Winter at the White Oaks Lodge (12 page)

At home in my bed, no more than thirty minutes later, after I'd briefed Grandma and Aunt Ellen on the evening, kissed Millie's cheek as she slept soundly on the couch (she had fallen asleep looking at the Christmas tree, which was still glowing into the otherwise dark living room) and then shed my clothes, I covered my face with both hands and thought about the evening. Or, tried to think about the evening and ended up thinking of nothing but Mathias. I was naked beneath my sheets, restless, and though it wasn't close to what I was longing for, I slid one palm over my belly and then lower, pressing gently before I started to cry for no good reason. No good reason at all.

Saturday night was even busier, but Elaine
was behind the bar along with Mathias while Tina and I managed the tables. I purposely kept away from Mathias without seeming too obvious about it, getting drinks from Elaine whenever possible. It wasn't until nearly 10:30 and I was clearing the table nearest the fireplace that he caught me alone. It was so toasty this close to the crackling fire that I had undone one more button on my White Oaks server polo, which was black and bore an emblem featuring two oak trees stitched in white, with their branches intertwined. At least my hair was up, keeping my neck cool.

“Hey,” he said, moving to help me. He was wearing a different black sweater this evening, the same faded jeans. My heart begged to be acknowledged as it throbbed hard behind my ribs; I watched as he pushed back his sleeves, exposing his lean, muscular forearms before collecting empty glasses. And then I tore my gaze away.

I realized I hadn't spoken and replied, “Hey.”

“So Noah Utley is Millie's dad?” he asked next, and I absolutely froze, groping for a response that wouldn't make the tears that I could feel prickling in my eyes fall all over my face.
Dammit
. I had come a long way since that summer. I was way over Noah. It was just that Mathias had caught me off guard.

“Have you ever heard of
tact
?” I tried to snap at him, but the hoarse quality of my voice didn't quite allow for that.

“Hey,” he said at once, his voice contrite. “Shit, I'm sorry, Camille. I shouldn't have asked like that. I asked Tina about you, I admit it. I was curious. I'm sorry.”

I shook my head then, unable to look at him, busying my hands with useless motion until I was sure I had the tears safely contained. Mathias misunderstood and asked, “Wait, he's not her dad?”

I corrected, “Yeah, he is. I meant, it's all right that you asked. I thought everyone around here knew anyway.”

Like your bitch of a girlfriend
. Probably he had actually asked Tess, rather than his sister.

“Well I didn't,” he said. “Does he see her very often?”

“No,” I said shortly, hoping he would drop it.

“That's what McCall said, indirectly anyway,” he went on. And then he added, “Here, let me take that. It's heavy.”

“What does Jake have to do with it?” I asked angrily, my eyes flashing to him and then away.

Mathias was staring at me though I kept my gaze stubbornly on the task at hand. He said quietly, “I asked Jake if you were with your daughter's father the other night. He gave me a ride home from Shore Leave so I basically had him cornered.”

“It's none of your business!” I said, my face hot.

“I know, I really do know,” he said. “I don't have a good excuse. I wanted to know more about you, that's all.”

I finally looked over at him. He was just opposite me, reaching for the wash tub that we had filled with dirty dishes. My heart jolted at the sight of his face, like always, but I said contrarily, “You don't need to carry it. It's not that heavy.”

“Did you two date for a long time? He hurt you, I can tell,” Mathias said then, withdrawing his hands and really studying me. I could see his gaze move from my eyes to my lips and back again. It was incredibly difficult to breathe normally; for a moment I forgot that there even was a person named Noah Utley, who had once upon a long time ago broken my heart.

Or at least, I'd once thought so. But right at this moment, my heart was more alive than ever inside of me.

Again without intending to tell him so much, I heard myself admit, “I had never loved a guy before him. My grandma warned me that summer. She told me not to put all my eggs in one basket. But I'm sure you know how that goes.” Of course he did, dating someone like Tess French. Shit, he had probably left a string of broken hearts behind him, without even trying.

Mathias nodded in all seriousness. He asked, “Does he help you out? I know him, I remember him from school. He was a punk, Camille. I'll kick his ass for you. I will. I have no time for a guy who doesn't take care of his daughter.”

