Chapter 25 #4
Except it wasn’t so simple, Lucy realized as she rushed around the kitchen on the Sunday after the official Thanksgiving Day, trying to make sure everything was ready at the same time.
Juliet had offered to help, but Lucy wanted to prove to her—and everyone else—that she could do it on her own. She just hoped she actually could.
At least the napkins looked cute.
By five o’clock everyone had assembled in the dining room and Lucy had most of the dishes on the table, including the promised green bean casserole and marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes.
She was saving the turkey for last, wanting to bring it to everyone just like in a movie or a painting, everything golden and gleaming and perfect.
And it was almost like that, except she tipped the platter a little as she set it on the table, and turkey grease dripped onto the once-pristine white tablecloth and splattered onto Peter, so he jumped up and brushed ineffectually at his trousers.
“Sorry!” Lucy exclaimed, and Peter just smiled and sat down again.
A little turkey grease hardly mattered, not when she was sitting at a table with friends and family—Rachel and her family, Peter and his father—Peter had tenderly tucked a napkin into his father’s shirt, which had almost made Lucy choke up—Alex and his daughters, and Juliet.
People she cared about. People who cared about her.
This was her home, Lucy knew then, without a doubt. Her home and where her heart was, no matter what did or didn’t happen with Alex. Of course she was staying here.
“Lucy?” Juliet’s amused voice broke into her thoughts.
“Yes?” She smiled at her sister, and Juliet nodded towards the turkey.
“Aren’t you going to carve?”
“Oh. Um.” That was something she’d never done before. With a deep breath Lucy picked up the carving knife and fork. She began, tentatively, to saw with the knife and didn’t even break through the glossy brown skin.
“You’ve got to commit,” Rachel said with a laugh. “It’s dead already. You’re not going to hurt it.”
“Okay, okay,” Lucy said with an answering laugh. “I get it.”
Commit. She could do that. She took the first uneven hacked-off slice and put it on Rachel’s plate. “Satisfied?”
“I wouldn’t recommend you try for a job at a carvery, but yes. It looks delicious.”
The evening passed in a blur of good food and conversation; at least, mostly good food. The green bean casserole was burned on the bottom and the gravy was lumpy, but everyone pronounced the meal a success, and Bella and Poppy both gave Lucy a thumbs-up after trying pumpkin pie for the first time.
By nine o’clock everyone was feeling sleepy and satisfied, lolling back in their chairs as Juliet filled glasses with port.
“An English tradition,” she told Lucy. “We can’t have an entirely American Thanksgiving.”
“The English celebrate Thanksgiving?” Lucy teased, and Juliet smiled back.
“We rejoice at being free of you bolshy lot,” Rachel chimed in.
Lucy brandished papers and pencils. “And to cap off the evening, a pub quiz! Minus the pub, of course. And all the questions have to do with Thanksgiving.”
Rachel took her paper and pencil with alacrity, and then frowned as she read out some of the questions. “Thanksgiving came to be a national holiday thanks to which woman?” She looked up at Lucy. “I have absolutely no idea.”
“Take a guess.”
“Umm . . . Martha Washington? Betsy Ross?”
“Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book,” Lucy answered. “That was a hard one. The others are easier.”
Everyone grumbled good-naturedly as they tried to answer the questions, and Lucy began to clear the table. The sink was overflowing with greasy pots and pans, and dirty dishes littered nearly every available surface of the kitchen. Cleaning up was going to take all night.
“Would you like help with the washing up?”
Lucy turned around, her heart lurching in spite of her brain’s intentions to stay normal and friendly with Alex. He was already rolling up the sleeves of his button-down shirt and just the sight of his strong brown forearms with their light sprinkling of hair made her feel a little weak.
“Umm, sure. You don’t want to complete the quiz?”
“I left the girls to it.” He moved over to the sink, taking the pots and pans out so he could fill it with hot water. “It looks like a tornado hit in here.”
“That’s how I cook.”
“That’s how you live,” Alex answered, his smile taking the sting from the words. “You blow into people’s lives like a whirlwind.”
“Or a tornado.”
“Right.”
They stared at each other, the moment spinning out until Lucy wondered what it was turning into, if anything. Then the water started frothing up with bubbles and Alex turned off the taps, effectively breaking the moment, if there had ever been one.
Blindly Lucy reached for some dirty plates.
She handed them to Alex one by one and he rinsed them off before stacking them in the dishwasher.
They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes, but Lucy could feel the tension winding tighter and tighter inside her.
