Winter Dreams

by Robyn Neeley

  She glanced up, saw all three women’s interested gazes fixed on her, and colored again.

  It was going to be a long lunch.

  • • •

  “You shouldn’t encourage her,” Kalin said when Casey opened her door to admit him and Lydia that evening. “She gets these enthusiasms.”

  Lydia’s azure eyes sparkled. “How will I ever know what I want to do if I don’t sample a few things?” she asked. “Casey, my mother and Aunt Annie want you to spend Christmas Eve with us. After all, a day spent fishing with Uncle Jack calls for a reward, and Aunt Annie says the least we can do is warm you up with egg nog.”

  Casey stepped aside so the pair could enter. “That’s very kind of them, but I’ve planned to spend the evening with Granny at the hospital.”

  Lydia immediately said she understood, but Kalin, with a brown folder full of paper in his hands, studied her with suspicion. “I don’t want you in this house alone on Christmas Eve.”

  “I won’t be here. I’ll be at the hospital.” She ushered Lydia toward the kitchen. “You can pick her up about midnight. Or is that too late?”

  “Since I’m going to be right here, you can keep her busy the entire night. Are you sure you aren’t too tired for this?” He laid the folder on the coffee table and scanned her face.

  Casey, who had spent the day at Cap’n Bob’s supervising the dishwasher repairman and the professional cleaners she had hired, laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m dead on my feet after ordering people around all day. Now I’m about to relax. Is that a legal brief or a new Western novel from the future Louis L’Amour?”

  “It’s my new Western. I’ll leave it for you to read in your spare five minutes before bed.” He followed them to the kitchen and looked about at the ingredients and pans and bowls Casey had already placed on the table. “What is this spectacular dish you’re going to create?”

  “It’s a creation called Croquembouche. It’s shaped like a Christmas tree and made from cream puffs. You’ll be able to eat off it for days.”

  Kalin had made no move to force their relationship toward a more intimate footing, and consequently, Casey felt comfortable in his presence. Knowing he had probably planned it that way didn’t mitigate the effect.

  “That big?” Kalin pulled out a chair at the kitchen table.

  Casey watched the way his shoulder muscles bunched and elongated with the motion. “You’ll be impressed,” she promised, and forced her gaze to the big apron she handed Lydia.

  “Are you going to let him sit there in the way and not do anything to help?” Lydia demanded.

  “Not a chance,” Casey said. “Go watch TV, Kalin.”

  “Is there any coffee?” Kalin asked.

  “I’ll make some in a minute. We’ve got to get started on our cream puffs, so you’d better move it.”

  Kalin went, grumbling, and Casey heard him settle on the sofa with his manuscript and switch on the television.

  Surprisingly, Lydia was a great help in the kitchen. She did everything Casey asked and had the good sense to wait for direction if she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Casey was surprised at her eagerness to learn and found herself liking Lydia more and more, especially when the younger woman switched off her cell phone and stashed it in her purse.

  “I don’t want anyone disturbing me right now,” she said. “This is too important.”

  Casey was stunned. One of her major duties at her old job had involved persuading the kitchen assistants to turn off their cell phones while in the kitchen.

  “Is it true you’re going to law school?” Lydia clearly found this incredible. “I mean, why be a lawyer when you can cook?”

  Casey bit back a burst of laughter. “Good question. The truth is, everything is very preliminary right now. First, I have to pass the LSAT, but since Kalin promised to put on a wig and take it for me, I don’t expect any trouble there. Then if I pass, I have to get admitted to an actual law school.”

  “Kalin promised to put on a wig?” Lydia repeated weakly.

  “That’s right, and I’m holding him to it.”

  Lydia looked toward the living room, then back at Casey. “Wait until I tell Mom.”

  “Don’t tell her until after Kalin passes that test for me,” Casey said, tongue firmly in cheek. “We don’t want to remind him that kind of activity might be frowned on.”

