'Tis the Season (17 page)

 

F
ILOMENA
'
S WARNINGS
to the kids at the supermarket had been right: they'd bought way too much food. And she was delighted.

In her mind, this was what Thanksgiving was supposed to be: a table straining under the weight of abundant food, candles flickering above the holiday linens, light glinting off the silverware and splintering into rainbows when it hit the crystal glasses and serving dishes. And soft, soothing music—she'd chosen a Corelli CD to accompany the meal.

More important than the table settings, the candlesticks, the music and the food was that people she cared for filled the chairs.

She did not want to become dependent on Evan and his children. But that evening, when they'd all joined hands around the table and bowed their heads, and Evan had asked each of them to think about what he or she had to be thankful for, Filomena had been thankful for
them
, for their presence at her table. The past few months of her life had been dreadful. She'd lost her mother and been left with a financial disaster to unravel; she'd been distracted from her studies, worried and grieving. She'd
fled the city just to get away, to find a quiet place to heal—and to prepare herself to bid farewell to her childhood home. She should have been a wreck.

But she wasn't, because two scrappy youngsters had trespassed on her property and on her heart. And then she'd met their father. It didn't matter that she would be leaving in little more than a month. What mattered was that they were together now. For that, she was grateful beyond measure.

Billy said he was grateful that he didn't wind up in Mrs. Thompson's class, because everyone said she was mean and she yelled all the time and gave lots of homework. Gracie said she was grateful that Filomena had found her butterfly barrette and that Stuart gave her candy whenever he saw her—Evan interjected, for Filomena's benefit, that Stuart worked with him at Champion Sports. Evan said he was grateful that his children were healthy and happy and that his work enabled him to provide them with a safe, comfortable home, and he was grateful that when they'd done something as boneheaded as climbing out Billy's window, Filomena had brought them back to him.

Filomena said she was grateful that they were all together for this fine feast.

And then they feasted. Gracie and Billy devoured an entire can of cranberry sauce between them. After muttering about how she didn't like whole-wheat bread, Gracie consumed a small mountain of the whole-wheat bread stuffing. Each child polished off a drumstick, and Billy bravely ate a few forkfuls of butternut squash. They made a serious dent in the basket of warm rolls, ignored the steamed beans and avoided spilling their milk, which
Filomena had served in elegant glasses rather than the plastic cups Evan had brought with him.

He'd also brought wine, something white and dry and delicious. She'd been resigned to serving one of her father's Bordeaux, but red wine really didn't go with turkey, and she was delighted that Evan had thought to bring a chardonnay with him. He'd also brought the rolls—one of those cylindrical cardboard boxes that popped open to release precut rounds of dough. He must have known his kids would want to eat them. “Are you sure we're not supposed to broil them?” he'd joked as she'd arranged them on a cookie sheet and slid them into the oven to bake.

The conversation around the table roamed from Tank Moody, the professional football player with whom Evan was doing his big seasonal promotion, to Gracie's having mastered backward somersaults, to Billy's insightful comments about
Freddy the Detective
. The children were not just well-behaved; they were actually pleasant company. Filomena was almost disappointed when they asked to be excused from the table.

“Can we play with those cards?” Gracie asked shamelessly. “They were so pretty.”

“They aren't toys,” Filomena said with a shake of her head. “If you want a regular deck of cards to play with, look in the drawer in the table next to the couch in the living room. There are several decks inside. Or you can play chess or checkers. The checkerboard's on the coffee table. But the tarot cards aren't for playing with.”

“Are they magic?” Gracie asked.

Filomena hesitated before answering. She knew they weren't, but she liked to pretend they were. “Some peo
ple think so,” she hedged. “They're for telling fortunes. Reading the future is never a game.”

“Will you tell us our fortunes?” Billy asked. “Using those cards, I mean.”

“Not tonight. Some other time, maybe.” She didn't want to tell their fortunes while she had Evan sitting at the far end of the table, facing her, the candlelight rippling gold across his face and his eyes shimmering with the sort of contentment that settled into a person after sharing a filling, tasty meal with loved ones.

She wouldn't want to tell his fortune, either, not tonight and not some other time. It would probably be full of things she'd rather not know: that he would live a long, richly rewarding life, a life she would never be a part of or even witness, because she would have left Arlington and gotten on with her own life, apart from him and his children. That he would fall in love with a wonderful woman. That he would marry again, and spend every night looking as content as he looked right now.

She had definitely grown too dependent on him. For this one night she would indulge herself and not worry about it. Tomorrow she would start pulling back again, erecting her defenses and protecting herself.

“You shouldn't have been so lenient about their messing with those cards,” Evan chided once the children were gone from the room. “They had no business going into your room and touching your things.”

She shrugged. “They were curious. Curiosity isn't a crime.”

“Tampering with other people's property is.”

“They didn't ‘tamper' with anything,” she said, chuckling at the melodramatic term. “Tarot cards are beautiful. I remember the first time I saw a deck. I was
enchanted by it.” She balanced her fork and knife on her plate and nudged it away. “Anyway, no harm was done. It wasn't worth getting upset over.”

“You're so mellow,” he said, shaking his head in obvious admiration. “Someone else would have thrown a fit and put everyone in a sour mood.
I
probably would have. But you just…” He shook his head again, apparently amazed. “You just shrugged it off.”

She had never considered herself particularly mellow. She supposed she'd suffered a twinge of irritation when she and Evan had discovered the children in her bedroom. But Thanksgiving was too important a celebration to taint with anger. And the kids had looked so natural seated on the floor beside her bed, as if they belonged there, as if they felt utterly at home.

