A Kiss in Winter Read online

  “I’m not like you, Caroline.” Macie’s gaze held an edge of accusation. “It doesn’t have to be all one thing or another for me. I can manage my grades and see Caleb.” She started from the kitchen. At the door, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Just because you’ve chosen to be alone, doesn’t mean I want to be.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The ribbon that had held Caroline’s temper slipped from her fingers; what shot free was a rocket, not a helium balloon. Her entire body went hot.

  Macie stepped back into the kitchen, looking as angry as Caroline felt. “It means you’re alone because you want to be. You use Sam and me as an excuse; but it’s been a long, long time since we’ve needed a babysitter 24/7. You hardly ever go out, and when you do you never go with anyone more than once. It’s like no one is good enough for you!

  “I”—Macie pounded her hand against her chest—“don’t want to be like that! I want someone to care about me. I want someone to care about! I’m not stupid. I’m not going to get pregnant.”

  “I…” Caroline started to explain, to defend her own choices, but stopped short. This wasn’t about her; it was about Macie’s future. She swallowed her hurt feelings and said, “But you could get hurt and lose sight of what’s important. I’ve seen guys like this. They always take what they want and move on—”

  “I’d rather be hurt than be an ice queen.” Macie spun and left the room.

  Caroline stood with her angry heartbeat thudding in her ears. Macie’s feet pounded up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed, causing Caroline to flinch.

  Macie braced her back against her bedroom door, trying to slow her breathing and stop her insides from shaking.

  Caleb still sat leaning against her bed. He looked up from his history book. “You look pissed. What happened?”

  How could she explain? She knew lots of families fought—heck, even Caroline and Sam fought. But Macie didn’t fight; she didn’t even like anyone around her fighting. And it was for damn sure she had never yelled at her sister like that. The unfamiliar rush she felt scared her just a little. It was as if something that had been tied down inside her had broken free and was racing around in her bloodstream.

  She gave Caleb a wobbly smile. “Nothing. Nothing happened.” But something had happened, something deep inside Macie. And she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  In her rational mind, she realized she should go down and apologize to Caroline for saying such hurtful things. But she felt like she’d just thrown off a lead blanket, as if she could float off into outer space. Looking at Caleb, she felt even more buoyant.

  Each time the fan rotated, his hair blew away from his eyes… eyes shining with concern. Caroline was wrong. Caleb cared.

  He reached out a hand and pulled her down into his lap. “She’s mad because I’m here.”

  Macie shook her head. “Not exactly.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and leaned his forehead against her hair. “Should I leave?”

  “No.” She kicked his history book a little farther away. She didn’t feel like memorizing the dates of the major battles of WWII. She leaned into him. “Tell me about surfing.”

  He’d told her before, but she liked the way his voice sounded when he talked about it; she could hear how much he missed the ocean, how much he loved to surf.

  “I’d get up before dawn and put on my wet suit, so I could be at the beach by daybreak. Just as it gets light, there’s still this mist that hangs low on the beach. There’s hardly anyone around. It’s, like, totally different than during the day. The surf as it rolls over and washes up on the beach is louder, the birds’ cries are sharper. The sand is cold under your feet instead of warm. On a good day, I could get six good rides in before I had to haul out and get ready for school…”

  The only thing anyone did around here before school was milk cows or feed horses. How could he stand it here? How could his parents have taken so much away from him? Didn’t they know how much he loved it?

  Macie closed her eyes and tried to feel the freedom of standing on a beach alone at sunrise. Alone with the mist on her face and no one expecting anything from her. No test scores. No college application essays. No community service hours to “round out her high school experience.” No reason to feel guilty over doing something a little crazy just because she felt like it.

  She opened her eyes and looked around her room. There was no way she’d ever be that girl on the beach.

  Then she looked into Caleb’s eyes, blue like the Caribbean, and thought maybe, just maybe he had come here to teach her, to help her find her way to that beach.

  It was nearly five o’clock. Caroline considered calling Mick and telling him she couldn’t come out to the farm this evening after all, but stopped before she picked up the phone. A little time and space between her and Macie could be a good thing. But she wasn’t leaving here with that man-boy still in her sister’s bedroom. She had just started for the stairs when she heard them coming down, his thudding footfalls woven like a bass line to Macie’s soft melodic steps.

  Caroline hung just inside the kitchen until she heard Macie say good-bye and the front screen door close. Then she walked into the living room, which was where the staircase and the little alcove that held the front door both were.

  “Macie…”

  “I have to finish studying.” Macie started back up the stairs.

  “I’m going to be gone for a couple of hours.”

  “Fine.” She kept climbing the stairs.

  “Do you want me to bring you a pizza when I come back, or do you want to make a sandwich here?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Fine.” Caroline couldn’t help matching Macie’s pouting-teen attitude, but figured Macie wasn’t listening anyway.

  She snatched her purse off the table, shaking it to hear what corner her car keys had burrowed into. She dug for them with angry thoughts in her head.

  I knew from the minute I laid eyes on that kid he was going to be a bad influence.

