The Holiday Visitor

He reached for the coffeepot. She got there first and filled his cup for him. A wifely thing to do.

“She paints. I sculpt. Sort of.”

“What does that mean?” A small, impersonal smile curved her lips and Craig felt himself sinking again.

“I build things out of metal. Wall scenes. Pictures. Even furniture. Pretty much anything I’m commissioned to do.” A simplistic explanation, but it would suffice. His art, his career, didn’t matter here.

“Do you work under your own name?”

“Yes.” Such a hazy distinction between duplicity and truth.

Trying to follow her lead, to get them back to the level of married guest with innkeeper, he answered all of her questions as they finished the main course, meeting some internal need he didn’t understand as he told her about himself. He didn’t own a retail shop, preferring to sell his stuff at shows, but he did have a studio on his property. No, he and his wife didn’t share workspace. Her studio was the whole upstairs of the cabin they’d had built the year before. He used all kinds of metals in his work and had perfected a way to colorize in a technique similar to ceramics with special paints and repeated firings of the metal. And while he’d been all around the country, these days he had very little time to be out on the road hocking his wares due to the numbers of commissioned orders he was receiving.

“We have a fairly well-known art show not far from here,” she said over her last bite of casserole. She licked her fork. He followed the path her tongue took. “It’s sometime in June and draws artists from all over the States.”

“I know.” He had to look away as his body responded to the innocent stimuli. “I’m signed up for it. That’s actually how I came to be here now. They sent an acceptance packet with local information. Your ad was one of the many offering accommodations.”

Think work, man. Work and secrets. And Jenny.

“Do I have you booked then?” She didn’t seem unhappy about that.

“Not yet.” He’d needed to check things out first. Always. No matter what he did. “But I plan to do that before I leave.”

He could do this. Have a friend. Jenny had many—both male and female. He’d tell her about Marybeth. Marybeth knew he was married. It was all okay. Whether he was married or not, he could never be more than passing-through friends with Marybeth Lawson, anyway. There were reasons for that, too.

“Good. Now’s the time to do it.” Marybeth cleared their plates, leaving them on the sideboard as she brought over the coffee cake that had been warming. “I’ve only been open three years, but all three summers were completely booked. Every single night from May until September.”

“I hope you have people in here helping you.”

“A woman comes in and cleans, but I pretty much do the rest myself. I like it that way.”

“Seven days a week for three months straight? What about time off?”

“Other than cooking, I’m off a good part of each day unless I’m doing the cleaning. I’m here for breakfast, and for check-in at three. And for evening libations. Otherwise I come and go.”

“But you don’t have a full day off? Not even one?”

Putting a too big piece of mouthwatering cake on a plate in front of him, Marybeth shrugged. “What for?”

The response tugged at him.

HE ATE EVERY BITE of the huge piece of caramel walnut coffee cake she’d made last night after she’d heard Craig come in from dinner. It had been her father’s favorite. A family tradition to have it on Christmas Eve. One of the few that Marybeth had kept up after her mother’s death.

One of the few her father had acknowledged. She hadn’t planned on making it this year. Then Craig McKellips had walked through the door and she’d been doing all sorts of crazy things.

Like sitting down to breakfast with a guest. Like feeling more hungry for the guest than for the food she’d prepared. The guest with a wedding ring on his finger.

“So what made you decide to take a whole week in Santa Barbara right now?” she asked, when what she really needed to know was why he was there alone.

“I wanted to get out of the cold.”

She pulled his plate toward her. Stacked it atop her own.

How could a man who exuded such heat ever be cold? And how could she, knowing that he was married, that he belonged to someone else, still feel so compelled to be near him?

As their gazes met, held, as she couldn’t look away because she wanted so badly to know every single thought behind the searching she found there, Marybeth blurted, “What about your wife? What was her name? Jenny?”

His blinked, and it was as if he left one world for another, but he still looked her straight in the eye. “What do you want to know about her?”

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And everything.

And nothing again. He was a guest—albeit one who’d seemingly changed who she was. All these years of waiting to find a man who sparked magic—who sparked some kind of reaction in her—and he comes along married.

“Jenny and I…that’s not something I can readily explain.”

“I understand,” she said, reaching for the coffeepot as she stood. She had to stop feeling things around him.

Craig’s hand on the handle of the pot stopped her.

“Please, I’d like to tell you about her, if you don’t mind. If for no other reason than because I purposely took off my wedding ring yesterday when I got here.”

Danger, Will Robinson. A line from a drama space show she used to watch popped into her brain. A TV show from long, long ago. Pre-twelve years of age. Marybeth could see the robot’s arms flailing all over the place, as though a precursor to what would come if she stayed in that room right then.

His wedding ring, wherever he kept it, had nothing to do with her.

“I don’t think…”

“I want it very clear that I have no intention of behaving with anything but complete appropriateness while I’m away from my wife. I have never, not once, been unfaithful to her. Nor will I be.”

The tone of his voice, so filled with emotion, as much as his words put her butt right back in the chair.

He had to be feeling it, too—this…whatever had overtaken her the minute she’d seen him standing in the foyer of her home. Apparently he felt it, and was trying to be responsible to it.

“I’m listening.”

“I…Jenny and I are friends. Great friends. We hung out together in art school and were buddies for a couple of years before we ever talked about becoming something more.”

Buddies with this man? Marybeth couldn’t see it.

“We’re good together. Good for each other. We understand each other.”

At least he hadn’t given her the classic my wife doesn’t understand me line.

“There’s mutual respect and trust because of that understanding. Most importantly, there are no false expectations. When both of us are free at the same time, we enjoy each other’s company. But there’s no hurt feelings, or longing to be together when we’re apart.”

“Then why did you get married?” God, he looked good to her. Even now she was hanging on his every word. Wanted to know everything about him.

“It was her idea,” Craig said slowly, as though from someplace far away. “Neither of us had a lifestyle conducive to a traditional marriage. Neither of us wanted one. We’re both the type of people who need emotional distance. Yet, we seemed to gravitate toward each other. Taking the next step seemed natural. Right. She was certain that we could make it work.”