I felt a real thrill replying because obviously our marketing campaigns were working by the sort of questions we were being asked. With that done, I went about the lodge taking photos, ready to share them across our social media accounts, knowing that for most Americans today would be a quiet day, and a lot of people would be lazing at home scrolling through their phones.
Outside, I took photos of the sleds by the bank of the ice rink, catching snowflakes drifting down, and uploaded the best one to Instagram with the hashtags, #WinterWonderland at #CedarwoodLodge. I enjoyed the chatty aspect of social media, and liked to see our pages growing, knowing it was all about the numbers – the more followers we had the more people were aware of the lodge, which always gave me a little buzz.
I tucked my phone into my back pocket, and headed to the eastern side of the property. I debated with myself whether to hunt for the maze again, I could have asked Isla to show me, but it didn’t feel right. So instead I turned back to the lodge, leaving it hidden for one more day.
Micah and Isla were standing together in the front garden, Isla gesticulating wildly as she directed Micah towards a hedge. “What are you two up to? I would have expected you to still be asleep or even spending the day lolling around on the sofa?” I said as I came up next to Isla and watched Micah trimming the top of the hedge.
“Clio,” Isla said, snaking an arm around me and giving me a squeeze. “We’re so sorry we missed seeing your mom and Aunt Bessie yesterday. We just got so caught up with Micah’s family, and then we watched Christmas movies, and before we knew it, pretty much everyone was snoring on a couch somewhere.
Seeing them work together in the snowy landscape, their laughing and teasing, turned my wedding planner mode back on. For some reason I couldn’t help picturing their nuptials, and they weren’t even engaged. A spring wedding… Flowers blooming, a bright bouquet of yellow tulips, a simple white sheath dress for Isla, Micah wearing a casual cream-colored linen suit. A violinist in the corner playing a sweet song as Isla walked down the aisle…
“Hey,” Micah said, pulling me into a tight hug and out of my reverie. “How was Christmas? Get everything you asked for…?” he raised an eyebrow suggestively and I gave him a sisterly shove.
“Yes I did actually!” I said faux haughtily. “Yesterday was great, even Mom was there and, well, it went pretty well. She stayed the whole time and get this – she has even started baking with Aunt Bessie.”
Micah’s mouth fell open. “Annabelle is baking? And had Christmas lunch with all of you?”
“Right? Wonders will never cease.”
“Maybe she just needed time, Clio. Or needed you back,” he said more softly.
I nodded. Maybe that was what it was?
We chatted more about their Christmas, laughing about the bawdy songs they taught the talking elf and exclaiming over Micah’s family traditions. Which basically involved watching every Christmas movie ever made.
As we were walking back towards the house Kai walked out from the woods, his presence making me jelly-legged. Damn it.
“Hey guys,” he called out, “need some help?”
They waved him over, and wished each other well.
It reminded me… “What are you guys doing here? The garden could wait another day…”
Isla shook her head. “Not really. We wanted the front to look perfect for guests for the New Year’s Eve party, so we figured we’d make a start. Besides, I had to do something, I spent all day yesterday on my butt eating.”
We laughed. It felt good to be outside, moving around, the lethargy of the day before vanishing.
“Can I tempt you in for coffee?”
“We’ll get this hedge sorted and join you?” Isla said.
“Great.” I wandered back into the lodge, Kai beside me. We kept sneaking looks at each other, and eventually giggled as it got the best of us.
“Nice to see you’re treating your body well again,” I joked.
He waggled his brows. “Didn’t want to let you down, after what you said.”
I blushed, remembering. “My mouth doesn’t always link with my brain.”
“That’s what I love about you,” he said.
Love? Just a figure of speech, Clio.
Chapter Six
After coffee Kai went for a shower and I went to the office to finalize my plans; Timothy was due and I didn’t want to be caught unprepared. Masquerade balls were such fun to organize, but they were lots of work and we were already on the back foot time-wise.
I sat heavily, and tried to focus on the paperwork in front of me. There was a knock at the door and Timothy stuck his head in, surprising me as I hadn’t heard his car in the driveway and was expecting him later that afternoon.
“You’re early!” I said, getting up to greet him. He cut a fine figure with his tight jeans and fitted black knit sweater, smooth skin and deep intoxicating gaze, like he’d just stepped off the cover of a men’s fashion magazine.
Those deep brown eyes of his bored straight into me, and for a moment I was a teenager again, belly flip-flopping, before I reined myself in. Being back in Evergreen sometimes brought out that gangly, bright-eyed girl, especially when Tim gave me the special smile he’d reserved for only me, once upon a time.
When he smiled a dimple appeared in his cheek. A memory rushed at me, I used to kiss that spot on his skin. “Yeah, sorry, I should have called. My boss has given me a checklist so long I don’t know if the party will even be possible in such a short amount of time, so I figured we better meet as soon as possible.” By the pitch in his voice, it was clear Timothy was nervous. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him anything other than assured. This party was important to him and I knew we needed to pull it off without a hitch.
I gestured for him to sit down and said, “Well, early is better than late. Would you like some coffee? Or perhaps hot chocolate?”
