Page 22 of Christmas In Love

Everyone looked at him.

Cade swallowed. Well, crap. He hadn’t anticipated that maneuver. Nonchalantly, he pushed food around his plate, took a bite, and swallowed a gulp of water before saying, “I ran into someone I knew from med school.” Please leave it at that.

No such luck.

“Who?” Abby asked, her food forgotten as she leaned across the table to look at him.

“Well…” Could he make up a name? He’d never been a great liar, but probably could be now, when the circumstances required it. Yet suddenly he couldn’t think of a single female name. Not even his sisters or nieces. He sighed. “It’s Natalie.”

Brooke’s husband looked confused—he hadn’t been around for that relationship—but the others gaped at him.

“Natalie Taylor?TheNatalie Taylor?” Brooke demanded.

“The very same.” He tried to take another bite of food, but it was nearly impossible to swallow. The table was quiet. Except for the kids threatening a food fight, of course. He chanced a glance at his mom.

She didn’t look surprised. Of course not. There was his answer about whether or not she’d known his ex-girlfriend ran the Bed and Breakfast. No wonder she’d pushed him to stay there instead of the hotel. Traitor.

“Are you dating again?”

“What is she doing here?”

“Mom, did you know she lived here?”

The questions were fired off faster than an automatic gun. Cade pretended deafness and enjoyed a few bites of mashed potatoes. Creamy. Delicious. Lacking a voice box. Truly an exemplary vegetable.

“Cade! You can’t just drop that on us and then refuse to answer any questions.”

Cade flicked a glance at his oldest sister. “Last I checked, I didn’t have to tell anyone aboutmypersonal life.” Maybe if he ate his food fast enough, he could skip out early.

“Yes you do,” Abby said.

Cade raised an eyebrow.

“We’re your family!”

“Right now, you’re all just a bunch of nosey relations I didn’t get to pick myself.”

“Of all the—”

Brooke’s husband laid a hand on her leg with a look. Not an unkind look, but it stopped her words.

“Oh, cut it out, all of you, or Cade will leave as soon as he’s done shoveling food in his mouth.” Mom talked over everyone, who suddenly quieted.

Abby eyed Cade with a mixture of frustration and resignation. “Sorry, Cade. We know it’s your business. It's just that we haven’t heard about Natalie in almost four years. Not since…”

“Yeah.” Cade didn’t want her to finish the sentence. Didn’t want her to say something about how the last time the family discussed Nat, he’d been getting his sisters’ opinions on a ring. He’d been planning to propose on New Year’s Day. Except Nat stopped talking to him, then he’d gotten her letter saying she couldn’t do it anymore—she wasn’t the right girl for him, and it was better they end things before they got ‘too serious.’

He’d tried to track her down and have a conversation. But when he got to her apartment, the landlord said she’d already moved out. She didn’t answer his calls.

The table was quiet for a minute longer, until mom spoke again. “I’m going to grab the cookies. There are a lot, and they need to be frosted by tomorrow, so don’t think any of you are getting out of it.” She spoke to everyone, but her eyes lingered on Cade. She raised an eyebrow, and he nodded, almost imperceptibly. Satisfied, she walked around the kitchen island and into the large pantry beyond.

It was almost midnight by the time Cade pulled his car into a spot behind the Bed and Breakfast. There’d been over a hundred cookies to frost for his mom to take to neighbors, plus what felt like nearly a dozen kids who needed to be put to bed at varying points in the night. Cade had learned two things; bedtime as a parent was both a wonderful and a terrible thing, and he was really, really bad at decorating cookies. He was pretty sure his mom redid a few of his when she thought he wasn’t looking. And he didn’t think the half-dozen she’d sent home with him were for his benefit, but rather so she didn’t have to give them out to neighbors.

When he walked into the inn, with the tinkling sound of a bell announcing his arrival, he was surprised to hear voices in the dining room.

He could have just gone up to bed. He was exhausted, mentally and physically, but at least one of the voices belonged to Nat, so his feet took him to the dining room instead.

Nat and April were sitting at the far end of the table with a plate of cheese and crackers in front of them and a mess of Christmas decorations around them. They didn’t notice him stepping through the doorway at first, which allowed Cade to study Nat.

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