The Ghost of Christmas Present (10 page)

Ha! She didn't even flinch that
time.

"Do you have any idea how long you were
gone?"

She could almost hear his foot tapping,
like a father whose daughter stayed out past curfew. She looked at
her watch.

"Three hours and thirty-seven minutes.
Give or take a few seconds."

He almost growled. "Well, I hope it was
important."

She just smiled mysteriously and
thought about what his reaction would be when she gave him the gift
she'd been working on all afternoon.

"So what did you do while I was
gone?"

"I sulked."

She threw her head back and laughed as
she pulled into the drive and turned off the car. At least he was
honest.

"Poor baby. I'll make it up to you this
evening. What would you like to do. Just name it."

The scowl left his face and his brow
quirked as he clearly contemplated the possibilities. He followed
her into the cabin, and she could almost hear the gears turning to
come up with something she wouldn't normally agree to.

"Hmm," he teased. "This is a very
interesting proposition. I certainly don't want to waste the
opportunity."

Alane smiled indulgently as she
shrugged out of her coat and set her bag of art supplies on the end
table. How much could he come up with, considering how sorely
limited his options were? She headed for the kitchen, poured
herself a glass of wine, then stirred up the fire and laid a few
logs on. With a playful grimace, she plugged in the lights to the
Christmas tree.

"A work of art," she reassured herself
under her breath, then she stretched out on the rug in front of the
fire and let her muscles relax, one by one. She hadn't realized how
tense she'd been all day. But she'd achieved what she set out to
do, and now she could just sit back and enjoy Jared's
reaction.

Tomorrow. She'd give him her gift on
Christmas Eve.

"I know how you can make it up to me,"
Jared interrupted her musings with a low voice near her
ear.

Alane raised her head, surprised to see
him stretched out beside her.

"I think I'm afraid to ask."

"Let me in your head again."

Just his saying the words caused her to
go all warm and tingly. His persuasive smile didn't hide the raw
need in his eyes. She swallowed and bit her lower lip.

"All right," she whispered, scared of
opening up that much; wanting to open up desperately. Then a
thought occurred to her. "This won't hurt you will it? Like when
you touched me?"

A sadness flashed in his eyes and he
looked away, but when he looked back it was gone.

"No." He shook his head. "It'll be like
when you painted. Since I'm not touching you, it won't take much
energy."

"What are you going to do?"

Almost before she finished her
question, he rolled over, melting into her, turning her blood to
warm, heady brandy. She sighed, then gasped when a swirl
of...feelings...touched her in ways words could never describe.
Tenderness assaulted her senses. Love - his love - coiled in a
tingling spiral in her chest. Visions of him making love to her
floated through her mind and she felt as if it were real. Her bones
turned to putty and sensations intoxicated her, heightening her
senses, smoldering in her blood.

"Oh, Jared, do you feel it too?" She
wanted to share this with him. Wanted to give back to him what he
was giving to her.

She felt as if strong arms cradled her
against a hard, warm chest; as if her head nestled broad
shoulders.

She had no idea how long he bombarded
her with one dizzying sensation after another. It could have been
minutes. It could have been hours.

Finally, reluctantly, the sensations
ebbed, and the warmth of him glided from her body, leaving her with
her mind spinning and her body aching for more.

She turned to him and wanted to hold
him so badly she could cry.

"Crying won't help," he responded to
her unspoken thought.

He reached out his hand and touched her
again, and suddenly she felt his torment. His agonizing torment to
want. To love. Torment at being nothing more on this earth than a
sigh of wind through the trees.

"Oh, Jared." She willed away the
burning in her eyes. He wouldn't want her pity or her sympathy.
He'd delved into her thoughts, her mind, and instead of taking,
he'd given of himself, opened himself to her and let her feel his
joy, his wonder, and his agony.

And neither of them would ever be the
same. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The distant church bell tolled as Jared
walked along the lake in the pre-dawn hours of Christmas Eve. A
thin layer of ice crusted the water along a shore as black and as
cold as his mood.

He had to let her go. He'd known all
along that this was just a brief moment in time for him to enjoy
now and savor for decades to come. A keepsake of a precious memory.
But he'd managed to tell himself that it didn't have to
end.

Now he knew it must, for her sake, not
for his.

Two days left together and then she
would leave. And if she ever came back, he would not appear to her.
Not ever. And eventually she would give up, go away, and live a
normal life.

Perhaps she would marry David and have
the children she denied wanting. He cared for her, Jared knew that
for sure. He'd dipped far enough into David's thoughts that day to
know that the man really did love Alane, even if he didn't
understand her.

The thought of her leaving tore at
Jared's chest, but the thought of what might happen if she didn't
leave tore at him more.

He sensed her waking and was at her
side in the space of a breath. He found her as he had left her,
curled on her side, buried under a mound of blankets. He lay down
beside her, watching, memorizing, as her eyes slowly opened and a
soft, lazy grin curved her lips.

"You weren't watching me sleep, were
you?" she asked, her voice husky from disuse.

"One of my favorite
pastimes."

She faked a yawn that turned into a
real one. "That's as bad as watching somebody fish."

He forced a grin. "That's what you said
about painting, and look what it got you."

"Mmmm," she purred. "You do have a way
of changing reality."

