Page 33 of Bad Boy Bachelor Christmas
She crossed one leg over the other and bounced one of said snowflake-socked feet. “I met Cami the other day.”
“Oh God.”
Winter giggled. “She didn’t say anything bad.”
“Now that’s a surprise.”
“She was quite sweet. She took me to the flea market. That place is a total goldmine, by the way. I found so many little treasures for Justin’s house and the Cuthbert party there, and it’s a local family business. I love that.”
“You love a lot of things.”
“True. It’s a Dodson quality. We’re eternal optimists. It drives a lot of people crazy.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
She laughed at me just as Maurice came out of the kitchen with serving trays of food. He laid our plates down in front of us and described the meal, starting with the garlic diced potatoes, pickled cabbage, shredded beets, and last but not least, the schnitzel. Winter hovered over her plate like a woman who hadn’t eaten in weeks, and I wondered if she’d skipped lunch while working feverishly on Justin’s house today. I wouldn’t put it past her. She had workaholic tendencies, that was for sure.
She brandished her cutlery and dug in. We savored the meal together, and she told me all about how her family used to go to a German schnitzel house in Portland every New Year’s Eve when she was growing up.
“We had a standing reservation every year,” she explained, “and we never missed it. Sometimes other family or friends would join us. Other years it was just me, Mom, and Dad. I think those were our favorite years. As I got older, the tradition stood. My friends used to make fun of me for never wanting to miss dinner with my folks before going to a party, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was too special.”
“Will you go this year?” I asked.
She nodded. “Hopefully, yes. If I’m not there, they’ll go at least.”
“Then we’ll make sure you’re there.”
She beamed. “Do you have any family traditions that make you feel particularly nostalgic?”
I racked my brain, trying to conjure up old memories. “I have fond memories of my mother at Christmastime. She used to have this bright red holiday dress that she’d wear every Christmas Eve for our family house party. At least eighty people would attend. I remember Cami being there some years. Annoying little nuisance, she was. Always sticking her nose where it didn’t belong and making trouble for the adults. She got into the vodka one year when she was eleven.”
Winter rocked back in her chair with laughter. “Oh no! Did she really?”
I nodded. “A six-hundred-dollar bottle, to be exact.”
Her eyes grew big. “Six hundred dollars? Was it filtered through gold and diamonds or something?”
“Who knows? One thing is for certain, she got plastered, threw up in my mother’s poinsettias, and was carried home over her father’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was never left unattended at another Waylon party, if I recall.”
Winter sipped her wine and her eyes danced with mirth. “You said your mother had a holiday dress?”
I nodded, recalling it in my memory like I’d seen it yesterday. “My father bought it for her the first Christmas they were married. It was long, almost to her ankles, with gold buttons from the collar to the hemline. Long sleeves. Sort of puffy before the wrist cuff. Very eighties,” I added. “I remember her coming down the stairs in it one year and thinking to myself that I had the most beautiful mother in the world.”
Winter rested her chin in her hand. “I bet she was spectacular.”
Spectacular was one word for her. She’d been the apple of my father’s eye and the light of my world growing up. She worked hard to make things special for me. As a kid, I didn’t know all the magic in my childhood had been born from her heart. I supposed all children were naïve to the truth that their mother was the one behind the wonder of Christmas—the food, the lights, the gifts, the tree, the planning, the Christmas cards, the decorations, the events, all of it came from her.
My father had been happy to go along for the ride, but he’d always been so consumed by work that he wasn’t as involved as her. She’d bake incredible treats for us, and I remember being eight years old standing beside her in the kitchen watching her knead dough. Her wedding rings had sat off to the side, and I stared at them, wondering if I would ever give a woman such a thing, and if she would love her rings the way my mother did.
Those rings were up in my room in a safe now.
Winter’s wine glass had emptied, and mine was close behind, so I topped us off.
She swirled her glass, letting the nectar nearly kiss the rim before lifting it to her lips. I noticed the way her lower lip sealed against the glass and grew fuller as she tipped her head back. When she set the glass down, my eyes lingered on those lips of hers, full on the bottom, thinner on top, and almost heart shaped.
She cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“Nothing.”
