by Judith Bowen
Zoey could still see the child’s face when she came home from school the day they’d decorated the outside of the house. When she climbed out of Ryan’s Blazer, she’d stopped and stood in the yard for a full ten minutes, holding her mittened hands clasped together, her lunch box lying forgotten in the snow, her face angelic as she gazed at the brilliant display.
Zoey had had to swallow a huge lump in her throat.
Cameron’s voice interrupted her train of thought. “Zoey?”
She looked at him again. “Mmm?”
“When Lissy goes off with Ryan to cut a tree, I’m going to pick up some tree decorations.” He indicated Lissy, who’d gone to the refrigerator to get out a carton of milk and pour herself a glass. She was humming happily and Kitty was attacking her dangling shoelace as she walked.
“You don’t have any decorations?” What kind of household was this?
“A few. Some old stuff. I’d like to get more.” He smiled and applied another gumdrop. She didn’t want him to smile. Not at her. She didn’t want him to be friendly and nice. Why was he doing this? “There’s always Christmas next year, right?” he murmured.
“Right.”
“And the year after?”
“Right.” She poked a Lifesaver into place on the roof and, annoyed, shook her hand when the candy stuck to her finger and wouldn’t come off.
“Here.” He reached over, removed the candy from the tip of her finger and put it on the gingerbread roof. “And,” he continued lazily, “the year after that.”
Zoey shot him a glance and squeezed another blob of “glue” onto her saucer. What in the world was he getting at?
“I’d like you to come with me.”
Plop! Now it was a lake of glue. “Go with you?”
“You know, pick out stuff. It’s kind of a—”
“A womanly job?” She couldn’t resist the jab. The reminder that he’d once wanted Ryan to get to know her more “womanly” qualities.
“You could say that,” he agreed. She knew her dart had found its mark. “You’ll go?”
“I—I guess so. Doesn’t Marty want to do this?”
“No. She’s, ah, she’s busy.” He looked at his daughter, who was draining her milk.
Zoey knew that Marty, who had returned from her visit to Kelowna the previous evening, was even now in her bedroom with the door locked, knitting like a madwoman. She was trying to finish a sweater she was making Lissy for Christmas. It was a delicate, white, angora thing and she still had a whole sleeve to go.
“We won’t be long, will we?”
“Nope.”
“Because I have other things I need to do this evening,” she said loftily. It was a lie; she had nothing, absolutely nothing, planned. She was so sick of the Chinchilla manuscript she could scream and swore to herself she wasn’t looking at it again until she got back to Toronto.
“Of course. I know you’re a very busy woman,” he said with a straight face. “I won’t take up much of your time. An hour or so.”
SO THAT WAS HOW Zoey found herself, on nearly the shortest day of the year, in Cameron’s truck on the road to Stoney Creek. He’d wanted to go immediately, so she’d just washed her hands and brushed her hair and tried to sponge the worst of the stickiness off her jeans.
Fleece jacket, a knitted cap to cover her hair—yeah, that was attractive—a pair of Marty’s snowboots and some mitts in her pocket. Marty, emerging from her self-imposed exile to run a bath for Lissy and brew herself a cup of tea, had insisted she take sensible boots.
Cameron was quiet, as usual. She wondered what he was thinking. She wished she’d stayed home. He could pick out his own ornaments, couldn’t he? What difference did it make, anyway? Maybe by next year, Sara Rundle would be in charge of the decorations. Ryan had said Cameron was out of the running with the teacher, but the thought that he might not be had her sitting up in the cab again, paying attention for some reason.
“I never asked, what kind of foal did that mare have?” She was glad the interior of the truck was nearly dark. Even though it was only about half past four in the afternoon, the sun had set.
“A filly.”
“Was it a…a difficult delivery?”
He glanced at her. “No. The vet thought it might be, since she’d had some problems earlier, but it turned out she was fine. We just sat there, drank a little rum and coffee, kept her company.”
