chapter 11
[Angelica]
I was so busted, and embarrassed. There was no way Jude didn’t hear my audiobook, or me, unless he really was oblivious to others around him.
Like he said last night, being the science girl in high school explained why he never noticed me. I didn’t stand out in a crowd, even if I did have wild red hair.
As for that hair, I had to dry it as best I could before we went outside, but it was still damp underneath the knit cap I wore.
Bundled up in a layer of long underwear beneath my jeans and sweater, plus my long puffy jacket, a thick scarf, and mittens, I was as covered as I was going to be.
Despite the initial nip of sharp, cold air, the layers do the trick as we wander out of the resort into brilliant winter sunshine.
“The concierge said there is a small pop-up shop nearby. Let’s get some fresh air and then we can wander over there.”
“You can leave the shop, but can’t take the shop out of the man,” I tease.
He chuckles, the sound more like he’s strangling. “Yeah, something like that.” His eyes slit in the blinding sun, and he sets Aviator sunglasses on his face, making him look like a runway model as he leads us toward a paved trail that’s been shoveled and salted for guests to travel.
We walk in silence a few feet before I slip my arm into his. Jude stumbles and stares down at my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow.
“Mr. Marksman.” I nod in the direction of one of his board directors approaching us with his wife.
Jude’s head whips upward before he blows out a breath. “I’m really not in the mood for more small talk.”
I don’t answer as I try to think of an excuse for us not to stop and chat. Thankfully, Mr. Marksman and his wife only pass by us with a pleasant greeting, apparently having no interest in talking to us either.
After a few more steps, I peek over our shoulders. “Okay, they’re out of range,” I say, while tugging my hand from Jude’s elbow, but he tightens his hold, trapping my hand against his side.
“Maybe . . . maybe you should keep holding onto me just in case.”
When I glance at him, he doesn’t meet my eyes, keeping his eyes hidden behind those dark lenses while he faces forward.
Deciding he might be right, I settle in, looping my arm with his.
“Last night you mentioned you had a sister, Julia.” I don’t remember her from high school. “Do I need to sign an NDA to learn if you have more siblings?”
Jude lets out a huff. “My sibling situation is complicated.” He doesn’t expound, firmly closing out the topic. More quiet seconds pass before he says, “What about you? Do you have siblings?”
I laugh, squinting into the bright sunlight. “Three. My older brother Dane, a younger sister, named Christmas.”
“Christmas? You’re kidding me.”
“I kid you not,” I counter, imparting a poor British accent. “And then my youngest brother, Beau.”
“So Dane, Angelica, Christmas, Beau. Sounds a little like a theme.” His lip crooks.
“My last name is Winter. There’s definitely a theme.”
Jude nods. Since he doesn’t want to talk, I can’t seem to help myself. “Our parents died within a few years of each other. Our Gran and Gramps took us in.” Narrowing my eyes beneath the glare of the sunshine, I add, “Gramps died a few years ago.”
I sense Jude glance at me but move on to the happier points about my family. “We also lived with my Aunt Gertie, who’s a bit of a Mrs. Havisham. Jilted lover. Proud fornicator.”
Jude snorts.
“She’s the reason I needed to go to the lingerie department at Ashford’s. Every year we do an adult gift exchange, and every year I get her.” I tilt my head. “Highly suspicious, if you ask me. But also every year, she asks for something provocative . . . her word, not mine.” I chuckle.
Who am I to judge if an older woman wants to feel sexy and provide herself special time?
“Anyway, they live in a three-flat. The bottom is a garden apartment for Gertie. The middle is our grandparents. The top was ours.” Talk about a close-knit, extended family.
“But the entire building was our home.” And a cramped one at that. “Now my sister lives on the top floor with her three kids.”
Jude remains quiet another second before stating, “My grandparents had a place on Prairie Avenue.”
“Fancy,” I remark about the historical millionaire’s row.
