Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (35 page)

“Just. . .close your eyes,” he repeated and she finally did as he asked without any more questions.

Wrapping her fingers tightly with his, he carefully led her through the darkened kitchen and through the entrance into the dining room. “I’m going to let you go now, but you can’t open your eyes yet,” he warned.

“Okay.”

He turned on the twinkle lights they’d hung together on her arbor and made quick work of lighting the candles he’d set around the dining room earlier this afternoon. The flickering candlelight and the deep red poinsettias he’d scattered over the tables turned the room into what Noah hoped was a romantic Christmas atmosphere. He wanted the best for Maggie tonight. He’d been planning this gift for weeks, but when they’d finally talked and he’d stayed with her last night, he’d known he needed to add an extra boost of romance because tonight was definitely the night he was going to confess his feelings. If he waited any longer to tell her, Noah thought the words might just explode out of his chest.

He positioned himself right in front of her and the gift and said, “Maggie, open your eyes.”

He couldn’t take his own eyes off her as her eyelids flicked open and slowly took in the candlelight and the flowers and him and finally, glancing to the right, saw his gift.

Glowing in the dim light of the dining room were the muted neon lights of the jukebox that he and Cal had spent most of their afternoon installing.

“Noah,” she breathed out unsteadily. “Is that. . .” She took a hesitant step towards it, the lights playing across the wondrous expression on her face and he let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. It hadn’t mattered how many times Cal had called him a right sap for picking the perfect gift for Maggie, he’d still secretly doubted. He wanted to be so good for her, and wouldn’t let himself accept anything less. She didn’t
deserve
anything less.

“Take a look,” he said, his smile growing so wide his cheeks practically ached with it. “It’s all yours.”

She ran a hand hesitatingly over the buttons, as if she was actually afraid it might evaporate under her fingertips. Turning back to look at him, she practically glowed with an inner light. “This is amazing. Unbelievable. I can’t believe you got this for me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked slowly, quietly as he took another step towards her. The moment of truth came. “I love you, Maggie.”

Her glow grew impossibly brighter, her smile amazingly sweeter. All with his words. It made him want to say it over and over again, until she was as blinding as the sun. “I love you too,” she said. “So much.”

He couldn’t be apart from her one second longer, wrapping her up in his arms, pulling her as tight against him as he dared, burying his head into her soft, loose hair. She smelled like lemon and basil and vanilla and
home
. He’d never imagined he’d discover what home actually smelled like, but whatever it was, she was it for him.

“You want to dance?” he asked softly.

Maggie just nodded and without letting her go, because he wasn’t entirely certain he was going to ever be able to let her go, reached over to the jukebox and hit the pre-programmed track that had taken him an hour to set up. But when he saw the joy light up Maggie’s face even further, he knew the hour had totally been worth it.

“You’re silly,” she said as the cheesy ballad by the boy band that predominated her iPod started to play.

Noah shrugged. “I looked it up,” he admitted. “I knew you liked them and this song seemed pretty okay. Now, dance with me?”

“Always,” she said, smiling up at him, and melted into arms like she belonged there. And as far as Noah was concerned, she did.

“You look tired,” Tabitha sniped as she brought more stacked dirty plates into the kitchen and set them next to the sink. Maggie glanced up from where she was loading the dishwasher.

“I told you, we were out late,” Maggie admitted self-consciously. She didn’t want to share the details of her magical gift with
anyone,
especially Tabitha, who would probably put down the candles and the poinsettias and the love ballads as one sappy cliché after another. But Maggie didn’t care what anyone, especially her sister, thought, only that she’d
loved the effort and the result.

Details were apparently not required because Tabitha still grimaced. “You two are disgusting.”

“Your opinion,” Maggie said breezily. Personally she didn’t
feel
tired at all. She felt like she was floating on a cloud filled with bubbles, hovering right over the ground. Every time she felt herself begin to drop, all she had to do was replay Noah’s confession in her head and she rose right back up.

“It was a nice day, though. Dinner was so good, Mags.” Tabitha leaned over and to Maggie’s surprise, her sister’s voice sounded fairly genuine.

“Thanks. I’m glad you liked it.” Maggie paused, wondering if the time had come to say something. Tabby and Cal had spent Christmas Day much like they’d spent Christmas Eve, bickering and bantering and shooting each other heated looks that either meant they absolutely loathed each other or that they couldn’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off. Maggie wasn’t sure
they
knew which it was yet, but she’d decided that it was maybe her duty as both a sister and
a best friend to make a few choice observations. “It didn’t seem like you were very happy for much of it. Cal seemed to really annoy you.”

Tabitha waved a hand airily. “Calvin is such a bore.”

Yeah, Maggie didn’t believe that for a minute. Tabitha wouldn’t have spent practically every minute of the day glued to his every word if that was even remotely true. Admittedly, she usually argued with everything he said, but it was undeniable she was definitely attuned to him and only him.

“What is going on with you two?” Maggie finally asked flat out.

For the first time, Tabitha actually hesitated, but when she finally answered, her voice was flippant and fast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She busied her hands stacking and unstacking the dirty dishes, scraping off a minuscule amount of remaining food into the garbage disposal. Maggie put a hand on her sister’s.

