will leave me a supply of chocolate. Speaking of, he’s waiting.”
Sophie couldn’t go skipping off to have fun when her sister was so miserable. “I don’t want to go. I’ll stay with you.”
“You will not,” Sierra insisted. “I don’t want you underfoot being all irritating and chipper.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I want to be. Seriously. So pleeease, go away. Spend some time with a great guy with my blessing.”
“It feels all wrong to abandon you.” Even if Sierra did want to be alone, Sophie felt like a traitor. She was going to go have fun while her sister stayed behind with a broken heart.
“I need some time alone. Really. Get my money’s worth and go have fun.”
“Like I can do that when your life is falling apart.”
“There’s no point in both of us being miserable. And I’m serious. I’ve already embarrassed myself dumping on Catherine. And now you. I need some time alone to think and pull myself together. So go. I want you to.”
“Okay, I will, but only if you promise to go out with me on our next port of call.”
“I’ll think about it,” Sierra said, making no promises.
Think, shmink. Sophie was going to make sure her sister got out and forgot her troubles. Or at least shoved them to the back corner of her mind.
She finally gave up the battle when Sierra threatened to smack her if she didn’t get out of the room, but she wasn’t exactly skipping when she went down the hallway.
“Where’s your sister?” Trevor asked when she met him in the lobby.
“She’s not feeling good.”
“She’s sick?”
Only at heart. “She’ll feel better later,” Sophie said.
What a bunch of baloney. If that text from Mark meant what Sierra thought it meant, it was going to be a very long time before she felt better.
12
Athena continued to wrestle with the dilemma of whether or not to tell her father about Catherine. The longer Catherine delayed and the closer they became, the harder her news was going to be on Daddy.
But telling him wouldn’t be right. She needed to let Catherine share her situation in her own good time. Meanwhile, maybe a little distance between them wouldn’t hurt.
Her father had no intention of keeping his distance, however. He found Catherine when everyone was loading onto the buses and made sure they were on the same one as her.
Athena reminded herself that the situation was out of her hands as they settled into their seats behind Catherine and Denise. At least Catherine wasn’t a fortune hunter. Somehow, she didn’t find that consoling.
She did find it mildly consoling that Catherine was trying to stick close to her friend and not encourage Daddy. Of course it didn’t work. Denise got distracted with her men friends and Daddy and Catherine were soon walking side by side again as they all got off the bus and started for the castle.
Wars dating as far back as the 1600s along with two lightning strikes had taken their toll on Heidelberg Castle, but even though it was mostly a red stone ruin, it was worth touring. It offered an incredible view of the city below with the Neckar River ribboning its way through the city. Caught up in the beauty of it all, Athena set aside her concerns for her father and allowed herself a moment to take pictures.
“Take one of all of the old people, will you?” Denise asked her, handing over her phone.
“Sure,” Athena said.
They all posed, Denise and Catherine front and center, surrounded by the three men. Athena noticed Daddy had a hand on Catherine’s shoulder. Both of them were smiling. They could have been an old married couple celebrating an anniversary.
Athena’s heart cracked. There was no future for her father and Catherine. Catherine didn’t want one.
The crack widened as Athena thought about how much she missed her mother, how happy Mom and Daddy had been and how wrong it was that he was alone now. Life was about both loss and gain, but Athena was convinced that losing a mother was one of the largest losses of all. It filled you with pain and then, once the pain dulled, it filled you again, with loneliness.
It wasn’t hard to understand why her father so desperately wanted to find someone. Daughters could only staunch so much unhappiness. He’d come on this cruise on a quest, hoping to somehow heal a wounded heart, still trying to recover, and he had. But the woman he’d met would leave him even more miserable than he’d been before.
Athena handed back the phone to Denise, who looked at the picture and pronounced it good. “We don’t look too bad,” she told the others, and turned the phone so they could see.
“No, we don’t,” said Daddy. “Will you send that to me?” he asked Denise.
“Sure. What’s your email?”
Daddy passed it on. Then, as Denise was getting the other two men’s emails, he handed his phone to Athena. “One more, honey. Take one of Catherine and me.”
“Oh, no,” Catherine said, pulling away. “Let me take one of you and your daughter.”
Catherine really was a class act.
Athena tried for her happiest smile as they posed, but she knew it had never reached her eyes. A blizzard of emotions swirled inside her—unhappiness over the loss of her mother, guilt over her earlier attitude toward Catherine, worry about her father—and she half wished she’d never invited herself along on this trip.