That was another dangerous thought. She deleted it from her mind. Later, perhaps, when the Myerses had left, she would read her own cards. No doubt they'd tell her to get a grip, to stop lapsing into silly fantasies about Evan's children belonging in her house, about Evan belonging in her life.

“This has been one of the nicest Thanksgivings we've ever had,” he murmured.

She smiled. It had been one of the nicest for her, too. “How do you usually spend Thanksgiving?”

“Last year my parents were still in New Haven, so we drove down there and had dinner with them. They live in a suburb of Washington, D.C. now. My sister lives near Philadelphia, so they were all going to spend the holiday together.”

“Your sister? I didn't know you had a sister.” She lifted her wineglass and sipped, wishing she weren't so eager to absorb every detail about him.

“Wendy. She and her husband are lawyers. She got the brains in the family.” He said this with a grin so Filomena wouldn't take him too seriously.

She argued, anyway. “She certainly didn't get all the brains. You're a very intelligent man.”

“Oh, I'm quite the genius,” he said wryly, reaching for the wine bottle. He stood and walked the length of the table so he could refill her glass. He refilled his own, then settled into Billy's empty chair, much closer to her. “She got the school smarts. She's kind of like you, I guess. She actually enjoyed law school. She was always an honors student.”

“And you weren't?”

His grin widened. “I was a jock.”

The only jocks she'd ever known were girls at her prep school, where everyone was required to participate in sports to some extent. The jocks were more enthusiastic about that requirement than the rest of the girls, but everyone, even the least athletically inclined, had pursued sports. She'd been on the fencing team and president of the Outdoors Club, which organized day hikes and an occasional overnight camping trip.

But
real
jocks, hulking young gladiators in uniforms, big-men-on-campus types who knew the difference between baseball, football and soccer cleats and owned at least one pair of each…she'd never socialized with guys like that.

Until now. But of course, Evan hardly fit the profile of a real jock anymore. He might have been one of those heartthrob athletes in his youth, reeking of testosterone, collecting varsity letters and cheerleader girlfriends. But that description hardly fit him anymore. Today he was a
devoted father, a successful business entrepreneur—and a very intelligent man.

She wanted to continue questioning him, but he turned the spotlight on her before she could. “How about you?” he asked. “What did you usually do for Thanksgiving?”

The last few years, Thanksgiving had been low-key. Her mother would fly in from wherever and take a room at the Plaza, and Filomena would meet her there. After Filomena's father had died, she and her mother had lacked the heart for big parties at the house. “When I was a child, my parents used to host Thanksgiving here,” she told Evan, staring at the reflection of the candlelight in her wine, as white and brilliant as diamonds. “They'd invite all kinds of guests, cousins, friends from all over the world. People would stay overnight, sometimes several days. There would be heavy philosophical debates, or musical performances—” she motioned with her head toward the side parlor, where the piano was located “—or card games, or Monopoly. My parents had such a huge circle of friends.”

“They're both gone now?” he asked gently.

She nodded. “My father died nearly six years ago, my mother three months ago.”

“I'm sorry, Fil.” He gathered one of her hands in his, closing his fingers snugly around her. There was nothing seductive in the gesture. It was meant to comfort, and it did. “You're way too young to have lost both your parents.”

“My father was a lot older than my mother. He was sixty-one when I was born and eighty-three when he died. I was very close to him, though. It doesn't matter how old a person is—if you love him, whenever he dies is too
soon.” She sipped some wine. “My mother was fifty-five.”

“Was she ill?”

“No. She died in a mountain-climbing accident in the Alps.”

“Mountain climbing? Wow.” He assessed her thoughtfully. “The Alps. She must have been a world adventurer.”

“That's exactly what she was. Always off on some new adventure. She was so full of life….” Filomena sighed to keep her voice from cracking. She managed a feeble smile. “She died doing something she loved, at least.”

“Still, that must have been a terrible thing for you to go through.” He squeezed her hand gently. His palms were smooth, his fingers strong and warm. “And you inherited this house from her?”

She nodded. A month ago, maybe even a week ago, she would have started weeping at this point in the conversation. But Evan's nearness consoled her. The rich aroma of the food, the delicate tartness of the wine, the dancing candlelight and music and the warmth of his hands enveloping hers mixed enough joy in with the sadness to keep her tears at bay.

“It's a fantastic house,” he said. “I can understand why my kids fell in love with it. Maybe you ought to keep it.”

She let out a weary breath. “I can't.” Her fingers flexed against his palms, but he wouldn't release her. “When my mother died, I discovered that she'd run up enormous debts. I have to sell the house so I can pay those debts off.”

Evan grimaced, as if her pain was his own. “Ah, Fil. That sucks.”

“Actually—” her smile felt stronger “—it doesn't. The house belonged to my mother. If she'd been a bit more organized, maybe she would have sold it herself and financed her adventures with the money from the sale. Instead, I'm doing things a little backward. She had the adventures, and now the house will pay for them.” Putting the thought into words almost convinced her of its truth. “I only wish…”

He leaned closer. “You only wish…?”

“I wish she were here. I wish she could help me say goodbye to this place.” When he squeezed her hand again, she squeezed back. “Thank you for sharing this Thanksgiving with me, Evan. It's really meant a lot to me, to be able to have one last Thanksgiving here.”

He leaned toward her and touched his lips to her forehead. Just a light kiss, not romantic, not erotic, carrying none of the promise of the last kiss he'd given her, none of the risky overtones.