Jason had gone silent as he stared at the quilt.
Uh oh—was he upset that Gretel had reworked something Mom had made? Zander shot Gretel a worried glance, but she was still watching Jason.
“I grew up living between houses,” she told him softly. “I never had just one place. So I always brought stuff with me that felt like home. I had a Lion King blanket that ought to be a dish rag by now. Anyway, I thought you might like something like that, but if you want to just leave it here, that’s fine.”
“No. I like it.” Jason lifted his head and met her eyes. “It’s cool.”
“Wonderful.” Her radiant smile could have melted all the snow in a ten-foot radius. “Just don’t look too closely at the stitching.”
She opened her arms to give Jason a hug and amazingly, his prickly little brother allowed it. Not just allowed it, but let it continue.
“For a proper hug, you have to count to three,” Gretel said as she pulled away. “It’s science. Actually, it’s not, but I’ve found it to be true. See you soon, Jason! Come by the Wicked Brew anytime. Skiers drink for free. Actually they don’t, but it’ll be on me.” She beamed at him and stepped back.
Jason stuffed the quilt back into the garbage bag and stowed it carefully in the truck next to Petey, who squawked in protest until he realized he could snuggle up against it.
After everyone had loaded in, Zander backed down the driveway. Jason and Petey were already squabbling over the way Petey’s knees were poking into Jason’s back. Maybe they had to squeeze in one last fight before Jason left.
Zander tuned them out and kept his focus on Gretel, who stayed behind because there wasn’t any enough room in the truck. She was waving and hopping up and down and making skiing motions and God knew what else.
And all he could think was how much harder this would be if he didn’t have Gretel to come home to.
Was this marriage-with-an-asterisk getting out of hand? Was there a way he could set some boundaries for himself? An emotional red line that he refused to cross? Was something like that even possible when it came to Gretel Zsa Zsa Whitney Morrison?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Most honeymoons probably didn’t include a mother and a little brother, but somehow it worked out better than they could have imagined.
Aimee had been dragging Petey to every tourist activity she could find. Petey didn’t seem to mind, and it worked out great for Zander and Gretel. They’d spent most of that time naked in bed.
Aimee and Petey would come back with t-shirts and sunburns and photos and Zander and Gretel would pretend they’d been at the beach.
Finally they’d decided they’d better actually go to the beach sometime before their flight home.
“It’s hot out here,” Gretel grumbled to Zander as they set up an umbrella on the beach outside the Waikiki resort where they were staying. The ocean sent soft rippling waves toward them—nothing like the crashers in Lost Harbor. The surfers were doing their thing at the other end of the beach, which was less protected. But they’d decided to stay close to the hotel in case…
Well, in case they thought of something better to do than sunbathe.
Which kept happening on a regular basis.
“Suck it up, buttercup. If we don’t get some sun your mom is going to get suspicious.” Zander piled sand around the base of the umbrella so it would stay upright. He was intent on making sure it was the most properly set-up umbrella on the entire beach—such a Zander thing to do. The way his muscles flexed in his bare arms while he worked on it took away a lot of her annoyance.
“I guess it’s worth it to see you in your board shorts.”
He scorched her with a glance up and down her bikini-clad body. “Same, girl. Same.” He tested the umbrella pole and found it sturdy enough.
Before they’d gotten on the plane, Gretel had fretted that traveling together might burst their bubble. Not everyone traveled well together, after all. But so far, so good. More than good.
“It’s weird to see my mother with Petey.” Gretel brushed sand off the seat of her lounge chair and draped a towel over it. “I can’t tell you how many times she took me somewhere, then started flirting with some dude and I’d just wander off and entertain myself. I hope she doesn’t do that with Petey.”
“I gave him my cell phone. He’ll call us if there’s trouble.” He stretched out on a short chaise lounge, legs braced apart, feet buried in the sand, and adjusted his sunglasses on his face. Gretel drank in the long lines of his body and the smooth curves of his muscles.
