“Yesterday, when I was treating your bee sting,” she said honestly. “I saw in your eyes how deep your feelings were for me.” She looked out over the bayou where a driftwood log floated by on the lazy current.
He stood, walked to the railing and rested his arms on it. “I feel like an idiot.”
She went to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you how to feel, but I can tell you that you have no reason to feel that way. We did have a relationship that was going somewhere. It’s just that when I came home, I got, oh, I don’t know, more centered, I suppose.” She could tell him that his offhanded comments had pushed her to see this, but she couldn’t now, seeing his hurt. “I was lost and lonely in the city, Edward. I felt so out of place there, like you feel here in the bayou. You were kind to me and helped me get through some difficult days. I can’t do that for you here, because you know you’re leaving soon. I thought I was staying in New York. That’s a big difference.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t ever plan to live here.”
“Me either. But my heart is still from here and beats as if I do live here.” She shrugged. “I think that vulnerable woman you met is who you fell in love with. Not this woman who really, really loves being with her family. Who misses that brown bayou and the moss in the trees hanging over it.” She smiled. “And the white shrimp boots you think are silly looking.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah. I guess I was worried you would. That’s why I wanted to come here with you, to remind you what you had in New York.”
“You did exactly that, but didn’t get the results you hoped for.”
He held up his bee-stung hand and pointed to his mosquito-bitten face. “Louisiana told me to leave. It wanted you for itself.”
“You just got stung by bees and bitten by mosquitoes. Don’t read something conspiratorial into it.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“That’s interesting. I wonder if you’ve been doing that with how your family presses their opinions and will on you.” He exhaled, sounding defeated.
Was Edward right? Had she misread her family as conspiratorial all of these years, misjudging the way they imposed their hopes and views on her? Had she just looked at the situation incorrectly? Or was she doubting what she’d come to believe because she’d fallen in love with her family again? “Maybe you’re right,” she conceded. His head came up, his eyes came to her, looking like he hoped she’d changed her mind about him. “About my family, I mean. I’m sorry,” she sighed. “You’re a dear. . .”
“Please don’t tell me you like me as a friend. I’m not ready to hear that.” He took a step away from her. “And Camille, don’t tell me that you don’t want me because you’ve fallen for Hunt.”
“What? No. Of course not.” In love with Hunt? Where in the hell did that come from? That was ridiculous.
He nodded, not looking convinced. “It’s time for me to go home.”
Edward went inside, packed, reschedule his travel arrangements, and got a ride to the boat dock, where the cab he’d called, was waiting to take him to the airport. He wouldn’t let her or anyone else from the family drive him.
She sat at the kitchen table with her momma and papa, who didn’t ask her why Edward had left so abruptly. They knew. They’d been expecting it. The screen door creaked open and her younger brother, René, charged into the kitchen with his usual vigor. Her mother had always said he was born with the darkest hair, the loudest cry, and the hardest kick. He was the sibling that had the biggest personality, although he was the smallest of the men at five-foot-six.
His kissed their momma on the cheek and then Camille. “I heard your doctor left,” he said, reaching for one of the plump, flaky, and golden homemade biscuits in a pan on the stove. He carried it to the table and took a bite. It smelled like warm, buttery love and her youth. “You sure know how to make the Fa La La gossip flow.”
“A talent I wish I didn’t have.” She shook her head. “Edward’s gone. We weren’t right for each other. That’s all I’m saying on the subject, so don’t ask anymore.”
“That pretty much sums up what I’ve already heard,” René said, his mouth full.
Her papa stood, carrying his empty coffee mug, but stopped behind her and kissed her with a long, hard press of his lips and thick beard on the cheek. Her heart broke a little. That was how he’d kissed her good-bye the day she’d left Fa La La, not knowing if she’d ever return. And also knowing that he was part of the reason she was leaving. Was he thinking of that now? He went to the coffeepot and poured another mug of coffee.
