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"I wanted to talk last night," she said quietly, turning her shoulder so the cameraman on the back lawn couldn't overhear. "You wouldn't speak to me."
"I was angry. I—"
"I know," she said, finally pulling her wrist from my grasp. "I got that."
"April, I jumped to conclusions."
She gave me a look then, long and searching—a look that I thought might have taken inventory of my soul, my heart, everything I was—and then she turned away. "I can't do this," she said simply. And then she walked away from me, meeting with the nearest cameraman and pointing between her clipboard and the house. They moved around to the front of the house just as the sun was beginning its late-afternoon slide into Virginia on the other side of the river.
The lights hung on the big house flickered on with the gathering darkness, and the crew took a few more shots of the place, glowing merrily against the smattering of white covering the ground from the weekend snow. I stood outside with them, watching, shivering in the cold but not really feeling it anywhere except in my ankle, and my heart. My house looked beautiful. And happy. Like the kind of place a family might spend happy mornings by the fire, evenings on the back lawn, Christmases enjoying the glow and glitter of the lights and the warmth of being together.
I knew the place would look great on the show, but it would be much like the rest of my life had turned out to be—a false representation, a hollow shell.
April turned to me as the cameramen went back to the van, and her head nodded once. "We're all done," she said.
"Okay," I managed.
For a long moment we stood there, our eyes locked as we each lingered on the front drive of my house, and I thought maybe she'd drop her wall and we could talk, maybe we could try. But then she said, "Thank you for your cooperation. Goodbye." She turned on her heel, climbed into the van with the men, and moments later, she was gone.
I watched the van make its way down the narrow lane leading away from my house, and when it turned the corner out of sight, I realized I had succeeded. I’d accomplished my goal of driving everyone away and securing complete and total solitude.
It hurt more than my ankle as I turned and went back into my big empty house.
21
Another Crappy Christmas
April
Filming Callan's house all day was potentially the hardest thing I had ever done. He'd been there, practically at my shoulder, the entire time, as we’d moved from one spot to another over the course of five long hours. He'd been right there the whole time.
When he'd touched me and asked if we could talk, I’d nearly broken down and said yes, and my heart was asking me now why I hadn't as I sat in the quiet of my room staring at Chip and Joanna on television but not really seeing anything.
I’d done the right thing—on all counts. So why did I feel so empty?
I was going to lose my job, there was no doubt about that. I’d ignored my uncle's demands and moved forward on the first contract as if we’d never spoken about Callan appearing on camera. I’d thought hard about it, and despite the way I was feeling about Callan right now, I didn't think he deserved the treatment my uncle had in mind. I wasn't going to be part of parading him out in front of the cameras so curious fans and gossip-mongers could speculate about why he'd moved here, why he was alone, or how severe his limp still was. I knew him well enough to know he would hate all of that, and he certainly didn't deserve it, so I had decided not to even mention it to him.
Of course, my uncle's lawyers hadn't had the same thoughts. And evidently Callan had seen the contract even though I’d never intended to even tell him about it.
What hurt was that Callan assumed I’d been hatching some kind of plot all along, that my entire motivation was to get him on camera. I poured myself a small glass from the flask Annabelle had delivered to my room earlier with a plate of Christmas fudge. Moonshine and fudge didn't actually go well together, I learned. But sugar and alcohol were my vices, and tonight I needed them.
My heart twinged again, as my mind wandered back over Callan's reaction to the contract. He wasn't even going to talk to me about it, wasn't going to let me explain. After getting to know me better than most people in my life ever did, he still didn't see that I wouldn't have done that to him.
"What a selfish, arrogant jerk," I muttered, not really believing the words as they slid from my lips. I lay back on the pillows covering the head of my bed and tried to focus on Jo's latest shiplap project on television, but all I could think about was Callan.
And my future. I was absolutely out of a job. Again. And my uncle was going to be angry, too. Besides firing me, he might actually disinherit me and tell me I was officially out of the family. Not that we had much family. Rob, my mom and me. No wonder holidays sucked.
I had buried my phone in my purse, too focused on dousing my sorrows in alcohol and fudge when I’d first arrived back to think about calling anyone. But now, as my stomach protested my choice of evening meal and my loneliness threatened to overcome me, I dug it out.
I’d missed a call from Lynn, and two from Callan.
I called Lynn, feeling like my friend might be the only person left in the world who cared about me, who understood me. "Hey," I said miserably when Lynn picked up.
"Hey yourself," Lynn said cheerfully. "How are things? How's your soccer star?"
He was beautiful. He was angry. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. He was gone. "He's an arrogant jerk. We're done."
"What? Why?"
