The Ghost of Christmas Present (8 page)

"The curse," she whispered. "The curse
is why you're a ghost." Then two lines creased her brow. "But, that
means you have to cease existing for someone you love, in order to
find peace."

He nodded. He'd had two hundred years
to think about finding a loophole. There wasn't one.

"Oh, Jared," she began, but he stopped
her with an upraised hand.

"No pity. I won't have it."

"But it was an accident! It's not fair
- "

"It wasn't fair that
Katherine died when she was twenty years old. Or that the baby she
wanted so desperately never grew to even swell her belly." He
draped one arm behind her on the sofa and traced her face with his
other hand. "It hasn't been such a bad existence.”
Until now,
the words
burned in his mind.
Now, when I've found
you, and all I can think about is touching you, holding you, what
it would be like if things were different.

But he said none of these things,
knowing they would leave her as raw and wounded as he.

She leaned her head back on the sofa,
back into his arm. He closed his eyes and imagined he could feel
her nestled against him.

"But to be so alone, " she went
on.

"Alane, I spent a hundred and
seventy-five years roaming all four corners of the earth. I watched
the Civil War, from both sides. I was in Washington when Lincoln
was shot and I watched as the doctors worked to save him. I was in
England at Queen Elizabeth's coronation. I witnessed both World
Wars from every country involved. I've wandered in and out of the
Oval office during top secret discussions. I've seen the telephone,
light bulb, radio and television born. I've seen the Wright
brothers fly and watched a man walk on the moon." He stopped, took
a breath, then gave her his best mischievous grin. "And I've
contributed my share to all the ghost stories floating around this
country."

Alane smiled a sad, unconvinced smile,
but she didn't pursue the conversation. Her eyes drooped heavily,
and for the first time he realized she looked exhausted.

"Whatever you say, Jared." She yawned
an enormous yawn, then relaxed into the couch and closed her eyes.
"I'm so tired."

Jared had forgotten how easily mortals
tire, and she'd been awake most of the night before, worrying at
his side. He watched her face relax into sleep; watched as shadows
from the moon passed over her precious features. Then his breath
caught in his throat and his heart lurched when she shifted,
leaning into him so that he surrounded her. If he tried, he could
imagine he was holding her.

He sat there, unmoving, savoring her
presence, weaving a dream in his mind while she slept. And in the
dream he was whole, and Alane came to him, loved him, touched
him.

But no matter how hard he tried, he
couldn't remember how it felt to be touched.

*******

Alane snuggled deeper into the
heavenly, melting warmth and tried to hold on to the misty dream of
Jared kissing her, but brilliant sunlight prodded her awake. She
felt for the covers to pull over her head.

She didn't remember climbing the stairs
to go to bed last night. And where were the covers?

She pried one reluctant eye open and
peered at the living room through a blur. The fire had burned down
to nothing more than a few glowing red coals, and she was lying on
the couch without so much as a blanket to cover her.

Then why was she so warm?

Blinding sunlight bounced off the snow
and burst through the eastern windows, bathing everything in a
white light. It turned the lake into a giant, silvery reflecting
pool.

She opened her other eye, then massaged
them with the heels of her hands. Everything was still a
blur.

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

The voice seemed to come from within
her.

No. It came from around her.

Alane elbowed her way to a sitting
position, feeling the chill of the room as she rose. Her vision
cleared and she looked around.

Jared leaned into the very corner of
the couch she'd just vacated. His grin was all little boy, but his
eyes held the pain of a man who wanted something so badly he
ached.

She should have been
flustered when she realized she'd lain
inside
him. But instead she felt
closer to him than ever. Connected somehow. When he sat up and
swung his legs off the couch, it was as if he whisked away a warm
summer breeze and replaced it with the chill air of the
arctic.

"Do I have you to thank for keeping me
warm all night?" she asked as she plucked her sweater from the end
of the coffee table, shaken at the sense of loss she'd felt when
he'd moved.

He wiggled his dark eyebrows at her in
answer.

"Should I thank you for that dream I
was trying not to wake up from, too?" Even as she asked, elusive
remnants evaporated like wisps of fog in the sun.