“But we had a place in the Gold Coast neighborhood,” he adds.
Equally swanky.
“My mom was an influencer before the term was born, and Tucker had been in a band.”
“That’s cool,” I interject, noting this is the second or third time he’s called his dad by his first name.
Jude scoffs. “Yeah, but he gave it up to marry my mom.” Jude squints, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I was always closer to her than him. And Julia, my younger sister, was always the apple of my dad’s eye.”
“That’s how it is with girls,” I smile, recalling how Christmas and I were close to our dad, especially after he took on the role of both parents for a few years.
“That’s how it is when she’s his, and I wasn’t.”
My feet falter, and Jude tightens his elbow to hold me steady.
“My family is complicated, like I said.” He purses his lips a bit.
I quietly ask, “Did he take that out on you? The not-being-his part.” The situation certainly sounds complex and difficult.
“No. I resented him. Like it was his fault I wasn’t his.”
My brows pinch. I’m puzzled by this statement as well as the relationship.
“So, you aren’t close with your father?” I clarify, which is all kinds of sad.
“My father . . . is dead. Tucker and I aren’t close.” Sadness layers his tone.
Maybe he could rectify the distance. He could open communication. Be the first to express a desire to connect. However, the tightness of his lips causes me to keep my advice to myself.
I’m not here to judge Jude’s upbringing. I don’t even need to understand it, but I’d like to understand him, and I often find that the root of a person’s personality stems from their childhood.
Love or loss. Appreciation or abuse. Novelty or neglect.
“I guess you could say I’m a bit of a lone wolf.” The admission expresses deeper sadness, a gut-wrenching melancholy.
“Well, if you’re a lone wolf, I’m the leader of my pack, because I am involved in everything.”
Jude turns his head. “Like what?”
“The holidays, for instance. You already know I had a shopping list a mile long, and it wasn’t even my list. Beau’s wedding. Breakfast with Santa. Cookie exchanges. Cocktails. Kids’ concerts—”
“You don’t even have children,” he cuts me off as we weave around a curve in the trail.
“My nieces and nephews.” I clarify. “I attend their holiday program.”
He nods slowly. “What do you have to do for your brother’s wedding?”
“Plan it.” I chuckle, the sound laced with bitterness I don’t want to admit. I’m not upset that Beau is getting married, but I am a bit put out that he’s asked me to do the hard work, like find a place to host the wedding.
“Why? You aren’t the one getting married.”
“His fiancée has finals.”
“Finals?” Jude barks.
“She’s finishing her first semester of graduate school. They are a classic age gap. Older man. Younger woman.” Only Beau and his future wife really are cute together, if a bit nauseating.
Jude’s mouth pops open but then clamps shut. “What’s her name?”
“Belle.”
Jude’s brows crease severely before he says, “Beau and Belle.”
“Yep.” I pop the -p and stare at the copse of trees we are walking toward.
Jude doesn’t ask for more details, and I don’t offer any. Even their names together are sickeningly cute.
“Julia lives in California?” I prompt.
“She’s a baker. Part owner in a business called Because Cupcakes.
” For the first time ever, a genuine smile graces Jude’s lips.
A small one but a distinct one. He’s proud of his sister.
“She has red hair like you,” he adds, turning to look at me.
But then his brows pinch again. “But also, not like you. I mean, you don’t look anything like my sister. ”
I bet I don’t. I bet she’s beautiful if she looks anything like him, same father or not. And with that, I note that even though Jude told me I was beautiful last night, he said it in front of Walt. For our act.
With that thought, I pull my arm free from his. We haven’t seen anyone else on our stroll, and if we do near someone else, I can always slip my arm through his again.
For now, I need the slight distance as a reminder of my place.
“Do you do anything special for the holidays?” I ask next, needing something to fill the suddenly awkward silence.
Our walk continues beneath a set of trees, which act as a canopy from the bright blue winter sky.
