9. Jenny
JENNY
By the time they were back at the inn, Jenny was feeling a little sleepy but still very happy about the wonderful day they’d all had together.
Gael had spent the journey back from the farm gazing dreamily out the window, looking like he was ready for a nap, the ornament he’d chosen—a little snow globe with a tiny model of the inn inside it—cradled in his hands.
Jenny had also picked up another ornament, one to represent the time when Gael had first come to live with her. It was a Christmas ball painted with stacks of books. Gael laughed when he saw it and then hugged her.
Last Christmas, they had curled up with their books and comics and a massive tin of cookies from Jenny’s mom, getting to know each other quietly in the moments when Gael’s head would pop up and he would tell her about something that was happening in his comic.
It had been a sad and quiet time for both of them, with the loss of Gael’s grandmother still so fresh.
But Jenny could look back on it now with fondness too, the melancholy mixing with the memory of getting to know her favorite person in the whole world.
It was good that Gael seemed to feel the same.
“Here we are,” Erik said as he pulled down the long drive that would take them past the lake to the inn. “Who wants to sit in the library and plan out our backstory?”
“I want to read,” Gael said, surprising Jenny. “Can I go upstairs and read while you guys plan?”
Jenny frowned. Gael had been such a fan of this whole fake engagement, and normally he loved plotting and planning.
But when she glanced in the rearview mirror, he did look pretty sleepy.
“We don’t have to do it today,” she told him. “I’m sure we can get together with Erik another time.”
“No,” Gael said right away. “You two plan, and I’ll just chill out upstairs.”
There was something about the way he said it that was almost suspicious, but Jenny couldn’t put her finger on what.
“I’m nine,” Gael reminded her. “And you’ll be right downstairs.”
“That’s true,” she said.
“Sounds good to me,” Erik told her. “We’ll have a little coffee and chat, then you can join Gael for some quiet time.”
“You’ll come right downstairs if you need me?” she asked Gael. “Or if you get bored or lonely?”
“How can I be bored or lonely when I have new comics?” he asked, grinning at her.
She hated to leave him on his own, but there weren’t many people staying at the inn, and she really would just be downstairs in what was essentially a big old house.
“Fine,” she said.
“Can I order room service?” he asked.
“Oh, now I see how it is,” Jenny laughed. He was probably picturing himself as one of the rich heroes or villains on Ridley Hospital, staying in a fancy hotel and eating lobster thermidor on vacation.
“Of course you can,” Erik said. “If it’s okay with your mom.”
Gael’s eyes lit up and went pleadingly to Jenny.
“Room service is whatever Miss Trudy already has prepared,” Jenny warned him. “You just get to eat it upstairs.”
“Okay,” Gael said.
“And you can’t eat it in bed,” Jenny told him.
“In bed?” Gael echoed, laughing.
“And probably not while you’re reading your comics, since you don’t want to get them messy,” Jenny told him. “I can put on a movie for you instead if you want to sit at the table and watch it on my tablet.”
“Okay,” Gael said, looking more and more excited.
Jenny couldn’t keep from smiling at his joy at having a simple snack and a movie on his own. But she remembered being his age. A little independence went a long way, especially when you knew your mom was right downstairs.
They headed inside, and it turned out that Trudy was thrilled to plan a “room service” snack for Gael, and the same for Jenny and Erik to enjoy in the library.
While it was being prepared, Jenny went upstairs with Gael, started “The Charlie Brown Christmas Special” for him, and made sure he had everything he needed.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked him.
“I need some me time,” he told her, and then giggled.
“Fine,” she told him, trying to keep a straight face. “But if you change your mind, we’d be glad to see you in the library.”
“I know, I know,” he said, shooing her away.
She opened the door to find Trudy headed in with a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, along with a tall stack of sugar cookies.
“Wow,” Jenny said.
“He’s a growing boy,” Trudy laughed. “I’ll be right back with cocoa.”
“Whoa,” Gael said excitedly. “Thank you, Miss Trudy.”
“It’s my pleasure, dear,” Trudy said. “You come find me if everything’s not perfect.”
“It’s perfect,” he said, his eyes on that stack of cookies.
On that encouraging note, Jenny and Trudy headed downstairs together.
“I’ll bring you and Erik the same in the library in just a few minutes,” Trudy said, turning into the kitchen when they reached the first floor again.
Jenny continued on to the library, feeling surprisingly okay about leaving Gael upstairs to enjoy himself.
