Snow Job (23 page)

“Um…”

“Yes, it came from a phone,” Elyce said, jumping in when Karl hesitated. “That’s what the person who sent it said.”

Scott looked at Elyce, and then at Karl, obviously puzzled but not enough to be concerned. “Wel , maybe they just made a mistake. Can I ask why it’s important, anyway?”

“No,” Karl cut in, “it isn’t important. Real y. Thanks for looking at it for me though.”

“No problem. Took like thirty seconds.” Scott shrugged, obviously curious but too polite to push against Karl’s clear desire for him to drop it. “So is the water kettle on? The little woman wants a cup of tea before she passes out from the good stuff the doctor gave her.”

The whistling kettle answered his question, and Scott busied himself preparing the tea with more concern and care than his breezy manner let on, before returning to the living room and leaving Karl and Elyce alone again.

After a moment, Elyce cleared her throat and started to speak.

“Don’t,” Karl interrupted. “Just don’t. I didn’t want you to know I did that. I’m sorry. Or… No, I’m not sorry. I didn’t have anything to prove. It was just to satisfy my own curiosity about what was going on, not to prove Barron was lying to you.”

“Would you have told me, if I hadn’t said I’d think about what you asked me earlier?” Elyce felt no anger, no resentment, to her surprise. Just passive interest, as though al the bad feelings had happened to somebody else.

“I thought about it,” he admitted, sipping at the hot chocolate in front of him and licking off the cocoa moustache that resulted.

“I guess I can understand that.”

“I might sue his ass though,” Karl said grimly.

“I think I can understand that too,” Elyce said. And then she giggled, a ringing sound in the empty room, a sound that more than fil ed the silence they had suffered through moments before. “Do you need a lawyer?”

“Conflict of interest,” Karl reminded her, smiling a little.

“But thanks. I’m going to go in the living room and socialize with the folks now. Give you time to think without hovering over you.” Without waiting for her answer, he slipped off the stool and through the archway, and Elyce watched him over her shoulder as he joined his father by the tree, took the camera from his hand and used it to snap a photo of Emily and her family on the couch, injured foot in the foreground.

“Elyce? What are you doing sitting in here by yourself, sweetheart?” Joan had entered the kitchen, an empty mug in her hand, and walked to the stove to refil it from the recently boiling kettle before adding a tea bag from a canister on the counter. “Did Karl abandon you?”

“No, I’m just vegging out in here. I’l go be social again in a minute, after I finish my hot chocolate. I think maybe I’l have some tea next too.” She stood and stretched, and took her mug to the sink to rinse it out before preparing her own cup of tea.

“You know, I was so surprised to see you here this year, Elyce, but I’m so glad you decided to come.”

“I— You were surprised?”

“In the best way,” the older woman said with a fond smile. “I know it can be hard sometimes, but I’m so pleased you and Karl seem to be wil ing to work it out and try again.”

She hugged her granddaughter-in-law, gave her an impulsive kiss and winked at her before leaving the kitchen.

Leaving a slightly stunned Elyce at the counter stil dunking her tea bag absentmindedly into her mug.

For a long moment, Elyce tried to fit her mind around her newfound knowledge and decided she had simply done too much thinking this holiday, and her brain was through with thinking. She pul ed a spoon from the utensil drawer and wrapped her tea bag careful y around it, using the string to squeeze the last few drops of steeped tea into the mug. Then, mug in hand, she walked slowly and deliberately from the kitchen into the great room, where Karl was now standing in front of the fire, talking to Scott as they warmed their hands and watched Charles and Reese play a card game on the hearthrug.

Placing her mug on the end table, Elyce spared a quick glance toward the tree, which was sparkling quite magical y now that the day had cleared and the windows were lighting the room to an almost painful y bright degree. Then, with a sigh of contentment, she approached Karl from behind and slipped her arms around his waist to embrace him, resting her cheek against his broad back.

She could feel his body stop, almost feel his heart skip a beat, before his hands found hers and covered them, squeezing so tightly it was nearly uncomfortable for a few seconds. Then he lightened the pressure, and exhaled heavily as though he’d been holding his breath for a long, long time.

Elyce held on to Karl, and gradual y joined the conversation between him and Scott, slipping under Karl’s arm and standing arm in arm with him awhile as they talked. Eventual y she recal ed her cup of cooling tea and went to retrieve it. When she returned to Karl’s side, he wrapped his arms around her and stood with his chin on her head, and they talked some more, and in time it was late enough to start helping Alice prepare the Christmas dinner.

And that, after al they had been through, was that.

Simple after al .

Afterward, Elyce thought that she should have stuck to her guns about the snowboarding. It had been a bad idea from the start to switch from skiing, no matter how much fun it looked when the girls were flying down the slopes on their boards, and no matter how easy a run she had taken on what was to be her first and only attempt.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but Karl had hoisted her from the travois stretcher to the SUV and driven her to the same doctor who had treated Emily a year before, the doctor the Nash clan always used whenever the skiing or the altitude got the best of them.

“I told you I was fine,” she said with a smug air as he helped her maneuver back into the vehicle after the examination was complete. “Just a sprain.”

“The sprain is what stil bothers Emily after a year.

Besides, how could we know for sure there was no break without an x-ray?”

“Honey, I’m fine. It’s swel ing like crazy, doesn’t that mean it isn’t broken? Emily’s foot was hardly swol en at al , just her ankle.”

“You should put that ice pack back on.” Karl nodded at the cold pack that Elyce had slung up onto the dashboard.

She took it, but grumbled about it. “It is nothing
but
cold in here. I think I’m probably warming my ankle up by putting this thing on.”

“The doctor said you should keep ice on it as much as possible, to keep the swel ing down and to help with the pain.”

“It doesn’t hurt that much, anyway.”

“You may not feel that way by tomorrow, taking nothing but Tylenol for it.” Karl’s lips were stil tight and grim, and he kept sneaking concerned looks over at Elyce. The drive from town to the cabin in the thickening early darkness was quiet, not awkwardly so but a little tense nonetheless. The tension was due in large part to Karl’s increasing need to concentrate on the road, as snow began to flurry shortly before they reached the narrowest and darkest part of the drive up the hil .

They final y reached the cabin safely and Karl paused the SUV at the end of the driveway, looking up at the warmly lit house.

“I love seeing it from here, when you look in from the cold and see the windows glowing and see the tree in there al lit up.”

Elyce unfastened her seat belt and leaned over, hugging him tightly and placing a fond kiss on his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Do you want me to drop you off at the front porch?”

“No, go ahead to the garage. It’s fine, it’s not far to go.

And honestly, it doesn’t hurt that much, it’s just a mild sprain.”

At his look of doubt she squeezed him again, longer this time, before releasing him and scooting back into her seat while he pul ed around the house and into the garage.

He came around to open her door and lifted her out gently, obviously planning to carry her into the cabin.

“Honey, just put me down, you don’t need to carry me.”

“Elyce…”

She smiled up at him reassuringly, standing careful y with her weight on her uninjured foot. “Honey, we’re fine.

Okay?”

Karl sighed and looked down, placing a hand on her abdomen, which had just started to show the first soft swel of pregnancy, a condition not visible at al through the layers of ski wear.

“Okay. So, are we going to tel everyone tonight or not?

You know my grandparents are going to be thril ed to find out we’re final y catching up on our share of their great-grandchildren.”

Elyce smiled, a secret little smile, and covered his hand with her own. “You know what? We can tel them if you’re ready to tel them. But I have a feeling your grandmother already knows.”

About the Author

Delphine Dryden welcomes comments from readers.

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