  Lydia, grinning, agreed. “Mom will just say what she’s been saying for the past few years — that Kalin has it bad.”

  Casey refused to go there.

  Between activities, however, she found excuses to peep into the living room where Kalin had his legs stretched out beneath the coffee table, reading through his manuscript. She liked seeing him there, in much the same position of five years before.

  “Kalin said you never had a Christmas tree when you were little,” Lydia said after Casey made yet another trip to the kitchen door. “He said your grandmother believed in the old Twelve Days. Are you going to celebrate them this year?”

  Casey returned to the table and prepared to run another batch of dough puffs into the oven. “I haven’t thought about it, I’ve been so busy. Granny’s people were old Scottish folks who still celebrated Christmas on January sixth when Granny was little. I’ll probably carry on the tradition.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Old Christmas is like regular Christmas, but on January sixth. Some of the people didn’t like it when the British Isles switched to the Gregorian calendar in the eighteenth century, and when they moved to America, they still refused to switch.”

  “So it’s an old tradition?”

  “It tends to be confined to country folks descended from Scotch and English settlers.” Casey took up her pastry bag again and began squeezing out more dough puffs. “I used to keep careful track of the weather on the Twelve Days, so I’d know what the weather for the year would be. Then I’d spend the night in the barn on Old Christmas Eve with the animals and check Grandpa’s fig trees. I’m not so sure the old Twelve Days isn’t more fun than a regular Christmas.”

  “Kalin said he gave you twelve Christmas presents, one for each of the Twelve Days.” Lydia grinned. “I think I’d prefer that myself. What’s all this about the weather and the animals? He never said anything about that.”

  “Each of the Twelve Days between Christmas Day and Old Christmas represents a month of the year, according to Granny. Whatever the weather is on each of the Twelve Days is an indicator of the weather you’ll have during the corresponding month of the coming year.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.” Lydia peered in the oven window at the expanding puffs. “What about the animals?”

  “Old Christmas Eve is supposed to have powerful effects on animals and plants. At the hour of midnight, horses and cattle rise to their knees, roosters crow, elder bushes bloom, and fig trees bud, even if they’re covered with ice. That’s why I spent the night in the barn. I hoped to catch the animals in the act.”

  Lydia looked fascinated. “Did you ever catch them?”

  Casey smiled wryly. “I always fell asleep.”

  She remembered the feel of Kalin’s hands on her body as they lay together on a quilt atop a pile of hay in the old barn. That year she hadn’t fallen asleep. She had simply been incapable of noticing any activity less than an earthquake.

  Lydia sighed. “It sounds like so much fun, growing up in the country. Kalin told us how he loved to sit in the kitchen and write while you baked. No wonder he hasn’t been human for the past five years.”

  Casey caught a movement and glanced toward the door. “If I were you, I’d have used him for crab bait by now.”

  Lydia laughed. “They do say like calls to like. He’d have attracted every crab in the Gulf.”

  Kalin growled and lunged for his sister, who shrieked with laughter
and dodged behind the table.

  From the safety of the table, Lydia cried, “If you have any compassion for mothers and sisters, Casey, you’ll put him out of his misery and marry him tomorrow.”

  Chapter 7

  Kalin arrived at Casey’s house early Wednesday morning, with the trailer holding Dr. Johnson’s bass boat attached to his SUV.

  Casey opened the door to him with an exaggerated scowl, having expected something of the sort. “Where’s Dr. Johnson?”

  “Old Mr. Givens took a turn for the worse late last night. Uncle Jack was with him all night, and this morning he was called out early because Bobby Frye broke a vase and stepped on a piece of the glass. Uncle Jack is sewing up his foot as we speak.”

  “In that case — ”

  “Forget it. He said you were the severest case of a person in need of a fishing trip as he’s ever seen.” Kalin grinned at her. “So get a move on. If we don’t get on the lake, we’ll miss the best fishing.”

