You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology (29 page)

Her words pushed him against the back of his seat as if she’d shot an arrow—bull’s-eye—straight through his chest, pinning him. She couldn’t be right, could she? He had all kinds of ideas about what he wanted to work on next. Lists and lists and lists of them. Plus, all those people who wouldn’t give him work or answer his calls a couple of years ago were now coming to him with job offers. If he couldn’t focus on any of the ideas on any of those lists and hadn’t e-mailed or called any of those companies back yet, it was because he wanted the time to think. Not because he was
afraid
.

“It’s a valid question, but that’s not what is happening in this case. After I get this fix checked out, I’ll move on to something new. I’ve got companies contacting me all the time, as well as independent guys looking to do something just as cool.”

She nodded, but he could tell that she didn’t really believe him.

The heat from the engine had melted all the snow that had accumulated on the hood of the car, and water was now dripping down the windshield. He turned on the wipers to clear his view, then shifted the car into drive and eased his foot off the brake. The tires caught traction pretty easily and were able to inch forward until they were on the road, which had already been salted. Apparently they’d both slept through the salt trucks, and if they’d kept sleeping much longer, they probably would have been woken up by the Idaho Highway Patrol knocking on the window.

As soon as he was comfortable with the car on the road and as certain as he could be that they weren’t going to slide off into the ditch—or off a cliff—Marc took his hand off the wheel and put his palm on Selina’s leg. He wanted to feel that she was there, solid and breathing next to him, especially because he wasn’t sure what else in his life was constant. She may not be here forever, but she was here now. And now was what he needed.

She stared at the touch but didn’t push his hand off the way he had worried she would. To his surprise, after initially tensing, the muscles under his hand relaxed.

“I’m glad that you’re impressed with me and my work,” he said. “It’s an easy thing to be impressed by, I guess. But I’m impressed by you, too. You’re working, and going to school, and have a shitty home life, and you don’t trust that you’ll be able to sleep safely. Yet you’re still getting good grades, making money, and pushing on.”

She placed a hand on top of his and gave him a gentle squeeze.

“Big, splashy things like selling a product for millions of dollars in your twenties is what makes the news,” he continued. “But pushing forward in life while everything seems to be against you is the kind of grit that makes the world function. And if no one’s told you lately, I think you’re great.”

When he glanced at her face, he noticed dampness in her eyes. “No one’s told me that in a long time. Thank you.”

“H
ave you called
your mom yet?” Marc asked Selina about two hours into their drive.

“No,” she said, keeping her eyes forward.

“Didn’t you say you were going to as soon as we hit the road?” He hadn’t mentioned it last night because she’d fallen asleep almost immediately on the drive. And she had obviously needed it. But no matter Selina’s relationship with Gary, her mom probably needed a phone call as much as Selina had needed the sleep.

“I know. I wanted to,” Selina answered, though she made no move to reach for her phone.

“So why don’t you?”

She shrugged like a moody child.

The SUV rolled along the highway, between hills of snow with dead grass poking out of the white depths, occasionally meandering through places with rock faces on either side where it had been cheaper to cut through the rock than it had been to build the road around them.

Just as Marc was giving up on Selina answering, she spoke in a small voice. “What if she didn’t notice I was gone?”

Everything in the world seemed to slow down as he considered what it would be like to wonder that about your mother. Then he saw that he had lessened the pressure of his foot on the gas and they had actually slowed down. He hit the pedal a little harder, getting them back up to speed. Then, trying to concentrate on driving at least as much as he was concentrating on listening to Selina, he asked, “Why wouldn’t she notice you were gone?”

“She didn’t call me last night. She’s never called me any of the times I didn’t go home because I knew Gary would be there.” Her voice was still small, but anger rasped at the edges.

She was trying to see if her mom noticed and cared about her. That was understandable, if heartbreaking. “Are you going to just wait for her to call you?”

Selina shrugged, looking out the window. He couldn’t see what her eyes were focused on, but the view out the passenger window was no different than the view out his window. As far as he could tell, she was staring out into space. “It would be nice if she called me once.”

He paused a beat before saying anything else. “I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, I guess,” he told her. “We have a better relationship than most of my friends do with their parents, at least. But I know I can’t expect out of them what I’m not willing to do myself.”

“Thank you, Dear Abby,” she said.

He frowned. “Sarcasm is not attractive.”

She turned away from the window long enough to give him a scornful look. “You just said that you have a better relationship with your parents than most of your friends do. When you’ve met Gary at his worst, then you can lecture me about how I should reach out to my mother.”

He opened his mouth to argue his point, then stopped himself so that he could process what she’d said. Maturity and taking a step back had served him well in the past. They would serve him well again.

“You’re right. Your home life sounds miserable. And I’m amazed that you are as put together as you are. I shouldn’t judge.”

“Thank you,” she said, turning back to stare out the window.

“But you did say that you would call her.” He struggled to make his tone nonjudgmental and supportive, even though disappointment surged through his body. Granted, he didn’t know Selina that well, but she hadn’t seemed like a coward. “So when do you plan to do that?”

“Today.”

“That didn’t sound very confident.”

“You’re talking to me as if I’m a child,” she snapped. “You’re only a couple years older than I am.”