“You’re so relaxed. This is so unlike you.”
“We’re on vacation,” he answered drowsily. “Aren’t you supposed to relax on vacation?”
“Theoretically, yes. But my mother is here. And I…don’t feel relaxed.” With a grumble, she lay on her towel and propped her feet up on the chaise. She’d spent an entire cruise through the Greek islands in basically this position. Why hadn’t she felt restless then? “I’m worried about the Wicked Brew.”
“What about it?”
“I think Danny’s going to sell it. He might even have a buyer already, and I’m afraid whoever takes over won’t care about the locals. They’ll turn it into a tourist trap.”
“I didn’t know you cared so much about that place.”
“Well, I didn’t know either. I guess I’ve gotten kind of attached to it. Did I tell you about Storyteller Sunday? I got inspired by Old Crow and all his tall tales about the disappearing glacier tribe. So I told him to spread the word among his friends and now we’re going to make it a regular thing. I was even thinking that I should record some of these stories and put them on YouTube. Oh! And more people have been calling about performing on open mic night. Someone even called from Anchorage because he’d heard the Wicked Brew is a good place to try out new material. When people call they ask for me, not Danny, because he doesn’t care about any of this stuff. What if he sells the business to someone who wants to tear it down? I wouldn’t be surprised because it’s kind of a wreck. The door to the bathroom doesn’t close right and—”
A soft sound interrupted her—almost like a snore.
She nudged him with her toe and he didn’t respond. Well, at least someone was able to relax. Pretty funny that it was Zander and not her.
He was supposed to be the hardworking, serious one. So why had she been antsy to get back to Lost Harbor ever since they’d arrived? Except for the hours and hours she and Zander had spent in bed. That was the only time she’d been able to fully enjoy herself.
Right now, her stitch-and-bitch group was gathering at Harris Badger’s house—she hated missing that because he was going to make his special BBQ shrimp. Tomorrow was the AA meeting at the church. Those meetings kept her grounded, even though she never said much herself. A group of marimba players was set to perform at the Wicked Brew and Danny hadn’t even posted it on the Facebook page yet.
And then there was Eli’s birthday. She’d promised to bring him a present from Hawaii, but that didn’t quite make up for missing his big day. And of course she wanted to know how Jason was doing at the Sterns’ house. What if texts weren’t coming through here on this dot in the middle of the ocean?
Maybe they should just go back to Alaska and their normal life. They could take a vacation sometime when there was less going on.
My God. What was happening to her? This was so unlike her.
A spray of cold water splashed onto her legs and she sat up with a start. Petey stood next to her chaise lounge, his sunburned face alight with mischief.
“Look what I did.” He showed off his fingernails, which were painted hot pink. Aimee, in sunglasses and a sarong, came sauntering after him.
“Well, look at that. You finally got your nail polish. How does it feel?”
“Weird. I don’t really like it.”
“Now you know.”
Aimee reached them, tall and stunning, with the diva attitude of someone who’d always made her way in life by her looks and
wits. She tilted up her sunglasses and surveyed the snoring Zander. Her eyes, so much like Gretel’s, glimmered against the carefully tended tan of her face. “You wore him out, I suppose.”
Gretel shaded her eyes and looked up at her mother. “He’s relaxing. Leave him alone.”
“Don’t be so touchy. Honestly. It’s a good thing Petey is along so I don’t get glared at all day long.”
Petey missed that comment, since he was already hurtling at top speed toward the water.
“I’m not glaring at you. I’m squinting into the sun. Must you take everything so personally?”
Aimee deftly changed the subject, as she always did when she was coming out on the losing end. “I quite like Petey. It’s almost like having a grandson without that unpleasant “grand” part.”
“Technically, is there a name for your relationship? He’s the brother of your son-in-law. Your nephew-in-law?”
“Technically, he’s not even that. I don’t yet acknowledge this marriage, Gretel. The least you could do is give me a wedding with guests and champagne. Instead you snuck it in like a thief in the night.”
