“You have no need to explain,” she said gently.
“If there’s anything else I can do—-”
“Yes,” Ilse heard herself say. “Actually, there is something you could do.”
After a beat, Issac said, “Sure.”
She almost laughed at the wariness in his voice.Oh, Issac. You never learn. He was always so quick to promise her the moon and the stars. And now he was doing it again, his knight-in-shining-armor complex making him utter rash words of promise that they both knew were nothing but painfully empty words.
“It’s nothing onerous, I promise.”
Ilse could practically feel Issac relaxing at her lightly spoken words, the way she meant him to.
“Still using big words on the lacrosse player,” Issac teased back, his relief audible.
“It will always be our thing,” she told him solemnly.
“Riiiight.”
Ilse waited for his chuckle to fade before saying, “About that thing I mentioned—-” She didn’t give him time to react. “I just have one question to ask. Just a question.”
“Oh. Okay. Shoot.”
“Who else has Natalia called?”
IT WAS JUST TWO DAYSbefore Christmas, and the air in the city hummed with life as people rushed to find the perfect gifts for loved ones. A large number of men lounged outside the boutiques, impatient but somewhat resigned to the fact that they had no choice but to wait for the women in their lives to finish shopping for gifts.
Moments later, heads turned one by one as a curvy dark-haired girl came walking down the street at a steady, graceful pace. She had a startlingly beautiful face, made even more exquisite by an air of self-composure that was not commonly seen in girls her age.
She looked neither left nor right as she came to a stop at the end of the block, and by doing so, she had crushed the hopes of both boys and men around her without even being aware of it. There was just something about her that warned them off.You may look, but you may not touch.
Still unaware of the admiring glances that came her way, Ilse couldn’t help grinning when she spotted a familiar-looking car bearing down her way. It stopped right in front of her, and as the passenger door opened, a boy stepped out, dark eyes shining and chubby cheeks flushed with excitement.
Bending down, she looked past the boy, saying gratefully, “Thank you for driving him here for me, Mrs. Norris.”
“Anything for you two, dear. Are you sure you don’t need a ride home later?”
She did, but Mrs. Norris was seventy-one years old already. It was more than enough that their neighbor had taken the time to bring her brother here. And so Ilse shook her head firmly, saying with a smile, “We’re good.Be dankt.”Thank you.
“You’re always welcome, luv.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Norris.” She gestured for Jan to say the same, and her brother hurried forward, saying cheerfully with an energetic, “Vrolijke Kerstmis!”
Mrs. Norris laughed. “Merry Christmas, Ilse, Jan.”
After watching their neighbor speed away in her trusty Peugeot, Ilse turned to Jan and automatically reached for his collar to fix it. Jan waited patiently and with marked disinterest. There were times when he cared about his appearance, but there were also times – like now – when he didn’t care at all.
When she was done fixing his collar, she asked him, beaming, “Are you ready?”
Jan grinned. “Ja!”
“Then let’s go!” Taking her brother’s hand, Ilse led them to the ticket stalls of Amsterdam Arena. This was the first Christmas that it would be just the two of them, and she needed it to be special.
Her parents’ faces flashed in her mind—-
Their papa asking them to hurry up with the shopping—-
Their mama waking them up in the morning so they could have breakfast together for Christmas—-
