LITMIR.BIZ

       Five

      Mari soaked in the sound of street music mellowing the warm evening air. The steady beat of the bougarabou drum with the players’ jangling bracelets enriching the percussion reminded her of childhood days. Back when her parents were still together and she lived in Africa full-time, other than visits to the States to see her maternal grandparents.

      Those first seven years of her life had been idyllic—or so she’d thought. She hadn’t known anything about the painful undercurrents already rippling through her parents’ marriage. She hadn’t sensed the tension in their voices over royal pressures and her mother’s homesickness.

      For a genius, she’d missed all the obvious signs. But then, she’d never had the same skill reading people that she had for reading data. She’d barely registered that her mother was traveling to Atlanta more and more frequently. Her first clue had come near the end when she’d overheard her mom talking about buying a home in the States during their Christmas vacation. They wouldn’t be staying with her grandparents any longer during U.S. visits. They would have their own place, not a room with family. Her parents had officially split up and filed for divorce over the holidays.

      Christmas music never sounded quite the same to her again, on either continent.

      The sway melted away from her shoulders and Mari stilled in her wrought-iron seat. The wind still wound around her as they sat at the patio dining area, but her senses moved on from the music to the air of roasting meat from the kitchen and the sound of laughing children. All of it was almost strong enough to distract her from the weight of Rowan’s gaze.

      Almost.

      She glanced over at him self-consciously. “Why are you staring at me? I must be a mess.” She touched her hair, tucking a stray strand back into the twist, then smoothed her rumpled suit shirt and adjusted the silver scarf draped around her neck. “It’s been a long day and the breeze is strong tonight.”

      Since when had she cared about her appearance for more than the sake of photos? She forced her hands back to her lap.

      Rowan’s tanned face creased with his confident grin. “Your smile is radiant.” He waved a broad hand to encompass the festivities playing out around them. “The way you’re taking in everything, appreciating the joy of the smallest details, your pleasure in it all is...mesmerizing.”

      His blue eyes downright twinkled like the stars in the night sky.

      Was he flirting with her? She studied him suspiciously. The restaurant window behind him filled with the movement of diners and waiters, the edges blurred by the spray of fake snow. She’d always been entranced by those pretend snowy displays in the middle of a warm island Christmas.

      “Joy? It’s December, Rowan. The Christmas season of joy. Of course I’m happy.” She thought fast, desperate to defer conversation about her. Talking about Rowan’s past felt a lot more comfortable than worrying about tucking in her shirt, for God’s sake. “What kind of traditions did you enjoy with your family growing up?”

      He leaned back in his chair, his gaze still homed in solely on Mari in spite of the festivities going on around them. “We did the regular holiday stuff like a tree, carols, lots of food.”

      “What kind of food?” she asked just as Issa squirmed in the stroller.

      He shrugged, adjusting the baby’s pacifier until the infant settled back to sleep. “Regular Christmas stuff.”

      His ease with the baby was admirable—and heart-tugging. “Come on,” Mari persisted, “fill in the blanks for me. There are lots of ways to celebrate Christmas and regular food here isn’t the same as regular food somewhere else. Besides, I grew up with chefs. Cooking is still a fascinating mystery to me.”

      He forked up a bite of swordfish. “It’s just like following the steps in a chemistry experiment.”

      “Maybe in theory.” She sipped her fruit juice, the blend bursting along her taste buds with a hint of coconut, her senses hyperaware since Rowan kissed her. “Suffice it to say I’m a better scientist than a cook. But back to you. What was your favorite Christmas treat?”

      He set his fork aside, his foot gently tapping the stroller back and forth. “My mom liked to decorate sugar cookies, but my brother, Dylan, and I weren’t all that into it. We ate more of the frosting than went on the cookies.”

      The image wrapped around her like a comfortable blanket. “That sounds perfect. I always wanted a sibling to share moments like that with. Tell me more. Details... Trains or dump trucks? Bikes or ugly sweaters?”

      “We didn’t have a lot of money, so my folks saved and tucked away gifts all year long. They always seemed a bit embarrassed that they couldn’t give us more, but we were happy. And God knows, it’s more than most of the kids I work with will ever have.”

      “You sound like you had a close family. That’s a priceless gift.”

      Something flickered through his eyes that she couldn’t quite identify, like gray clouds over a blue sky, but then they cleared so fast she figured she must have been mistaken. She focused on his words, more curious about this man than any she’d ever known.

      “At around three-thirty on Christmas morning, Dylan and I would slip out of our bunk beds and sneak downstairs to see what Santa brought.” He shared the memory, but the gray had slipped into his tone of voice now, darkening the lightness of his story. “We would play with everything for about an hour, then put it back like we found it, even if the toy was in a box. We would tiptoe back into our room and wait for our parents to wake us up. We always pretended like we were completely surprised by the gifts.”

      What was she missing here? Setting aside her napkin, she leaned closer. “Sounds like you and your brother share a special bond.”

      “Shared,” he said flatly. “Dylan’s dead.”

      She couldn’t hold back the gasp of shock or the empathetic stab of pain for his loss. For an awkward moment, the chorus of “Silver Bells” seemed to blare louder, the happy music at odds with this sudden revelation. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I didn’t know that.”

      “You had no reason to know. He died in a car accident when he was twenty.”

      She searched for something appropriate to say. Her lack of social skills had never bothered her before now. “How old were you when he died?”

      “Eighteen.” He fidgeted with her sunglasses on the table.

      “That had to be so horrible for you and for your parents.”

      “It was,” he said simply, still toying with her wide-rimmed shades.

      An awkward silence fell, the echoes of Christmas ringing hollow now. She chewed her lip and pulled the first question from her brain that she could scavenge. “Were you still at the military reform school?”

      “It was graduation week.”

      Her heart squeezed tightly at the thought of him losing so much, especially at a time when he should have been celebrating completing his sentence in that school.

      Without thinking or hesitating, she pushed aside her sunglasses and covered Rowan’s hand. “Rowan, I don’t even know what to say.”

      “There’s nothing to say.” He flipped his hand, skimming his thumb along the inside of her wrist. “I just wanted you to know I’m trusting you with a part of my past here.”

      Heat

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