Christmas at the Riverview Inn

“Oh, honey,” Helen said. “Between you two, it’s always like that.”

Uncomfortable with that insight, Josie left the kitchen and walked into the meeting room where Cameron was sitting on the floor surrounded by red and white wrapping paper and silver bows and long silver ribbon. Bows the size of Josie’s hands. And on one side of the room were stacked presents. Presents for the kids and moms in Haven House and other presents for families in town that needed help getting something under a tree.

“That…that’s a lot of gifts,” she said.

“Paper-cut city,” he said, shaking his head. “We better get to work.”

The system was simple. Kids got green paper. Grownups got red paper. Silver ribbon for men. White ribbon for women. The kids’ ribbons were differentiated by age, not gender. Lots of Legos. Lots of books. Lots of science kits and bubbles and new hats and warm mittens. Jumping ropes and art supplies.

“Didn’t you come up with this ribbon system?” Cameron asked as they got down to business. They sat cross-legged beside each other, just like they always had. Knees touching. Reaching across each other for paper and tape.

“I did. Probably my single greatest achievement. Do you have the tape?”

He gaped at her. “You seriously just had it.”

“I know, but—”

“It’s under your knee.”

She stuck her tongue out at him like they were kids, and they settled into a rhythm she hadn’t felt in years.

“I was engaged,” he said. And it was like a needle scratching over a record. She felt those words in the back of her brain. “And my fiancée’s mother used to make these tiny, incredibly intricate dolls out of paper. She tried to teach me once but got so frustrated she had to walk away. ”

He taped the paper down on a box of Legos and, without measuring, cut the paper to cover the rest of it. She gasped in horror.

“What?” he said.

“You’ve got to measure.”

“What? It’s fine…” He folded the paper over the rest of the box, but it didn’t come close to matching up and most of the Lego logo was visible. “I’ll just cover that up with another piece of paper.”

“Or you could do this totally revolutionary thing and measure the paper around the box before you cut.”

“Yes. I could do that.”

“But you’re not going to?”

He untaped the cut paper and measured it around a smaller box and started wrapping that. Josie shook her head, laughing at him.

Silence settled down around them and it didn’t seem like he was going to bring up the fiancée. She told herself not to do it. What good could come of knowing the kind of woman he’d loved enough to want to marry? “Who was she?” Internally she winced. “Your fiancée?”

He blew out a breath. “A doctor in Kenya. We met about nine months after I left the States. And we had a few months of being pretty happy before we realized we’d made a mistake and we split up, amicably.”

“Really?”

“No. She broke my heart but good.” He smiled at Josie and she saw that he was joking, but it was true, too. And she forced her face to smile.

“I had been traveling for a year when we met and I was ready to settle down. I wanted children and a house, and I thought she wanted the same.”

“She didn’t?”

“She’d gotten a four-year grant to study retinoblastoma in children living in remote villages in Burundi.”

“You didn’t want to go?”

“No, I would have gone. But it was painfully obvious she didn’t want me to. She wanted to focus all her energy on her work and…” He shrugged. “I respected her for it. And bowed out.”

“And you’ve never gotten close again?” she asked.

“No.” He set the wrapped present in the stack of gifts with green ribbons. “What about you?”

“Me what?”

“Come on, now, Josie. I told you.”

“No one. Really.” She focused all of her attention on the pretty, warm slippers she was wrapping for some lucky mom.

“I’m not believing that. Smart and beautiful and kind and funny—you had guys mobbing you in high school.”

“I was just so busy, I guess.”

“Too busy to date?”

“I don’t know, Cameron. I had a crush on you in high school, graduated and developed a complex that I’d sexually harassed you and gotten you kicked out of the only home you ever had, so I didn’t really know how to be…casual. Or even available for any of that.”

His silence was stunned and she didn’t look at him for a long time. Her plan had backfired. Magnificently. But soon his silence became unbearable and she glanced up to see his open-mouthed astonishment.

“What?” she asked, not liking the way he was looking at her. “I should have been different? I should have handled you leaving better? I was mourning you, Cameron. I was—” Oh god, she was going to cry. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and wished she had a tissue for her nose that was suddenly dripping. Great. Just great.