This was exactly the kind of thing she could never dare to consider in the city, where she felt like she had to have her eyes on the boy at all times. There wasn’t a hotel in existence where she would have left him on his own.
Maybe that made her overprotective, but Jenny was just fine with that.
“Is he okay?” Erik asked, standing from the small table by the fireplace as she came in. “We could always just talk up there if you’re more comfortable with it.”
“He’s really happy,” Jenny said, smiling. “He said he needed some me time, if you can believe it.”
“I think he wanted us to spend time alone together,” Erik said, arching one brow. “That’s usually a pivotal scene in a fake engagement plot.”
“No,” Jenny breathed.
But he was almost certainly right. As soon as he said it, she knew it was just what would have happened on Ridley Hospital.
“That boy was a born storyteller,” Erik chuckled, pulling out Jenny’s chair for her.
“You know, I was thinking the same thing the other day,” Jenny said, sitting. “That maybe one day he would be writing for one of those shows.”
“There are worse jobs,” Erik said as he sat down again.
“He’s too sweet for Hollywood,” Jenny said, shaking her head.
“You might be right about that,” Erik agreed, chuckling. “Maybe he’ll write the great American novel instead.”
“Maybe he will,” Jenny agreed.
“Speaking of stories, I guess we need to make up ours,” Erik said, leaning forward to put his elbows on the little table.
Jenny caught a hint of his forest scent and suddenly couldn’t stop noticing his brawny arms, and how green his eyes were.
“I don’t know,” she ventured without thinking. “Don’t we already have one?”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than her cheeks began to burn.
“Here we go,” Trudy sang out as she entered the library with another silver tray, saving Jenny from her own embarrassment.
She set it on the table between them—a plate piled with grilled cheese sandwiches, two small bowls of tomato soup, a plate of beautiful sugar cookies, and two mugs of hot cocoa.
“How does that look?” Trudy asked. “Can I bring you anything else?”
“You don’t have cinnamon, do you?” Jenny asked.
“I sure do,” Trudy said with a smile, pulling a little container from her apron. “I wondered if Gael got that trick from you.”
“Actually, I got it from him,” Jenny said, laughing. “And I think he got it from his grandmother.”
“What’s the cinnamon for?” Erik asked as Jenny took the container from Trudy.
“The hot chocolate,” Jenny told him. “Give it a try, if you want. I think you’ll love it.”
Anyone else might have politely declined, or maybe dotted a bit of the spice on one spoonful to try it. But Erik Anderson shook the cinnamon generously over his mug and gave it a stir.
The man definitely knew how to commit.
“Enjoy,” Trudy said as she headed off.
“So, you were saying that we already have a backstory?” Erik said, his eyes flashing right back to Jenny.
He hadn’t forgotten.
“I’m just saying that we knew each other back in school,” she said. “Case in point, we were close enough that you invited me to your wedding.”
“True,” Erik said with an odd look on his face.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “That’s a good start. So we were close back in school, and then what? Why didn’t we get together back then?”
Oh no reason. I guess mainly because you didn’t have an obsessive crush on me, like I had on you.
Thankfully, she managed not to blurt that out.
“You decide,” she said instead, lobbing the ball back into his court.
“Because I was going into the service,” he said right away. “And I couldn’t ask you to wait.”
I would have waited. Gladly.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “So, what happened next?”
“I missed you,” he told her, his voice slightly husky, for no reason she could understand.
“I missed you too,” she admitted softly, losing herself in his emerald gaze as the fire crackled beside them.
“As soon as I got out, I looked you up,” he said with a hint of sadness in his eyes. “And I called. And it was like no time had passed, not even a minute. I still wanted to be by your side every second of the day.”
“And I felt the same way,” she told him.
“So I asked you to marry me,” he said.
Her heart was thundering, and she felt her cheeks burning under his gaze, but somehow she couldn’t stop playing this dangerous game.
“I had to think about it,” she said, turning her eyes to the fire and willing herself to hold onto her sanity.
“It killed me to wait, but I gave you space,” he said softly.
She turned back to him, wondering if he was feeling any of the hurricane of confused emotions that battled in her chest.
His eyes met hers and she felt a pull like gravity, a longing so desperate it felt like pain. She felt exactly the way he’d looked in that photo, right before he kissed her…
“I said yes,” she heard herself murmur.
Erik’s hand moved slowly across the table, giving Jenny plenty of time to pull away.
She didn’t.
The sizzle of electricity she felt as his warm fingers wrapped around hers should have troubled her. Instead, it made her feel anchored and whole.
And also guilty.
“Jenny,” he said softly.