“No, I’m OK. Before we get started, I wanted to give you this.” He reached into his bag and produced an exquisitely wrapped box.
“You shouldn’t have, Tim!” I blushed, feeling like a teenager all over again in his presence. I didn’t know why he had that hold over me, it was like I regressed to the old me – and I wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
“It’ll make you smile, that’s all.”
Unwrapping the present, I pulled out a cassette from the box and laughed. “Oh, god, is this our ultimate mix tape? From way back when?” I flicked it over to read the artists and song names, scrawled in Tim’s block writing.
It read:
Clio’s hits of 97
Tubthumping
Barbie Girl
Truly Madly Deeply
Foolish Games
When I came to the fifth song, I burst out laughing, “Spice Up Your Life! Oh my god, do you remember dancing around to the Spice Girls, and thinking they were just the bee’s knees?”
His eyes twinkled with memory. “I remember watching you dance and thinking you were the bee’s knees, if not a little out of tune…”
And just like that I was back in the past – Tim just like he was now, but more lanky in his teenage years; I’d taken to wearing sneakers and shiny velour tracksuits, just like Sporty Spice. Reminiscence was a wonderful thing, the fifteen-year-old Clio had had her life all mapped out: she was going marry Tim, have a million babies and work in fashion… It hit me suddenly that none of that had happened. I’d grown up and that girl was a distant memory, just someone I used to know. Still, it was sweet remembering a time I’d felt truly loved by Tim, no matter how young we’d been. You never forgot your first love, and seeing the man Tim had become I thought I’d chosen well when I was younger.
“We must have been the only teenagers without a CD player back then. Remember?”
He smiled, bringing out the dimples in his cheeks again. “Things have never moved fast in Evergreen, and probably never will.”
“I bet you Aunt Bessie still has her old tape deck tha
t I could play this on. Thanks, Tim. It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever been given.” It was full of sentimentality and the perfect gift. Each song would conjure a different memory, a different time and place.
“You’re welcome.”
“Right,” I said, briskly setting the cassette on my desk. “We better get started, we have a lot to discuss and not much time to organize everything.”
Usually, I could fix any party problem, especially under pressure, but so far all of our events at Cedarwood had been on a tight schedule. I couldn’t wait until we hosted one with some breathing room.
“So you mentioned masquerade ball for a theme, which is great, they’re so much fun. Today though let’s make some of the bigger decisions so we can order what we need and get moving quickly.” We sat across from each other at my desk.
Tim pulled a file from his briefcase. “OK, great.” He ran a hand through his hair. “My boss Vinnie wants a masquerade ball with all the bells and whistles. Money is no object. He’s inviting the owner of a construction company, a Mr Whittaker, because he’s trying to win the right to sell his group of luxury condominiums, so in essence this party is to win him over.”
I leaned back in my chair, pen in hand. “OK so we’ll give Mr Whittaker the VIP treatment.”
Timothy’s eyes twinkled. “Great. We want to woo him, and the New Year’s Eve masquerade party is the perfect place for that. He’ll see that we can get things done, quickly and efficiently.”
I clapped my hands together, excited. Planning parties was always fun but New Year ’s Eve was even more so – glitz and glamour was a given and we could go all out, making sure the lodge looked the part and that our guests had the time of their lives… all behind the mystery of a masquerade mask!
There was a tap on the door, and Amory poked her head around. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here already, Timothy.”
“It’s OK, Amory, we’ve only just started,” I said, and introduced them. I got Amory up to speed with the party and what Tim wanted; she flipped her laptop open and went to work, designing interactive invitations that would be emailed to guests that evening. I grinned as we went through the main points of planning any party; the invite list, the budget (unlimited!) and the music, food, and drinks menu. As we chatted away the puppy wandered in through the open door, and jumped straight onto Tim’s lap.
“Who’s this little guy?” he asked, clearly smitten with the little fella who’d so far managed to steal into everyone’s hearts.
Amory grinned. “That’s little Scotty. Give him two minutes and he’ll be snoring on your lap. He’s like a windup toy, a bundle of energy one second, and asleep the next.”
Timothy chucked him under the chin. “He’s cute.”
Pride practically shone from Amory’s eyes. “Thanks.”
We fell into a serious discussion about the party, and managed to lock in almost every detail from the music (a string quartet) and table centerpieces (ornate gold candelabras) right down to the color of the napkins (rose gold linen). Tim was certainly organized, which made our job so much easier, considering we were on a very tight schedule.
“Right,” Amory continued, closing her laptop. “I’ll finished these invites in my office, and I’ll email them to you for your approval. Once that’s done. I’ll meet with our chef Cruz, go over the menu then email you a range to choose from. Cruz can then organize a tasting plate for you to approve. Clio will orchestrate everything else.”
I nodded, and Amory shook Tim’s hand, before he reluctantly handed back a snoring Scotty and she retreated to her own office in the parlor next door. “We have to move exceptionally fast to have everything delivered on time,” I reminded Tim, jotting more notes down, and hoping our suppliers would agree to help on such a short time-frame.
He smiled. “I’ll run everything by Vinnie as soon I get back to the office. It’ll be the party of the year, Clio, I just know it.”
