Her Naughty Holiday(24)
“You can ask me anything.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You were smiling. I wanted to know what was making you smile.”
Erick wanted to tell her the truth, that he was thinking about how good they were together, how much he cared about her already and how much he hoped this was going somewhere past Thanksgiving. But he didn’t say that because Ruthie had trained him too well. He knew better than to put that kind of pressure on a woman this early in a relationship. So he told her a half-truth.
“I’m thinking I’m very glad you picked me over Sven.”
10
“PARENTS?” CLOVER ASKED. “I assume you have them?”
“I do. And they’re both still alive and kicking. Mom works at the post office and Dad’s a roofer. He’s slowed down a little the past few years but he still works more than he needs to.”
“Siblings?”
“Only child. My parents like to say they got it right the first time.”
“Um...” She paused and tried to think of the sorts of things her family would bring up at Thanksgiving dinner. “Concerts?” Clover asked. “That might come up in conversation. Hunter and Lisa go to a lot of concerts. He’s on the local symphony’s board of directors.”
“Last concert I went to was a couple years ago when Ruthie was going through an obsessed with Haim phase. Great show.”
“Concerts you wanted to go to.”
“I’ve seen DMB live five times,” Erick said. “But all in high school.”
Clover nodded. “So, you were a stoner in high school, I see.”
“I wish,” he said. “But nope. I really don’t have an excuse. I legitimately loved their music.”
Clover smiled behind her coffee cup as Erick resumed his rowing. The weather had turned vaguely pleasant, at least for late November in Oregon. The sky was steel gray with clouds but it wasn’t raining and the temperature had hovered near sixty since noon. Perfect weather for taking a boat out onto the lake. Erick had insisted on rowing and she didn’t mind at all, sitting back and watching him work. He wore a lightweight black sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, which gave her a glorious view of his muscular forearms as he pulled back on the oars. She knew she should be checking out the scenery—the mountain, the trees, the lake—but Erick was without a doubt the best part of her view.
“What about you?” he asked. “Concerts? Favorite bands?”
“I played cello in high school and college. I’m still kind of a classical music snob. But I love Alison Krauss, too.”
“Country, right?”
“Bluegrass and country. Mom’s an English professor so books will probably come up in conversation. Favorite books? Last book read?” Clover asked.
“Last book read was Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. Favorite book? Either A Farewell to Arms or House Made of Dawn.”
“I’ve never read either of those.”
“Ruthie had to read them in her AP Lit classes. I’d read Hemingway a little in high school but read him again when she did. I’d never read House, either, but whew, damn good stuff.”
“You read what Ruthie reads in school?”
“Why not? I mean, I know she’s smarter than me, but I’m not about to let her figure that out yet.”
“She is smart, but so is her father.”
“Tell her that.”
“I will. She might be able to name the ritual healing properties of a hundred different kinds of incense but I highly doubt she knows how to build a cedar deck.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t go near cedar. She says it has too many masculine properties. Supposedly the scent of it increases male virility.”
“That explains last night. And this morning.”
“And tonight and tomorrow morning...”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the forward motion of his rowing.
“I completely forgot what we were talking about,” he said when he pulled back on the oars again.
“We were talking about how wood gives you wood.”
“Before that.”
“Books and music and other stuff real couples know about each other so we can trick my family into thinking we’ve been dating longer than three days,” Clover said, tensing at the thought of Thanksgiving. Two days. Only two days away. She wished it was today to get it over with. She wished it was a year away so she had more time with Erick.
“Where’s your family from?” Erick asked. “Where did you grow up? I should probably know something about your past. That might come up.”
“Born and raised in Redmond. After Mom got her PhD, they moved to Sacramento and she started teaching at CSU. She retired last year. I was in college when they moved so I stayed in Oregon. Hunter’s my older brother. He’s a bank manager in Spokane. My sister got married right out of college to the son of a Seattle real estate developer.”
“That sounds like money.”
“A lot of money. Kelly has never had to work, which is why she has four kids already even though she’s eighteen months younger than I am.”
“Four kids? At twenty-eight?”
“One set of twins—Ian and Eva. The oldest is Elena. Gus is the baby. He just turned four. Hunter’s married to Lisa and they have three girls—Skye, Paige and Zoe. All spelled with e’s. Got all that?”
Erick blew a hard breath and his eyes went wide. “I need to write this stuff down. Can I get a chart or something?”
“I’ll make you a spreadsheet.”
“Thank you. And maybe flash cards. What about your dad?”
“He’s also an academic. Retired associate dean of Sacramento State. That’s another issue with my family. I went to college for three years but dropped out before graduating.”
“Why’d you drop out?”
“I got offered a very good job at the nursery I worked at part-time. Management position, good pay and benefits. I was so much happier at work than at school, I took the job. With a professor mother and a dean father? That didn’t go over so well.”
“I can see them not being happy about it then, but it’s not like you’re a burnout selling pencils on the street and sleeping in gutters. You’ve done pretty well for yourself.”
“Tell them that,” she said. “I mean, don’t tell them that. We aren’t going to fight with my family. We are going to suck it up and get through it without anyone losing it. Especially me.”
“If you say so. Are you sure you want to do this? I can pretend to have hep A or something.”
“There’s an idea. The good news about my family is that the kids are all great. Very sweet and well behaved. Them, I really want to see. I might even eat at the kids’ table.” Clover wasn’t kidding. She’d survived many a family meal by using the kids as human shields. Nobody would ask her about her personal life while she was playing tea party with her nieces.
“So let me get this straight—your parents have seven grandkids already, and they’re still bugging you to get married and have kids? Aren’t they being a little greedy? My parents have one grandkid. One. And they said that’s plenty.”
“Seven. And that’s apparently not enough for them, so at least pretend you want more kids even if you don’t. It’ll shut them up.”
“I’ll mention the thing about cedar and male virility. ‘Want some pumpkin pie? Also my sperm count is probably really high because I work with cedar.’ How’s that?”
“Sounds perfect. Thanksgiving is going to be a blast.”
“You said that while looking at the peak of Mount Hood.”
“Are we one hundred percent certain that Mount Hood isn’t going to explode this week?” she asked. “Just a tiny eruption would work. I’m sure they’d make us evacuate.”
“Not going to erupt. All my fault. I sacrificed a virgin to it this week. It’s appeased,” Erick said.
Clover sighed. “There’s never a volcano eruption when you need one.”
She stared out at the water and inhaled the crisp autumn air. She should have felt peaceful out here on the lake with the water gently slapping the side of the blue aluminum boat and the snowcapped peak of Mount Hood looming over Erick’s shoulder and the Canada geese flying overhead in a halfhearted V formation. She even spied a majestic bald eagle in the bare branches of a vine maple and heard the unmistakable rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker close by. But as sublime and tranquil as the setting was, she couldn’t relax completely even for Erick’s sake. Especially for Erick’s sake. Three days ago she would have said she asked Erick to play fake boyfriend on Thanksgiving because her family would approve. Responsible single father, small-business owner, handsome and sweet and funny. A perfect fake boyfriend, right? Except her mother had decided Erick was a bad match for Clover for the sole reason he had an almost-adult daughter and would surely not want more kids. Once her mother got something into her head, there was no getting it out again. And if her mom or her dad said something rude to Erick or about Erick... Clover didn’t even want to think about it. Mount Hood would have nothing on her eruption if her parents said something rude to Erick. But surely they wouldn’t, not with their middle child and favorite bull’s-eye there to take the darts.