The Ghost of Christmas Present (4 page)

She stared into the fire, wondering at
the odd sense of loss she felt. What if he stayed gone?

She should be irritated that he’d
interrupted her vacation, taking her mind off her work and the
problem with David. But her work and her decisions seemed somehow
less important the longer Jared stayed away.

An eighteenth century tricorn fluttered
out of nowhere and landed in the center of the living room
carpet.

Alane sat up and swung her feet to the
floor. He was back!

She scanned the room, anxious for him
to appear. Finally the air shimmered and he stood there, wearing
jeans and an oxford shirt. Just the sight of him sent her heart to
her throat, and the reaction had nothing to do with
fear.

"I thought I'd throw my hat in first.
If you didn't pull a gun and shoot at it, it'd be safe to come in."
Though his smile had her insides doing somersaults, his eyes asked
if she was still angry. How could someone with such raw sexuality
have so much little boy charm?

Alane chewed on her lower lip in an
attempt not to smile.

"I won't shoot at your hat if you
promise not to read my mind anymore."

He screwed up his face and rolled his
eyes toward the ceiling. After several seconds of melodramatic
deliberation, he looked back at her and nodded.

"It's a deal. But I can't promise I
won't slip now and then. Old habits die hard."

She narrowed her eyes at
him.

"No loopholes allowed."

"Okay, okay. I promise." The hat melted
away into nothing as he flopped into the leather recliner. "What
are you working on?"

She glanced at the sketchpad, which was
covered with charcoal drawings of him.

"Oh, nothing." She flipped the pad
closed. "Just trying to generate some inspiration."

"Lost the spark, huh?"

Alane blinked at his perception. She
didn't often meet someone who understood artistic highs and
lows.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. That's why I
rented this place. To try and concentrate on finding the
passion."

"And I've done nothing but interrupt
you. I'll go and leave you - "

"No!" She nearly jumped off the couch.
When he didn't move she leaned back and tucked her legs back under
the blanket. "You don't need to go. As a matter of fact, I could
use some company."

"Great!" He settled back into the
leather. "Do you like television?"

"Television?" Not exactly what she had
in mind.

"Yeah."

"It's okay, I guess. Is there something
on you'd like to watch?" She hoped he'd take the hint at her lack
of enthusiasm.

His eyes lit up. "Would you mind? It's
been years since anyone rented the place at Christmas time. I'd
love to see a good old-fashioned Christmas special."

Alane started to ask him why he didn't
just turn on the TV and watch them, but she caught herself. There
was probably a good reason, and she probably didn't want to know
it. She picked up the remote and flicked on the TV, then channel
surfed through three cartoon specials, a Christmas in Hawaii show,
and a dozen sitcom re-runs.

"Looks like you're out of luck," she
said as she tossed the remote onto the coffee table, not at all
sorry to turn off the boob tube.

He scrunched lower in the recliner and
sighed.

"Hey, I know!" She snapped her fingers
and kicked off the blanket again. "I've got some Christmas CD's out
in the car." She tried to cram her feet into her boots, then had to
stop and take off two pairs of socks. "We'll have our own Christmas
special. You'll have to imagine the tree, though. I don't do real
trees. Too much of a fire hazard."

"My imagination's good. Not as good as
a real tree, but good."

She headed out the door and found Jared
waiting for her in the car.

"Are they old Christmas carols? I don't
think I could abide anything with rap music or barking
dogs."

Alane smiled at his look of horror. "Do
I look like the rap music type?"

He squinted at her.

"One can never tell these
days."

She pulled a handful of CD's from the
car, then slipped and slid back to the house. He was pacing next to
the stereo when she stomped her way through the door. She
half-expected him to ask her what took her so long.

"Let's see, I've got - "

"This one. Play this one first." Jared
poked his finger through the first CD of mixed artists.

Alane pulled the disc from
its cover and slid it into the player. She added four more, then
turned on the system and adjusted the speakers. A male tenor's
clear, haunting voice filled the room with
O Holy Night.

Jared smiled and closed his
eyes.

"It's been a long time."

"How long?" Alane asked.

"At least ten years since I've heard a
Christmas carol that wasn't part of a TV commercial. This place
doesn't stay that busy this time of year."

Alane wanted to ask him how long he'd
been at the cabin and why he didn't leave, but he looked too happy
at the moment. She couldn't imagine ten years without celebrating
Christmas. Ten years, alone on Christmas Eve. She’d struggled with
the decision to spend just one alone.

While he sank back into the recliner
and became one with the music, Alane kicked off her boots, put her
two extra pairs of socks back on, then tossed a bag of popcorn into
the microwave. All the comforts of home, she thought, in a hundred
year old cabin. And no one for him to share it with.

She started to pour herself a glass of
wine, then remembered the night before and poured a diet cola
instead. When she re-entered the living room with a heaping bowl of
popcorn, Jared sat in the recliner, his head back and his eyes
closed, looking for the world as if he were asleep.

She admired the curve of his jaw, the
way his hair fell in dark waves that begged to be touched, and
wondered if ghosts slept.

"No," was on the tip of his tongue in
answer to her unasked question, but then Jared remembered he wasn't
supposed to read her mind anymore. Not that he'd done it on purpose
that time. It was devilish hard to break old habits.

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. A
flicker of suspicion flashed across her face, but she merely smiled
back and curled up in her corner of the couch.

His heart lurched at the sight of her,
all warm and cuddly-looking in those awful gray sweats smeared in a
rainbow of paints. He wondered if she smelled as good as she
looked.

