Lovestruck in Los Angeles (12 page)

“Give her my love, Lizzie, dear,” she said, standing. That was so like Anne. Giving her love to a woman she had never met, merely because of her connection to someone that she cared about.

I went to the sitting room to call my mom. It was a bit early in Detroit, but I knew she would be up, preparing for her own Christmas feast.

“Hello?” The sound of her voice hit me right in the chest.

“Feliz Navidad, Mama.”

“Oh, Lizzie.” She said, her voice heavy with emotion. “Merry Christmas, dear. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mama. We’ve just arrived at the Harpers’.”

“Your flight was okay? You must be exhausted.”

“I’m pretty tired,” I said. “But today we’ll mostly relax, I think. Their big celebration is on Christmas Day.”

“Make sure you go to church tonight or tomorrow, dear,” she said.

I was torn between a rush of affection and the desire to roll my eyes. No matter where I was on the planet, my mother had her priorities. “I will, Mama. The whole family goes on Christmas Eve.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said, sounding satisfied.

“What about you? Are you wearing yourself out with preparations?”

“No, no, I’m fine. And your sisters are here to help, and Sofie and your aunts.” I heard a strangled kind of sob on the other end of the phone and I closed my eyes.

“Don’t, Mama, please.”

“What dear?” she asked, her voice shaking. “I was coughing, that’s all.”

Yeah, right. “I miss you, Mama. I really do.” Afraid we were both going to get emotional, I quickly changed the subject. “I sent a package to the house. Has it arrived yet?”

“It did, just yesterday. I assumed we weren’t to open it until Christmas?”

“Yes, please. It’s your gifts.”

“That’s very sweet of you.”

We chatted for a few more minutes about her holiday preparations. I knew, from years of experience, that there was going to be endless amounts of cooking and baking happening in her kitchen over the next few days. The more I listened to her, the more I got the sense that she was, in fact, worn down.

“You do sound tired, Mama,” I said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course. It’s just a busy time of year, Lizzie.”

“Make sure you rest, okay? You need to take good care of yourself.”

Her familiar laugh made my chest ache. “That’s supposed to be my line.”

After we hung up, I found Thomas back in the kitchen, alone. “How was he?” I asked, wrapping my arms around him.

“He sounded bad, Lizzie.” Thomas hugged me back. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him like that.”

“Are you going over there?”

“I thought I might. Are you sure you’re okay here?”

I pulled back so I could look up into his face. “You know I love your parents. I’m fine.”

“Mum says Bryony will be home in a few hours.”

“Even better. Go take care of your brother.”

He bent down to kiss me. “I love you, Lizzie.”

“I love you too.”

He held me close for much longer than a simple goodbye. “Are you okay?” I finally asked into his sweater.

“Yeah. I just…I just can’t imagine, you know? Losing you.”

“Don’t even think about it,” I said fiercely. “I would never do something like—”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I know that, Lizzie. But there are all different ways people lose each other.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I said, hating the sound of it. “Seriously. Just don’t.”

He squeezed me one last time before heading back out into the cold Scottish afternoon. I looked around the empty kitchen, wondering if Anne was having a rough time again. Her recipe book was out, standing upright on the counter, opened to a page for gingerbread.
Well
, I thought, rolling up my sleeves.
No sense standing around waiting for her
. I washed my hands, grabbed an apron from a peg by the door, and got to work.

***

Christmas Eve at the Harpers was a much more subdued affair than I was used to, but that really wasn’t saying much, considering the mass chaos that was any family gathering back home.

I spent most of the time Thomas was gone baking with Anne. She seemed to cheer up considerably once she knew that her younger son had gone off to be with his big brother. “It was the idea of him being alone, dear,” she said to me over a bowl of cookie batter. “At this time of year. He said he didn’t want to see me or Gil, but I just couldn’t bear it.”

“Thomas will cheer him right up,” I said. “He’s great at that kind of thing. I don’t think I could have dealt with the homesickness all this time without him.”

She patted my hand kindly. “Now. Thomas tells me you had an editor interested in your book. Tell me everything.”

That was one of the things I loved about Anne—she was so fully supportive. She had begged me to read my manuscript as soon as I first admitted to her that I was writing. When I sent it to her, she finished it in two days and responded with a two-page letter full of notes. Things she had loved about it and things she thought I could work on. It had blown me away that she’d taken the time to do all that. Most people I had told about the book had congratulated me and asked to read it, but I knew they were just being polite. Not Anne. If I wanted to be a writer, she was going to help me do that. The same way she had helped Thomas prepare for his auditions and her other children with their school work. She was an amazing mother.

