“I have to say, Emma, I’m a little fit to be tied here.” Matthew shrugged his coat off his shoulders, looking around for a place to put it and appearing perplexed when he didn’t find one in the tiny space. Finally, he folded it in half and laid it at the head of the bed. When another glance showed that there were no chairs, he perched gingerly on the edge of the mattress, clearly pained. The sight of him in the cabin made Emma keenly feel the collision of two worlds that were otherwise completely separate in her mind. She couldn’t help but blink at him.
“There’s nothing to get your feathers ruffled over.” She spoke calmly as she sorted through the small cabinets in the minuscule kitchenette, though she could still feel the press of Nick’s mouth on hers. Finding a dented stovetop kettle and a box of something called Red Rose tea, she busied herself setting water to boil, rinsing out two plain mugs before dropping a teabag into each. She inhaled the familiar scent of black tea and spice, drawing comfort from it before she turned back to Matthew.
“Forgive me if I don’t believe y’all.” His words were dry as he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. After only a few day here, even the fairly refined twang of the South in his voice seemed strange.
Unsure of what to say, Emma crossed her arms over her chest. She cast a look back at the simmering kettle on the stove, tapping her foot anxiously. “That water is boiling as slow as molasses.”
“Em.” The nickname he’d had for her in childhood caught her full attention. She turned away from the tea, a stinging pain flashing around her heart when she saw the sadness in Matthew’s eyes. “You’re serious about ending it. I didn’t think you were, but I know you. You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t kiss someone back like that if you thought you were coming back to me.”
“Matthew.” Sucking in a deep breath, she willed her anxiety away. This was just Matthew. Someone she’d known for as long as she could remember.
A friend—she hoped he was still a friend.
“It wasn’t just the certificate, was it?” The grim acceptance in the lines around his mouth had Emma sighing and closing the space between them. Seating herself beside him on the bed, she measured the warmth when her arm brushed against his.
Warmth. Not heat. Something she’d never even known she was missing until a few days ago.
She mimicked his posture when she finally answered. “It wasn’t. You know that. We were getting married because it seemed like the logical next step to take.”
He was silent for a long moment, drumming his fingers on his knee, an agitated twitch that Emma had rarely seen.
When he again spoke, he broke her heart a little bit.
“We still could.” He faced straight ahead, as if afraid to make eye contact with her. “We make sense, Em. You know we’d have a good life.”
“No.” It hurt her to say it, and she knew it hurt him, too. How could it not, when they had so much history between them? “I mean, yes. We would. We could have a good life. But…don’t you want more than that? More than we’d ever be together?”
“Is that really what you want?” Jerking a thumb toward the front door, he frowned. “Is it…is it the sex? Because we could…I suppose we could…try something new.”
“What?” Emma couldn’t hold back her startled bark of laughter. “I…goodness. I don’t even know what to say to that.”
The pained expression on his face told her exactly how unexcited he was at the idea of spicing things up between them, and honestly, she couldn’t even fathom what that would entail. Just thinking about it made her squirm.
He remained silent, clearly waiting for her to continue. Emma rubbed her face, searching for the right thing to say.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Matthew.” The kettle started to whistle and she stood, moving to pour the water into the mugs. “I’m not having sex with Nick. I’m here to meet my father.”
He accepted the steaming mug of tea, wrapping his long fingers around the white ceramic as he studied her through the curls of steam. “Are you okay, Em? This…none of this is like you.”
“You know what?” Emma laughed again, but this time it was tinged with impatience. “I don’t know if it is or it isn’t. I’m starting to think that the way I’ve always been isn’t necessarily who I’m meant to be. I’m upset with you, yes, but it’s not your fault, and it’s not my mother’s fault. The whole mess with the certificate, with discovering that I have a father out there—it just got me going. I think I would have come to this point anyway, even if we’d gotten married.”
Some of the light in her former fiancé’s eyes dimmed, and she felt his sadness prick her chest. This hurt more than she’d thought it would after that scene over wedding cake samples. Wetness stung at her eyes, and she blinked it away as she focused on that damn tinsel again.
It was almost Christmas. It felt wrong not to be on good terms with her mother, with Matthew.
By the same token, she couldn’t imagine a better Christmas present than exploring the new facets of herself that were starting to emerge.
“I’m sorry.” Setting down her own mug of tea, she reached out for Matthew’s hand. Lacing her fingers through his the way she’d done a million times before, she gave his hand a squeeze of genuine regret.
Pressing his lips together, he closed his eyes for a long moment, squeezing her hand right back. Finally he let go, rising and setting down his tea.
“I think I’d better go.” His movements were stiff, stilted as he reached for his coat and pulled it on. He was clearly disgruntled, which got her back up as well. She wasn’t going to feel bad for doing what she felt was the right thing.
Still, watching him walk out under the light sprinkles of snow that had started falling, watching him actually walk away, she felt a thread of panic. When would she see him again? She’d never been incapable of answering that question.
But when the door closed behind him, the panic dissipated, leaving behind a blessed sense of…relief. That was the only way she could describe it. She hadn’t realized how heavily the albatross of her former engagement had been hanging around her neck.
She was free. And, looking up at the plastic mistletoe hanging from the splintered rafters in the cabin, for the first time in her life she had a chance to go after something she wanted for no reason other than that.