Christmas at the Riverview Inn

A week ago Josie would have said there was no chance for a relationship between herself and Alice, but she would have said the same thing about Cameron. And here she was, a welcome guest in Alice’s kitchen. Spilling secrets and talking about the man they both loved.

Christmas at the Riverview Inn was full of strange possibility.

Chapter 18

CAMERON

The previous Christmas, Cameron had spent the holiday in Montreal with the skater. They’d walked through the Atwater Market and she’d broken her diet with smoked meat poutine and they’d had sex in the light from the Christmas tree. If you’d asked Cameron, he would have said it was about as good a Christmas as it got.

But standing in the mayhem of the Riverview Inn on Christmas Eve he knew he’d been lying to himself. This was what Christmas Eve should look like. And it should sound like twenty Mitchell relatives arguing over memories and playlists and which movies they were going to watch next.

It was his stocking, the one Delia had made for him ages ago, hung up on the rope next to everyone else’s.

And it was his body, exhausted and relaxed from loving Josie all night long.

And his heart…oh god, this was how his heart was supposed to feel. Full. So full.

He turned away from the stockings and found Max at the door, prepared to go outside to get more firewood.

“Max?” he said, his mouth running twenty feet in front of him. “You going to get more wood?” He walked over to put on his boots.

“Yeah,” Max said, not hiding his surprise and happiness.

“I’ll help.”

Outside it was the kind of cold that hurt to breathe. The icicles weren’t dripping anymore—they’d frozen over again in the cold snap after the storm.

They walked around the side of the lodge to the old shed Max had been building when Delia and Josie first moved here. It was where they kept all the wood for all the fireplaces.

“Keeping this place stocked with firewood is still a full-time job,” Cameron joked.

“You want it?” Max asked.

“No. I’ve done my time.” Cameron was keeping it light, but the words held a certain weight. A hard reality. Max stopped and Cameron cursed himself. His mouth, again.

“I’d like to say something,” Max said. “Without you arguing with me. Can I do that?”

“You can give it a try.”

“I am sorry for my part in what happened seven years ago. If I’d acted any other way, we wouldn’t have gotten to where we got so fast. We might have been able to talk—”

“I don’t know, Max. You found me on top of your drunk, half-naked daughter. I’d have kicked me out, too.”

Max looked down, his jaw working. And suddenly…suddenly, the moment wasn’t hard. All the hard work of letting go of the past had been done sometime in the night. Or maybe this morning when Josie made the miraculous effort to create a way into the future for them.

“Max,” Cameron said and stepped closer to the man so he had to look up. “I hated the way I left and it took me a really long time to be okay. But I’m okay. I am.”

“Son, I mean, Cam—”

“There was a time in my life when you calling me son was about the best thing I could imagine. And I wouldn’t mind if you called me that again.”

Oh, Max really was the waterworks these days. His eyes welled.

“I don’t know if I deserve that,” Max said.

“Well, I’m in charge. And I do.”

Cameron smiled wide at the old man and all those years…they vanished. “Max,” he said. “You look like you could use a hug.”

Max’s laugh was teary as Cameron pulled him in for a back-slapping hug. They hadn’t been much on these when he’d been a kid. Max was a firm handshake kind of guy, not a hugger. This felt both incredibly awkward…and right.

“But I need to tell you something, Max. Or…I don’t know, ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

He struggled to find the right words.

Max smiled at him like he knew and then stepped away over to the shed. He threw open the door, revealing the wheelbarrow and stacks of wood.

So many years with this man doing exactly the same thing, and Cameron was suddenly so grateful that his world had come around like this. A full circle. Not just because of Josie, although lord, was he grateful for Josie. But for this family.

“Max,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“I’m going to marry Josie. Maybe not this year. Or next. But I will.”

Max turned, his face careful. But this time Cameron understood what that careful face meant. It wasn’t judgment or censure. It was love. Love barely restrained.

“I’d like your blessing. I know Josie would, too.”

The snow had started falling again and they could hear the muffled sounds of family and Alice’s favorite carol on repeat.

“You have it, son. You’ve always had it.”