CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
“Arriving with Cait and Maeve tomorrow,” Helena says. “She’s been staying with them to help with the babies since I’ve had so much to do here.”
Jake and I linger outside the kitchen for a moment.
I hang behind him a bit, peeking around his arm.
Genny’s ginger curls are in a messy bun, and she stands at a butcher’s-block island in the middle of the kitchen.
Her wire-rimmed glasses have slipped down the bridge of her nose, and I get that paradoxical mom vibe from her—serenity and presence, but if someone were to suggest she go take a nap, she’d bolt for a dark bedroom before they finished the sentence.
At the other end of the worktop, a man holds a bundle against the center of his chest. It’s a sleeping baby so tiny he’s able to hold him securely with one hand, while dumping a measuring cup of what looks like dried fruit into a bowl with the other. He must be Ewan.
Between them, two young boys stand on stools.
With bare hands, the little ones rub cubes of butter into flour and sugar on the worktop.
The smaller one looks to be about four, and he’s locked in, concentrating so hard his little bottom lip quivers.
The older boy—eight, maybe?—is more chaotic, his own kneading punctuated by impulsive swipes and the occasional chop with the side of his hand.
“Don’t let the demons win, love.” Genny pats the older boy on the head and casts a rueful smile at the man holding the baby.
“Well, this looks promising,” Jake finally says. “Haven’t ever had a mince pie made by such ace pastry chefs.”
Everyone looks up from the worktop, smiling.
Jake nods, warmth settling into his expression.
“Genny. Ewan.” The younger boy jumps off the stool so explosively that it tips and bangs to the floor behind him.
The baby startles, and the older boy says, “Hey, Unc,” in a serious tone that suggests, Nice to see you, but I’m doing something important here.
The little one collides with Jake’s legs, and Jake lifts him with a theatrical groan. “Enzo, my best friendzo.” Enzo’s shirt rains little beaded bits of butter and sugar.
“Uncle Jake!” the boy chirps back, grinning. He pats messy, chubby hands on Jake’s cheeks, leaving behind a powdery mess.
“All right, Zozo, we’re not making an Uncle Jake pie today.”
A kid-shaped impression of loose flour is left on Jake’s jeans too, but if he notices, he doesn’t seem to mind. “Y’all right?”
“Fucking mint,” Enzo says.
“Enzo Edward Underwood!”
Two hairless cats in Fair Isle sweaters trot into the kitchen.
One is a satiny fawn color with luminescent lemon-shaped eyes, the other piebald with vivid blue eyes.
They disappear towards a different wing of the house, and a moment later, a woman screams, “Mother! Your domesticated scrotum just had a go at my fucking ankles again!”
Dryly, Ewan says to Genny, “Still wondering where he gets that mouth, love?”
“Christ on a bike,” Genny whispers. She squeezes her temples, leaving behind a sprinkle of flour.
Jake pats his nephew on the chest. “Mate, you’re doing your mum’s head in with the naughty language.
” He turns his back to the other adults, like he’s conspiring with the little boy.
Dropping his voice to a stage whisper, he says, “Let’s choose a different word to use instead.
It’ll be only ours. When we say it, we’ll be the only ones who know what it really means. ”
Enzo’s eyes widen, his cheeks flushing with mischief. His voice drops to a whisper too. “What word?”
Jake puts Enzo down and whispers back, “Think on it, and we’ll chat later, OK?” Then he comes back to stand next to me. “Everyone, this is Evie. Evie, this is my sister Imogen—”
“She can call me Genny,” she says, smiling. “We’re old friends, remember?”
“—my brother-in-law Ewan, and their boys Enzo and Felix. The little bundle there is baby Alfie.”
I wave and say hello.
“Look what the Aston Martin dragged in,” drawls a big man leaning against the arched opening between the kitchen and sitting room.
He’s as tall as Jake, but he’s rugged. Broader in the shoulders and thicker in the chest. His hair is a rich, auburn brown, a shaggy swoop across his forehead and longish around his ears.
Despite the dark hair, his eyes are pale gray-green, and his complexion is fair.
Even though sunshine seems to be a rarity this time of year, there’s a faint sunburn across his high cheekbones, and a scatter of freckles across the bridge of a nose that’s definitely been broken a time or two.
The two men hug, thumping each other between the shoulder blades. It’s a proper embrace, not one of those half-assed bro hugs that so many men seem to do. “Evie, this is my brother Miles,” Jake says.
Miles raises a hand and says, “Pleasure, Evie.” There’s a gentle melancholy about him. I think if Jake is the human embodiment of a golden retriever, his brother is a chocolate Newfoundland.
A woman bursts into the kitchen. Her hair is the same glossy auburn as Miles’s, cut in a shaggy French bob.
She looks to be a few years younger than me, and infinitely more chic in a fitted black boatneck tee and fashionably oversized denim.
Her fair pink complexion has rosettes of deeper color in rounded cheeks, and she’s wearing the vibrant shade of red lip color I fantasize about being able to pull off.
“I’m being hunted. That vile hairless cu—uh,” she flicks her attention to the boys and pivots on her choice of words, “—cat drew blood this time.”
Jake leans close and says, “This little foul-mouth is Rosalind.”
“I vaccinated Mum’s cats myself, sis,” says Miles. “If you get rabies, it’s from one of those sketchy blokes you date.”
“Bugger off.” She playfully bares her teeth, then she lifts onto her toes to give Jake a hug around his neck. “I’m surprised Daddy dearest let his golden boy come mingle with the mortals this Christmas.”
Jake frowns and musses her hair. “Love, there’s a time and a place, and you’ve managed to land on neither.”
Rosalind pirouettes over to Ewan’s bowl of chopped fruit and sticks her fingers in, snagging a piece to pop in her mouth.
“Oi! We have to let that macerate,” Ewan says.
One of Rosalind’s perfect brows pops upwards. “Isn’t that something you should be doing alone?”
Beside me, Jake mutters, “Not necessarily,” and I hide a choked laugh behind my hand.
Rosalind is still chewing brandied fruit when she comes over to give me a hug. Her perfume is spicy and warm. “Wait about forty years before you start calling me Rosalind. Call me Indi for now.”
“I’m—” The word turns into an explosive grunt as Indi squeezes me hard. “Evie.”
“Oh, love.” She takes a step back and squeezes my upper arms. “I already know.”
The Sphynx cats trot back into the kitchen. When Indi sees them, she twists around to stand behind me. “Away, beasts.”
Jake lifts the fawn cat into his arms. It headbutts his chin, purring in a low, loud rumble.
“This is Enoki,” he says, then he nods to the piebald weaving between my ankles and cooing like a pigeon.
I’m reluctantly charmed. “Indi’s nemesis there is Chanterelle, but everyone calls her Elle for short.
” He glances at his sister and says, “Some people say cats can sense evil, you know.”
“She’s going to sense my boot in her arse if she puts her teeth on me again,” Indi says.
Miles grabs a chopped walnut from the worktop to toss in his mouth. “You know I can’t stand for violence against animals, sweetheart.”
Jake leans towards me again. “Miles is a vet.”
“Ah,” I say.
“I might have a muzzle out in the truck—” Miles says.
“Brilliant,” Indi says. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean for the cat,” he laughs.
Indi lunges for him, giving chase as he feints out of the kitchen.
Helena claps her hands together, turning to Jake and me. “Well, then. Shall we move you two in?”