After I filled her in on Ellen’s critique, conveniently leaving out the part about the fight Thomas and I had had over it, we moved on to general book discussion. We shared many of the same tastes in literature, though she had a propensity for mysteries that I had never shared.

“You’ve never read Georgette Heyer?” she asked, stopping in the act of rolling out dough to stare at me. “Are you serious?”

I shrugged. “She never caught my eye.”

“That is absurd, Lizzie. You love Jane Austen. You love Regency books. You must read Georgette Heyer. You must.”

I laughed. “Okay. She will be my next read. I promise.”

“Blimey, Lizzie, she scolds you almost as bad as she scolds her own kids.” I looked up to see Bryony leaning against the doorway, mid-eye-roll in her mother’s direction.

“Bryony!” I cried. “When’d you get here?”

“Just now.” She grinned at me and blew me a kiss. “I’d hug you hello, but you’re all covered in flour.”

“Come and kiss your mother,” Anne said sternly, pointing at her cheek. “I haven’t seen you in three weeks.”

Bryony did as she was told, smacking a loud kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Happy Christmas, Mum.”

“Happy Christmas, dear.”

To my surprise, Bryony came over and kissed me as well. She moaned. “You’re so tan, Lizzie. I’m beyond jealous.”

“I have been spending my fair share of time on the beach,” I said in mock-unconcerned tones. She stuck out her tongue at me, and I laughed.

“So tell me all about it!”

“Come and help us and you girls can gossip about California all you want.”

Bryony grumbled as she went to the peg by the door for an apron. “I just bloody got here.”

“Language.” Anne smacked her arm as she passed. “Besides, Lizzie arrived on a transatlantic flight this morning and she volunteered to help.”

Bryony made a face at me. “When you and Tommy get married you are so going to be the favorite.”

I blushed to the roots of my hair. It was one thing to casually talk our way around marriage when it was just Thomas and me. But for his kid sister to bring it up—in front of their mother, no less—was downright embarrassing.

“Oh, don’t give me that blushing nonsense,” she said. “He’s obviously going to ask you soon. Do you think it will be tomorrow?”

“Bryony,” her mother said, a warning note in her voice. “Don’t embarrass her.”

“Come on, Mum. He’s crazy about her. She’s crazy about him. He leaves her here with his mother to bake cookies all day. Don’t tell me a proposal isn’t imminent.”

I was going to kill Bryony. Her eyes were all twinkly with laughter, as if she knew exactly how uncomfortable she was making me and enjoyed it.

“Stop pestering her,” Anne insisted. But she shot me a smile. “Not that we wouldn’t be thrilled if that did happen, dear.”

“Thrilled is the understatement of the year, Lizzie,” Bryony said. “They would finally have the daughter they always wanted. Not someone like me who disappoints them at every turn.” Her face darkened. “Or that horrible cow, Mary.”

So she did know about her brother. I was wondering how Anne was going to share that news without breaking down again. Maybe they had called her when they first found out, to give her fair warning in case Paul was here later.

Anne’s face had hardened at her daughter’s words, so I stuck my tongue out at Bryony. “You better be nice to me, miss, or I might rethink your present. And you really wouldn’t want that.”

“Ooh, what’d ya get me?”

“I’m about to give you an empty box if you’re not careful.”

She batted her eyelashes at me. “I’m so terribly sorry for my rudeness, Lizzie, dear. I promise I will never again mention my honest belief that my brother would be nuts not to snap you up as soon as humanly possible.”

I nodded seriously. “Now that is exactly the kind of thing you should be saying to me.”

“Stop it, girls,” Anne said, though she was chuckling a little. “These cookies aren’t going to make themselves.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, baking various delicious-smelling treats. Anne and Bryony both wanted to hear all about Los Angeles, and I was happy that I had let Imogen convince me to do so many sightseeing things during our time off. Having never traveled to the States, let alone the West Coast, they were interested in everything.

It was almost like being home with my sisters and cousins, the way the three of us could talk and laugh easily. The biggest difference, of course, was the lowered noise level. And the lack of Spanish. And the fact that after a half hour or so, Gilbert came to join us. That would have never happened in my mother’s kitchen.

“Daddy is a master scone maker,” Bryony told me.

