Chapter 8
As Harrison was finishing up in the kitchen, he smelled smoke. His first thought was that the tree had caught on fire. He ignored his knee, stiff from sitting at the table, and sprinted into the living room.
The tree was not on fire, but there was one in the hearth, and apparently, some of the wood was a little green.
Amy was sitting cross-legged in front of it, staring into the flames, waving her hand in front of her face.
She glanced up. “I hope you don’t mind. The rain started coming down and I felt chilled. ”
“You built that fire?”
“I did.”
Harrison looked back at the fire.
“Did you check the flue?”
“I checked the flue. It’s open.”
He stared at the fire again.
“Maybe you could look slightly less shocked? You learn a few things when you have sons in scout programs. Would you like to join me?”
Well, he was surprised, and he couldn’t help it.
“Are you going to stand there looking flummoxed, or are you going to sit?”
“Wow,” he said. “I have not heard the word flummoxed used in a sentence in a very long time. You’re sure you don’t mind if I invade your space?”
“It’s your space, too. We should declare the living room the neutral zone.
And no, I don’t mind at all.” She said it so warmly that he felt a strange little flutter in his belly.
He didn’t hesitate—he eased himself down onto the thick rug next to her, hoping he’d be able to get up when the time came, because his knee was stiffening up.
“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, I had some serious navel-gazing scheduled this evening.” He was glad she’d stuck around after dinner because he was enjoying this evening very much.
Dinner had felt a little like he was dining with an old friend.
Except he didn’t have any friends who looked like Amy.
She’d let her hair down since the meal. It was a glossy chestnut color that fell around her shoulders. He had an insane urge to touch it.
“Oh no, I feel so bad now. I don’t want to keep you from something so important.”
“I’ll manage to squeeze it in,” he said, and stretched his legs out and settled back on his elbows. It was nice in here with the fire, the Christmas music on low, the lights of the tree blinking on and off. “So what do you suggest we do in front of this fire?” he asked.
“Drink brandy. And play a game that doesn’t require a board. Something like two truths and a lie.”
That sounded like a plan he could get behind. “Where’s the brandy?”
“I don’t think there is any.”
“Bummer. No brandy, no games…Shall I concoct an after-dinner drink? I overdid it at the liquor store today.”
“I would really like that,” she said.
Harrison leaped up—hiding just how much it hurt to leap right now—because he suddenly felt the need to be fit and agile in the presence of this woman. He returned a few minutes later with two cider drinks. He handed one to Amy.
“What’s this?” she asked, looking down at the contents.
“Apple cider and bourbon. I need a fancy name for it. And maybe some apples or cinnamon sticks.” He smiled self-consciously. “I wasn’t thinking with my entertaining hat on this afternoon. Hope you’re okay with bare bones.”
“Are you kidding? My whole life is bare bones.” She sipped. She immediately wrinkled her nose. “Got the bourbon, all right, with a hint of cider.”
He grinned as he eased himself down next to her. “Are you accusing me of a heavy pour?”
“Not accusing—it’s happening in my mouth right now.”
“I could add some sugar. Want me to go—”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I like it. This will either build some awesome character or put hair on my chest.”
“I’m going to hope for the former,” Harrison said. “So how do you play the game?”
“Seriously? You’ve never played two truths and a lie?”
He shook his head.
“It’s easy. You tell me three things about yourself—two truths, one lie, obviously—and I have to guess the lie. If I’m right, you have to drink. If I’m wrong, I have to drink. And then it’s my turn. We go back and forth until we exhaust ourselves or one of us passes out stone-cold drunk.”
“I like it. I just don’t know if I can think of three things.”
“The trick is not to overthink it. Just toss something out there. Oh, and don’t do what I do and talk so much that the lie is obvious.”
He liked her sense of humor, her style of being. He especially liked her blue eyes and her smile. “Got it. So who goes first?”
“I’m thinking of a number between one and ten.”
“Eight,” he said automatically.
“Correct. You first.” She grinned, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“Wow. I was just had and I never saw it coming. Let me think.” He stared at the fire for a few moments.
Amy started to hum the theme from Jeopardy!
Everything that popped into his head sounded inane.
What did he have to say about himself? He couldn’t think of one single interesting thing.
