Twelfth Day of Christmas #5
He winked at her, took Houlihan’s hand, and left.
In the sudden quiet, Kestrel realized she and Hank were alone.
He was lightly holding her hand, his thumb rubbing across her fingers.
That small touch lit up so many feelings inside her.
But just then, none felt especially negative or necessarily positive.
They just were. Heartache, hope, disappointment, bliss: It’s all pudding, love.
“How were you, really?” he asked. “After the breakup, I thought you were okay and had moved on. Am I here chucking boulders in your placid pond?”
“Is that a saying?”
“I have no idea.”
She smiled but it turned grim. It wasn’t too late to flee this conversation, but her oft-ignored gut was opening encouragingly, an invitation to engage.
And if whatever this was brewing between them was to have any hope at longevity, they would have to talk it out sooner or later.
She took a deep breath and admitted, “I was devastated. I hated you. And I never got over loving you. I probably started going out again immediately—”
“You did.”
She pulled her hand away, her whole body tensing. “How do you know?”
Hank rested his forearms on the table and looked down.
“I missed you so much, every part of me hurt like I’d been hit by a bus.
I didn’t have a plan about my family or the future, all I knew was that being away from you felt wrong, and I had to try again.
I went to our—to your place to talk to you.
You weren’t home, so I waited in my truck.
But when you came back . . . you were with a man, holding him, kissing him as you walked up the stairs. ”
Kestrel’s legs shook, reminding her that running away was still an option. She looked up into the starry expanse of the chandelier and kept breathing.
“And then after that, my sister kept me apprised of your doings,” said Hank.
“She showed me photos she found on your or your friends’ socials—you at clubs and parties, your arms around guys.
I think she was purposefully gathering evidence to convince me I should stop grieving your loss.
It was meant kindly. She didn’t want to see me hurting. ”
Kestrel snorted. She doubted Anika’s altruistic intentions. “Just because I started going out immediately didn’t mean I was over you. Exactly the opposite. It was how I coped.”
“I see,” said Hank. “How quickly you appeared to move on did seem like evidence that you hadn’t cared for me the way I had for you.”
“I didn’t move on. I hooked up! I can’t just sit still. I do not pine. I raze the past and let it burn and then shift over to a new place. I’m not saying it’s the healthiest process—but hey, I’m not defending my choices here!”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I know, I know. I was . . . sort of talking to the negative voice in my head, not you. But after you broke up with me, everyone I met, I compared to you. And no one could compare. I kept burning and shifting, never staying in any relationship long.”
“That sounds exhausting,” said Hank.
“You know what?” Kestrel said. “It is. And I’m tired of it.”
“I pined,” said Hank. “I pined hard. I pined so much I was a forest. I firred and spruced too. I aspened like a mother.”
“That’s where all the squirrels came from.”
“The piney forest of my heart. And maybe that’s not the healthiest either—”
“Ugh, who knows anything? We coped the best we could, and now here we are—”
“On a staircase.”
Kestrel looked around. Apparently they had come up the servant staircase and just kept climbing till they were at the top, outside a locked door that must lead to the attic.
“Yeah, how did we get here?”
“I don’t know, I was following you!” Hank said, laughing.
“I honestly meant to force myself to stay at that dining room table and talk it out! Maybe my body was still trying to flee, though I don’t remember the thought process that brought us to this exact locale.”
Standing two steps below her, Hank was able to look directly into her eyes. He put his hands on her waist, she draped hers around his neck. Warmth poured through her, pooling in her lower abdomen with a pleasant, eager sensation.
“I never know where I’ll end up when I’m with you. You’re a dangerous woman, Sarah Kestrel Klein.”
His gaze dropped to her lips, and she felt her body leaning toward him, pulled like a magnet. Balanced at the top of a very old narrow staircase, she wanted nothing more than to kiss him. Kiss him dangerously. She rubbed her thumb over his growing sideburns. He rested his forehead against hers.
Kestrel became aware of distance-softened dance music and sounds of laughter. Her face turned toward the noise, and Hank, who knew she couldn’t bear to miss out on fun, asked, “Do you want to go back?”