“Hey Papa,” René said, around a mouthful of biscuit. “Remember that thunk I thought I heard when I pushed the starter on my boat?” T-Dud grunted. “Well, you were right. It was more of a clunk.”
“I tole you it was probably a clunk. You need to know da difference wit youz thunks and clunks. So it was a bad solenoid, huh?”
“Yes, sir. I replaced the solenoid and she sounds like a well-loved woman.”
“René!” their mother shouted, disapproving his analogy.
He laughed and winked at Camille. “Want to come with me to talk to the Scrooge since you know him best?” he asked, his mouth full. “I want to see if he’ll let me take some mistletoe from his trees. I took my boat out this morning looking for some elsewhere, but I didn’t see any. To save time and money, we should ask Scrooge.”
“What are you going to do with the mistletoe?” June asked.
“I’m going to make a mistletoe arch on the back walkway near Tante Pearl’s house,” René took Camille’s coffee mug and drank from it.
“Hey, that’s mine,” she complained, taking it back.
“Back there, it’s sort of secluded and might appease the people who are disappointed that they cain’t go to the mistletoe gazebo on the island.”
T-Dud put his newspaper down. “Have youz spoken to Tante Pearl about dis? She’z likely to chase lovers away wit her broom. She won’t like frisky couples near her house.”
“I did talk to her. And she agreed to it when I told her she could set up a table nearby and sell her homemade broken glass and stained glass candy. She can make it peppermint flavored so our guests can have fresh breath when they lock lips.” He laughed, tucking his clean white T-shirt into his faded Wranglers. “It ain’t going to be the same as taking a long walk to get your kiss at the end under the gazebo, though.”
“I’ll go with you,” Camille stood. “I have another idea that might get him to let us use the island.” Besides, she needed to get away from Fa La La and clear her head.
***
“Are you afraid to be alone with me, Camille?” Hunt murmured as he watched Camille and her brother René, whom he’d met the day before at Fa La La, walk down his wharf and up the rise toward him on the front porch of his cabin. He rose out of his rocker and walked down the porch steps.
Camille didn’t look like a woman who set broken bones and stitched gaping wounds, in her dark green, thigh-skimming shorts and red-and-white flannel shirt. With each step she took in her chunky white shrimp boots, her muscles bunched and elongated along her well-formed legs.
“Hello,” René shouted when they were about twelve feet away. He was in his late twenties, but his baritone voice could’ve belonged to a man in his forties. It carried easily over the distant sounds of hammering and sawing from where workers were building Hunt’s home acres away. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
Hunt nodded, looking at Camille, who wore the warm morning sunlight on her hair, face, and exposed legs like it was liquid gold. He’d taken a photo once that captured the sun as perfectly as she did now. He’d used the spot meter mode, bounced the light with a reflector, and exposed only the young Ute Indian woman as she performed a Sun Dance across the top of a still sand dune in the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The result was magic and a cover of National Geographic, and had also won him the coveted Pulitzer Prize for photography that year.
“Good morning, Hunt,” Camille said, li
fting her hand over her brow to block out the sun to look at him. Didn’t she ever wear sunglasses?
“Good morning. Have you come for the Thanksgiving photos?” He'd meant to tell her before he’d left that he’d e-mail them to her or put them on a thumb drive and drop it off at the mercantile, but he’d forgotten when all he could think about was kissing her tempting mouth. Off limits, he reminded himself, thinking about Edward who was probably resting somewhere with calamine lotion on his body.
“We’re actually here for mistletoe,” René looked up into the trees around them. “We’re hoping since you won’t let us have our mistletoe gazebo here on your island, you’ll agree to let us harvest some to use at Fa La La. You have the best mistletoe for miles around.”
“Mistletoe?” Hunt didn’t know what mistletoe actually looked like unless it had a bow wrapped around it and hung over a doorway.
“Actually, I’d love to get a copy of those photos.” Camille smiled. “But René is right. We’re here to ask you if we can have some of your mistletoe. I don’t see any in these trees here,” she said, tucking her hands in her pockets. “But you have a good bit on the back side of the island.”
