It was too short for a bun, too shaggy for Alice’s kitchen.
He pulled on a pair of loose sweatpants and a T-shirt. Found a pair of socks that were mostly clean (laundry was always an issue when you only had a few of everything) packed up the rest of his stuff and headed downstairs.
The lodge was beautiful and never more so than at Christmas. The wooden walls and high ceilings were made for pine trees and blinking Christmas lights and roaring fires in the fireplace.
At the foot of the stairs he sighed, bag in hand.
Alice was making breakfast. He could smell coffee and baking bread. He could hear her humming off-key, taking bacon out of the fridge.
For him. He knew she was doing it for him.
And he might have adopted a love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude over the last seven years, but he couldn’t do it to Alice. Again.
He took a deep breath. Cool air. Christmas tree. Faint woodsmoke from hundreds of fires like last night’s. The smell of the Riverview Inn at Christmas. In a few hours Alice would put the mulling spices to simmer on the back of the stove and it would smell so good you could take a bite out of the air.
Stay, he thought. Just…stay. For a little while. What could it hurt?
And he put down his bag. Another lesson learned from his years on the road—he could leave anytime. Once he’d let that be his code of conduct, it was pretty freeing. Stay for a while. Go when things got too tense.
Owe no one anything.
He pulled his phone and his little tripod out of his backpack. The coffeemaker was in there, that one Josie gave him. Blackened by a million fires. Beat up from the time he’d dropped it off Half Dome in Yosemite.
The number of times he’d thought about replacing it…countless. He’d been sent other camping stoves, other coffeemakers, and he used none of them.
With a hard jerk he pulled the drawstring taut on the top of the bag, hiding his life from view.
“Hey,” he said, walking into the kitchen to find Alice exactly where he expected to find her. Standing at the stainless-steel counter, cookbook in front of her, coffee cup in hand.
“Good morning,” Alice said with a smile. Sunbeams highlighted the years that had passed, but in a beautiful way. Almost holy.
He sighed at his melodrama. That was the problem with him and this place. Why really it had been good he’d left. His attachment, his perspective, was unreasonable. He’d never been able to see these people clearly. It was all hero worship in his head.
And lust for a girl who could never be his.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I need a cup of coffee.”
“You know where the pot is,” she said.
He poured himself a cup and sat down on one of the stools on the edge of the stainless-steel island.
“What…what are you doing?” she asked as he set up the phone and the tripod.
“I think you know what I’m doing.”
“Cameron.”
“Five questions, Alice. We’ve never done it.”
“Oh my god,” she sighed. “What’s my hair look like?”
She had a wild rooster tail on top and it was seriously hilarious. “Fantastic.”
Scowling at him, she patted down her rooster tail.
“You ready?” he asked.
“No.”
He grinned and pressed the record button. “Alice Mitchell,” he said. “Head chef of the Riverview Inn and the person who taught me everything I know about peeling potatoes. Five questions. Ready?”
“No.”
“What’s your comfort food?”
“Tomato soup and grilled cheese.”
“Something you’d never eat again?”
“Horse sashimi. If I’d known what it was the first time, I wouldn’t have had it.”
“Best thing about Christmas?”
“A house full of family and the first bite of the first sugar cookie.”
“Someone dead you wish you could have a meal with?”
“Your mother.”
Stunned, he didn’t realize what she’d said at first. And then it was his turn to scowl and he turned off the camera.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“I wasn’t trying to be. She died when you were so little and I imagine her sometimes, wherever she is, worrying about what became of you with your dad. And I would like to tell her that you are all right. You turned out pretty amazing.”
Again, the urge to leave was powerful, and like she knew that, she did what she’d always done when he wanted to leave.
“I have a job for you,” she said as she laid bacon down on her pan in even strips.
“I figured.”
She shot him a smile and he found himself smiling back, and the thing about his mom faded into the distance.
“We’re making lasagna, focaccia, and salad.”
“Easy enough.”
“For two hundred people.”
His jaw dropped.
She laughed and patted his shoulder. “I missed that face.”
“Are you serving that many here?”
“No. We’re delivering it tomorrow to the families at Haven House and then taking what’s left to the Methodist Church.”
“How far are you?” he asked, and because he’d learned kitchen management from this woman, he was already making lists.
“I’ve made coffee,” she said with a smile.
He laughed. “Well, put me to work. I’m at your disposal.”
She sighed and leaned over to pat his cheek. “I missed this face.”
“I missed you, too,” he said. More than he’d realized.
She sighed and looked up at his hair. “What’s happening…” She twirled a finger toward his head. “…with that?”
“My hair? It’s personal expression.”
“I’m all for personal expression but that’s a problem.”
“You have a hair net?”
She shook her head.
“How about a haircut? Anyone around here good with scissors? I thought Stella—”
“Josie used to cut your hair,” Alice said, turning away from him to check the bread in the oven. “Remember?”
Remember?
He’d put those memories away, having abused them more than was good for a man.
“She’d sit you outside and put a sheet over your shoulders.” Alice took out the bread she’d baked, poking at the crust before putting it back in. “You’d look like you got in an accident with garden shears—remember?”
“Yes,” he said tightly.
Alice was silent and he made the mistake of looking over at her.
Here it comes…
“We really fucked up both of you that night,” Alice said. She shook her head, her face pale and pinched.
“I’m not fucked up,” he said. Though even as he said it, he wondered…maybe it was a lie. Maybe? Who lives all this time out of a backpack? All he knew for sure was that memories of Josie were so painful he just didn’t think them anymore.
Like they’d been erased.
“You’re saying…” He couldn’t say her name out loud. “…she is?”
“She hasn’t been back here in five years,” Alice said, looking over at him with damp eyes. “You left that day and you never came back. How is that not fucked up?”