  Careful, she cautioned herself, a good girl will go a long way to protect a bad boy when the hormones are right.

  Macie had as much as accused Caroline of not possessing any hormones, any passion. How could she make Macie understand that a person didn’t have to let those hormones dictate their lives just to prove they weren’t an “ice queen”?

  Although tempted to stomp up the stairs after her sister and lay out a lecture, Caroline didn’t. Her good sense told her she had to tread carefully; lashing out emotionally would do more harm than good at this point. She needed time to strategize.

  Just as she was ready to walk out the door, the phone rang. She almost didn’t answer it, but she and Sam had been playing phone tag for two weeks, leaving short, meaningless messages on each other’s voice mail.

  But, as always with Sam, Caroline had to assume no news was good news. He’d probably gotten so caught up in college life that he hardly remembered he’d been hesitant to go.

  Now it seemed that she was dealing with trouble where she’d least expected it, with her sister. Wouldn’t it be nice if both kids could be straightened out and happy at the same time?

  “Hello?” She answered with the hope of hearing confirmation from Sam’s own lips.

  “Hey, sugar. How’s my favorite photographer?” Kent Davies said.

  Just-freaking-great, she wanted to say. “Hi, Kent. I was just on my way out—”

  “This’ll just take a minute. I wanted to ask you to homecoming on Friday.”

  Caroline closed her eyes and tilted her head, begging God for patience. “Seriously, Kent, what do you need?”

  “That’s it. I want you to be my homecoming date.”

  She sighed, not in the mood to play one of Kent’s games. She didn’t think even the high school kids had “homecoming dates” anymore.

  He bowled ahead, pleading his case. “My class is being honored at the football game—ten years, sugar. We have to strut around at halftime for
everyone to see how old and fat we’ve gotten. I want you on my arm to make me look good.”

  “You aren’t fat… or old.” She’d only graduated a year behind him, for heaven’s sake. “And you certainly don’t need me.” At the moment, she couldn’t imagine how she could add to anyone’s youthful image. Acting as mother to teenagers had left her feeling old and dried up, nothing left but the husk of a woman.

  “Come on. You have to go for the paper anyhow.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You always shoot the homecoming game—everybody knows that.”

  “Oh.” She drew a breath to formulate her refusal. Ice queen. Macie’s face as she had uttered the words flashed in her mind and the words dried up like withered passion in her throat.

  “I’ll pick you up at six,” Kent said before she could respond further. “We’re doing a lap around the track in convertibles. I’ll even buy you a mum.”

  “Kent—”

  “Bye, sugar.”

  He hung up before she could utter another word. It was one of his games; cut her off before she refused and chances were she’d not actually call him back and tell him no. But in this case, she wasn’t looking for excuses. She was going, if for no other reason than to prove to Macie she did go out with someone more than once.

  I’ll show her a woman can have a relationship with a man without losing her senses.

  That thought rolled around in Caroline’s head like a marble flipped into a funnel. The circumference of the marble’s rotation decreased as gravity pulled it toward the hole. A startling realization arrived with the clink of the marble falling through the center. Maybe that had been her shortcoming all along; she’d failed to set a good example for Macie to follow in developing a relationship with a member of the opposite sex.

  Still, Kent thinking he’d outmaneuvered her did piss her off. She held the phone away from her and looked at it for a long moment. “Good thing you’re a player… cause we’re gonna play.”

  As she went out to her car, she simmered. “Arrogant… thinks women are chess pieces…”

  Chapter 10

  Caroline’s mood soured as she drove to the farm. Caleb from California… Macie… Kent… Sam… they all swirled in her head until tension throbbed behind her eyes.

  When she pulled up next to the house, she looked beyond and saw the graffiti had been covered by a block of fresh red paint that stuck out even more than the graffiti had. For her entire memory, the outbuildings had been painted white, the same as the trim and shutters on the redbrick farmhouse. Red on the barn struck an odd visceral chord, like seeing a landmark oddly out of place. Beef cattle… red barns… Mick Larsen was altering the face of her happiest years.

  Getting out of the car, she saw that most of the broken windowpanes had been replaced; the fresh white glazing stood out like raw wood beneath skinned bark.

  The screen door slammed on the back of the house. Caroline turned to see Mick loping down the back steps.

  “Hey there.” He waved a notepad in the air. “I’m ready.”

  “Good, let’s get this done.” She turned and strode toward the barn with the force of a marine sergeant taking an enemy hill.

  He trotted to catch up. “Is it something I said?”

  She stopped dead and turned on him. “No. And so you won’t have to knock yourself out trying to discover what’s wrong; my bad mood has nothing to do with you.”

  When he just stood there grinning at her, she spun and resumed her march toward the barn, sweating in the clinging heat.

  “Glad we got that cleared up.” Humor gilded his mumbled words as he fell into step behind her.

  Caroline was not amused.

  Reaching the barn, she stepped inside and had to pause and let her eyes adjust to the change in light. This too was about to change. Countless mornings, she and her father worked shoulder to shoulder at this milking equipment. It would soon be gone.