“No. But yes, we should. It’s the ball.” And my last day, she thought mournfully. “But let’s also keep . . . talking.”
She barely managed to cough out that last word.
She’d spent the past years burying every thought of What Went Wrong with Hank.
She might have succeeded in running away from contemplation, but she’d never been successful at burying the feeling of the loss.
And just like hell, the only way out of a feeling was through it.
In the ballroom, the current dance was full, so they kept to the sides of the room, their leisurely waltz an excuse to wrap their arms around each other.
“I hated how you rejected me, and it still hurts, and I think you made the wrong choice, but also . . .” Kestrel flinched. “I know how precious your family is to you. I just wish they hadn’t forced you to make that decision.”
Hank shook his head. “Sure they pressured me, but I let it happen because I was sure you’d be better off.
You yearned to be pulled into a big loving family.
After that Christmas, I knew you’d never get that from mine.
So I convinced myself that if I let you go, you could find someone better, someone with a family who kept their heads on top of their necks instead of shoved up their nether regions. ”
Kestrel looked at him skeptically. “Find someone better than you? Get your own head out of Nether-land, Kern.”
“I rejected the only person who has ever really seen me and loved me for who I am. What kind of a man does that?”
“You’re a patient and gentle man,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand.
“But also bitter and angry!” He twisted his face into a mocking grimace. “Hard and sharp and brittle—and I have a mild allergy to cantaloupe!”
“Who could want such a catastrophe? Except Greta Great-Family, of course.”
“Who?”
“Anika told me you were engaged to Greta. Is that true?”
Hank stopped moving. “When did Anika tell you this?”
“Day before yesterday, when she showed up here in a Packers hoodie.”
Hank gaped, his arms dropping to his sides.
Kestrel took a step back. “You didn’t know Anika was here? She warned me not to be confused about why you’d come because you weren’t actually trying to woo me because you were set to marry a good Wisconsin girl from a great family—”
Hank started to swear as only those raised on a dairy farm can. It was far from Regency appropriate. Kestrel took his arm and, smiling demurely to those nearest his swear-storm, walked him out of the ballroom.
He spoke through gritted teeth. “Anika texted me a couple of days ago, but she neglected to mention that she was texting from England.”
Hank fished his phone out of an inner jacket pocket, and Kestrel gasped. They were in the front hall, and before anyone might spot it, she pulled him out the front door, shutting it behind them.
“How did you get your phone—” Kestrel managed to say before the cold took her breath.
Hank was scanning through messages with his thumb. “Edwin stole it back for me when I was thinking of leaving early . . . Here it is.”
ANIKA
Thought you’d like to know that I ran into Kestrel recently.
She seemed a little off. Drugs??? Anyway she said some nasty things about you having bad teeth and smelling like manure and how she was so happy she got away from joining the family.
What a witch! Anyway that was a close call right?
Anyway the kids hope to see uncle hank soon.
“She was my favorite member of your family,” Kestrel said sadly. She was shivering, and though it wasn’t entirely from the freezing temperature of the English winter night, when Hank placed his jacket over her shoulders, the warmth touched more than just her chilled skin.
“To be fair,” said Kestrel, pulling her arms through his long jacket sleeves, “I insulted the genetic proclivity for cavities of the entire Kern clan, and I did apologize for insulting manure.”
“I should hope so.”
As they walked along the side of the house, Hank reached down to scoop up a handful of snow and began to squeeze it into a ball. She didn’t know how he could bear to do that without gloves and then reminded herself that he was from Wisconsin.
He looked down at the snowball as he spoke. “I saw Anika’s text right as the Windy Nook folk arrived at Pembrook, so I went looking for you. I was headed to your room . . . and I . . .” He took a breath. “I saw you outside your door kissing someone.”
Kestrel’s whole body tensed.
Hank reached out and gently took her hand, as if to keep her from running away.
His fingers were cold from the snow, but his voice was warm when he said, “I want to be better at communicating. Staying silent all these years hasn’t healed anything.
So the truth is, seeing you like that brought back all those emotions again.
I felt like an ass for assuming that you cared about me.
Clearly this was even more proof that to you, I was disposable. That I still am.”