“We?” Now why had she said that!
“Me and Glen Robbins. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” She pressed her right cheek against the glass. It felt good, good and cold.
“Nice sassy little filly,” he mused. “Sorrel, just like her ma. Near front foot white. Her father’s black, coal-black. Funny, eh? The foal doesn’t look a bit like him.”
“That happens.” Zoey had no idea if it did or not.
He sighed. “Yeah, I suppose it does.”
“So, what about this foal now? Is it yours or your friend’s?”
“Mine.” He shifted down for the one hill between the ranch and Stoney Creek. “I’m going to give her to Lissy. Not yet, though. Maybe the summer after next when she’s halter-broke and Lissy’s a little older.”
Zoey thought about that. Next summer. The summer after that. These fields would be covered with grass, not snow. The cattle would be grazing, red and black. Calves would be charging around, frightening each other, their tails high in the air. The trees would be green. There’d be birds….
“You ever consider living in a place like this again?”
“No, not really,” she said quickly. He’d read her thoughts.
“You’re a city person now, huh? Through and through?”
“I don’t think it matters much where I live.” What was he getting at? “My work’s portable. Most places have good and bad. There are lots of things I love about living in the city, but—” she turned to regard his profile in the dark “—there are things I hate, too.”
“Like what?”
“Like being alone. Like being so far from my family. Like not knowing your neighbors.” Zoey heard her voice quaver slightly and wished he hadn’t asked.
“What do you love—about the city, that is?”
“I love going to High Park, watching the ducks and geese in the ponds. I love the theater, plays, stuff like that. I like good restaurants. Why are you asking me all these things?” she finished irritably.
He shrugged. “Just making conversation.”
They didn’t say anything else until they approached the bright lights of Stoney Creek. Home Hardware was open, and next to that was a gift shop that was bound to be well-stocked with Christmas items.
He opened the passenger door for her while she was putting on her mittens, which she thought was very gallant. Cameron seemed different, somehow. Subdued. Quiet. Fewer of the hard edges he so often presented to the world.
“Where to, first?” she asked.
“Let’s try the hardware.”
They picked out twinkling lights, and pearly lights and lights that looked like candles with some kind of red and green liquid bubbling in them. They were expensive, but if Zoey even indicated an interest in something, Cameron pulled it off the pile and put it into their cart.
Glass baubles, crystal snowflakes, a can of artificial snow—which Zoey said Lissy might like for spraying designs on the windows—ornaments made out of wood, ornaments made out of straw, a big magnolia wreath for the front door.
Then they went next door to the gift shop. There Cameron picked out an angel for the top of the tree. Zoey made him do the choosing—it was his tree, after all. The angel was gorgeous, with a porcelain face, a red gown and blond shining hair. She had a serene look.
Stunned was more like it, Zoey would’ve thought if she’d been feeling less charitable. But she couldn’t help it; she liked everything about Christmas, including the angel Cameron selected.
“Enough?” she said, laughing up at him.
He nodded solemnly. “If you think
so.”
“You don’t?” She was amazed. They’d probably spent over a hundred dollars already. “You’re supposed to collect this stuff over time, you know. You’re not supposed to go out and plunk down your credit card and buy everything at once.”
“I’ve never bought any before,” he said. “This is the first time.”
“Ever?” She was astonished.
“Ever.”
Cameron loaded the packages into the back of the truck, pulled a tarpaulin over them, then got in the driver’s seat. “You want anything else? A coffee? I’ll call home, see if Marty needs anything from town.”
Zoey shivered. “A coffee would be nice.” She wasn’t looking forward to the twenty-minute ride home with him. He had a way of making her say things she didn’t want to say, like telling him she felt lonely sometimes. That she missed her sisters, her parents.