“It’s true, Lizzie,” he said. “You’ll be thanking me tomorrow when you have one with your coffee.”

Paul did end up coming back to the house with Thomas after a few hours. I had a feeling the brothers had spent a good portion of that time at a local pub. Thomas was staggering slightly when they showed up before dinner, and Paul was downright trashed.

“Did you have to get him drunk, dear?” Anne whispered to Thomas as she watched Paul stumble his way over to an armchair.

“It was the best I could do, Mum,” Thomas said.

I could tell he was trying his best not to appear drunk himself in front of his mother. His words were just a shade too careful, his posture not quite natural. It made me want to giggle.

“He didn’t want to leave the house. He wouldn’t even get dressed. But he perked up when I mentioned the pub. I figured it would at least get him out of the house.”

She patted his chest. “You’re right. You’re a good boy. Thank you for bringing him home.”

“Nose problem, Mum,” he said. “I mean, uh, no problem. Of course. Ha ha.”

She was focused too intently on Paul to notice his slurring, but I couldn’t keep in my giggles anymore. He looked at me over her head and scowled.

“I’ll make him a sandwich,” Anne murmured, nodding to herself. “Some good food might help.”

Once she had turned for the kitchen, Thomas pulled me into his arms. “Thought that was funny, eh?”

“You trying not to let your mom see how shit-faced you are? Yes. I thought that was very funny.”

He tugged on my elbow until we were out of the kitchen and down at the empty end of the hallway. “I thought I’d get a hero’s welcome, bringing the prodigal son back home and all. Instead I find my girl laughing at me.”

“Prodigal son. Yeah, right. Paul golfs with your dad twice a week.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to come home today.”

I leaned up to kiss him. “I think it’s very sweet you got your brother hammered enough to come home for Christmas Eve.”

He kissed me back, his lips and mouth more eager than was usual for him in his parents’ house. I decided I might just like Thomas tipsy.

“Someone might come down here,” I murmured, trying to pull back, but he responded by pushing me up against the back wall.

“Too bad,” he mumbled between kisses. “I missed you.”

“You, sir, are drunk.” I laughed as his lips trailed down my neck. “Thomas, come on.”

He finally pulled back, his face still flushed from the cold outside, his hair rumpled and wind swept, a big, boyish grin on his face.

“Why’d we have to come back here, anyhow? We should have stayed at home with that big, ridiculous house all to ourselves. I could have ravished you in the kitchen, and your office, and the guest rooms, and the deck.”

I laughed and smacked his chest, finally succeeding in getting him to let go. “I will have to make note of the fact that you’re a horn dog when you’re drunk. This might come in handy later.”

“Baby, I’m always a horn dog for you.”

I snorted. “Dear, God, Thomas, the romance. It’s too much. You’ll make me go all a flutter.”

He laughed and smacked my bum.

“You better watch it, mister.”

“Oh, God,” Bryony said, peering down the hall at us from the entrance to the kitchen. “You guys are disgusting. Get a room.”

Thomas only laughed.

“See?” I hissed, once her head had disappeared back through the doorway. “Your family is here.”

“My family knows I’m crazy about you.”

“That doesn’t mean I want them to see you with your hands on my ass.” I looked up at him, and touched his face softly. “Seriously, Thomas. Your brother doesn’t need to see us all lovey-dovey right now, okay?”

He seemed to sober up a bit. “You’re right.” He took my hand. “Let’s go see if Mum needs help with those sandwiches. Food might just sober me up, too.”

Thomas’s aunt and uncle came over in the late afternoon. We drank brandy-laced hot chocolate in front of the fire and told them all about L.A. I was starting to feel like I was on auto-repeat, and wondered how many more times we would tell the same stories over the next few days. I also realized, the more we talked, that Thomas and I had very few L.A. stories that involved both of us. With the exception of a few nights out, either alone or with movie people, and our day at Griffith Park, we hadn’t really done a lot of L.A. stuff together. Most of my sightseeing had been with Imogen, not Thomas. And most of his time had been spent working. It made me sad, for some reason. That everyone thought we were off on this big adventure together and in actuality, we were spending most of our time apart. The time we were together was pretty much always in the house in Malibu. It wasn’t like there was a lot we could do about it. Thomas was working crazy hours. When he got home we mostly wanted to enjoy each other in the privacy of our own home. I realized, with a jolt, that our hours together weren’t really all that different than they were in his flat back in London. Cooking together, drinking wine, curled up on the couch reading or watching TV and talking about our days.