Page 19 of Christmas Past
And get attention to her foot, too.
He and the other agents had determined that it was best not to tell the family, or anyone else about the sensations Bella and been experiencing. The knowledge would serve no purpose and could do plenty of harm to those were so frantically awaiting news.
“What gift?” she asked after a few seconds. She was grinding in her mortar while he ground in another. He breathed in a whiff of peppermint. And was reminded of the coffee he’d had that morning. A blend he could get in Christmas Town year round.
“Your ability to feel people,” he told her. He couldn’t let them get off track. Couldn’t let himself get sidetracked, for one second, by the idea that there was pleasure to be had there in her little stone house. Grinding fresh herbs with a fascinating woman who was so different from anyone he’d ever known.
Who, in all of the hours they’d been together, hadn’t bored him to death.
“What’s to tell?” She frowned at him across the island. “You know what I know.”
He doubted he’d ever understand what she did. But more clearly articulated what he’d really wanted to know. “Growing up, I mean. You said that you believed you had the ability to know what people were feeling. It sounds like a lot of people think your mother has a gift. But your sisters seem to do other jobs for the family. How do gypsies determine who has the gift?”
“I can’t speak for other families, but for me, there was this game…”
Grabbing the funnel she’d put out for him, he poured ground herb into bottles as she’d shown him and then capped it off.
“They’d form a circle and put me in the middle. They’d name an emotion and I’d have to guess who was feeling it.”
“Wouldn’t it be obvious? Whoever named the emotion would most likely be the one feeling it."
“No. Sometimes no one was feeling the named emotion. In another version of the same game, they’d have me concentrate on one or the other of them and tell them what they were feeling, without anyone saying anything.”
“How often were you right?”
She harrumphed. He liked the way her lips puckered up when she did it. And shook his head. Her little stone fortress in the woods was getting to him.
“According to them I was always right,” she told him. “No one’s right all the time, but I believed I was. That's how they convinced me I had the gift. And that’s why, when I left, I doubted everything.”
That feeling of wanting to protect her hit him again. Square in the chest.
“You turned out okay, Bella,” he said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at you. You’re honest and caring. Soft and giving and hard working. You aren’t a cheat. Or a thief. Or a liar.”
In that moment, he knew the complete truth of what he said.
And knew that it mattered to him.
He couldn’t imagine growing up as she had. And yet…her mother had obviously done something right.
“You haven’t mentioned your own family,” she said, and his hands stopped mid-grind. She’d said she couldn’t read someone unless they invited her in.
“Even when we spent that day together before…” Her quick glance at him was almost shy as she added that last part.
Reminding him of the enchanting young woman he’d met that day by the creek. She’d been so worldly – and so completely innocent and naïve – at the same time.
“My folks were in their late thirties when I was born. I was carefully planned and purposely an only child. They were great parents, during the time they allotted for me. I grew up in New York City. My folks both had high powered lucrative careers, and they never stopped serving them. But they always let me know that if there was an emergency, they were only a phone call away.”
“Was that true?”
He stared at her. Could she know he’d always wondered if they would come running if he’d called? “I don’t know. There was never an emergency that required me finding out,” he told her. And dumped more peppermint in his mortar than was easily manageable.
Because he’d rather stick to grinding herbs than dealing with things he would never understand.
Chapter 8