They got their coffees, sloshed into thick ceramic mugs with help-yourself sugar packets and creamers and flimsy wooden stir sticks, at the coffee shop in the mall outside town. It was nearly deserted. Most people were shopping, not stopping for refreshments this close to the supper hour, Zoey decided, surveying the restaurant with its Christmas garlands and poinsettias. She sat opposite Cameron in a booth, then wished they’d just gotten coffee to go. This way she had to look at him.
She took a sip of the hot beverage. She’d had worse. Cameron kept staring at her, which disconcerted her enormously. Then, to her utter astonishment, he reached forward and took her hand.
“Zoey.” He held her hand lightly. Her first reaction had been to pull away, but she couldn’t make herself do it. “I want to talk to you.”
“You do?” She curled her fingers, but he didn’t release her hand.
“Yeah. First of all, I want you to know that the other night was—”
“Don’t talk about the other night!” she whispered fiercely.
His eyes looked as though she’d hit him with a bucket of ice.
“I can’t stand it, don’t you see?” she went on, glancing furtively around, although there was no one to hear them. “I feel so stupid! I made a horrible mistake and I—I don’t blame you, but surely you can see I just want to forget the whole experience. If you’re going to apologize, don’t do that either! Please!”
He abruptly let go of her hand and picked up his coffee. “Well,” he said finally, “I guess that covers everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re telling me you don’t want me to apologize. I wasn’t going to. You’re saying the night we spent together was a disaster. I’ve got to accept that, al though I have a hard time believing it.” He shrugged. “You say you don’t blame me but I think you do. Okay, we’ll forget it.”
Zoey stared down at her coffee, eyes brimming. She was holding her cup in both hands. A tear dropped in. What was the matter with her? She was an emotional wreck lately.
“Zoey?”
She gazed out the window of the coffee shop, which looked onto an interior walkway in the mall. Tattered Christmas streamers decorated a kiosk that was closed for the day. Actually, when you really thought about it, Christmas was a pretty tacky time. She faced him squarely. “Yes?”
Anything he had to say to her, she could handle. If she could deal with a difficult, whiny, bossy author like Jamie Chinchilla, she could deal with anything, including a man like Cameron Donnelly.
“You’re upset. I can understand that,” he said quietly. “You think I tricked you, and maybe I did. But you know why?”
His eyes were anguished.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make love with you. I knew Ryan was out of the picture, even if you didn’t. I had a feeling about what was happening between him and Mary Ellen but I wasn’t going to be the one to deliver the news. Then, when you showed up in my bed like that, well—”
He reached for her hand again and this time Zoey didn’t try to pull away. “Goddammit! I’m only human. When a woman I have feelings for, strong feelings, crawls into my bed, I am sure as hell not going to kick her out. I don’t know any man who would, even if he didn’t have strong feelings.”
Strong feelings? What was he talking about? “I see,” she said weakly. Why did she always say that when she didn’t have a clue? “So, you were just—just overcome with lust and desire, that’s it?”
“Overcome! Hell, Zoey. I’ve been half in love with you since you came back to Stoney Creek. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I found you in my bed. I hoped—” He stopped, his eyes searching hers. What did he see there? Her emotions were tumbling all over the linoleum. Half in love with her?
“Shit!” he muttered. “I’m no damn good at this. Let’s forget the whole thing, like you said. You want some more?” He held up his cup.
She shook her head.
He grabbed the check and walked over to the cashier to pay. Zoey watched him smile, say something to the cashier, pick up a candy cane from the bowl by the cash register and slip it in his shirt pocket. For Lissy. He made a quick call from the phone on the counter, probably checking with Marty. She watched him hang up and turn toward her, frowning. “You ready?”
He’d said he was half in love with her. What in the world was that supposed to mean? He’d said she couldn’t read the signs when a man wanted her and when a man didn’t give a damn.
Was this what he’d meant? That he wanted her?
Zoey swallowed and stood. She grabbed her purse from the vinyl seat and pulled her mittens back on. “Hold on. Yes, I’m ready.”
