Chapter Eleven
The setting sun left the lodge’s kitchen in deep shadows. Amber flipped on the overhead lights, then wished she hadn’t. One look at her reflection in the window over the sink made her wince.
Michael was right. She did look tired. The long day didn’t help, especially when she’d spent most of it thinking of him…and his kisses.
And those thoughts wouldn’t bring her anything but another endless night of heartache. In the glass, she watched the image of her fingertips brushing across her mouth, as if she could brush away the memory of his lips on hers.
The back door swung open. Michael entered the kitchen, bringing in a swirl of cold air with him. He set a couple of grocery sacks on the counter. “This is the last of them. It’s a good thing we got to the store when we did. It looked like everyone else in town had already raided the place.”
“It’s a holiday week,” she said automatically.
He laughed. “It’s always a holiday here, isn’t it?”
To her surprise, he sounded less critical than usual. Still, it made her sad to know he couldn’t resist another jab at her beloved hometown.
“I’m going to bring in some firewood from the garage.”
When he left, the room seemed colder by another few degrees. Just her imagination. The temperature in the kitchen hadn’t fallen, but her mood at watching him go through the door sure had dropped.
Being near him made her feel warm and secure and…
Unhappy.
All during lunch, she had held her breath, hoping no one in her family would invite them for supper at home or suggest going out to eat again. She had finally had enough of family togetherness—at least for now, when her resistance to Michael was weakening by the second.
The telephone rang, startling her. Penny cried out.
“Shh, baby,” she called as she grabbed the receiver. “It’s only the phone. Hello?”
“Hey, this is Derek. Is Mike around?”
She frowned. Funny. She had never heard anyone call her boss anything but Michael. “Not right at the moment, but he’ll be back in a few minutes. Can I take a message?”
“Nah. I’ll call him again sometime. I’m his brother.”
His brother. She had never had the opportunity to talk to anyone in Michael’s family. “I’m Amber. His housekeeper. I’ll tell him you called. I know he’ll be sorry he missed you.”
“He’ll be sorry, all right,” the man said with an odd laugh. “So, he’s planning to be at the lodge for a while, huh?”
“At least for the rest of the week. It’s a good time for him to stay, since we’ll be celebrating our Winter Festival here in Snowflake Valley.”
“Yeah? What’s that all about?”
He seemed genuinely interested, and she was always ready to share the highlights of her hometown. She ran enthusiastically down the list of scheduled events—the ice-skating pageant, the bobsled races, the Christmas campfire, and so much more.
“Sounds like a real fun time,” Derek said dryly.
His change in tone surprised her. “It will be fun,” she replied, trying not to go on the defensive. She’d done that when Michael had talked about her family’s holiday photos. This man was part of Michael’s family. “It’s always a fun time,” she went on, hoping to win him over to the joys of living in the valley. Maybe if one of the DeFrancos believed, a second would follow…
“Yeah, well,” he said, “I’ll try to reach Mike some other time. Don’t bother telling him I called. We’ll let it be a surprise when I get in touch.” He gave that odd laugh again, then hung up.
Frowning, she replaced the receiver. She had barely turned back to the groceries when the door swung open again and Michael entered, carrying an armload of logs.
With a glance at Penny, who now lay sleeping in her carrier on the kitchen table, he set the logs quietly into the wooden box beside the door. He sat on the bench to remove his snow-covered boots. “Man, it’s cold out there.”
“They’re predicting another storm,” she told him.
“I heard that on the radio. That’s another thing I would think you’d get tired of in this town, except when you want to ski. Not a lot of alternatives. Snow and bad weather, bad weather and snow.”
“You can have bad weather anywhere. And the snow is beautiful when it first falls.”
“Like a Christmas card.” His laugh sounded strained, reminding her of Derek’s. Why did she feel she should ignore the man’s request and tell Michael his brother had called?
He gathered up the armload of logs. “I’m going to start a fire. Maybe it’ll keep the lodge so warm, the snow will melt as soon as it hits.”
Scrooge, she thought but didn’t say. She watched him walk out the door.
He would come around to her way of thinking. Soon.
Again, she thought of telling him about his brother’s call. Maybe hearing someone in his family cared about getting in touch would make him feel better about them.
Or maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. She really had almost gone overboard about the Winter Festival. She imagined Michael’s reaction to that conversation. Definitely not good. It was probably best just to follow Derek’s request and say nothing at all.
Why keep rocking the boat? Why make trouble, when she had so few days left with Michael? She planned to show off Snowflake Valley to him during the festival. She planned to show him off, too, in town and at the Snow Ball.
I don’t want to want you.
But oh, she wanted him. Until he left, she was determined to spend as much time with him as she could. And more…
She wanted him to want to spend his free time with her and Penny.
…
They made salmon, rice, and asparagus for supper. Michael volunteered to handle the lemon and dill salmon in the broiler. Amber looked like she might turn down the offer, but finally said she would take care of the side dishes.
After supper, she closed the dishwasher door with a bang. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m running it tonight instead of waiting until the morning.”
“Sounds good.”
And they sounded like an old married couple sharing a nightly ritual. Once, the thought of falling into a rut like that would have made him run for the hills. Now, it gave him a sense of closeness to her.
He didn’t want the sense of it, he wanted the actuality. But after last night’s conversation—and last night’s kiss—he knew better than to try to get near her again.
She carried Penny out of the kitchen into the living room. Through the slice of doorway that he could see from his seat at the table, he eyed them both snuggling together on the couch. Trying not to think about snuggling with Amber himself, he turned to the laptop he had left on the kitchen counter.
After an hour of scrolling through computer files and seeing nothing on the screen, he gave up. And gave in. He raided the kitchen pantry and the cabinet near the sink.
When he walked into the living room carrying the long-handled pot he’d found, Amber looked up from the book she had been reading. Her eyes widened. “What’s that?”
“Looks like a saucepan to me.”
“And what are you planning to do with it?”
He held out the bottle of cooking oil he’d gotten from the pantry. “Make some popcorn. Any problem with that idea?”
She shook her head. “Nope. As long as we add lots of butter. That is, if you’re planning to eat it and not string it up to decorate the Christmas tree.” She raised her brows.
“Yeah, I’m planning to eat it. But I didn’t bring any butter.”
“I’ll get some.”
“Sounds good.”
There they went again, with that old-married-couple conversation. He took it as an encouraging sign.
He readied the pan and held it over the fire, heating the oil. Amber returned with a chunk of butter on a plate and one big bowl for them to share.
She curled up on the end of the couch closest to him. “The salmon you made was great. I thought you said cooking from scratch wasn’t on your resume.”
“Shoving something under the broiler isn’t really much of a stretch.”
“For some people it is. So, where did you learn to cook? Boy Scouts?”
He shook his head. “No. I was never a Scout. I learned out of self-preservation after Mama died.”
“Your grandmother,” she clarified.
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t your stepmom cook?”
He gripped the handle of the pot. She sat there watching him, waiting for him to answer. Instead, he shook the pot over the fire. Corn kernels began pinging like buckshot against the lid.
She couldn’t have known her innocent question would bring back memories he didn’t want to have. Or would lead the conversation in a direction he didn’t want to go.