“Oh, you mean at my construction site?”
René huffed and Camille touched his arm in a silent gesture to calm down. Hunt appreciated that her temper wasn’t as volatile as those of the men in her family.
“We’ll sign a release of liability if you want. The mistletoe is almost as important to us as the use of your island.” She looked at him, waiting for him to respond.
“Can’t you just buy the ones I saw in the tiny plastic bags at the check-out counter at the Piggly Wiggly?” Both Camille and René made sounds of shock and distaste. He held up his hands. “Okay. Okay. That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, that bad. It’d be like you taking photos with a disposable cardboard camera,” she countered. He laughed and saw her eyes soften. It sent a huge wave of heat through his body.
“I’m not agreeing; I just want to see where this mistletoe is that you want. We’ll go from there.”
René extended his hand. “Deal.” Hunt shook it.
The three of them walked toward where he was building his house. The sounds of construction grew louder as they got closer to it. When they reached the small stream and thick marsh grass around it, he extended his hand to Camille. She smiled and pointed to her shrimp boots. “I’ve got these, thank you.”
He felt disappointed, as ridiculous as it was. He’d been thinking about holding her hand at this stream since they’d started walking. No harm with that even if with her boyfriend around.
“There.” Camille pointed to a tall cypress tree right alongside where his house was being constructed. “And there in the oak tree, and there.” She pointed to two other trees in the same area with a heavy understory of palmetto.
“Where, in those trees?”
“Those wide, dark green clumps surrounding the branches in the trees are mistletoe,” René said. “You really have a lot of it; some of those clumps look like they’re five feet across. It’s in those trees over there too.”
Hunter hadn’t really paid much attention to the darker patches of green in the trees before. Maybe he should just give it to them. “What is mistletoe anyway? Will it hurt the tree if you remove some of it? And how will you remove it?”
René started to answer, but Camille touched his arm again. Hunter wanted her to touch his arm instead. It was insane. René picked up a stick, walked about ten feet away from them and started nudging a frog that had hopped in front of him. Then he took a few steps farther away and looked up at the house. “While you two hash this out, do you mind if I take a look at your new house, Hunt? One of my buddies is your carpenter and while he hasn’t given me any specifics, he’s taken a lot of pride in what he’s doing here. I’d like to see it for myself.”
Hunt shrugged. Why not? It would give him some time alone with Camille. “Sure.”
“Great.” René winked at Camille and took off toward the construction site.
“To answer your question on how we will harvest the mistletoe,” she said, picking up the conversation. “We’ll use a bucket lift. One of our family members has one. It’ll make it easy to get to the mistletoe. And to answer your other question, removing it is good for the tree. That’s because it’s actually a parasite spread into the trees by bird droppings.” Hunter turned to face her.
“And that inspires kissing how. . .?”
She laughed. “Tradition. That’s how, Hunter.” She smiled, happy to have made her tradition point, yet again. “Mistletoe has a long history. The ancient Druids thought it was sacred and was a symbol of hope and fertility because it could bloom in the frozen winters. In Norse mythology, the goddess of love declared mistletoe a symbol of love and vowed to kiss all who passed beneath it. The Greeks once considered it a symbol of fertility and used it in primitive marriage rites. In England in the middle ages, men were allowed to steal a kiss from any woman caught standing under the mistletoe and the Kissing Bough. Refusing was considered bad luck.” She laughed. “There’s more traditions around the world with mistletoe, if you want to hear it.”
Hunt wondered if she would kiss him if he brought her to stand under the mistletoe right now. Because of all she claimed about believing in tradition, he suspected she would without a second thought of Calamine covered Edward.
“Our tradition for Fa La La,” she continued, “is to use the Kissing Bough with the mistletoe to create a huge centerpiece in the gazebo.”
“And the Kissing Bough is what?”
“It’s a round decoration that’s traditionally decorated with nuts, fruits, greenery, and herbs. . .and mistletoe for the communities that don’t find it too naughty and pagan. We’ve made them with things we find around Fa La La, including mistletoe from your island.”
