For once, Jonas didn’t frown, didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take you up on that at some point, I’m sure.”
Gabe let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. So far, so good.
“I’m so glad.” She’d started with Jonas, and not five minutes into dinner, they already had plans to talk business.
“So, you’re a conference liaison? What does that entail?” Tana chimed in. “I spend most of my time on the slopes as the director of the ski program, so I’m not up on, you know, corporate events.”
Anna looked tickled to be asked. “I work with companies or individual clients to either smooth out plans for an event that’s already in progress or with conference hotels to coordinate conferences with clients. Everything that has to do with conferences or big meetings—I’ve done it.” She laughed, and it was a lovely sound. “It doesn’t sound too exciting when I put it like that, but there’s rarely a dull moment.”
“Is that how the two of you met?” His grandmother’s voice was soft but clear. She wore an unreadable expression in the candlelight, sitting there at the head of the table.
Anna touched Gabe’s wrist and let out a low laugh. “I’ve got this one. He’s good at presentations, but this story gets him all flustered.”
“It does not,” he insisted, slipping his hand into hers, and oddly pleased at the way she’d been brave enough to tease him in front of his family. “Not compared to how flustered you got when you saw the ring.”
“You’re getting so far ahead of yourself,” Anna said, and then cleared her throat. “We started talking about—oh, six months ago? When Gabe needed my help getting his latest app in front of the right people.” She winked, drawing laughter out of both Jonas and Chase. “We got pretty close, working together for all that time. And the rest is history. Very recent history.”
Gabe relaxed into the rhythm of dinner. After the soup was cleared, the main course arrived—a pork tenderloin that melted on his tongue and tasted like comfort and holiday spirit. And then came dessert. The waiters brought out individual chocolate cakes. He glanced at his grandmother, who looked back at him with a subtle smile. She’d chosen it for him knowing it was his favorite.
His throat went tight, taking in the little cake with its dusting of powdered sugar. He savored each bite. Anna’s, on the other hand, was gone by the next time he looked over. She put her spoon between her lips and heat shot through him, making him imagine way more than he should about her.
“Oh, I’m so sad that’s over.” Anna sat back, her comment a testament to how much she’d enjoyed it.
“Take the last bite of mine.” He scooped it up with his spoon and offered it to her. Gabe, who had always loved chocolate cake so fiercely his family had made fun of him, offered his fiancée the final bite. The room seemed to hold its breath as if he were on the verge of snatching it back. But Gabe wasn’t that desperate child anymore and hadn’t been in a long time.
Anna leaned in and took the cake onto her tongue, making a low noise of satisfaction.
“Wow,” Chase said, amazement lacing his voice. “I think you’ve got yourself a match. Have you ever seen anybody who loves chocolate as much as Gabe?” He directed this last part to Jonas, who silently shook his head.
At the head of the table, his grandmother smiled. A genuine smile, calm and a bit reserved, the way she always was. Something in him untwisted. She approved. His grandmother liked Anna and therefore believed their act was real. Guilt followed hard on the heels of his satisfaction. She approved—except it wasn’t real.
“Let’s go caroling,” Jonas suddenly announced, surprising everyone at the table. He looked Gabe straight in the eye, as if testing him. All the brothers were intimately familiar with how much Gabe hated singing carols. And they also knew how much their grandmother loved them. “We’ll go down to the lobby and sing there, so we don’t have to get cold.”
“That’s a wonderful idea.” His grandmother took Jonas’s hand for extra support getting out of her seat. “The pianist will still be there from the dinner hour. He can accompany us.”
Gabe fought down his own nerves on the way to the lobby, where a baby grand piano was tucked next to the Christmas tree. The family gathered around as the pianist greeted his grandmother and went through her preferred list of carols. The area had been done up to the absolute maximum with Christmas decorations in gold and silver with sprigs of holly and red berries. Everything was color-coordinated and came across as expensive, even to Gabe. The lodge wrapped up like this was a gift to everyone who entered it. The grand piano sported a giant red bow, the curls of the giant ribbon a stark contrast with the gleaming black surface.
He couldn’t sing and his brother knew it. The last thing he wanted to do was to make a fool of himself in front of Anna. Taking his hand, she squeezed, leaning in close. “I love Christmas carols,” she whispered softly into his ear. “Do you?”
“Tonight, I love Christmas carols,” he answered dryly, keeping his voice low.
The pianist launched into the simple, and all too familiar number of Jingle Bells. After the first verse, Anna leaned in again. “Your family is so close. I kind of love it. Even if you and your brothers did argue over—what was that again?”
“Who was the better skier. And it was just Jonas and me.”
Anna laughed, but not loud enough to disrupt the singing. “Isn’t Chase the best skier?”
“Was. But back then, Chase didn’t count when it came to internal contests.” He shot his brother an apologetic look. Tana must have had one heck of an effect on Chase because he didn’t seem bothered by the comment one bit.
“Internal contests,” echoed Anna, and he could tell she thought it was funny. Yes. More of that. A familial warmth spread in the center of his chest.
Gabe really did love his family, no matter how much time he spent trying to convince himself he didn’t fit in. Not in the way that everyone else did. Gabe had wanted different things out of life—he hadn’t wanted to sign on to a permanent position at the lodge just because his brother had taken over the management of the place. But now, standing around the piano and singing Christmas songs, he wasn’t sure.
If he really were the black sheep of the family, and if he really were a disappointment to them—his grandmother wouldn’t have asked him to come home.
Maybe fitting in wasn’t the only criterion.
“You’re not singing,” Anna said, whispering in his ear. He put his hand on her waist and pulled her close. She leaned in, curvy and soft, and melted into him almost as if it were the most natural thing.
He’d been wasting time. The thought came to him as clearly as the opening notes of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. The other women he’d brought home would have excused themselves from singing carols. They would have stood stiffly by his side, hands folded in front of them. He’d spent so long dating women who were utterly uncomfortable being around his family, or they were just too wrapped up in their own worlds.
It had worked at the time because he’d been wrapped up in his own world. He had come here each time knowing that the goal was to leave as soon as possible, only putting in a token appearance.