“Okay,” he said. “I ran into my parent’s neighbor on a beach in Fiji.
” He held up a finger. “I had two scholarships for college—one for golf, one for physics.” Two fingers.
“I have hiked to the top of Kilimanjaro.” Three fingers.
The sparkle in Amy’s eyes went deeper. “How interesting,” she said. “Wait…where is Kilimanjaro again?”
Harrison blinked.
Amy laughed roundly and pointed at his glass. “Drink up, cowboy. And next time, don’t make the lie so obvious.”
“Obvious? I think I’m insulted. Why is it obvious I haven’t hiked to the top of Kilimanjaro? I mean, besides not knowing where it is?”
“For starters, by your own admission, you play golf all the time. When are you going to have time to train for a climb like that? Second, mountain climbers usually mention that in the first fifteen minutes of meeting them. You know, like runners mention their personal best. And three, you were smiling when you said it.”
“I was?”
“Like, so hard,” she said, and laughed at his crestfallen look.
He sighed, sipped his drink. It was a stout one. “Okay, your turn. Two truths and a lie, Miss Mountain Climbing Expert.”
“Sure! I took ballet until I was eighteen.”
Harrison nodded. Sounded entirely plausible. Didn’t all girls try on ballet at some point in their lives?
“I uncovered an embezzlement scheme in our office a few years ago.”
Bingo. She’d said she worked in human resources, he was fairly certain. That didn’t sound like the sort of job where you looked at finances. “One more,” he said, gesturing for her to go on so he could astound her with his perceptions.
“I took a class on how to be a private eye.”
Harrison snorted. “You’re pretty easy, too, you know. Ballet seems like a no-brainer. The private eye thing, you were probably just bored. The obvious lie is discovering an embezzlement scheme at your work.” He pointed to her glass. “Bottoms up.”
“That’s so cute,” she said. “You’re so sure you’re right.”
Harrison’s grin faltered only slightly. “I see what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to make me second-guess myself.”
“I never took a class on how to be a private eye, although now that I’ve said it, I think I will. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
Harrison’s smile morphed into a frown. “Come on, that can’t be the lie.”
“Why not? I took ballet until I was eighteen at the insistence of my mother. I hated it. Maybe I should have added that in.”
“Wait…you caught someone embezzling from a company? From your human resources job?”
“Oh gosh no, not like that,” she said.
“This is what I’m saying,” he said. “Drink up.”
“I found out through my book club. Sometimes, we drink too much at book club, and you know what they say, loose lips sink ships. There she was, the month we read The Nightingale, like she didn’t have a care in the world. And really, she didn’t. She’d just bought a boat.”
How did a book club get involved? Harrison shook his head. “I’m not following.”
“Bookkeepers in the railroad-tie industry don’t make that kind of dough,” she said. “I started thinking about it and realized that she’d made several big purchases in recent months. So, I mentioned it to my boss, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Huh,” he said, nodding as understanding dawned. “That’s a good one. Maybe you don’t need the PI class.”
She touched her glass to his. “Drink.”
He did as commanded as she shifted around to put her back against the couch. He did the same. He was sitting close enough to her that her skirt draped partially over his knee. “Your turn,” she said.
“I’m starting to worry that at the rate this is going, I’m going to be shit-faced, and you will know all my stupid secrets, and I’ll know nothing about you.”
“Don’t sell your secrets short, pal. I bet at least one is juicy. And you already know the big picture about me,” Amy said. “I’m a mom, I’m divorced, I’m trying to rekindle a career that I might have had, and I’m pretty sure I need new glasses.”
“See? I didn’t know about the glasses.”
“That’s because I always lead with the mom stuff.
I’m really trying to be less Mom and more my own person.
” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
“It’s not as easy as it seems. I used to be my own person all the time, twenty-four seven.
But then, somewhere along the way, I morphed into Mom. ”
“I get it,” he said. “I want to be less a golfer and more my own person. But I’ve lost sight of who my own person is.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I guess it boils down to me not knowing what I want at this stage of my life. I always thought I knew, but now, I’m not so sure. And I’m a little uncertain how to go about finding out.”
“Middle age sucks,” Amy said. She shifted a little, leaning against him, her shoulder pressed against his. “Come on, let’s play another round. I am highly entertained by how badly you lie.”