‘What is up with you tonight?’ He’d been fine on the way here but now he was skittish, as though he couldn’t settle. And as Rupert brought more canapés out to lay on the coffee table, Amelia hoped her nephew was going to behave himself tonight and at least try not to look like he was waiting for the right moment to either pilfer the family jewels or escape out of the nearest window.
When Mitch turned up Kyle settled down, relieved to have other males in the room, including Jude, who helped Mitch out from time to time and seemed to get on well with her nephew. Since his dad died, Kyle hadn’t had many male role models in his life, but watching him now, with Mitch, Amelia could see it was part of what he needed. He had a grandpa on his dad’s side but saw very little of him and Connie’s choices in men since Stuart died could only be described as diabolical. None of them seemed interested in Kyle, unless you included the guy who’d bullied Kyle and whom Connie had found pinning her son up against the wall. Thankfully Connie ended that relationship straight away even though she knew he’d likely been antagonised by her son.
Amelia had never been with someone who already had a child from a previous relationship, but she hoped if she ever was she’d be able to factor children in as part of it. Then again, what did she know? Her love life since Paul had been non-existent.
Darcy circulated and chatted with Amelia about the knitting stall, how popular it was already and how busy Cleo had been. Drinks were topped up, canapés brought round, and Mitch had taken Kyle under his wing, introducing him to other people as they talked about his Christmas tree farm in Inglenook Falls and the stall in the city.
Cleo eventually turned up and after grabbing a champagne sat next to Amelia on the sofa. ‘I need this drink more than you know.’ She knocked a glug back enthusiastically.
‘Trouble in paradise?’
‘Ignore me, I’m being a grouch. I’m tired and it’s been a long day rather than a particularly bad one. The knitting stall here, along with one in Inglenook Falls, plus the Little Knitting Box, plus the kiddies…’
‘I’m tired just hearing that list. Is it good to be back in Manhattan though?’
Cleo smiled, relaxed a bit. ‘It is. I don’t get to come that often so the market stall is a really good excuse.’ She looked over at the men when they laughed at something. ‘Kyle seems to be getting on well with Mitch.’
‘I’m so relieved.’ She relaxed with another sip of her drink. ‘I’ve been thinking, we should come out to Inglenook Falls one day. I’d love to see the Little Knitting Box and I know Kyle would like to visit the Christmas tree farm if Mitch is happy for him to do so.’
‘Sounds like a plan to me.’ She looked over at him again. ‘Getting away seems to have been a real tonic for him.’
Amelia frowned in thought. ‘He thanked me earlier, for taking him away.’
‘That’s a good thing, surely.’ Cleo crossed her legs, flicked her dark-blonde hair over a shoulder out of the way. ‘I doubt a lot of teenagers would even say thank you.’
‘Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I thought it would’ve been a thank you for bringing him to New York, the most exciting thing ever for most kids of his age. But he said it more along the lines of a thank you for the escape. As though I could’ve taken him anywhere in the world as long as it wasn’t near home.’
Cleo put a hand over hers. ‘You’re a wonderful auntie and an even better sister to step up like this; I hope Connie knows how lucky she is.’
Connie hadn’t always taken from Amelia, sometimes she’d given. When Amelia wanted to put herself through university to jump-start a new career direction Amelia and Stuart had given her free board and lodgings, telling her it was payback for all that childcare over the years. They became equals – Connie wasn’t taking advantage, Amelia wasn’t a pushover – but since Stuart died, slowly Amelia had slipped back into the role of Connie’s sole support system when it came to her son. Amelia had been around when puberty hit Kyle and his hormones raged, when he felt nobody understood him, and she’d been at her sister’s side when they found out Kyle had got involved with a gang committing petty theft, lads who had seen nothing wrong with drinking under age and getting wasted. Amelia had been there when Kyle left school, she’d watched him unable to get a focus or direction, drifting along as the mood took him. She’d told him he wasn’t the loser he claimed to be, but she could see he was stuck in a place he couldn’t see a way out of, and when her sister begged her to talk to him her first thought had been to get him well away from all that was familiar. And here they were.
But Amelia was growing increasingly frustrated with her sister. She hadn’t texted many times at all, almost as though with Kyle it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.
Amelia sat up straighter. ‘I refuse to be sad tonight.’ She shook off the melancholy and clinked glasses with Cleo. ‘It’s amazing to see you again, and that jumper is gorgeous.’
‘Nice change of subject,’ Cleo smiled. ‘And thank you. I made it myself last year.’
‘I wish I had half your talent.’ She admired the camel stepped-hem jumper. ‘What’s the wool? Or should I say yarn?’
‘Don’t worry, I still forget sometimes and say both. It took me forever to learn to say sweater rather than jumper and I still flit between the two. The yarn is merino and alpaca, beautiful isn’t it?’
‘I loved working in your aunt and uncle’s wool shop but I never took to knitting. Mum used to tell me it was weird to be surrounded by beautiful wools and not feel the urge to learn, but I never got the hang of it.’
Amelia accepted a cranberry canapé on a tiny piece of baguette with whipped ricotta when Darcy floated on by as the hostess and stopped with them before taking the food over to the men.
‘How’s your work going?’ Cleo asked. ‘You haven’t said much about it since you got here.’
‘To tell you the truth, it hasn’t been great lately.’
‘I thought you loved it.’
‘I do, but I’ve had some trouble. This holiday,’ she put the word in inverted commas, ‘was enforced rather than off my own back. I got too involved with a case, ended up mouthing off to a parent who wasn’t doing their kid any favours. Don’t tell Kyle – not mouthing off is one lesson I’m always harping on about. It gets you into far more trouble and I’ve found that out the hard way.’
‘Do you have a job to go back to?’
‘I do, but I know I need to find some way of separating my work and my personal feelings. It’s all well and good getting invested to a certain extent – caring about people is a quality for the job – but I overstepped. I called the mother a bitch.’
Cleo gasped. ‘Amelia, that’s not like you.’