As ready as she’d ever be. Which wasn’t saying a whole lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CAMERON DIDN’T SAY anything the whole trip home and Zoey didn’t know where to start. He stopped the pickup at the garage to let her out and when she thanked him, he just nodded tersely. He drove to the house and parked beside Marty’s car; from halfway up the stairs, Zoey watched him carry cartons into the house. Two trips. The door slammed.
As far as she could tell—and, admittedly, the light in the yard was bad—he hadn’t looked her way once.
She let herself into her warm apartment and didn’t even take off her jacket when she got there. She sank onto the lumpy sofa and rubbed her face with her mittens, then took them off slowly.
Half in love with her? What did that mean? That same thought kept going around and around.
He’d been half in love with her for weeks, he’d said. He said she didn’t read the signs when a man wanted her. What signs? He’d treated her rudely, he’d been nosy about her…her private business, he’d ignored her, he’d told her he was interested in Sara Rundle….
Somewhere in there, she was supposed to figure out that she was the one he’d fallen in love with?
Suddenly, Zoey felt incredibly weary. She wished she hadn’t told Lissy she’d help trim the tree. Sure,she’d promised Cameron, too, but he’d understand if she didn’t show. Now she had another reason to avoid him—he’d more or less confessed he was in love with her, or, as he said, “half in love,” which was embarrassing for them both.
What did that mean—half in love?
Zoey fixed herself a sandwich, an open-faced Reuben that she “grilled” in the microwave. She tumbled some olives onto her plate and ate her sandwich at the table, accompanied by a tall glass of milk.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the suddenness of his outburst. What had he meant to say about the night they’d spent together? He’d planned to tell her something. Now, she wished she hadn’t stopped him from speaking. She wanted to know what he’d been about to say.
For the first time in many days, Zoey allowed her mind to wander back to that night. If he really cared for her, as he said he did, so much more about that night made sense.
And his lovemaking. He wasn’t out for just a…a quickie. He’d wanted it to work between them. The way he’d kissed her and caressed her until she was mad with desire, mad for him…. Zoey put down the half sandwich she was holding and dropped her head
into her hands. How could something so beautiful be so wrong? So false? Damn her weepiness! If it was true that he had what he called strong feelings for her, no wonder she’d felt so cherished and loved. And safe.
Her brain hadn’t known who her lover was, true, but her body had known. Her body had responded. You could fool the mind, but you could not fool the body. Her mind had been closed to every possibility except the one she wanted to believe—that she was in bed with Ryan. The man she had out-and-out designs on, no matter what. That somehow, magically, Ryan would make love with her, thanks to the fortuitous accident of his coming back early from Prince George, and realize then that he couldn’t live without her. Just like she’d hoped in high school that he’d come to his senses and choose her over Adele.
And yet, when she’d heard the news about him and Mary Ellen, her first response had been relief! Go figure.
Hold on! Just because she wasn’t in love with Ryan and probably never had been, beyond a teenage crush years ago, that did not mean she was in love with his brother.
And, really, how could Cameron possibly mean what he’d said? She’d only been in Stoney Creek for about a month—during which they hadn’t even spent much time together. Didn’t you have to know a person to fall in love? Spend time together? He barely knew her!
No, he was vulnerable, that was it. He was looking for a stepmother for Lissy. She’d do, or Sara Rundle would do or any of half a dozen other women would do. How had he met and married his first wife? He’d gone to bed with her, got her pregnant and married her. Then divorced her.
But—a tiny voice protested—why would he pick you, of all people, when he thought, at least at the start, that his brother was interested? Men don’t do that to each other. Brothers, especially, don’t do that.
Even so, he’d chosen her out of all the women he knew. That must mean he really did care for her….
Zoey’s brain ached. None of this made a bit of sense. She finished her sandwich and washed up, including the breakfast dishes she’d left that morning.
So what if he was “half in love with her”? These things had to go both ways. She couldn’t possibly think she was in love with one man one week and in love with his brother the next. What kind of person would that make her?