Catherine handed Daddy’s phone back to him and was about to hurry off to start walking down the hill with Denise and Arnold and Charlie, but Daddy stopped her. “One more picture. Something to remember our time here.”
Catherine looked to Athena as if asking permission.
“A good idea,” Athena said. Let them have their moment. It would end soon enough.
She told herself the same thing when, once they were in town, they stopped in a little jewelry shop and Daddy bought both her and Catherine another charm, this one of the castle.
“Another m
emento,” he said, beaming at them.
“It’s very kind of you,” Catherine murmured. “It will be a lovely reminder of both of you.”
Yes, a class act.
* * *
Trevor’s brother planned to join up with him and Sophie after the castle tour, once the bus had unloaded them all in the city. Meanwhile, Trevor and Sophie trailed behind the kids during the tour, stopping like everyone else to take pictures in front of the fortress’s huge wine barrel, the largest in the world.
“This will be a fun post for Instagram,” she said as they walked away.
“So you’re on Instagram? Me, too.”
“Do you post lots of pictures of chocolate?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She did a search on her phone. Yep, there was Cupid’s Chocolates. “Oh, wow,” she said, checking it out. “You sure know how to pack temptation in a picture.”
“Good temptation, though,” he said. He, too, was searching his phone. “And there you are. I see you’ve already put up some pictures.”
“Of course.”
“So, what else are you on?” he asked.
“Everything. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest. That’s my favorite. I love those foodie pins, especially the ones featuring baked goodies.”
“Oh, yeah. I seem to remember you mentioning something about French silk pie,” Trevor said. “Is that your specialty?”
“No. Cupcakes are my specialty. I make a fabulous chocolate one with white chocolate frosting flavored with rose water.”
“White chocolate and rose water?”
“It’s a fabulous combination. Maybe you should think about it for one of your chocolate bars,” she said.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Intriguing. I’ll have to look into that.”
Okay, giving a chocolatier advice on chocolate treats. How was that for tacky?
“Look at me, giving advice to the expert,” she said, her face heating up.
“Hey, I’m always open to new ideas,” he said.
Silly how pleased she felt by his reaction to her suggestion. Growing up as the baby of the family, she hadn’t always been taken seriously. Maybe she wasn’t now, either, but if Trevor was faking his reaction to her suggestion, he was doing a great job of it.
They moved on to the thick wooden door leading to the residential courtyard. “Here’s an interesting legend,” Sophie read from the guidebook she’d purchased. “It’s said that the castle will be handed to anyone who can bite through the door knocker.”
“Yeah? Let’s try it,” Trevor suggested.
“Eeew,” she said in disgust. “I don’t even want to think about how many germy mouths might have touched that.”
“Hey, you have to be brave to win a castle,” he said, and sunk his teeth into the door knocker.
It was so thick even a horse couldn’t bite through it, and she found herself giggling.
“I guess nobody will be giving me the keys to the castle,” he said as he stepped away and wiped his mouth.
“If it’s any consolation, it says here that even a witch tried to bite through it and she failed.”
“Oh, well,” he said. “This place would take a lot of work to fix up and I have a business to run.”
“A very important business,” she reminded him, making him smile. It didn’t take much to make Trevor March smile. She liked that about him. She liked a lot about him.
Once they got outside the castle, Harriet the pest attached herself to them, spouting much of the same information from the same guidebook Sophie had been reading, all the while casting hungry looks at Trevor.
She was an irritant, but who was Sophie to judge after the way she’d stalked Rudy? She got that whole determination thing, the hope that someone who seemed so right would turn out to be your soul mate. But Rudy’s soul had leaned in a different direction.
And here was easygoing, easy-to-talk-to Trevor the chocolate king, making Sophie’s soul do some leaning of its own. And he’d made it pretty clear how he felt. Poor Harriet was out of luck. Still, Sophie could be magnanimous.
“Looks like great minds think alike,” she said to Harriet, holding up her guidebook. “I like learning about new places, don’t you?”
“I like learning, period,” Harriet said, and Sophie wondered if that comment was supposed to make her look superior.
They started to stroll across the flagstone courtyard to take in the view, and Harriet strolled right along with them. Next thing Sophie knew Harriet was pumping her for more information about her life, wanting to know where she lived and worked. She finally got down to the main question: Did Sophie have a boyfriend?
“She’s working on it,” Trevor answered for her, and caught Sophie’s gloved hand in his. The contact, along with his grin, made her heart start skipping.
