Chapter Forty-Two #2
Jo leaned in the kitchen doorway, shoulder propped against the frame, watching all of it with bright eyes and a soft smile. “Tanner, I haven’t met Karen yet, but if she’s anything like her mother, you might want to shoot your shot.”
Shoot your shot. I patted the ring box in my pocket. I intended to do just that. But not with this mysterious Karen.
The ring box had been burning a hole in my chest all day. Every time Jo walked by, every time she laughed, every time she touched my arm in passing, seemed like an opportunity to ask her the big question, but I wanted to do this right.
“Nate,” Claire said, poking her head around me. “Can you grab the good platters from the dining room cabinet? The heavy ones. I can’t reach them without a stepladder, and I’d prefer not to break a hip this early in the evening.”
“On it,” I said.
I brushed past Jo on my way through the doorway. She tipped her head up, eyes catching mine, a question and a promise both threaded in the curve of her mouth. That familiar, dangerous tug started in my chest, the one that had pulled me all the way back here in the first place.
Maybe I could get her alone in the dining room. Thirty seconds. One question. That’s all. Was that not romantic? She wasn’t the type who’d be impressed by a top-of-the-Eiffel-Tower ask. No, she’d want something more grounded. Something here with everyone else, but not showy.
I opened the cabinet, reached for the platters, and—
“Hey, Keaton?”
I paused. “Yeah, Tanner?”
He stepped into the doorway, pushing his glasses up his nose with his index finger. “Hypothetically, if a man were to go on a date with a woman named Karen out of curiosity, would that be wrong? I mean, she still has all her teeth . . .”
I set the platter down carefully. “Are you already drunk?”
Tanner scowled. “Sadly, no. Libby showed me a photo. Karen’s actually not bad looking.”
“Eat dinner,” I said. “We’ll talk more later. But piece of advice, don’t open a door you don’t intend to walk through.”
Behind him, Jo’s laugh bubbled and it felt like I’d missed an opportunity.
Attempt number one was foiled by matchmaking and crockery.
By the time the table was set and the food laid out, the house felt borderline over-occupied.
My men were rotating through discreet perimeter checks, but inside, it was just .
. . full. Voices over voices, clinking silverware, the scrape of chairs on old floors, Bibi declaring she’d never seen a man butcher a turkey as gracefully as Roy just had.
We circled the table, everyone finding a place.
Jo ended up at my right, Roy on her other side. Claire and Ethan sat opposite us. Libby squeezed in beside Ethan, their chairs bumping every time someone shifted. Tanner claimed the far end beside Mr. Carlisle, looking both fascinated and mildly terrified by the family circus unfolding around him.
“Are we doing a toast?” Claire asked, hands wrapping around her glass.
“We’re doing several,” Libby said. “I have notes.”
“I’ll start,” Roy said unexpectedly.
The table quieted.
He cleared his throat, gaze traveling slowly around the circle. “I don’t usually say things like this out loud,” he began. “Ask Jo, she’ll tell you.”
Jo made a small sound that might have been a nervous laugh.
“But tonight . . .” He exhaled. “Tonight, I am incredibly, stupidly grateful. For my freedom. For the people who fought for it. For the daughter who kept believing I was worth saving, even when I’d made that very difficult to believe.
” His eyes shone as they landed on Jo. “For this place that took her in and protected her when I couldn’t.
And for Silas,” he added, gaze shifting to Silas’s photo above the mantel. “You were a good friend. Always.”
Claire dabbed at her eyes. Bibi sniffled loudly enough to be heard in Vermont.
Jo reached for Roy’s hand, her fingers trembling. I slid my hand over her knee under the table, grounding both of us.
“And to Jo,” Ethan said, surprising me. “For bringing us all together. That’s no small thing.”
He lifted his glass toward me. For once, there was no edge in it.
“To Jo,” I agreed. My throat felt tight. “For all of this.”
Glasses clinked. Laughter surged back, softer at first, then building again.
I watched Jo as she talked to Libby, as she teased Tanner, as she listened to Claire tell some story about her last disastrous Christmas with Ethan. She moved through the noise like she’d been born to it, not built for running.
Every time she smiled, something in me settled more firmly into place.
Okay, Keaton. Just do it.
Dinner ended in the kind of slow-motion chaos unique to big meals—people standing and sitting, passing plates, Bibi insisting everyone take leftovers “or I’ll know you don’t love me.” The noise shifted toward the living room, people migrating toward softer seats and the promise of dessert.
I caught Jo’s elbow gently. “Walk with me?”