“Well, you can argue with the State of Alaska about it. According to them, we’re married. Officially certified and everything.”
Aimee pushed out her lips in a pout. They looked puffier than the last time Gretel had seen her. More collagen? “Who cares about that? Just tell me you have a prenup and that it favors you.” Gracefully, she lowered herself onto the straw mat and took a tube of sunscreen from her tote bag.
“You’ll be happy to know that we put quite a bit of time into our prenup. It was really fun, actually. We learned a lot about each other. Also, it’s in colored Sharpies, so it’s awesome.”
Aimee went pale under her sunglasses. “You really should have sent it to me. I know all the ins and outs of a solid prenup.”
Gretel stretched her arms over her head and rested them on the back of her chaise. This might be the first conversation with her mother in which she didn’t feel at a disadvantage. There was literally nothing Aimee could pull that would change anything about Gretel’s newly married state. Not financially, not logistically, not emotionally.
“I can send it to you. As long as the dog hasn’t eaten it while we’ve been gone.”
Another shudder from Aimee. “Darling, I’m really quite worried about this situation.” She lowered her voice. “Not that he isn’t handsome. I certainly see the appeal. He has a kind of rugged, smoldering sex appeal—”
“Okay, you can stop now. You’re making me very uncomfortable.”
Aimee carried on as if Gretel hadn’t spoken. “But why couldn’t you just go to bed with him? No need to take it this far. My only comfort is that it’s clearly just so you could claim your honeymoon fund.”
Gretel shrugged, unbothered. Her mother narrowed her eyes at her.
“Maybe it’s more. You probably feel sorry for him. That must be it! Parents dead in a tragic accident, left alone to raise his two brothers in some frozen monstrosity of a town. You always were such a bleeding heart, wanting to adopt every stray that came along. Remember that one-legged puppy you brought home?”
“He had three legs! One eye.”
Aimee waved that off with an elegant flourish. “He tugged at those heartstrings of yours. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re getting another workout right now. Cue the sad violins and the wounded hero and the—”
“Mom! Stop it.” Gretel cast an agonized glance at Zander, making sure he was still asleep, before she continued in a fierce whisper. “I don’t feel sorry for him. I admire him. I respect him. Did you ever think that maybe I have real feelings for him?”
“Like…love?” Aimee said the word as if the feel of it on her tongue was unfamiliar. “If so, big mistake, darling. Love can really cloud your judgment. It would certainly explain a lot. But do you honestly intend to stay in that tiny dump of a town for the rest of your life? That’s a complete fantasy. And he can’t leave, can he, not for years? You’re going to waste away at the ends of the earth—”
“Mom! Stop freaking out on me.” Had she really thought that she was now immune from her mother’s opinions? How wrong she was. “I beg you.”
“How can I help it now that I know what we’re dealing with here? Love. Good lord.”
“I didn’t say that!” Gretel thought about diving headfirst into the sand, but that wouldn’t help anything. She needed to throw her mother off the scent. She needed a shiny object. A squirrel.
“You don’t need to, I see it plastered all over your face.” Aimee twirled a finger in Gretel’s direction. “This is so much more alarming than—”
“A wedding!”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you wanted a wedding with guests and so forth. Maybe we should talk about that. Like, what do you have in mind, a destination wedding? Or maybe Daddy’s place? The Plaza Hotel? Who do you want to invite? Any celebrities? Your entire contact list or just the creme de le creme?”
Pure desperation, that’s what this was. But it worked.
“The Plaza … I hadn’t thought about that. I always dreamed of having a wedding there, but none of my husbands wanted a society wedding. Oh! Did you know that Cornelia Van Der Horsen threw a wedding for her daughter in Thailand? She built custom cabanas for all the guests and draped them with the most fabulous sari fabric, the entire event was to absolutely to die for.”
