Page 31 of Just Say Christmas
Nyree hadn’t done the massage, then? Had a fight with Marko, maybe? Kane considered being fussed about that, then abandoned the idea. She knew that if she needed help, he was here to give it, and besides—if any man had ever been wrapped around a woman’s finger, it was Marko. They could have a fight. He was pretty sure who’d win. “Oh,” he remembered. How could he have forgotten? Geez, he was dropping the ball all over the shop. “Come on up and meet Victoria. She’s been playing for me. The cello. Well, playing for herself. I was just here.”
Luke gave him an odd look, as well he might, but followed Kane up the steps to the gazebo. Victoria had stood up, one hand clutching the neck of the cello, and new hair or not, new clothes or not, newfaceor not, she looked like a deer, poised to run.
She proved him right by saying, after they’d been introduced, “Good to meet you, Luke. Nyree’ll be chuffed you’re here. Well, I’m off to bed.”
“Don’t go,” Kane said. Luke glanced at him, and Victoria didn’t. “Stay,” he told her, at least hetriedto tell her. “I’ll go grab us a bottle of wine and a few glasses, and we’ll have a catch-up.”
“I shouldn’t,” Victoria said. “I’ve still got things to organize. I’m Nyree’s maid of honor,” she told Luke. “Heaps of duties. You’d be surprised. Showers and spa visits and . . . everything. Dress-choosing. Wedding favors. Heaps.”
“You barely had a glass at dinner,” Kane said. Why was he was pressing it? Because he was getting pretty bloody tired ofnotpressing it. You couldn’t make the tackle if you didn’t commit to it. Time to grab hold of this thing. “What do you still have to do tonight? Not much, I’m guessing.”
“There’s tomorrow,” she said, but she was weakening.
“Breakfast,” he said. “It’s a bunch of rugby boys. We won’t miss out on breakfast, no worries. Everybody here knows how to poach an egg.”
She looked like she wanted to say something, but was reconsidering. He asked, “What?” Beside him, Luke was silent. Watchful, the way Luke tended to be. If locks didn’t talk much? Props talked less.
Victoria said, “Why would you want me to stay, when you wanted to . . .” She took a breath, then went on, “to not have me there at all, before? When you never evenansweredme? You ghosted me. It’s a word. I learned it. It’s too late now to be friends. I can’t be friends.” She glanced at Luke, then said, “I should mind saying that in front of you. I’m not going to mind. I don’t know you.”
“True,” Luke said. “You don’t. I’m all in favor of people telling the truth, though. MaybeI’llgo find the wine. I reckon I can do it.” He told Kane, “Whatever you’ve got to say, bro—just go on and tell her. Secrets are too hard to keep.”
18
Not a Twisted Ovary
VICTORIA
She’d actually said it. Well, she’d started to say it. She’d been direct. She’d been . . . She was about to pass out, that was what.
She sat down with an extremely unladylikethump,partly because she always forgot the right way to sit until later. She realized the hand holding the cello was shaking, and forced herself to lay it down gently. She might break something tonight, but it wasn’t going to be her cello.
Kane asked her, “All right?” and she nodded, then shook her head and said, “Fine.”
He was sitting himself, hands clasped, forearms on his knees, gaze on her face. No hiding from all that purpose. “Right,” he said. “Time for you to explain.”
“Time formeto explain?” Suddenly, she wasn’t faint. She was filthy. “What, I’m supposed to be casual? Maybe that’s OK in your world. Maybe that’s normal. It wasn’t normal forme.It hurt. I cried. You made me cry. You made me feel so . . .” This was all wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be pitiful. She was supposed to beangry.Unfortunately, she was stuck on “pitiful.”
She went on, since here she was, stuck just like that, and she needed to get out of it. “You made me feel small.” Her voice was shaking, which also wasn’t in the plan. Emotion, other than the high-minded, coldly logical, justified anger of the law-abiding community, didn’t work with the jury. Her dad would say, “Keep your weakness out of it.” Unfortunately or fortunately, though, her dad wasn’t here, and neither was the jury. Just Kane, whom she was now informing, “Even after I was healed enough—I couldn’t heal inside. I cried atwork, three weeks later, and that’s bad. It’sverybad. Especially as I’m a redhead. We don’t cry well. I didn’t know how to pull myself together, and I didn’t really know how to do makeup then, either. I had to make up a storyto account for you. I had a twisted ovary, so you know.”
“Wait, what?” He shook his head like a baffled buffalo. “You had a twisted ovary?”
“No.Of course not. That’s what I’m saying. I had to make it up.”
“And that was what you made up? Why?”
“Because nobody would ask, and I didn’t want to use the concussion. Obviously. You don’t go around saying that your brain isn’t working well, and no man wants to hear about your ovaries. Why do you care what?”
“What do you mean, ‘after you were healed’?” he asked, ignoring that. “Healed from what? What concussion?”
She stared at him. “I told you what.”
“No. You didn’t. You didn’t turn up.” His expression went frozen for an instant. “Wait. You were pregnant. That’s why.”
“What? Of course I wasn’t pregnant. If I’d been pregnant and you’d done a runner like that, I wouldn’t be here. I’d have told Nyree to get another maid of honor.”
“No,” he said, and his face had changed again. Gentled, possibly. “You wouldn’t. Not possible. You’d be here for Nyree. I’ve been a fool, haven’t I?”
“I don’t know.” She was feeling more than shaky now. She was feeling sick. How bad was it if you got violently sick all over a man during your emotional post-breakup interview? Pretty bad, probably.
