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Caitie wrinkled her nose. “Sorry if she’s a bit over the top.”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. “You don’t like people talking about you, do you?”
He had the unerring ability to turn any conversation between them into something personal. She liked it and hated it. Any conversation she had with him made her feel special, but it made her feel exposed, too. “I haven’t really thought about it,” she said. “I guess I’m a fairly private person. In my line of work I have to keep things confidential. I’ve learned not to talk about everything, because it’ll usually turn around and bite me.”
“But it’s okay for people to be proud of you,” he said. “It’s not false pride, is it? Look at everything you’ve achieved. Your own business, a life in New York. Don’t you realize how you come across to other people? Lucas never stops talking about you. Even Griff talks about how clever you are, at least as often as he describes you as hot.”
She started to laugh. “Griff calls me hot? Eww. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not coming from him.”
Breck wrinkled his nose. “He’d think it was a compliment. And let’s face it, you’re beautiful. I barely recognized you at the beach club when you were here last time.”
“Maybe that’s because I looked so out of place,” she said. Had he really called her beautiful? “It’s not like I spend a lot of time at the beach club, I never did. Not even as a kid.”
He was looking at her again, and the warmth in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. Being in such close proximity to him was making her feel dizzy, as though there wasn’t enough air in the car.
“That’s not why I didn’t recognize you,” he said softly. “It’s because in my mind you’re still the fifteen-year-old kid who cried with me the day my mom died. I still see her there – I still hear her in your words – but you’ve grown into an amazing woman. I should’ve known you would. You don’t have that much empathy and compassion as a child without it following you through life. I wish you could turn it on yourself sometime. See yourself the way other people see you.”
The emotion in his words silenced her. She inhaled a deep breath, the air drying her lips and her tongue. Caitie wasn’t sure anybody had ever said anything so open, so honest, or so lovely to her before. She was almost jealous of the girl she’d been.
“Are we there yet?” Harper asked. She had leaned forward, her head positioned between the driver and passenger seat. “I must have fallen
asleep again.”
Had she heard their conversation? Caitie narrowed her eyes, looking at her friend. If Harper had been listening, she’d never hear the end of it.
Caitie couldn’t bring herself to be sorry Breck had said it. Hearing his kind words had buoyed her up in a strange way. Heated her from the inside out. He was a good friend, a kind one, somebody she was lucky to have. And if Harper wanted to pretend they were any more than that, good luck to her.
13
“How many people should I set the table for?” Caitie asked. Standing in the kitchen was like being in the eye of a tornado, disaster looming before her. Deenie was running from pot to pot, shooing away anybody who tried to help. Harper had already been pushed out into the living room, ordered to help Caitie’s dad choose the wine, which was Deenie Russell code for ‘I don’t want to shout at you.’
Caitie didn’t get any such consideration. She was used to her mom’s haphazard ways. Russell family Thanksgivings were always a mess up until the last minute, when somehow, Deenie managed to bring it all together. The outcome was edible, it was the process which needed a little work.
“Let’s see, there’s us, Lucas and Ember, and Breck and his family. Oh wait, there’s Ember’s friend Rachel, too. What does that make? Ten?”
“A small one this year, then,” Caitie said, biting down a smile. Her mom was notorious for inviting everybody who had no place else to go for the holidays. There had been years while Caitie was growing up when they didn’t have enough plates or chairs for people to sit in, and they’d knock on their neighbor’s houses to borrow them. “It’s nice that you’ve invited Breck and his family.”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of them sitting on his sofa with takeout.” Deenie shrugged. “Thanksgiving is about being together and sharing whatever you have. Anyway, it’ll be lovely to see Daniel again. The last time I saw him he was eleven years old and cute as a button.”
“I imagine he won’t appreciate being described like that now,” Caitie said dryly.
“It’s nice to have them back. I worried about them a lot over the years. It was such a shame we lost touch.”
The timer on the stove went off, interrupting her. Deenie pulled on her mitts and opened the door, a cloud of hot smoke escaping from the oven. It curled its way up to the ceiling, lingering there. Caitie peered across to see what was burning.
“Why don’t you go on and set the table?” Deenie said from where she was kneeling in front of the stove. “Go on, shoo. Out of my kitchen.” Deenie turned and gestured at the door to the dining room. “There’s nothing to see here.”
“Did you burn the turkey?” Caitie tried not to laugh.
“No, I didn’t. Now get out and stop distracting me. I’ve got work to do.”
Caitie scooped up the silverware, laying it on the tray next to the wine and water glasses. She carried it through to the dining room, kicking the kitchen door shut behind her. Even with the door shut, Caitie could hear her mom still muttering to herself about the food.
In a little while Breck would be here. The thought made her heart beat a little faster. Breck, Daniel, and their father. People who had been out of her life for so long, yet that Christmas way back in time had been a defining moment.
Breck’s desperate loss.
Daniel’s quiet grief.