“It will,” I said, imagining the ballroom full of women in spectacular glittery evening gowns, holding Venetian masks to their faces as they flirted with strangers, the secrecy and mystery of a masquerade ball giving even the shyest person the chance to slip on another persona.
Tim tidied his paperwork away and sat back, clasping his hands together. “Who’d have thought we’d be sitting here like this, together again, after all this time. You’re amazing, Clio, not only buying the lodge and restoring it, but by building a business that people are already flocking to. No wonder you were always written up in the papers in New York. You were their events darling, and rightly so.”
I gulped, hoping he hadn’t read every article that featured me. The scandal that had left me jobless and fleeing to Evergreen was thankfully behind me, but no girl could ever get over being called a groom-stealer in black and white print. And even though the gossip had eventually faded as a juicier stories came along, it still smarted – I didn’t want my friends to think I was that kind of person.
“Oh they weren’t so much talking about me, rather my clientele when I worked in New York.” In my former life in the Big Apple my celebrity clients always tipped off the press about their soirees. Everyone wanted to be known for having the most extravagant, exclusive parties. It helped me no end being written up as the party planner to the stars, but that life was over and I preferred the anonymity at Cedarwood Lodge. Though we’d had a rogue reporter cover the bridal expo, it was about the lodge as a venue, rather than the guest list, and I thought that was a step in the right direction.
Outside, snow drifted down settling on window panes. The fire crackled for attention, so I stood to stretch and throw another log of wood on to it. Timothy joined me by the fire, stepping a little closer than seemed necessary.
“It’s their loss,” he said quietly, “We have you now, and we’re not losing you to the big city again.” Tucking a tendril of my hair back, he stared into my eyes and I stood there stock-still wishing I felt more for him than I did.
How the man was single still was beyond me, but I figured he was still getting over his divorce. Except right now he was flashing me enough signals that even a daydreamer like me could pick up on it. If only things had been different between us. But timing was everything and it was too late. Wasn’t it? As usual, when I even considered what could be with Timothy, Kai’s sun-kissed face popped into my mind.
I smiled, unsure of what to say. “Thanks for thinking of Cedarwood.”
“I was thinking of you, I must admit.”
The look he gave me was one I recognized so well from all those years ago. The type where he’d say something and follow it up with a slow, sultry kiss. In the still of the moment, we could still be those two teenagers who only needed each other… But we weren’t those people any more.
Trying not to look too obvious I retreated to the safety of my desk, his presence overwhelming in close proximity. “Well, I appreciate it,” I said, pretending not to understand his meaning. “And I promise it’ll be the party of year!”
“Did you ever think of me after you left, Clio?”
Oh boy. “Sure.”
He rubbed his chin, like he was weighing up what to say. “I thought about you constantly. Picturing you in the big city, going from party to party, dressed to impress, meeting interesting people. Living this exotic life. I kicked myself a million times for letting you go.”
I waved him away. This was all getting way too sentimental for a business meeting. “That’s all in the past. We didn’t know any better back then…” And when I said we, I meant him, clearly. He was the one who got married about three minutes after I left. He couldn’t have been missing me too hard, not with walking down the aisle and the honeymoon and making babies – real, living breathing children and what not. Still, I didn’t begrudge him anything. It really was a distant memory for me. And in hindsight probably made staying and living in New York easier, because I wasn’t pining for a long distance love, I was simply nursing a broken heart that wa
s surprisingly easy to heal.
“You say that, but I always wonder, you know? Would we have made it if you’d stayed? Would we have had a family, a house, a business together?”
He was speaking so fervently I felt the urge to flee. What was the point of looking back? None of those things had happened, and they wouldn’t either. He had had a wife, a family, the dog called Buster, the cookies baked from scratch, and some of it worked out for him and some of it didn’t.
It was too late for us. And yes, the thought made me a little sad – Timothy was one of the sweetest guys around – but he just wasn’t right for me. No matter how many times he asked for a date or turned up unannounced, all my fleeting feelings had been those of a long-forgotten teenage crush.
Here was the universe placing a good man in my path and I wasn’t interested. Instead I was pining after a man who would most likely head back to Australia once his family rift was fixed. Was I destined to be alone? I shook the thought from my mind, I didn’t want to be anyone’s second choice and while Timothy wasn’t that kind of guy deep down, that’s sort of how it felt. Like, you’re back, and you’re good enough, let’s pick up where we left off. But I wanted the fairytale. The fluttery belly, the air sucked from the room when he walked in, the thought that I was number one in someone’s eyes. Not a consolation prize.
I coughed, and let out a nervous little laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Ah, but you had all of that with someone else, and now you have two love, love…” I skidded on the word, “two lovely children, and you should be very proud. We’d have broken up after our first fight about where the couch went, and whose turn it was to put the trash out. We were never much good at agreeing on things.” I smiled at the memory of our epic fights – the slammed doors, the threats that we were finished, the fervent apologies and making up. We were so utterly different. Tim had been an athlete through and through, and I’d been the dreamer with firm ideas about décor who yearned for another life somewhere more exotic than Evergreen.
Midnight and Mistletoe At Cedarwood Lodge Page 5
