Christmas At The Riverview Inn Read online

  Christmas At The Riverview Inn

  Molly O’Keefe

  Contents

  Letter To Readers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  18. Chapter 1

  Letter To Readers

  Christmas at the Riverview Inn is a looooooong time coming. I have been meaning to write Cameron’s story for YEARS. And for the readers who have been patient - I really do appreciate it.

  I wrote this book during the beginning of this quarantine - when days seemed to last so long and this whole thing felt a little bit like an adventure. It was fun to imagine a snowstorm and a country lodge and being alone with the love of my life with a bottle of wine and a cheese tray. Instead of being NEVER alone in my messy house with two kids and dog who somehow kept getting fleas!

  I am more than ever so grateful to the escape that romance offers - as a reader and a writer. This was a very special book to write during a really wild time. And I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

  For the beautiful cover I need to thank Mayhem Cover Creations. For copyediting - Judy Sturrup. And for brainstorming help, content editing, zoom chats, phone calls, long-distance wine and constant steady support and friendship - all my love to Skye, Annika, Simone and Steph.

  And to you - my very favorite readers in the world - thank you. Stay safe.

  1

  7 Years Ago—August

  CAMERON

  It was the night of Josie Mitchell’s high school graduation and she was drunk as an adorable skunk.

  And Cameron was in the tenth circle of hell. Did hell have that many circles? Whatever, he’d found a new one. Charting undiscovered hell territory—of course he’d be good at that.

  “That was a great night,” she said, looking up at him from the passenger seat of his car.

  “I’m glad you had fun. Do you…need help?” He opened the passenger side door to help her out.

  “No,” she said indignantly, and then all but fell out of the car.

  “Okay, I gotcha,” he said, getting her to her feet and propping her up against the front fender. Where she slid, like she had no bones, toward the front wheel.

  “I had fun because of you,” she said. “You made it possible, Cameron.”

  “Well…” He didn’t know what to say to that so he let the word trail off, grabbed her by the waist, and shut the passenger door. The sound of the slamming door sent some animal scurrying off in the bush and he hoped he hadn’t just woken up the whole family.

  “You give the best gifts,” she said, turning to look at him, which meant her face was very close. He could turn his head and…

  Do not turn your head.

  His graduation present to her had been chauffeur service for her and her friends from the Riverview Inn—her family’s lodge in the Catskill Mountains—to all the graduation parties. So she could have fun and be safe.

  “Well, you’re no slouch either,” he said. The only way he knew how to take a compliment was to deflect it.

  “Okay, five questions,” she said.

  “Josie.”

  “No. It’s my turn. You five question me all the time.”

  “Fine. Go.” He pretended to be annoyed. But mostly he was just nervous, not sure what questions might come out of drunk Josie’s mouth. This was a game they’d started playing the summer the ground had been broken on Haven House. Top five favorite movies. Top five favorite television show finales—those were her type of questions. Top five ways to eat potatoes. Five worst things you’ve ever eaten—those were his.

  “Best gift you ever got?”

  “The coffeemaker you got me on my birthday.” It was this high-tech, expensive camping thing that fit in the palm of his hand. He loved it so much. He loved that she knew he would love it. “But the year you got me all the Bourdain books. That was a good year, too.”

  “I need to replace those. You’ve read them to pieces and…” She paused. Hiccupped. They stopped, a stone clattering off his shoe.

  “Are you going to throw up?” he asked.

  “Totally not,” she said like she was offended. Which meant there was a fifty-fifty chance she was going to puke. He got them walking again. A little faster now.

  Tonight, all he’d done was drive her and Helen around playing Beyoncé at top volume. He’d wanted to take her camping, to this place he’d found way up in the mountains behind the lodge, where there was a lake so clear and blue it looked like a sky. A place he knew she would love. But then he’d thought about being in a tent with her and rejected the idea.

  He’d thought this would be better.

  Stupid me.

  “You are such a good guy,” Josie breathed. Her breath was, like, eighty percent alcohol; he was getting drunk just being close to her. “Did you know that?”

  “Yep,” he said, trying to keep her on her feet and also open the back door. But she kept melting. Against him. Against the door. She was a puddle of Josie, in the way of everywhere he was trying to be.

  “No.” She grabbed his face.

  Ouch. A little rough, there, Jos. And he thought she might be going for some kind of stern look, some kind of serious I mean business type look. But she was too drunk. And too dear to manage it.

  God. She is beautiful.

  As quickly as he thought that, he stopped. He was good at that after all these years. Thinking a thing he shouldn’t and then just…not. Just stopping.

  “You’re my best friend,” she said.

  “I know.”

  He got the door open, managed to get them inside the dark and cool kitchen. No one there, waiting up.