  Casey glowered at the sky. She wore jeans, an ancient sweatshirt, an old car coat, a sock hat, and she carried a pair of fur-lined gloves. “It looks like rain.”

  Kalin glanced at the lead-colored sky. “So?”

  “If I get soaked, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “What’s a little rain? Come on. The fish are waiting.” He hauled her out the door. “Stop stalling.”

  “I’m not sure I care to eat anything dumb enough to let itself get caught on a day like this.”

  “I’ll eat it,” Kalin said. “Fried.”

  Kalin helped her into his vehicle and drove to a private lake located in the far reaches of the rice fields. Several hundred ducks rose into the air and vanished upon their arrival, and hawks perched at intervals in the trees that grew on the levees bordering the rice fields. These sights had been familiar to Casey since her childhood, and she loved them.

  Kalin backed the trailer down toward the water. “Guess who gets to help me launch the boat.”

  “My favorite activity, next to sitting in a duck blind.”

  Kalin laughed. “You were pretty miserable, weren’t you? Misery is part of the fun of duck hunting.”

  “No, thanks. Give me a fire, a fresh cup of coffee, and a new cookbook any time.”

  She leaped down without assistance and helped him lower the boat into the water and release it. She settled on the comfortable seat and watched Kalin start the motor and guide the boat toward a small cove. He killed the motor before they reached the cove and used a paddle to steer them toward it.

  When they drifted to a halt, she took the baited pole Kalin handed her and balanced it in her gloved hands, letting it rest on the rim of the boat.

  “You’re supposed to sit up and pay attention to that cork,” Kalin said, smiling at her.

  She glanced away casually. Things had changed between them again, and Casey was unsure how to behave. She only knew she mustn’t let Kalin see how his smile affected her. Or that she noticed the fact that she was alone with him in a boat on an otherwise deserted lake.

  Once upon a time, they’d have found a secluded cove and made use of their aloneness. But Kalin was rigging up a fly, which meant he intended to wear himself out casting it. So much for resurrecting old times.

  “I thought the object of this trip was to get me to relax,” she pointed out. “If I have to watch a cork, I’ll get all tense and nervous every time I see it bobble.”

  “If you see it bobble, just pull it up,” he said.

  Casey muttered a comment about the state of her nerves and settled back. Every now and then, the boat rocked slightly as Kalin cast his line, but she found it surprisingly easy to let her mind drift.

  She gazed at the level horizon beyond the lake. Although leafless tallow trees bordered the lake, the flat Texas coastal plain stretched in all directions, with the only hills provided by rice field levees. She loved the sight.

  Watching Kalin from beneath her lashes, she wondered if she could outlast him in impersonal, friendly behavior. Last night, after she and Lydia had completed work, he kissed her swiftly one time at the door and left.

  Good, she told herself. What if she let herself fall for him again and he rejected her a second time? And just how badly did he think he had damaged her self-esteem that he had to keep coming around until he was sure he had repaired it?

  The fishing pole almost leaped out of her hands.

  “You’ve got a bite,” Kalin shouted.

  Casey grabbed her end of the pole and jerked with all her might. A large bass flopped down on top of her feet.

  Kalin stared in disbelief. “You landed him.”

  Remembering how Dr. Johnson and Kalin played with their lines and coaxed a fish toward the boat so they could net it, Casey had to laugh. “So long as I don’t have to unhook it.”

  Kalin grinned at her. “More than happy to oblige. He’ll taste great fried up in Aunt Annie’s special corn meal batter.”

  “How do you know that fish isn’t a lady?”

  Kalin expertly unhooked the bass and attached it to a fish stringer, which he dangled in the water. “I thought sexing fish was an area cooks excelled in.”

  “Not me. I developed the flu when we worked on fish.”

  “I’ll bet you developed pneumonia when you studied the fine art of duck cookery.”

  Recalling the way Kalin had stood over her, lecturing her forcefully on how to dress a duck, Casey had to laugh. “You’re right. A very severe case.”