“You have a lot of experience with those sorts of guys?” I asked, irritated but still teasing him a little. I had already realized he was a talker, full of energy. If only I wasn't so terribly attracted to him, maybe my heart wouldn't throb so fiercely whenever he was near.

“Not exactly,” he said then, and he grinned in that effortless way of his, dimple flashing. I released the breath I'd been holding and refocused upon the tabletop, away from the temptation of that grin. He went on, “I will kick his ass though. That's a bunch of shit. You deserve better than that. What about his folks? Do they see their granddaughter?”

“They've never been anything but kind to me,” I said. “Truly. They see Millie quite a bit. I would never keep them from her, no matter how I feel about…” and I almost stumbled over his name. “About Noah.”

“You didn't grow up around here, because I would remember you,” he said then. “Sit, let's talk.”

I did laugh then, a little huff of a laugh. I said, “You know, I'm getting paid for a job here.”

“The place is empty. It's practically a blizzard outside. Let's talk for a minute,” he insisted, sliding to the seat. “But you graduated from Landon High? When did you move here?”

I gave in and sat on the chair across from him, scooting the dish tub to the side and inadvertently bumping the salt shaker. It tipped over and immediately I caught a few grains in my fingertips and tossed them over my left shoulder. Mathias cocked his head to one side and quirked his eyebrows at me.

“I know it's weird—” I began.

“No, I do the same thing with spilled salt,” he interrupted. “I've just never known anyone else to do it.”

We studied each other then, silently, with a sense of growing fascination. At least, I was fascinated. His eyes were such a beautiful color, richly blue with those flecks of topaz glinting here and there. I felt that observing this about his eyes was like knowing a secret about him. Never mind how many other women had surely been close enough to him to know the same secret. He folded his strong hands primly as though to assure me that he was listening with complete attention. His jaws were dusted with very dark stubble. I imagined that he had to shave at least twice a day and found this so totally sexy
.
It made my stomach weightless. He was so much more of a man than Noah had ever been.

“My parents grew up here, in Landon,” I told him, speaking at last. “Which you know. They moved to Chicago before I was born. That's where I grew up. We lived there until 2003.”

“And your mom is married to Bly Tilson,” he said. “Jake McCall likes him a lot. Is your dad still in Chicago?”

I nodded.

He said, “I left home for Minneapolis two summers before that. So I was long gone by the time you moved to town. Shit, I would have warned you about Noah Utley if I'd been here.”

“
Right
,” I said, infusing a gigantic dose of sarcasm into my voice.

“I would have,” he insisted. “So you graduated with Jake. He's a good kid. Used to work summers with us on the fire crew.”

I nodded again, not mentioning that I hadn't exactly graduated.

“And you had Millie your last year of school?”

“She was born that February. Valentine's Day, actually.”

“Was Noah there?” Mathias held my gaze steadily, his hands still folded. We were leaning towards each other and I eased back a fraction, my heart beating like a frantic bird as I contemplated just how much I liked him, senseless as that was. I hardly knew him and then I berated myself harshly as I thought,
Isn't that so
like
you, Camille
?

“No,” I said quietly. “But I didn't need him there. My grandma was, and my littlest sister.”

“Did he try to be there?” he asked heatedly. When I shook my head he went on, “He didn't even try to show up to see his child being born? What a fuck, seriously, what a little fuck.”

I felt myself smiling a little again. I asked, “Do you get this worked up about everything?”

A slow grin spread over his lips, crisply defining his cupid's bow. That and his dimple made me all squirmy. I entertained the thought of leaning over the table and gripping his shirtfront and then kissing him, really kissing him. Since Noah, I had only ever kissed Jake. Poor unknowing Jake, being manipulated by Mathias into revealing things about me.

“If it's a good cause, I do,” he said. “I can tell you're a sweet girl and Noah obviously saw that and took advantage of you.”

A sweet girl
. How patronizing. That irritated me to no end and I said meanly, “You don't know anything about me.”

He was unruffled by my bitchiness and replied calmly, “I know a sweet girl when I see one.”

I rolled my eyes, uncertain if I'd been complimented or indirectly called a fool. Probably a little of both, even if Mathias hadn't intended that.

“What if I took advantage of him? You don't know anything about it,” I told him, just to be disagreeable. I felt the maddening prickle of tears again.