  Thank God.

  But they were all sleeping here at the lodge. Alice and her husband Gabe. Max and Josie’s mom, Delia. If they weren’t quiet he’d have a million Mitchells in here.

  “Cameron,” she said. “You have to listen to me.”

  He actually laughed. “Josie. I’m listening. I’m a good guy and I’m your best friend. You’re mine, too.” These were things they didn’t actually say out loud. Like saying them out loud might tip the chemistry of their friendship into that place he was trying to avoid. Trying not to look at. Trying to pretend didn’t exist.

  And, frankly, pretending was easier when they weren’t touching.

  He stepped away, setting down his bag, and she leaned back against the wall looking… Jesus.

  “You need to drink some water,” he said, and quickly turned away to get her a glass.

  “Cameron,” she said. “You could do literally anything. You know that, right?”

  This again. “You Mitchells are really into telling me that these days.” It was like they were trying to get rid of him. He’d turned twenty-two and suddenly his future was all anyone wanted to talk about.

  Which was weird, because in so many ways he still felt like the shitty sixteen-year-old kid he’d been. He’d skipped school and gotten caught stealing a car and no one at home had given a shit. He’d been surprised the judge had—and had sent him to the Riverview for community service with Max instead of to juvie.

  Max, Josie’s adopted dad, had been his first boss here. But then he’d met Alice, who was in charge of the kitchens, and he’d traded Max and constant wood chopping for Alice and the kitchen
. And it changed his life.

  But years later, he still didn’t know what he was supposed to do without the Mitchells. Alice. This kitchen.

  Josie.

  “Another one of my five questions. I still have some left.”

  “Not really.”

  She ignored him. “What do you want to do with your life?”

  This. Right now. The Riverview Inn kitchen and you. Every day, all day.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, deflecting again. His great talent.

  “Write amazing television. I want to make people cry. And change people’s minds. And make them stay up all night to just watch one more episode.” He smiled at her passion. “But the question is for you,” she said.

  His silence was possibly damning. But if he opened his mouth, the words he could not say would come out. Love you.

  “You are smart. And funny. And you work hard and you’re a great chef.”

  “Thanks, Josie,” he said and brought her the water. “I’ll put you down as a reference if I ever get another job.” She took one gulp, most of which splashed down her neck, and handed the glass back. He ignored the water dripping across her chest into the top of her dress. It was yellow and short. She looked amazing in it.

  “You…you could come to New York with me. You could get a job in a kitchen. Alice would give you a letter of recommendation and I’ll go to school. And we’ll be broke, but it would be fun? Wouldn’t it? You and me? The big city?”

  The words were quiet but they went through him like arrows. Piercing his brain. His chest. His dick. He was embarrassed even thinking that word around her. But he couldn’t stop.

  With you how? he wanted to ask. As your boyfriend? As your friend?

  Again, after long, long, looooong practice, he thought the thought and put it away.

  “That’s more than five questions,” he said.

  “Cam—”

  “Let’s talk about this in the morning,” he said and smiled at her. “You need help getting upstairs?”

  Please say no. Say no. Please.

  He’d touched her more on the way from the car to the house than he had in years, and the whole left side of his body was raw and electric, and his dick was half hard. He felt like an animal and the luckiest guy in the world.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and pushed off the wall, overcompensated and nearly fell into the stainless steel table in the center of the room.

  “Sure you are. Come on.”

  Girding himself, trying, like it was even a thing that could be done, to remove all sense of feeling on the side of his body touching her, he put his arm around her back and lifted her until she was standing.

  “Hi.” She smiled at him and his heart bobbed.

  “Hi.”

  He walked them through the dark kitchen into the big main room with its fireplace and the wall of windows. Moonlight slid in great blocks across the floor, making their skin seem ghostly.

  Cameron was painfully, excruciatingly aware of Josie’s body against his side. The press of her leg. Her arm around his shoulders. He could smell her. Summer night and sweat and whatever sweet thing she’d been drinking. Something with cherries, probably. And green Jell-O shots. If he kissed her she’d taste like an artificial fruit salad.

  When he’d had this brilliant chauffeur idea, he had not considered this. This being alone with her. Soft and pliant and happy and smelling so sweet. He had not considered the hell of the bright red filaments of her hair stuck to his neck in the heat.

  And he knew it had never occurred to him because he’d gotten so good at not noticing this stuff about her. Because he’d done everything in his power the last year to not be with her like this. To be just friends.

  Not touch her.

  Not be close enough to smell her.

  Or feel her.

  Not think of her pretty eyes or the way she looked when the sun hit her just right. Or how her laugh, when she really got going, was like a gong that echoed through his whole body.

  And now she was drunk and he felt like an absolute asshole because he was absolutely soaking it in. Like he could not get enough of her skin on his.