“Seriously, Tabby. He’s a good guy.”

Tabitha’s eyes grew clouded and so, so bitter as she jerked her hand away. “And what? That means he’s too good for me? Is that what you’re trying to say? Make sure you stay away from Calvin, because he’s good and you’re just bad?”

Maggie felt a pulse of shame. That was exactly
what she’d so thoughtlessly meant. It was only that it was so easy to forget that Tabitha actually had feelings because she herself pretended she didn’t so much of the time. Maggie decided if they were being honest enough it was okay to actually point that out.

“No, no,” Maggie insisted. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just worried about everyone’s feelings.”

“I don’t have
any
feelings
for Cal,” Tabitha insisted, apparently aghast at the possibility.

“Not what I meant,” Maggie said patiently, quite curious that this
was the conclusion Tabitha had jumped to immediately. The only confusing part was that as far as Maggie was aware, Tabitha and Cal hadn’t even talked
in years. How could they have developed this weird hate-attraction thing in the first place?

“Do you ever talk to him?” Maggie asked. “It’s just that you seem so familiar with each other.”

Tabitha just glared. “We’ve known each other our entire lives, Mags. Of course we’re familiar with each other.”

It was only later, after the rest of the Christmas guests had left, and Tabitha had flounced off to bed, declaring herself absolutely exhausted, that Maggie realized her sister hadn’t answered the question at all.

Maggie’s To Do list for the New Year’s Eve dinner was long and verging on the ridiculous, but she couldn’t seem to get a few simple questions out of her head: how
had Tabitha known Noah was still in Sand Point, and why hadn’t she been shocked to see Noah staying at Maggie’s house?

By mid-afternoon on the second day after Christmas, Maggie was fairly certain she had worked out a half-way legitimate hypothesis, but every single time she thought it could be true, her blood boiled. Finally, fed up with her own stupid thought processes and her inability to actually get anything done, Maggie shot off a quick text after the lunch services finished and settled into the Café kitchen to finalize her menu for the big dinner.

She was carefully sautéing scallops, making sure the edges were bronzed and crisp but that the flesh didn’t end up overcooked and rubbery, when Cal walked into the kitchen. She didn’t even look up.

“I see you got my text,” Maggie said, her voice flat.

“Yeah, what’s up? Do you need some help with something?” His arms hung at his sides awkwardly and the suspicion in the back of Maggie’s head only grew. He
knew
she knew. She just wanted him to admit what he’d done instead of pretending like everything was okay.

Carefully, she plated the scallops, nestling them in the pea puree she’d artistically swirled over the plates.

“I do, actually,” Maggie said, looking up at him. “But not with the dinner. I want you to explain to me why you’d tell Tabitha that Noah was still in Sand Point and that he’d moved into my house.”

Cal was silent and didn’t even look up from the floor.

“That was not okay,” Maggie said with dignity, careful to keep all the anger and hurt she felt out of her voice. She wasn’t even sure he deserved to know just how much he’d pissed her off.

“It’s not. . .it’s . . .” Cal sighed. “I swear to god, Maggie, it’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow. “Cause I think it looks like you got pissed off and jealous and brought in reinforcements—the
one
reinforcement you thought could derail the whole damn thing.”

Cal shifted uncomfortably. “Actually . . .no. That’s not it.”

Maggie hunched over her plate and sprinkled fresh chives over the surface of the scallops. Leaning back, she took in her dish and examined it from every angle to make sure it was absolutely perfect. “Then explain.”

“Sometimes Tabitha and I email each other.”

This was the last thing Maggie expected to hear, but once he’d said it, she had to admit that this one piece of information made everything else she’d seen over the last few days make so much more sense. “Sometimes?”

“It kind of started when you went to culinary school in San Francisco,” he said carefully. “You wouldn’t really talk to her. You were mad about something. Probably a boyfriend or some other crap she’d pulled. So once in a while she’d email me to make sure you were okay.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

“And it continued. Sometimes.”

“Cal, that was seven years ago,” Maggie pointed gently because wow, that was
seven
years ago. They’d been talking for seven years. Maggie wasn’t sure what end was up and what was down. Everything she’d believed suddenly made both more sense and much, much less.

“I know,” he said, and she hated that he wouldn’t look at her. And she
was
mad. Mad that he’d kept this from her for so long. Mad that he’d said so many judgmental things about Tabitha over the years, essentially behind her back, while the whole time he’d secretly been her friend.

“Don’t you think I deserved to know?” Maggie finally asked.

“I know you did,” he admitted.

Maggie sighed with exasperation. “Then I don’t understand.”

“It wasn’t a big deal the first year or so. We’d only email once a month, sometimes even less. Just checking in. Really basic stuff.”

Maggie was beginning to understand what the hell was going on. “And then it wasn’t just basic stuff,” she finished for him.

“And then it wasn’t,” he agreed. “I told her about Noah because I was worried about you. I could tell you had feelings for him, and I wanted to make sure he really was a good guy.”

“So you didn’t know she would show up?” Maggie grabbed a fork from the dish rack and scooted the plate over to Cal.

“I was just as surprised as you,” he admitted, cutting into a scallop.

“I bet,” Maggie said. “So. . .should I be pissed that you wanted to date me when you actually had a thing for her?”