Lights are strung limb to limb over the walkway versus being wrapped around each tree, giving the suddenly darker space a cozy, intimate feel.
With anyone else, the space would feel romantic. Out of view from the resort, it’s the perfect place to steal a kiss, but that’s the historical romance lover inside me wanting to toss her petticoat.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”
Recalling he told me he doesn’t like the holiday, I stop short. “What?”
Jude takes another step forward before spinning to face me. With his hands in his coat pockets, and those glasses on his face, he looks like a bodyguard.
“Surely, you must celebrate somehow.”
“I don’t. Celebrate, that is.”
“Because you’re an atheist? Or an agnostic?”
Jude shrugs, looking off toward the trees. “I just don’t get the big deal.”
“The big deal?” I choke. “It’s Christmas.”
“But why is it important?” He turns his head back toward me, asking the same question he asked last night.
“Besides the presents and packages? The things bought from a store?”
Jude remains silent, pursing his lips and twisting them in that way he does, like he’s angered, maybe anxious. He’s waiting on an answer, and he wants it now.
“Christmas is about faith in the un—”
“Give me a real answer.” He reaches for his sunglasses, tugging them free from his face so he can look at mine with those icy eyes.
“Fine. There is something special about winter, almost magical. The snow and the silence. The cold that forces you to sit by a fire. The comfort of hot chocolate. The lights.” I wave at the ones over our heads.
“The peace in them. The beauty of them. The promise that sunshine always follows darkness.”
Life goes on even when your parent dies in a drunk driving accident, a burning building, or a plane crash. Yet somehow, I’m not certain Jude has moved on. Or maybe he’s always been stuck in a role. An image. An act.
Slowly, my shoulders lower and I exhale. The Instagram images of his family flash through my head. The coordinated outfits. The false smiles.
“Who hurt you?” I whisper. Who made him so cynical? What happened to him to make him hate Christmas?
“Everyone,” he says, lowering his head. Then he pops it back up, slips on his sunglasses, and spins toward the remaining path, taking quicker steps, which force me to walk double time to keep up with him.
There is so much to say and so much to ask, and yet silence feels simpler. I don’t want to push Jude. I don’t need to know more about him.
He’s a man with a boy trapped inside him, who has lived with a life of disappointment.
He’s conjured the belief that he wasn’t wanted, because he hadn’t been wanted by his father, and his mother sounds like a mess, having an affair and running off, as he said, to be with her lover, only to perish in a plane crash.
I surmise his great-grandfather was long gone by then, and his dad had started a separate business.
Jude had Ashford’s, but who had Jude?
When I finally catch up to him, we only have a few additional feet before we exit the tunnel of trees, stepping back into the brilliant winter daylight. Music fills the air, and to my surprise, a skating rink is before us.
“We should ice skate,” I blurt. The rink looks like a frozen pond, complete with a portable wood hut for skate rentals, and a cart with roasting chestnuts. The strong, nutty aroma mingles with cinnamon and wafts toward us. Another cart distributes coffee or hot cocoa to the skaters.
This is straight out of a historical romance, and I’m not passing up the chance to ice skate on an actual pond.
I reach for Jude’s arm, tugging at his sleeve. “Please.” I pout, pressing out my lower lip and batting my eyelashes, which probably makes me look more like a Furby than the coquettish expression I wish to portray.
“An Ashford skis and snowboards, but they do not skate.” His tone is almost sarcastic while sounding overly aristocratic.
“Well, we’re going to change that, starting today.”
Jude lets his head drop back a second, then rolls his neck. “Fine,” he grunts, but the tone isn’t quite so dismissive as the word intends. He might even be smiling, if that grimace can be mistaken for one.
Perhaps Jude doesn’t know how to grin, other than when mentioning his sister.
Maybe smiles are as absent as Christmas for him.
And my new wish for the season is to make Jude find a reason to curl those lips in happiness.