Snowflakes and Silver Linings Read online

  She was tempted to protest that her suitcase was not filled with lingerie.

  But then she saw it for what it was. Turner was moving the subject, again, away from himself.

  She certainly was not going to admit she was escaping him!

  “What are you doing out here at this time of night?” she asked him.

  “I don’t sleep well.”

  It was time for her to go. Really. She had her keys. Her dignity was intact. Why feel sympathetic that he didn’t sleep?

  But she had something to prove, too. That she could stand out here and talk to him and be completely unaffected by it, even if he had nearly crushed her body under his, even if the dog had stolen his kiss from her lips.

  “I don’t remember you smoking.”

  He laughed. “I don’t. Not anymore.” He took the cigarette, glared at it for a moment, then tossed it over the railing. “But when I can’t sleep, I wish I did.”

  She knew again that there was a dark place in Turner Kennedy that had not been there before.

  Casey fought a desire to lighten it somehow—she wasn’t sure how. Tell a joke, give a hug, something purely feminine and nurturing. Biology joining with chemistry to make a knockout punch for those who were not careful.

  But she was nothing if not careful. Nothing about this encounter was in her script for her completely fulfilling life of solitude and simple pleasures like yoga and calligraphy.

  “Smoking is very bad for you,” she said primly.

  “Thanks, Doc,” he said, “I’ll take that under consideration.”

  Something about his voice made her think that whatever he had been doing, smoking paled as a danger.

  And something about the way he held himself told her other truths. He felt as alone as she did. And maybe not just at Christmas, either.

  “Why are you here for Christmas?” he asked suddenly, abruptly, as if he was irritated that she had decided to come. “You have family.”

  “There’s just my mom. She had, er, other plans.”

  Something like sympathy crossed the rugged barrier of his closed face, and Casey rushed on. “It’s not a big deal. I feel my connection with Emily and Andrea is as strong as a family bond. Besides, don’t you think this will be a lovely place to spend Christmas? Almost like a fairy tale.”

  “Do I look like I believe in fairy tales?” His voice sounded harsh, not that of a man who had once said, “Just pretend I’m a prince....”

  “No, you don’t,” she said. She would like to add she didn’t, either, but she still did, to a certain extent. No prince, but Casey wanted to create fairy-tale Christmases for her child.

  Weaknesses she should be happy to unearth!

  “How hokey do you think it’s going to be?” he asked.

  “Terribly.”

  “Christmas-carols-around-the-fire hokey?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Hell.”

  “Tut-tut, that’s not exactly in the spirit of the season.”

  He smiled reluctantly.

  “What were you expecting from a place called the Gingerbread Inn, gladiator games?”

  “Touché,” he said drily.

  “You have a family, too,” she remembered. In the days together he had revealed that much of himself. His was as different from hers as night was from day, except that both families had experienced tragedy. Her brother, when she was young; his father in the World Trade Center attacks.

  Hadn’t that been part of what had drawn her to him, moth to flame? That Turner knew what it was to be part of a normal family? By his descriptions, the Kennedys had been fun-loving, wholesome, all-American.

  What kind of weakness was it that she could remember every single word he had said to her?

  “I thought your family did hokey,” she said thoughtfully. “One year you told me you got a puppy for Christmas, for goodness sake!”

  A subtle line of strain appeared around his mouth. “My mom died while I was overseas.”

  “I’m so sorry. But your brothers? You had two of them, right? Younger than you?” She smiled. “The backyard skating rink.”

  Something in his face closed. “Things change.”

  Her need for self-preservation dissolved, and this time it was Casey who reached out. She placed her fingers on his wrist, then closed them around it. “That changes?”

  Despite her resolve to place her belief in different things, she felt shocked. A close family, one as close as he had described, could become estranged? By what?

  “Everything changes,” he said, and his voice was weary and cynical. “That’s the only thing you can count on. That everything can change. And it does. You should go inside now.”

  He slipped his wrist free of her grasp, but she couldn’t move. She told herself it was because she was not allowing him to tell her what to do, but she knew that wasn’t really it. Not even close.

  “You should go inside,” he said softly, “before I do something I’d regret even more than lighting that cigarette.”

  She didn’t have to ask him what.

  His eyes lingered on her lips and a memory sizzled in the air between them. She felt a disgusting weakness.

  A desire to lean toward him and take his lips, and then pull back and say, “Regret, hmm?”

  But instead, she pretended she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, pretended she was immune to the pull between them.

  She cocked her head. “What would that be?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SMILE WAS BACK. The one that guarded what Turner Kennedy was thinking. He dragged his eyes slowly, and without a bit of apology, away from her lips. “I was going to go shovel off a piece of the lake and go skating.”

