My arms and legs feel energized.
Hammering in my chest and breathless excitement remind me just how much I like theright nowin my own love story.“Yes,” I whisper against him.
And he kisses memore, in just the right ways.
“Fine,” I admit, when he finally releases me.“I guess, American or not, I’m excited enough for the love we have now, even knowing it may have an expiration date.”
He smiles.“It won’t expire though, not if I can help it.”Cillian walks me back to the cottage then, leaning against the door of my porch.“I’ll be over early tomorrow to help—I took the day off work.What time do you want me?”
“Ten,” I say.
But for the first time since we started dating, I wish he didn’t have to go home at all.
15
Natalie
Thanksgiving Day didn’t go so great, but I’m determined that our (delayed) day of thanks will go better.Only, I’m so tired that I don’t wake up to my alarm.When I do wake up, I’m late making breakfast for the guests in the main house.I rush over, filling in for Mrs.Murphy and her daughter still, and then I practically run back home.
I wake the kids the second I’m back—they slept in, too.
“We’re late!”I shout.The kids and I rush around like lunatics, but I manage to get them off to school without being late.That’s important, since they missed yesterday to help me.
But by the time they’re off, I’m way behind schedule.I pull out the still-a-little-frozen turkey, fight with it to remove the innards, prep the stuffing inside, which isn’t really stuffing.I learned from my mother to roast the turkey without stuff inside.That causes problems with inconsistent cooking.I fill it instead with lemon, rosemary, and oil.Once it’s perfectly prepped and ready, I’mwaybehind schedule, so I do a little searching.
The internet’s a wonderful thing.It turns out, you can roast a turkey much faster at a high heat, and sometimes that works even better than the slow-roasting I usually do.In Ireland, that means I set the oven at two hundred fifty degrees, Celsius.Once I get that set, I leap into making rolls.You can’t exactly rush rolls rising, or you risk having a bubbly, mushy mess.
Once I have the dough made, I take a little break.
Thanks to my preparation yesterday, I just need to bake most of the other stuff, but it’s already prepped.Green bean casserole, check.Sweet potato casserole, check.Mashed potatoes?I’ll just reheat them right before.I’m so proud of myself for being prepared that I get a little distracted answering some emails from guests and prospective guests.Then I start fiddling around with some website changes I’d been meaning to make.When Cillian knocks, I rush to the door.“Hey, there.I forgot you were coming over.”
“I tried calling,” he says.“But I guess you didn’t see?”
“Whoops,” I say.“I slept in, and then everything else snowballed.”
“No problem,” he says.“But I’m here to help.I know yesterday was hard, so let me be your manual labor today.”He’s tall, and broad, and we have the house to ourselves for once.I should ask him to bring things over from the main house, but instead, I grab his collar and drag him up against the counter.
The next few minutes, I’m even more distracted than I was when I was checking emails...at least, until I hear some kind of beeping, and I realize the kitchen’s full of smoke.
I swear under my breath.
“Oh, no.”He grabs my shoulders and points me at the oven.
The smoke’s billowing out of the top and bottom, and...“The turkey’s onfire!”I shout.I grab a cup of water, and I fill it up.I’m about to pop the oven open and throw it when Cillian grabs my wrist.
“Don’t do that.It’s probably from the grease at a high temperature.”
“What do we do, then?”I ask.
He’s holding his phone.“We turn off the oven, and we wait.If it can’t get air, it’ll go out.”
Or it’ll burn the house down.“I think we should?—”
He shakes his head.“Trust me.Let it go out on its own, or you could wind up with an explosion.”
I sigh, and then we both watch in horror as my one and only turkey roasts into black.Even if I had another, we really have no time to cook one, now.
And that’s how Cillian discovers that when I get really upset and overwhelmed, I cry.