  Mick came in and stood right behind her, cheerfulness coming off him in near-palpable waves.

  His good mood rubbed a raw place on her ill-humor. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Have you told your parents you’ve moved back yet?” Misery did, after all, love company.

  “Why, yes I have. And so you don’t have to knock yourself out trying to discover how it went, it didn’t go well.” He used the same tone she’d used seconds ago on him.

  Caroline blew out a long breath and rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Yes you did.” Even though he’d been living up north, he still had his Southern drawl, managing to sound sexy and exasperating at the same time.

  “Okay, I meant it,” she admitted. “But I am sorry.”

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything, but she heard him behind her tapping the notebook against his leg. Then he said, “You want a do-over again?”

  It pleased her that he remembered their conversation in the cattle barn—and how it had nearly derailed before it had gotten started. Unbidden, a slow smile started with the corners of her mouth and spread like warm molasses over her entire body. She let go of the anger she’d been clutching to her chest like a lost child.

  “Nah, no need to backtrack,” she said. “I’ll just try to play nice from here on out.”

  He nodded. “All right, then.” He held up his notepad and pen. “I’m ready for the tour.”

  Everything else faded from Caroline’s mind when they began the circuit of persnickety farm implements and mechanical idiosyncrasies that had made up the Rogers’ farm. Miranda Stockton had been as negligent of this part of the property as Caroline had imagined. Nothing had been repaired or changed.

  By the time they left the barn, Caroline’s dark mood was barely a shadow of a memory. Mick had asked intelligent questions and even had a few answers of his own. She felt almost, well, proud of him, as if he’d proven himself worthy of guardianship of this land—even if he was painting the barn red.

  With the coming of twilight, the stifling heat of the day quickly faded—a reminder that it was indeed over halfway through September and no longer summer. As they walked the path to the house, Caroline held close her memories of this place. Countless times her feet had moved along this path, never with the bitter knowledge that one day it would no longer be hers to love. Would she have looked at things with different eyes had she known what the future held?

  She recalled one morning after a fresh snowfall, when she’d made her dad wait to let the cattle into the barnyard until after she’d taken a photograph—the one that she ended up using in her calendar. The poor cows had been mooing and stamping and snorting out huge plumes of frosty breath the whole time. But her dad hadn’t rushed her. He’d let her work the shot. God, she missed him.

  Suddenly she turned to Mick, grabbing his arm. “Don’t give up on resolving those parental issues of yours. The day will come that you won’t have the opportunity.”

  He looked into her eyes and the backs of his fingers brushed the side of her face. “Is it hard for you to be here?”

  She thought for a moment, feeling the secure warmth of his hand on her cheek. “No,” she said, gauging her true feelings. This was the first time she’d been here on neutral terms since she’d moved away. She’d had to sneak onto the property when Miranda Stockton lived here. And the first time she’d come to find Mick here, she’d been on a mission.

  Being here brought memories, but she welcomed them like old friends. The changes Mick was in the process of making made it clear that her time here had passed.

  “No,” she repeated. “It’s not hard, not really. It makes me a little sad, I guess, but in a good way. Does that make any sense?”

  He rubbed her cheek and nodded. “Perfect sense.”

  “I know my life isn’t here any longer.” She backed a step away, then turned to walk toward the house once more.

  “Are you happy with your life now?” he asked, walking by her side.

  “You learn to be happy with what you
have. It’s always easy to look at the road you didn’t get to take and say, ‘I’d be so much happier if my parents had lived,’ or ‘Keeping the farm would have made life so much better.’ But when you look at things that way, you miss things on both sides. You don’t have to deal with the downside of the realities of your imaginings, and you don’t have to look at your life without the positive things you’ve gained by it being the way it is.”

  “Yes,” he said solemnly. Mick realized somewhere along the line he had lost sight of those basic principles—the very same principles he’d used to counsel troubled patients. If tragedy had not struck with such blinding force, would Mick ever have turned away from the unfulfilling life he’d been leading?

  Rubbing his jaw, he reminded himself that Caroline’s parents’ deaths had nothing to do with anything Caroline had or had not done. So it wasn’t the same at all. His looking for the positive effects of what happened in Chicago was nothing but selfish justification.

  When they reached the back steps of the house, instead of opening the door for her to precede him inside, he motioned for her to take a seat on the steps.

  She sat down and wrapped her hands around her knees, looking to the west, where blue-gray light still clung to the darkening sky. After he settled beside her, they sat for a while in silence, watching the last of the light bleed from the day.

  When stars began to show in the west, Caroline sighed; a soft sound of contentment that made Mick envious. She’d endured neglect and hardship as a very young child, found a home here only to lose it again, and shouldered the burden of raising her brother and sister. And that sigh told him she’d come to terms with all of it—the gains and the losses, the good and the bad. The whole of an imperfect life.

  Would he ever come to terms? Every day that he arose on this farm elated him, but it wasn’t without that shadow of guilt, of shame. He gave a gust of a sigh too, but there was no resolution in it.

  Caroline put her hand on his leg. “Thank you.”

  He turned to look at her. “For what?”