The cranberries were still heating when the back door opened and there was a familiar clomp of boots in the mudroom.
“Dalton,” she said softly, hearing the pleasure in her own voice and feeling a little ashamed about it.
“Hey,” he said, moving to stand close enough to see what she was doing. “Are those cranberries?”
“Yes,” she told them. “And I’ll add Dad’s homemade vanilla once it gets going.”
“I thought you had to buy that stuff in cans,” Dalton said dubiously.
“What do you think they do to it before they put it in the cans?” she asked him, smiling. “Besides, it’s nicer when you cook fresh berries and season them just the way you want them.”
“I learn something every day around here,” Dalton said, shaking his head with a wry smile.
“It’s just cranberry sauce,” she said, feeling silly for making a thing out of it. “But it’s Mom’s favorite. You can decide for yourself on Thursday if you think it’s better than the canned stuff.”
“Oh,” he said, drawing back a little. “I won’t be here.”
“Why not?” she asked, surprised at how disappointed she felt.
“I’ve got plans,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Are you going to see your family?” she asked.
She had wondered how he could bear to come straight to them after his service without seeing his own parents. She knew that she should be happy for him that he would get to have the holiday at home, but it still stung a little for some reason.
It was funny that she’d been working with him all this time and she still didn’t know a thing about this man’s family. Andy had never mentioned it in his letters, and Dalton himself seemed to be a vault when it came to talking about any aspect of his life before the military.
“Nah,” he said.
She blinked in surprise.
“A girlfriend?” she ventured, feeling her cheeks heat as soon as the words were out.
“Definitely not,” he told her.
The wave of relief that washed over her was not a good sign. She should be focused on her own family.
But that made her worry again about his.
“Dalton, is your family really okay with you not coming home for the holidays?” she heard herself ask him. “They haven’t seen you in a long time.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically cold as he turned away from her.
“Well, what are your plans?” she asked, brightly, trying to change the subject.
“I’m just going to go to the diner,” he said, his eyes still on the fields outside the window. “I saw that they were open, so I figured I’d just head to town for the day and have dinner there.”
“What?”she burst out without meaning to.
“I don’t want to intrude on your family’s holiday tradition,” he said calmly.
The stairs creaked and Ella’s dad came to the landing while she was still standing there, gobsmacked.
“Dad, did you hear this?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Hear what, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Dalton just said he’s going to the diner on Thanksgiving because he doesn’t want to intrude on our family tradition,” she said, as shocked at the words as she’d been when she heard them the first time.