  He baited her hook again and watched her throw the hook back out in the water. She mentally adjured the cricket on the other end of the line not to attract anything.

  But the fish seemed starved for crickets. Every time Casey sat back, her cork bobbled, wobbled, or just flat got sucked beneath the surface. By the time she had been forced to “play” two bass, she was heartily fed up with fishing as a form of relaxation. “Why don’t you take this pole and let me have the fly rod?” she said.

  Kalin, engaged in attaching a perch to the stringer, laughed. “Are you saying you aren’t having a good time? You don’t know it, but this is good for you. Throw that line back out.”

  Casey grumbled and threw the line back out. Once more Kalin watched her.

  “I don’t like the way you’re throwing that line,” he said. “You act like you hope nothing bites.”

  Casey cast him a speaking look.

  “Get busy and fish,” he said, laughing.

  She settled back once more to watch Kalin, a man who fished for the love of fishing. She studied the way his arms and broad shoulders moved as he cast his fly and played it over the water. No wonder he stayed in such good shape, with all that upper-body exercise.

  The tip of her pole bent toward the water, and her cork went invisible. Annoyed at the interruption, Casey jerked back hard on the pole. She had hooked a bream, and its broad, flat body smacked Kalin on the side of his head as it flew into the boat.

  Kalin dropped his pole. “Are we now catching flying fish?”

  “I thought it was another bass. You have to put a lot of power into landing a bass, you know.”

  “You almost landed him on the other side of the boat.”

  “I knew thoughts of how he’d taste fried would keep you from letting that happen.”

  The fish flopped on the bottom of the boat. While Kalin removed the fish from her hook, Casey searched the bait bucket for the biggest, fattest cricket available.

  She found a dried elm leaf, which served the purpose admirably. It resembled a cricket, once she threaded the hook through it several times, and Kalin watched as she threw her line back out without saying a word.

  She closed her eyes. If anything sampled that elm leaf, it deserved to be caught and eaten.

  Her mind returned with the tenacity of a compass needle to Kalin
. Once he’d satisfied himself that she was back to normal, he would probably fade from her life. She could not afford to let herself become dependent on him for happiness.

  Casey frowned. How could she go about convincing him that she was in fine shape? She had the restaurant and her grandmother. She did not need him.

  “Casey.”

  She opened her eyes, startled.

  “You’re supposed to watch that cork.”

  She cast a stunned glance toward the red and white bobber. It rested placidly on the water, rocking gently with the breeze.

  “I knew there was something funny about that last cricket.” Kalin reached for her pole.

  Casey held him off with her foot. “Mind your own pole.”

  He wrestled her for possession of the pole and hauled in her artfully attached elm leaf. “Something tells me you don’t have the proper attitude toward fishing.”

  “I could have told you that myself.”

  “Another word out of you, and I’ll report you to Uncle Jack. Cases like yours, he usually refers to a shrink.”

  “That might not be a bad idea. I could get analyzed and have someone explain to me why I’m out here letting you bully me. Give me your pole. How can I relax if fish keep bothering me?”

  “If I gave you my pole, you’d drown my fly.” Kalin baited the hook with a cricket. “Besides, I’m counting on your skill to provide me with a fried fish supper.”

  “Kalin.”

  “Yes, darling?”

  He kept calling her darling, but he was nothing more than an old friend, she reminded herself. “It’s Christmas Eve. Mrs. Johnson always serves egg nog and fruitcake on Christmas Eve. You told me so yourself.”

  “Want to come join us?”

  “I’m sitting with Granny.” She thought of the way Alice had tried to forbid her to spend Christmas Eve at the hospital when there was a perfectly good celebration going on at Dr. Johnson’s house. “I was just reminding you of what you’re missing.”

  Kalin glanced up at her from beneath his long lashes. His brilliant eyes took in her smile. “They’ll save me some.” He supervised the return of her line to the water, then went back to casting his fly.