  She saw now that as well as the adoring dog, he had skates at his feet.

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning!”

  “I told you. Can’t sleep. That’s why I’d regret it if I asked you to come with me. Night can make strange things happen between people. Things that normally wouldn’t. Or maybe shouldn’t.”

  He was talking about that night all those years ago when he had impulsively invited her to run away with him. When he had warned her there would be a time limit, and she had allowed herself not to believe it.

  “You probably haven’t been up at three in the morning since then,” he said huskily, and she hated that he could read her mind.

  So she said, raising an eyebrow, “Since when?”

  Turner just chuckled, not fooled.

  She turned and walked away from him, her steps deliberate and unhurried. She picked up her suitcase from where she had dropped it by the door. The screen squealed when she opened it, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover the soft sound of his mocking laughter that he’d been right.

  That despite the red lace, the only thing wild about her was her hair.

  And if the pounding in her heart and the flame in her cheeks were any indication, she was just as susceptible to him.

  * * *

  The next day, she felt so tired. She had fallen asleep, finally, near dawn to the sound of Turner’s shovel scraping the ice.

  She noticed he looked exhausted, too, as all the friends came together for a simple breakfast of cereal, and to make a plan for the day.

  Andrea had made an extensive list of jobs, large and small, that needed to be accomplished, and Casey was relieved that Turner’s enthusiasm for the ice had been noted, and he had been put in charge of getting the lake ready for a sk
ating party after the vow renewal ceremony was over on Christmas Eve.

  He either took it very seriously or had no desire to be with the rest of them. All day she could hear him shoveling an ever widening space to skate. It seemed as if he would not be satisfied until the whole lake was cleared.

  Casey, assigned inside decorating jobs, would go peer out the window and watch him guiltily when it seemed no one would notice,

  Watching a strong man tackle all that snow with easy grace and confidence was a shockingly beautiful sight. The lake ice began to emerge from under the blanket of yesterday’s snowfall, and it shone, bright as gunmetal.

  Sometimes he seemed to grow bored with shoveling. Then he would turn his attention to making a fire pit and building rough benches. He looked as wonderful splitting wood as he did shoveling snow.

  He did not come in for lunch or supper. When Emily wanted to go get him, as they all sat around the hearth in the parlor going over the day, eating Carol’s amazing apple pie and visiting, Cole just shook his head.

  “Leave him be,” he said, something troubled in his eyes when he thought of his friend.

  Casey went to bed without seeing him, annoyed with herself that she could feel Turner Kennedy’s presence at the inn, and a faint agitation that went with it, without even having any face-to-face contact with him.

  She woke to pitch blackness, not sure what had woken her, but drawn to the window. Her bedroom was on the back side of the house, facing the lake, and Casey flicked back a heavy curtain that had left the pane frosted, while not keeping out the draft.

  Her eyes adjusted to the inky darkness. She was shocked to see Turner was still down at the lake. He sat on one of his benches, but hadn’t lit a fire. He had on that ultrasexy parka with a fur-lined hood. The shovel was propped against the bench and he seemed to be contemplating the rink he’d made.

  Then he got up, and she saw he had skates on. He made his way gracefully from the snow-covered bank to the ice.

  And he began to skate.

  If she had thought watching him pit his power against snow clearing and splitting wood was a wonder, it was nothing compared to this.

  Turner was extraordinary on skates. He raced over the ice with effortless grace, his incredible power and energy practically shimmering in the cold air around him.

  Harper was skittering along after Turner, joyous at this unusual nocturnal excursion.

  Stop watching, Casey told herself. But she couldn’t.

  All those years ago, with him, she had felt magic. She was not sure she had ever felt it since. He was right; people did not make good decisions in the middle of the night. Because she suddenly wanted to skate.

  “I should go skating,” she whispered, watching him.

  Such an irrational thought shook the scientist in her to her core. It was the middle of the night. She wasn’t a great skater. She had not once in her whole life felt compelled to go skating.

  She thought of the way Turner’s gaze had locked on her lips when he had talked about doing something he would regret. She knew she was playing with fire.

  Then, as she watched, Turner stopped for a moment, leaned over and grabbed some snow from the edge of the rink he had cleared. With his bare hands he formed it into a ball, then threw it for the eagerly waiting dog.

  Harper scrambled after it, burrowed beneath the snow looking for it, came back to him empty-jawed, with a bewildered shake of her golden head, begging him to throw another, whining that she would do better next time.

  He should have laughed. It was funny.

  But he didn’t. One thing Casey remembered from that night they had spent together was the easiness of his laughter, the goldenness of it, as if it had the power to chase away shadows.