  Dude. She’s drunk.

  There were plenty of people in his life, in this town, who thought the worst of him because of his mom and dad. Who wouldn’t be surprised if he groped a drunk girl. But the Riverview folks—Alice and Max, they believed the best of him.

  Max had even said it to him before Cameron left with Josie that night. I trust you with my daughter.

  Cameron wasn’t going to betray that trust. Ever.

  So he tried, as best he could, to put distance between them somehow.

  Up the stairs. To her room. Goodnight and get the hell out of here, man.

  “Cam.” Her voice was low as they made their way toward the stairs. “I need to tell you something…”

  “Yeah?” he asked, trying to shift her just a little. He could feel the sweat on the insides of her arms and it was so far from gross, he wanted to run his hand from her wrist to her elbow, gathering all of it in his palm. He wanted to lick his hand.

  He wanted to kiss her shoulder and taste her. God. He wanted to taste her.

  “I love you.”

  The words sent sparks through his body and everything he felt for her—all the pent-up shit he’d been dealing with since she was a kid—it was dry kindling. It was explosives. A barn full of fireworks.

  He laughed, ruthlessly stomping out the spark. “All right, drunky. You love everyone.”

  They made it to the first landing and he braced her against the wall, getting away from her as best he could.

  “No,” she said, grabbing onto him. Her hands clutching his shirt. His arm. “I mean, sure. But… “ She took a deep breath. “I love you especially.”

  He turned his face away. Cameron didn’t pray. His mother did and he saw how that had gotten her a whole bunch of nothing. But right now he prayed for the strength to say no to this.

  I trust you with my daughter.

  “Do you think of me…like that?”

  All the time. Every minute. You would be horrified to know what I think of you. You would blush so hard you’d just be ash. And saying it out loud would make me blush so hard I’d be ash.

  “Josie. You’re drunk. Let’s not talk about this now.” He pulled her off the wall. The room she liked to use in the lodge was three doors down. Fifty feet. If that. He just needed to get her into her room and himself away from her.

  Pulled by him, she stumbled forward, colliding with his body.

  “Careful,” he murmured, trying to keep her upright. And then she did the impossible. The disastrous. She grabbed his face. Forced him to look at her. Right at her.

  Growing up, he hadn’t believed in love. There had been no sign of it in his house. No proof that it existed. After coming here it had taken some time to believe that all this love the Mitchells had and tossed around like it was all so easy was even real. It felt, at best, fake. At worst like a trap. And he’d believed for as long as he could that every single Mitchell was a sucker.

  But then Alice had won him over.

  And then Max.

  And Patrick.

  The rest of them.

  But it wasn’t until Josie that he’d believed in real love. The kind that changed the way his body worked. And his brain thought. The kind that opened up an idea to him he had never had the guts to think about.

  Cameron wasn’t cheesy, and he would never say it out loud, but he believed that he and Josie were as close to soul mates as two people could be. It was the only way he could explain not just what he felt for her, but the long and strange and totally unlikely road that had brought them together.

  A thousand near misses and different decisions, and they never would have met.

  “I’ve loved you for so long,” she whispered. And she kissed him.

  It was every single thing he’d ever wanted. And he gave himself just one second. One impossible taste of it. He allowed his
hands to touch her hair. His body to register the feel of her against him. He was an absolute asshole but he kissed her back.

  He kissed her back hard.

  She moaned and he could taste the booze on her, and he hated himself.

  She’s drunk. This is not consent. It’s not anything but drunk.

  He pushed her away.

  “Josie, you are drunk and now…”

  She tried to kiss him again and he stepped back.

  He watched her face go white and he realized she was embarrassed. That she thought he was rejecting her because he didn’t like her. Didn’t want to kiss her or touch her.

  When that’s all he’d wanted to do for so long now.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and started down the hallway.

  “No, Josie. It’s not like that.”

  “This is embarrassing,” she said, pulling her hand away when he grabbed it. “Just…let me be embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. Come on. You’re drunk, Josie.”

  “Well, drunk was the only way I could do this, so…whatever.”

  He took a deep breath. Because he understood that. Needing the fake courage to break through the walls of their friendship. Of their age difference. Of being a kind of pseudo family.

  And the truth was—he might never have made the first move. He’d been telling himself for a year he was just waiting for the right time. But now she was leaving leaving. For New York City and college.

  Drunk and messy may not have been his plan, okay. But this was the start of something. Something they could talk about tomorrow. Figure out—tomorrow.

  She’d gone into the room and was struggling to take off her sweater.

  He was not—no matter what—going to go in there and help her.

  “Josie.”

  “What?” she snapped and turned to face him in the doorway. “What do you want?”