“It's not that I can't imagine that happening,” Mathias said. “You're beautiful. But I know that's not what happened. He took advantage of you. And I would really enjoy kicking his ass, I'm telling you. I'd take pleasure in it, and I'm not even a violent man.”

A part of my soul soared at his words, as stupid and shallow of me as it was to be thrilled at them.

Forget it, Camille. Jesus
.

Before I could respond, he was already going on again, asking, “When was the last time you saw Noah?”

“When he was home from Madison in June of '04,” I said. “He stopped out to Shore Leave to meet Millie.”

“When she was
four months old
?” he all but yelped. “Shit, that was way over a year ago! You haven't seen him since then?”

“Not really,” I said, embarrassed.

“What the hell is wrong with him?”

“Trust me, my mom wants to kill him herself. Along with Dodge, Bly, Clint, Aunt Jilly, Uncle Justin…” I let my voice trail away.

“Dodge and my dad are cousins,” Mathias said then. And as though trying to coax a smile from me, “Dodge is a good guy. And your stepdad is huge. The next time Noah shows his sorry face around, we'll take care of him.” His expression became speculative. “Is he home for Christmas?”

“I'm sure,” I said. “I heard last summer that he's dating Mandy Pearson, but I don't know if that's true.” Her name tasted bad in my mouth. I confessed, “Senior year she told everyone that Noah got some slut from Chicago pregnant.”

“I know the Pearson girls,” Mathias confirmed. “They're all slutty, like she should talk. She really said that about you?”

“I could be the biggest slut you've ever known,” I said, only half-teasing. “Like I said, you don't know a thing about me.”

He narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head. He said, “You are nothing of the kind. Shit.”

“I'm the one who had a baby at eighteen. That's pretty slutty,” I said, not intending for quite so much bitterness to leak out into my voice.

“Again, Noah took advantage. He saw an easy mark,” and when my lips dropped open in stun Mathias held up both hands defensively, like a traffic cop, clarifying, “I mean that he saw a sweet girl who would believe that he loved her so that he could get into her pants, that's what I mean. He said it right away, didn't he?” When I stubbornly didn't answer, he said with certainty, “I knew it.”

“You are annoying as hell,” I told him. Something about him caused thoughts to fly from my mouth with no filter.

Instead of instantly replying, his dimple appeared again. I remembered a word from eighth grade vocab then, right out of the blue.
Incorrigible
.
The inability to be corrected or changed
. And I felt myself smiling grudgingly back.

“But I'm right, admit it,” he said.

“It's none of your business,” I said for the second time, suddenly tired and depressed, my smile vanishing like frost on a sun-kissed windowpane. My breasts hurt and I needed to get home and nurse my daughter. My gaze moved out the window to the black night, rife with blowing snow.

Mathias was still studying me, his face serious. After a moment of awkward silence, he said firmly, “I'll drive you home. It's shitty out there, and I may be annoying but I'm also a gentleman. You left in such a hurry last night I didn't even get a chance to offer.”

I met his direct blue gaze and wanted ask him what Tess would think of that, though I only said, “Thanks. But there's no need. Dodge always puts snow tires on my truck.”

Bull stuck his head from the kitchen at that moment and called, “Boy, Tess is burning up the wire. Ain't you got your cell phone on you?” And then to me, “Camille, sweetie, you need a ride home?”

“Thanks, I got it,” I said, deliberately lightening my tone, even though the phrase
speaking of the devil
flashed through my mind; I reflected that I hadn't actually spoken about Tess. Over my shoulder I told Bull, “I appreciate it though.”

Despite his dad's words, Mathias remained seated, his gaze unwavering. He said, “Let me drive you home.”

I felt a flash of real anger then, almost out of nowhere. It was all tangled up with my intense attraction to him, with visions of being held close to his powerful-looking chest and kissing him, letting him do all of the things to me that Noah had done. Abruptly I stood and caught up the dish tub, bracing it against my belly as I carried it back to the kitchen. Bull held the pass-through door for me and I forced a pleasant expression onto my face as I walked by him. Once through the door I set the tub near the sink and called good-night to Bull. I tapped my clock-out code on the computer monitor and then hurried into my coat. I fished the keys from my pocket and was pulling on my mittens when Mathias came bursting through the swinging door.