  The dog rolled over in front of him, her legs in the air. Still, he did not laugh at her attempt to charm him. He gave her belly a quick pat and went back to work.

  Casey knew this was the time to let the curtain fall back into place, and climb back under the cozy, worn feather duvet on her bed.

  “After all,” she muttered, “he didn’t even ask you. In fact, he made a point of not asking you.”

  He was making a point of being by himself.

  If ever there was a time in her life to be safe and rational and totally true to her predictable nature, this was it. She finally had a plan for herself. For her future, and her contentment!

  She had passed the first test, the first encounter with Turner. She had passed it despite the fact that she remembered too much, and despite the fact she’d been crushed under his body and, shamefully, had loved it.

  She had passed again today, leaving him alone, not seeking him out. Not, she hoped, giving anyone the slightest indication that she had been tense all day at the thought of him joining them, and then oddly disappointed when he hadn’t.

  So she had passed. She didn’t think anyone had guessed that Turner created turmoil in her. That being under the same roof as him felt like a form of torture. Their past history made her feel angry at him. And embarrassed for herself. But that wasn’t all she felt. She wished it was. No, she felt confused by him, and by her reactions to him.

  So she let the curtain fall, made herself go back to bed, and ordered herself to sleep. But the scientist in her did not like confusion. The scientist demanded a solution.

  If she didn’t go out there, was she damned to this state of confusion? Had he won in some way? Intimidated her? He was probably even now congratulating himself on how correct his assessment of her had been, despite underwear that screamed the opposite.

  That the only thing wild about Casey Caravetta was her hair.

  Lying here in bed was the flight option.

  It was what he expected of her. And what she expected of herself. And in all honesty, where had that got her, so far? Is this what she wanted to teach her future child? To hide from life and its challenges?

  No! She wanted to go into motherhood confident of her ability to be in control of herself at all times, so her children would never know the insecurities of a childhood buffeted by the passions and weaknesses of the adults around them. Casey could not run from challenges. She had to accept them! And conquer them!

  Feeling not like someone who had said yes to fun, but like an ancient woman warrior girding herself for battle, she went to her suitcase and found a warm pair of slacks and a wool sweater.

  She shoved every single strand of her wildly curling hair under a simple black toque.

  * * *

  Turner had never lost his love of skating. The ice and the work and the solitude he was finding at the inn were a balm to his tumultuous soul.

  The lake ice reminded him of his father’s backyard rinks—imperfect and lumpy, not like the perfectly made ice in skating rinks at all.

  The memory of his father—wanting to honor his father—had driven every major decision of his life since 2001.

  So how had it all turned out so differently from what he would have wanted? And certainly differently from what his father would have wanted for him.

  Turner remembered only good things from his childhood. Racing his brothers in tight loops around the backyard rink, roughhousing, spending summers haunting the nearby beaches.

  He had grown up in one of those wealthy satellite communities, less than a half hour commute to New York City. His family had been fun-loving, traditional and well-to-do. He had never aspired to anything except to follow in his father’s footsteps. Turner had had every expecta
tion he would marry, have a wonderful home, re-create for his own children the idyllic childhood he’d had.

  He had been in his first year of university when the World Trade Center had been attacked. At 9:59 a.m. on September 11, 2001, the South Tower, where his father worked as a financial manager, collapsed.

  The Kennedy family had collapsed at the same time.

  Within months, Turner had made a decision to leave university and join the military. He’d felt as if everything his father had stood for was threatened, and he had felt he could not stand by and not try to change a world gone terribly wrong.

  In very short order, Turner had been singled out and selected for membership in Tango, an elite and highly classified antiterrorism unit. The cover story was that he handled sensitive “contracts” for the government.

  As he had said to Casey, those days with her had been his last in the world he’d known.

  He was amazed by how his first discussion with her had been so fraught with the topic of miracles—and that he had started it!

  Because he had been in a position many times where he had pleaded for one. And not been on the receiving end. The last time, just a few months ago. It had been an extremely dangerous assignment. The odds had been against them from the start. A far better man than he—Ken Hamilton, a man who had needed to live, for his wife and his family—had died in Turner’s arms.

  When Turner was young—and hopelessly naive—he had embraced a dangerous way of life, thinking it would give him a sense of meaning, a sense of bringing order to a chaotic world.

  Instead, with Ham’s death, it had felt as if something broke in him. If he had had even a sliver of faith left, it was gone now. Turner Kennedy was a man who had lost the sense that anything had meaning. Life was random. And unpredictable.

  When it was out of your control, you were in trouble. Period.

  Now, as he skated, with the dog chasing him joyously, he knew why he had come here. It was different from the reason he had thought.