“So you don’t find it too naughty, then?” He took a step closer to her. She didn’t look away. He saw a bit of mischief and promise in her eyes.
“Not at all. I think it’s fun.”
Now he was standing within six inches of her. Her breathing was heavier, and so was his. He lowered his voice. “Do you let Edward kiss you under the mistletoe?”
“Not anymore,” she whispered. “Not that we were ever really a couple, but he’s gone.”
“Well, then, I intend to kiss you under the mistletoe and other places too, Doc.”
Camille looked at his mouth and he nearly pulled her against him to kiss her then and there, mistletoe or Kissing Bough be damned. The bright blue sky and white puffy clouds would work just fine. But the hammering suddenly stopped and the ensuing silence was like a huge bucket of ice water being thrown in his face.
She swallowed hard. “I guess René made his entrance.”
“Guess so.” He took her hand. It felt warm and comfortable, like a blazing fire on a chilly day. “Let’s get those Thanksgiving photos and talk about harvesting the mistletoe.”
“So we can harvest it?” She didn’t pull her hand away and he liked that, a lot.
“Yes. Under my conditions.” He led her toward the cabin. “Now, tell me more about the Kissing Bough and the kissing tradition.”
HUNT FOR CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER SIX
“My darkroom’s inside,” Hunt said when they reached the lopsided porch to his cabin. He released her hand and stepped forward.
Camille hesitated a moment, thinking she should tell him she’d wait on the porch for him to bring the thumb drive to her. That was absurd. She was much too old to play the fearful virgin, protecting her reputation. That wasn’t a role she’d ever played. Besides, Hunt wouldn’t jump her unless she indicated she wanted him to. He’d said they would talk about the harvesting of the mistletoe. That was progress. She smiled. He was finally agreeing to something they’d requested. Maybe he’d be agreeable to the other thing she wanted to present to him.
She slipped off her shrimp boots, as he had his shoes, both walking into the cabin in their socks
– hers, red-and-white stripes with leaping reindeer; his, simple black athletic socks. Inside, she was immediately struck by the cool, air-conditioned temperature. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw that she’d been right about him not remodeling the cabin. The pine paneling and terra-cotta linoleum was just as she remembered. The plywood, doorless cabinets were the same ones Mr. Gaudet had installed years ago. There was a new refrigerator, a microwave, and a one-cup-at-a-time coffeemaker. In the space used for a living room, there were two new, moss-gray leather recliners and a deep moss-gray leather sofa. A huge, man-dream-sized TV covered almost the entire width of a wall, blocking a window behind it.
“That's totally over-the-top,” she laughed, pointing to the television.
“I need it for work.”
“What, are you a microbiologist studying the epidermis of football and basketball players?” She didn’t wait for him to respond; something came to her from what he’d said earlier. “You said darkroom.”
He smiled and sat in one of the recliners. “Have a seat.” She sat on the other recliner. The leather was smooth and cold against the back of her legs.
“Brr. It’s cold in here.” She wrapped her arms around her waist.
“I’ll share my body heat.” His dark eyes were a bit playful.
“You’re such a flirt.” She laughed. “And I know flirts. I’ve had more little old men patients that are as frisky as you than I can count.”
“I'm neither little nor old," he pointed out. "When you walk into their treatment room, I bet they think they’ve died and gone to heaven.”
She laughed again. “Most are so darling.” She spotted his camera on the kitchen table, reminding her what she wanted to talk to him about. “Change of subject.” She shifted to sit on the edge of the recliner. She would get him saying yes, then ask the question that she thought might get him to agree to allow the Christmas Celebration back onto Cypress Island. “I’m glad you joined us for Thanksgiving yesterday. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“The food was amazing. Your mother and everyone who prepared the meal are incredible cooks. Luke chastised me for not bringing home leftovers, though. It was good enough to serve at any five-star Michelin restaurant. You made the potato salad, right?”
Under The Kissing Bough: 15 Romantic Holiday Novellas Page 35