"Enjoying the music?"

He closed his eyes and pulled his
thoughts away from what it would feel like to nuzzle his face in
the silk of her hair.

"Mmmm. Yes. Thank you for thinking of
it."

"My pleasure."

He heard her munching on popcorn and
wished he could feed it to her, one plump kernel at a
time.

The jangling ring of the telephone
jerked him from his pleasant thoughts. The irritating sound of that
contraption was a noise he would never, in a hundred lifetimes,
learn to like.

Alane wiped her fingers on her sweats
and thankfully picked the thing up before it could ring
again.

"Hello?"

Jared fought the overwhelming urge to
tune in on the conversation, especially since the look on her face
suggested the other person was a male.

"No. I don't think that's a
good idea...I came here so I could be alone and work." She flicked
her gaze toward Jared. "No, I'm not lonely. Really, David. I don't
mind spending Christmas alone. I
want
some time alone...All
right...I'll see you then." With a hastily murmured, "Bye," she
hung up and gave Jared a weak smile.

"Boyfriend?" he asked, amazed at how
hard it was to keep the red hot jealousy from creeping into his
voice.

She gave a non-committal shrug.
"Sometimes."

"Is he coming up?" Jared would be
damned if he'd let the man within one hundred yards of the
cabin.

"No. I came here to be alone
and I don't want any company." She tossed a handful of popcorn into
her mouth, then her eyes widened and she swallowed fast. "Not that
I want
you
to
leave."

At least those words lessened the sting
of a boyfriend.

"I couldn't leave even if you wanted me
to." Damn. Why had he said that out loud?

She sat up a little in the corner of
the couch and took a sip of her soft drink.

"You can't leave? Why not?"

Jared slouched in the chair and
wondered when he'd lost control of his mouth.

"I don't know."

"You don't know why you can't
leave?"

He sighed. "No. I came back about
twenty-five years ago and I haven't been able to leave
since."

"You came back? You mean you'd been
here before and managed to leave?"

Jared closed his eyes and massaged the
bridge of his nose. He hadn't wanted to get into this conversation.
Not yet. He raised his head and looked her in the eye.

"I died here." 

CHAPTER FOUR

Alane couldn't believe her ears. She
looked around the room and shivered.

"Here?" She hadn't actively thought of
him dying.

"Not actually in this cabin. It hadn't
been built yet. My home sat on this sight nearly two hundred years
ago, but I found that it burned to the ground shortly after my wife
and I died."

Two hundred years. It sounded just as
astounding as the first time she'd heard it. And he'd had a wife.
Why did that knowledge cause such an emptiness in her? Had he loved
her very much?

"How...How did you die?"

He stared into the fire
as
Silent Night
played softly in the background. He stared so long, she
thought perhaps he hadn't heard her question.

"It's not important now," he finally
said, a seriousness in his voice she'd never heard. He continued to
gaze into space, seeing something that must have brought him
immense sadness.

How she wished she could touch him
right now. To thread her fingers through his dark, thick hair. To
smooth away the lines caused by the pain in his eyes. Without
thinking, she rose, then knelt at his feet. Ever so slowly, as he
turned his gaze to hers, she placed her hand through his on the
armrest. She felt that warmth again. That subtle, summer's breeze
warmth as her hand mingled inside his.

He looked at her, then closed his eyes,
as if she'd somehow made the pain increase.

And then he vanished.

*******

Jared plowed his fingers through his
hair from forehead to crown, pacing the length and breadth of what
had once been his property.

How could he continue to spend time
with Alane? The very sight of her stirred an ache in his heart he
thought never to feel. When she'd so gently placed her hand in his,
he thought he would perish from the want, the need, to touch her.
But to touch her, to really touch her, would take more than all his
strength, and he would fade to whatever world awaited beyond this.
An unknown world, without Alane. A fate, in his eyes, far worse
than wandering the earth alone.

He paced throughout the night, cursing
himself for caring, wanting desperately to go to her, forcing
himself to stay away. Not until the morning sun had climbed high
enough to burn away the fog did he finally admit he could never
stay away from her now.

In the space of a heartbeat he stood
inside the cabin, sensing instantly that she wasn't there. He found
her digging her car out of the snow. A knot of fear lodged in his
throat. Would she leave now? Would he never see her
again?

He moved himself to her side, watching
as she dug her tires out of a drift.

"I'm sorry about last
night."

She bounced off the car and landed in a
four foot snowdrift.

"Bloody hell! Would you stop doing
that?" she yelped as she struggled to her feet, snow-encrusted from
head to toe.

"Okay, I'll wear a bell around my neck
if you promise not to leave." He tried to keep his voice light and
playful. Neither of which he felt.

She worked in a vain attempt to knock
the snow from her clothes.

"Leave? I'm not leaving."

"You're not?" His day brightened as if
the sun had emerged from a total eclipse. "I thought you were
leaving because of the way I..." He let the statement trail off,
not exactly anxious to put his behavior into words for
her.

"No, I'm just digging the car out in
case I need to go get supplies. Some of my paints froze when I left
them in the car." She fished around in the snow for the shovel,
which had buried itself when she dropped it. "Actually," she
dragged the back of a ski-gloved hand across her forehead as she
stared at the ground, "I figured I should be doing the apologizing.
I shouldn't have been so nosy. I didn't really mean to pry." She
straightened and looked him in the eye. "It has to be painful. I
shouldn't have asked you to recall those memories."