He risked a quick glance at her. Her lips were pursed, and her face was set in the same scowl he remembered from breakfast at the diner. God, that had only been a little over twenty-four hours ago. Had he really only known Selina for such a short amount of time? If he let his mind go blank, he could still remember what she felt like in his arms, as if she had been there before and should be there again. He also remembered that her expression at the diner hadn’t been a bad mood so much as it had been physical and emotional exhaustion. One uncomfortable night’s sleep in the back of a car wasn’t going to change that. He had more empathy than this; he just had to use it.

He took a deep breath and put his hand on her knee. “What would Babe tell you to do?”

That won him another look from her, this time with her brows lifted up to her hairline. “Have you called your parents to tell them where you are and that you picked up a stranger to take with you on your little vacation?”

He could feel the hammer hit the nail with that one, though he said, “Those situations are completely different.”

“How?”

“Well . . .” His mind raced over all the differences, put them in order of importance, numbered them, and weighed which ones he should explain first. Then he stopped himself from lecturing. She was right. Not that their situations were different, but that his parents would want to know that he wasn’t driving alone. And they would be very interested to know he’d picked up a girl.

“You’re right. I should call my parents. A bargain, then. When we stop for dinner, I’ll call my parents and you call yours. Deal?”

She sighed. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure. We’ve got a lot of time before dinner.”

She nodded, either to his comment or in agreement about calling, he wasn’t sure. And he certainly wasn’t going to ask right now. Instead, he took a look at the road signs and tried to guesstimate where they would be in a few more hours of driving.

“So about sights for today,” he started. “I think there’s a birds of prey habitat somewhere along this highway and, if my memory serves me, something called Craters of the Moon.”

When she looked over at him this time, she gave him a slight smile that looked more like relief at his change of topic than anything else. “I don’t know what there is to see at Craters of the Moon in winter, so how about the bird thing?”

“Bird thing it is,” he said with a nod.

He snuck another glance at her. She still looked tired, but there was a resignation on her face that made him think she was glad he had maneuvered her in the right direction when it came to her mom. One squeeze of her knee and a corresponding pat of her hand on his, and he turned his attention back to the drive.

*

The cold Idaho
wind was blowing extra hard as they climbed out of the car at the overlook. Selina pulled her coat tighter around her body, grabbing on to the collar and hiking it up to cover as much of her ears as possible.

“Cold?” Marc asked. He was swinging his arms as though he didn’t have a care in the world, but Selina suspected it was partly because
he
was cold. His face was bright with excitement, though, and his enthusiasm was contagious.

She smiled in response. “A little, but the walk will do me some good.”

“Come on, then,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I’ve been driving around to see stuff, and so far almost everything has been closed. I’m just happy this is open.”

Gravel crunched under her boots as she walked behind him on the trail to the canyon edge. The snowstorm had left only a dusting of snow on the high plateau of the canyon. With the sun bouncing off the white surfaces, all the colors around her seemed more vibrant. The blue of the sky was brighter, the black and gray of the rocks were deeper, and even the tan of the dead grass looked more alive.

Or maybe, Selina thought as she sidled up to Marc who had stopped to read a sign, what she was seeing was a reflection of her own happiness. Her entire body felt lighter. Her
soul
felt lighter. Light enough that she could take a running start, open up her arms, leap off the canyon, and fly.

Most of her joy was related to the fact that she finally had gotten out of Athol and was pursuing her own dreams, but some of it was the man next to her. Though being prodded in the car about calling her mom had been annoying, she was glad he’d done it. She’d needed the push, but she’d also needed him to back off. He seemed to know instinctively when to do one and when to do the other.

Selina admired the view around them. The landscape seemed to go on forever. Birds cried and chirped in the air, and the wind picked up Marc’s floppy hair, lifting parts of it until it was almost standing straight up.

He smiled, taking one step closer to her until their shoulders were nearly touching. “Have you ever been here before?”

“No.” Though, right now, she couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be.

“Cool, huh?” He held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s finish walking to the overlook.”

She didn’t take his hand, even though she wanted to. And to her relief, he didn’t seem to be offended or disappointed.

“God, this is amazing,” he said when she caught up with him at the overlook.

Walking up to the rim made her heart race. Black rock jutted out from the sides of the canyon, obscuring the view of the river in places, which snaked hundreds of feet below them. Then there was a harsh cry—seemingly out of nowhere—and a large bird flew directly overhead before plunging into the canyon.

“Holy shit,” Marc said as they both jumped back. “What kind of bird was that?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, her tone echoing the amazement in his. “I didn’t read the sign that closely.” She’d been too busy looking at the landscape and Marc.

“I did.” He shook his head. “And I still don’t know what the bird is. Big. And I think maybe a bird of prey.”

She smirked and raised a brow at him. “Well, this
is
a refuge for birds of prey.”

His laugh at her smart remark rang delightfully in her ears. “Since neither of us remember what the birds are, we can give them our own names. Big for that bird was an understatement. And it was brown, I think. So I name it . . . Big Brown Bird.”

“That’s . . .” She was about to say
a stupid name
when she turned to look at him and saw the mischievous glint in his eyes. “We can do better than that.”

He gave an easy shrug. “Well, Terry is the encrypted texting app Curtis and I developed. My phones are Veronica, Megan, and Holly. It seems I name things after women, so if I name the bird, I’m going to assume it’s female. Hope that’s okay by you.” He smirked again.

“Why do you do that?”

He cocked his head. “Name things?”

“Name things female names.”