Her eyes softened. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Only to my blood pressure,” I said. “Come on.”
I steered her toward the hallway that led to the mudroom. It was dimmer there, the sounds from the living room muffled by walls and doorways. Through the window beside the back door, the world outside was all dark trees and white fields, stars piercing the cold.
“This is suspicious,” she murmured. “Are you going to show me another Aston Martin?”
“Only if you keep turning them down, but no. This is about something else.”
She pretended to consider the possibilities. “Does it come with heated seats and a manual that doesn’t read like a threat?”
“Not this time.”
I reached into my pocket.
“Nate—”
“Keaton!”
I closed my eyes.
Milo’s voice boomed faintly from the front of the house. “Did someone say spiked coffee?”
Jo’s lips twitched. “You’re a hot commodity tonight.”
“This is a coordinated assault,” I muttered.
Jo tipped her head, studying me. “What’s going on?”
I opened my mouth. Claire appeared at the far end of the hall, wiping her hands on a towel. “Nate, sweetheart, sorry—could you give your dad a hand? He’s trying to reach something on a bookshelf.”
I looked at Jo.
There would be other seconds. Other breaths. Other private shadows.
“Yeah,” I said. “Be right there.”
Jo watched me go with a little smile tugging at her mouth, like she could see every war I was fighting and was content to let me lose them in the right order.
Someone had turned on music. Libby and Claire were dancing around each other in the kitchen, dishing up slices of pie. Bibi had cornered Tanner on the couch and was scrolling through photos on her phone with terrifying focus. Milo was cackling.
“She likes flannel,” Bibi was saying. “And men with jobs. That’s it, that’s the list. Actually, I’m not even sure about the flannel.”
“That’s an incredibly low bar,” Tanner said faintly.
“At her age she needs to make success achievable,” Bibi said.
“How old is she?”
“Thirty,” Bibi said in horror.
“And you are?”
She made a face at him. “Early to late-ish sixties, but I’ve been married twice so this isn’t about me.”
I scanned the room and moved on, leaving Tanner to unravel that logic.
Jo was now by the tree, talking quietly with Roy. He was gesturing toward Silas’s photo, face serious. She nodded, eyes shining, then leaned in to hug him, pressing her face into his chest.
I didn’t hear what he said, but when she pulled back, she looked . . . lighter. Like some last invisible weight had finally been set down.
On the other side of the room, my father and Libby ended up side by side, each holding a plate, both looking like they weren’t entirely sure how they’d gotten there. Libby said something, head tilting up, eyes sparkling. Ethan tried to respond around a mouthful of pie, gesturing with his fork.
He flushed. She laughed.
Apparently he didn’t need anything off a shelf anymore.
Claire noticed from across the room, eyebrows lifting, a complicated expression flickering through her eyes—surprise, amusement, something else.
Interesting.
If Silas was somewhere watching this, he was probably howling.
“Stop overthinking and move,” I muttered to myself.
I crossed to Jo.
She looked up as I approached, as if sensing me before I spoke. She did that more and more—like I’d become a fixed point in her internal map.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Dance with me,” I said.
Her eyebrows rose. “Now?”
“No, two weeks from now. Get over here.”
Her smile flashed, quick and bright. “Bossy.”
“But you like it,” I said. She didn’t deny it. I slid my palm to the small of her back and guided her a step closer to the tree—just enough room to move without tripping over a stray boot or Bibi’s purse.
The song playing was some old version of White Christmas, all strings and nostalgia. We swayed, not quite on the beat.
“I like this,” she murmured against my shoulder.
“Which part?” I asked. “The dancing? The tree? The matchmaking assault happening to my friend?”
“That’s just bonus content,” she said. “I meant . . . this. Just being here with you.” Her fingers curled in the fabric of my shirt. “I don’t want it to end.”
“It doesn’t have to,” I said. “In fact, I’m counting on it not.”
She tipped her head back, searching my face. “You sound very sure of yourself, Keaton.”
I reached into my pocket.
For once, no one shouted my name.
“Jo,” I said.
Her breath hitched.
“I had this whole plan,” I admitted. “Dinner. Walk. Sentimental nonsense about stars and fate and the way you threaten me with firearms.”
She sniffed. “Romantic.”
“The thing is,” I said, my throat tightening, “I know what Silas wanted me to find.”
“And that was?”
I hugged her closer. “You. Me. Forgiveness. The truth. And an understanding of what really matters in the end.”
She rested her head on my shoulder. “I love that.”