“Okay, so that’s weird.” She turned her attention to her breakfast. They ate in silence, and Darryl took the opportunity to eat his two muffins and half a plate of fruit before she said, “I guess I should probably thank you for taking care of me last night.”
He glanced sideways, examining her piercing eyes. “You always get three sheets to the wind?”
She held his gaze firmly. “Why did you and your wife break up?”
His mouth twitched at her deflection. Yeah, she was setting him straight well enough—it’d been ten years and he had no business asking anything personal. But he had nothing to hide, not a damn thing. “Natalie and I began dating the fall after you and I shared that intense kiss.” He liked the way her cheeks heated at the reminder that no, he had not forgotten how sweet she tasted that night. “We married about a year after college. By the time our twenty-fifth birthdays rolled around, we were two different people. By our twenty-seventh birthdays, we had become two of the very best friends. By twenty-nine, Natalie fell in love with someone else, and by thirty, we were divorced.”
Penelope shut her parted lips, then eventually said, “Wow. Look at you just putting everything out there like that.”
“It is what it is,” he replied with a shrug. “Besides, I’m surprised you already don’t know everything about everyone. This town is full of gossipers, and I have no doubt your cousins are among them.”
She regarded him intently as she took another nibble of her muffin. “Well, of course, I knew you were divorced, but Maisie didn’t say what happened.” She rubbed her fingers together over the plate, dusting off the muffin crumbs, then she gave a small shrug. “I guess fair is fair. To answer your question, no, I don’t always drink like that, but me and Christmas have problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The music, the endless joy shoved down your throat, the angry shoppers. All of it.”
At that, he cracked a smile. “You were the one singing Christmas carols last night.”
She winced. “Yeah, let’s pretend that didn’t happen.”
His smile widened. “Not sure you’ll be able to forget that. And neither will the people who videoed you on their cell phones.”
“Great.” She let out a long heavy sigh, dropping her head back onto the couch. “Video evidence is the worst kind of evidence.”
“Not in my line of work, it’s not.”
She gave a little nod of agreement.
He became curious. “So, you got drunk to survive Christmas?”
She nodded and gave a cute smile. “And apparently, I also skated on fountains in high heels.”
“It was impressive, I gotta say.”
“More like
embarrassing.” She hid her face in her hands and muttered something incoherent before saying clearly, “I’m never going to hear the end of it once Clara finds out.” She lowered her hands and gave him a tight look. “I mean, Amelia will probably just smooth things over like she does, and Maisie will laugh then try and support me, but Clara is going to murder me.” She raised her fingers and did quotations marks. “‘Penelope, we have a reputation in River Rock. Don’t mess that up.’”
“That’s Clara, I take it?”
Penelope nodded and her eyes cast downward.
“Ah, it wasn’t so bad,” he said, trying to reassure her. He’d seen people do far more embarrassing things when they were drunk, including naked things. “Well, maybe your singing was pretty terrible, but you can live that down.”
“Hey!” She picked up a throw pillow next to her and tossed it at him. “My singing is just fine, thank you very much.”
Good, he had her laughing. Her singing was actually great.
She took another nibble of her muffin, staring into the fire, while Ty snored loudly, before she addressed him again. “How about you? Is Christmas a big thing for you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m a cop; we do a lot for the community throughout the holidays.” Then something more important occurred to him. “Why aren’t you with your family this Christmas?”
She tossed the last piece of muffin into her mouth. “No one wanted me there.”
He stilled, looking for any hint of hurt in her expression. He found none. “What do you mean, no one wanted you?”
She stared blankly at the flickering flames. “My mom told me she thought it was best that I didn’t come home for Christmas this year. My dad said he was traveling, even though I know he isn’t.” She turned to face him again, and her honest soft smile indicated to him that being hurt by her parents was a regular occurrence. “They divorced that year I met you. That’s why they pulled me out of camp to come home.”