She felt as if she might burst with it, with the need to say something.
“I’m staying in Hartley-by-the-Sea,” she blurted.
Alex stared at her, a plate nearly slipping from his hand. “Pardon?”
“I’m staying,” Lucy repeated. “Not at the school, obviously, since Nancy Crawford will want her job back. But I realized I don’t have much in Boston to return for, and I like the life I’ve made for myself here.
Juliet’s offered to let me live with her, and so .
. .” She shrugged, spreading her hands. “I’m staying.
I thought you should know. Not,” she amended hurriedly, “that it changes anything, you know, between us.”
“No,” Alex agreed, and put the plate he was holding into the dishwasher. “No, of course not.”
Not exactly the response she’d been hoping for, but the one she’d expected. Sort of. “Well, then.” She gave him a cheery smile. “We’ll be neighbors. Or rather, fellow villagers, which sounds kind of medieval.”
“Fellow villagers,” Alex repeated. He slotted another plate into the dishwasher without looking at her. “Yes.”
He didn’t sound very pleased. Lucy wondered if she should have told him. But he would have found out eventually, and anyway, she thought with sudden savagery, screw Alex Kincaid. He’d have to get used to seeing her about the village, that was all. This was her home too now.
She grabbed the turkey platter and shoved it towards him.
She’d meant to hand it to him to rinse, but the platter tipped forward and cold, congealed turkey juices splattered all over Alex’s front.
The situation was made even worse when Alex reflexively caught the platter and brought it to his chest. He was, Lucy thought with a swallowed bubble of near-hysterical laughter, more covered in grease than when he’d climbed the pole at the Crab Fair.
“I’m sorry,” she managed, and realized she didn’t even sound all that sorry. She let out a little snort of laughter and then clapped her hands over her mouth as Alex, still holding the greasy platter, narrowed his eyes.
“Are you . . . laughing at me?”
“Maybe,” she said between her fingers. “A little.”
Carefully he placed the platter down on the counter. His shirt was stuck to his chest with grease. Lucy looked away, only to give a little gasp of surprise as she felt his hand on her shoulder, pulling her towards him.
And then, amazingly, he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back—of course she was—grease and all.
A few wonderful minutes later, Lucy heard the sound of a throat clearing and she broke apart from Alex to see Juliet standing in the doorway, giving them both a narrow look.
“We’ve finished the quiz.”
“Oh—” Lucy could not think what else to say. She pressed her fingers to her lips and felt how she was grinning. She felt as if she were glowing from the inside out.
Juliet turned to Alex, her expression severe. “I hope you’re going to be sensible about this.”
Alex looked discomfited; he was the one used to giving stern looks, Lucy supposed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I won’t have you hurting my sister. You’d better be serious about her.”
Alex looked even more taken aback, but he nodded. “I am serious, Juliet. That’s why it took me so long to come around.”
“And you too, Lucy,” Juliet added, turning that schoolteacherish stare onto her. “Remember that there are two young girls involved—”
“I know, Juliet—”
“Does this mean you’re staying, then?”
“Yes—”
Alex turned to her. “I thought you’d already decided.”
“I had,” Lucy said quickly. “I just hadn’t told anyone yet.”
“Well, then.” Juliet nodded, her hands on her hips. “You’d better get in there and mark that ridiculous quiz.” The phone rang as she waved them towards the dining room. “I’ll get that. You go on.”
Lucy walked into the dining room; she felt as if she were floating. Alex reached for her hand and squeezed.
“About the girls—,” he began, but Bella was already half-rising from her seat.
“You’ve got together!” she cried, exultant. “I can see it in your faces!”
Everyone turned to look at them, scanning their expressions. Now Lucy was both blushing and grinning like a loon, and she didn’t even care.
“Together? Are you and Daddy going to get married?” Poppy asked, her hands clasped together.
“Don’t rush them, Poppy,” Bella muttered. “For heaven’s sake.”
“I think we’ll take it one step at a time,” Alex said as he sat down at the table. “Now what about this quiz?”
Lucy was just starting to read the answers out when Juliet came back into the dining room. She stood in the doorway, silent, and Lucy hadn’t even noticed her entrance until Peter rose from his chair, his forehead furrowed. “Juliet?”
Lucy turned, and saw how strange Juliet looked, all pinched and pale. Before she could ask if she was all right, Juliet spoke.
“The phone’s for you, Lucy,” she said flatly. “It’s Fiona.”