No heart skipping for Harriet. Instead, she scowled. “How old are you, anyway?” she demanded when Trevor left to talk to his brother and it was only the two of them standing together, looking at the view below.
Maybe instead of German Harriet should have been taking a course in manners. “How old are you?” Sophie countered.
“I’m nineteen.” She may as well have added, Compete with that, old broad.
“Cheer up,” Sophie quipped. “You won’t be nineteen forever.”
“Yeah, and you won’t be...whatever you are, either,” Harriet retorted. “It sucks to get old.”
Okay, Sophie was beginning to dislike this kid.
Trevor was back. “Harriet, Herr Professor wants a word with all of you. Thank God,” he murmured as Harriet reluctantly left them to join the rest of the class.
“I think she feels you’d be better off with a younger woman,” Sophie said.
“I’ll bet. I should never have given her chocolate.”
“Give a woman chocolate and she’ll follow you anywhere. You’re like the Pied Piper,” Sophie teased. “Except she’s not really a rat.” Just a bit of a brat.
“She’s something,” Trevor said, shaking his head.
The class made their way to the bus and Kurt began walking toward Trevor and Sophie. Harriet fell in with him.
Sophie heard him say, “Harriet, you don’t want to fall behind the others.”
“I thought I’d come with you,” she said. The girl was bold, Sophie would give her that.
“Actually, I’m going to be spending some time with my brother. You know. Family time.”
Harriet pointed to Sophie. “She’s not family.”
Kurt stopped just short of where Sophie and Trevor stood. “Not yet. Oh, and I’m hoping you won’t mind doing me a favor.”
Harriet looked eager at that. “Sure. What do you need, Herr Professor?”
“Make sure Hugh and Bristol and Megan all get back to the boat on time.”
Harriet rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I paid all this money to babysit.” But she marched off, in search of the other students.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Kurt said, turning to Trevor and Sophie. “Bringing along my German class seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I could have told you how that would turn out,” Trevor said.
“Yeah, you tell me a lot of stuff, most of it useless,” Kurt shot back with a teasing grin.
“Oh, well, you’re saved now,” Sophie said, then decided to give the two brothers some quality time. She’d find Denise and company and hang out with them. “You two enjoy yourselves.”
“Wait a minute. Where do you think you’re going?” Trevor demanded.
“I’m going to let you enjoy your family time,” Sophie said.
Kurt put an arm around her. “We share,” he said, and winked at his brother.
Trevor pulled her away. “We don’t share that much,” he said, making her giggle.
“Come on, let�
��s all go check out the city,” Kurt said.
Sophie was entranced with the stately brick homes with their gables and shuttered windows, many of them looking like miniature castles, as they made their way down the cobblestone street from the castle ruins to the town. She was delighted with the Christmas market, especially the giant pyramid that towered above all the booths. Sierra would have loved this, she thought wistfully.
Shopping for a treat for her sister was her first order of business, and she found an elegant silver tree ornament shaped like a pine cone that she was sure Sierra would like. As if an ornament was any kind of consolation for what Sierra was going through. Still, it was all Sophie could think to do.
She bought both brothers Glühwein. They, in turn, insisted on buying her lunch, taking her into a restaurant with enough inviting aromas to keep her mouth watering for months.
“Would you like a beer?” Kurt asked her as their dirndl-clad waitress approached.
“No,” said both Sophie and Trevor in unison.
“After the hangover I had this morning I don’t think I’m ever going to drink again,” Sophie said. “At least not today. Thank God Trevor knew what to do for a hangover.”
“He knows something, huh?” Kurt grinned across the table at his brother.
“Jealous, always has been,” Trevor said to Sophie. “It’s because he’s adopted. Bank robbers left him on our doorstep.” He smacked his forehead. “Damn! Mom told me not to tell.”
Sophie snickered and Kurt said, “Pay no attention to him. He’s delusional.”
The waitress had arrived. “Zwei Bier, bitte, für ihn und für mich,” he said to her. Then, to Sophie, “I have the perfect drink for you. Und eine Spezi,” he told the waitress.
“What’s that?” Sophie asked.
“It’s a combination of cola and orange drink. You’ll like it.”
“Und dreimal Schnitzel, bitte,” Trevor added, then held up three fingers. “Und Pommes frites auch.”
“You speak German, too?” Sophie asked him, impressed.
“Not as well as the old guy here,” Trevor said, “but some. One of our grandmas was an import. She had us speaking it when we were two.”
One Charmed Christmas Page 18