He only wished.

She rolled over, rolled into him, and
he gasped at her unexpected move.

"I love it when you hold me," she
murmured in a voice as soft and smooth as a kitten. He closed his
eyes and willed the wrenching pain in the center of his soul to go
away. How could he live without her? How could he continue to exist
with her?

He lay there, holding her the only way
he could as she dozed. When he could bear no more he rose and moved
himself to the porch, staring out at the lake until he heard her
moving around upstairs. She'd just come down the stairs when he
entered the living room.

"Hey, you deserted me."

He shrugged and kept his tone light.
"You were snoring."

She snatched a throw pillow and flung
it at him."I don't snore!"

"No, and I don't walk through
walls."

She "hmmphed," tossed her head and
prissed into the kitchen.

Faith, every move she made, every
breath she took made him love her even more.

He wandered into the kitchen and she
playfully ignored him until he stepped in her way one too many
times. With a giggle, she conceded defeat.

"But I still don't snore."

Her mood remained high - down right
perky - all day long, while he fought to live up to his words and
not mourn the future. In truth, it dented his ego that she so
easily staved off her dread of their parting.

By evening he was misery incarnate, and
Alane was all smiles and sparkling eyes. He'd had the devil's own
time of keeping on a cheerful face, and the task became harder and
harder as he watched the clock tick away the minutes.

"Do you want to watch
another movie?
It's a Wonderful Life
is coming on. No matter how many times I see it, I
always cry at the end."

"No," he sighed. "I think I've had all
the Christmas spirit I need. Haven't you?"

She smiled mischievously and leaned
into him.

"On the contrary. I can't seem to get
enough Christmas spirit."

Her double meaning only depressed him
further. They had such little time to get enough of each
other.

"Oh, come on, sour puss. You've been
down in the dumps all evening."

"I have not."

"No? And I don't snore."

He smiled at that. She could always
make him smile.

"I bet I know something that'll cheer
you up."

He doubted it very
seriously.

"What?"

He watched as she dropped to her knees
and rummaged under the hideous Christmas tree. From within the
folds of the sheet that was the "snow" beneath the tree, she pulled
a small, flat box. She'd wrapped it in red foil with little silver
bells in the ribbons. She jingled them at him.

"I'm going to figure out a way to put
these around your neck when we're done."

He tried hard to keep an expectant
smile on his face as she scooted back next to him on the
floor.

A gift. What could she possibly give
him that she could wrap in a box? What could he ever hope to give
her in return?

"Merry Christmas. Open it. Oh, you want
me to? Okay." She grinned up at him and tore into the foil with as
much excitement as if it were for her. When the wrapping fell away,
she stopped before taking off the lid.

"Wanna guess?"

He arched a brow at her and scanned the
gift.

"A tie."

"Nope. Half right. It's a tie box.
But..." she lifted the top and folded back the tissue paper, one
layer at a time, "...it's big enough to hold a cabin."

The last of the tissue paper fell away
to reveal a long, folded legal document that was obviously a
deed.

Oh, sweet Gabriel, what had she
done?

"I bought it this afternoon." She
pulled the deed from its bed of tissue paper and flipped it open
with a flick of her wrist. "I don't have to leave day after
tomorrow. The cabin's ours and nobody can make me
leave."

His split second of pure elation died
with the agonizing sensation of being torn in two.

He couldn't allow her to
stay.

"Alane...I..."

"I know. You're speechless. But it's
okay. I took the money dad left me and paid for it. Even the bank
doesn't have a claim on it."

Her brilliant smile didn't start to
fade until she realized he didn't mirror her enthusiasm.

"What's wrong? We're supposed to be
doing the dance of joy right about now."

He closed his eyes and rammed splayed
fingers through his hair.

"Alane, you can't stay
here."

"Of course, I can. I own - "

"No. Don't you see? It's impossible. As
much as I love you, I could never spend the rest of your life with
you and not touch you. Not go further than we did the night we
danced. Last night was one-sided, Alane. I felt images of emotions,
but that was all. I'd touch you again, even without your
permission, and I'd cease existing with the taste of you on my
lips, the feel of you lingering in my arms. And I'd go happily
because I've loved and been loved.

"But you would never forgive yourself.
Ever. I've known enough of your soul to know that you would blame
yourself. You'd mourn me for the rest of your life and grow to hate
yourself in the process."

He rose and paced the floor, shoving
his hand through his hair and making a fist at the
crown.

"You need children, Alane, and a
husband who can touch you, pull you into his arms and comfort you
when you've had a bad day. One who can make love to you. Hell, you
need a husband who can open a door for you when your hands are full
or help you decorate a Christmas tree. And you need one you can
touch as well. It's a painful, empty feeling to never hold another
human being in your arms." He pinned her with his gaze as he paced.
"If you don't believe anything else I've ever told you, believe
that."

He stopped his pacing and turned to
her. He didn't bother to hide his tortured pain. He wanted her to
know he loved her and to know that what he was about to do did not
come easy.

She looked up at him. Her amazing brown
eyes swam in tears while glistening drops fell from her lashes and
etched silvery trails down her cheeks.

Wordlessly, she reached for him, but
her hands grasped nothing but empty air.

He swallowed and closed his
eyes.

"See?"