Gretel was so relieved that her distraction had worked that she threw herself into her mother’s insane fantasy. “Okay, well, I think cabanas in Thailand sounds perfect, because Zander could do all the construction himself and—”
“Sure, make me swing a hammer at my own wedding,” came Zander’s sleepy voice. He rose up on his elbows and smiled at the two of them. “Swear to God, you go to sleep for a minute and wake up with a new construction project.”
Gretel tried to mouth to him that none of this was real, but the message was too complicated to convey that way. He ignored her and kept his shades trained on her mother.
Aimee was smiling at him with the most favorable expression she’d shown yet. “I have the perfect designer in mind for your tux.”
“Good to know,” he said amiably. “I’ll leave it all up to you.”
“Smart boy,” she said approvingly.
“Zander, we’re just kicking around crazy ideas here.” Gretel had no idea how to put this genie back in the bottle. She shook sunscreen onto her hand so hard it splattered across her thighs. “You don’t have to take any of this seriously.”
“But darling—”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Zander said—surprising her so much she dropped the bottle of SPF 50.
“Excuse me?”
“Aimee wants it, and you’re her only daughter. It’s understandable.”
Gretel glanced at her mother, who was gazing at Zander as if he was the second coming of Calvin Klein. “I’m glad someone understands.” She blew a kiss towards Zander.
“But—” Gretel curled her toes into the sand, as if anchoring herself against a strong wind. Everything seemed to be shifting around her. Zander and her mother, allies? Was that the strangest thing ever, or what?
Zander reached for her hand, enclosing it in his, and that one touch brought her back to reality. He was doing this for her, she realized. For the sake of their relationship with her mother. And it was working. Aimee couldn’t stop beaming at him, not even when Petey raced back to their umbrella, dripping wet and panting.
“Zander, you have to come body surf. It’s so much fun,” he shouted.
“Okay, but hang on.” Zander grabbed one of his hands and stared at his nail polish. “Hot pink? Where did that come from?”
“It’s Pink Flamingo. And we need to get some polish remover because it doesn’t feel good at all. Come on!”
Later, in bed, Gretel cupped Zander’s face in her hands. “That was really sweet of you, to play along with my mom about a wedding. But we don’t have to do that. It
’s not in our agreement.”
He scanned her face with his deep green eyes that always seemed to see so much. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“You wouldn’t?”
He shook his head, watching her carefully. As if he was looking for something. “Would you?”
“I don’t know.” She ran her tongue between her lips. “Mom loves big splashy events like that. All of her weddings were incredibly elaborate. She went through wedding planners like candy, I think she must have fired at least six of them. She could have been a wedding planner herself if she hadn’t preferred modeling and marrying.”
Zander gave her a quiet smile. “She’s a force of nature.”
“She is. The whirlwind kind. Whereas you—you’re like the eye of the storm. So calm, like nothing bothers you. Is that it? Like, it doesn’t matter one way or the other if you agree to a big wedding?”
He shrugged one big shoulder, causing the sheet to slide down a bit. “It matters. She’s your mother. I want her to be happy. I know how much you love her.”
“I do,” Gretel whispered. “I really do. Even though she’s crazy half the time, and she doesn’t understand me at all, I do love her.”
“I know.” His deep voice purred against her nerve endings.
But how did he know? How was it that Zander seemed to “get” her on a level no one else did?
She remembered her mother’s comments about “love” and her worry that Gretel might be making bad decisions based on being in love with Zander. It wasn’t true, was it? When her mother had said that, she’d wanted to deny it, but hadn’t been able to.
Why not?
Did she love Zander?
Screw it. She didn’t want to think about that possibility. It was too unnerving. Instead she scooted down his body and nestled her face into his warm belly. She felt the muscles twitch under her touch, and his penis stir. She didn’t move for a moment as she adjusted to the humid heat under the sheet, and to the ocean salt still clinging to his skin, despite his shower.
Wicked in Winter Page 20