"Not guilty on that count, counselor,
but I could oblige you if you'd let me. If you'll remember, you
banned me from your brain."

It occurred to her that she might
consider lifting the ban for another dream like the one so rapidly
fading from her mind.

The frigid air in the cabin raised
goosebumps on her arms and turned her thoughts to building the fire
and turning up the oil heater. With more than a little reluctance
she rose from the couch, then knelt by the fireplace and stacked
kindling and wood over the glowing coals.

"I really do appreciate you keeping me
warm. I don't even remember falling asleep."

"Believe me, it was my pleasure," he
said from behind her in a voice as smooth as old bourbon. "When I
tried, I could almost believe we were holding each
other."

Tears, hot and choking and unexpected,
surged to her eyes at his words. She blinked them back and
swallowed past the tightness in her throat.

"It almost felt like you were holding
me," she agreed quietly, thinking of the warm, comforting feeling
she'd awakened with. She gave the fire one more jab, then turned on
the balls of her feet and looked at him with a moist smile. "We're
a pair, aren't we?"

Jared studied her, looking as miserable
as she felt.

"Yeah. A regular Romeo and
Juliet."

He jumped up from the couch and started
prowling the living room. It still unnerved her to watch him pace
through solid objects, but he didn't even seem aware he was
pacing.

He followed her into the kitchen and
prowled while she made coffee. He followed her into the bathroom,
then did an about-face and left her alone when she turned and
quirked an eyebrow at him.

Once alone, Alane took care of the
necessities, brushed her teeth, dunked her face in icy water, then
decided to draw a nice hot bath and soak for a while to try and get
her mind off the storm of emotions buffeting her.

While hot water filled the tub and
scented steam fogged the mirror, she flopped her hair atop her head
and peeled off the clothes she'd been wearing for twenty-four
hours. She stepped gingerly into the tub, then sank with a sigh
until the steaming water lapped at her shoulders.

With eyes closed and muscles relaxed,
she leaned back and tried to clear her mind of all the worries that
had plagued her from the moment she'd realized she was falling in
love. Ridiculous. Impossible. Heartbreaking. Wonderful.

The mere thought of Jared brought a
smile to her lips. A short-lived smile.

She loved a man who was no more
tangible than a dream. A man bound to his property - a property she
had rented for only five more days. Five days of ecstasy and
torture. Five days of trying to outwit fate. Five days before she
had to leave and Jared had to stay.

"Alane, we have a problem."

She jerked so hard, water erupted over
the sides of the clawfoot tub. She splashed more over in her
attempt to cover herself with a pitifully small
washcloth.

Jared finished melting through the
wall, apparently taking no notice that she was in the middle of
bathing, a frown drawing his eyebrows into one straight line. He
paced the length of the room once, then perched on the edge of the
clothes hamper.

"I've been thinking," he went on, as
though he made it a habit to chat with her while she bathed. "How
long have you rented the cabin?"

She sank a little deeper into the tub
and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Have you been nosing around in my head
again?"

His brows dipped to a pained vee and he
looked wounded that she would even suggest such a thing.

"All right, all right." She waved away
the question. "I've rented it through the twenty-sixth."

His face mirrored her own overwhelming
dread as the date sank in.

"Five days," he stated, barely above a
whisper. "You're leaving the day after Christmas."

Alane swallowed hard, searching for
words to ease the pain in his eyes, in his voice. She found
none.

"I was just thinking," she said,
knowing the offering would be feeble, "that I could call the rental
company and rent it longer. I know it's never booked up this time
of year." She knew renting longer would be like putting a Band-Aid
on a broken bone, but at least it would give them time to think of
something else.

He perked up a little at her suggestion
and launched himself to his feet.

"Excellent! Make the call now." He
towered over her, as if he expected her to bound from the tub and
run, dripping, to the phone. She scrunched lower in the water and
batted her eyes up at him.

"Oh," he said as realization dawned on
his face. And then, for the first time since walking into the
bathroom, he seemed to see her as she was - the woman he loved
enjoying a nice hot bath. A lecherous little gleam sparked in his
eyes, and when Alane sank until the water lapped at her chin, he
rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. "Oh, very well. I'll leave
you alone."

Before she could blink, he vanished
into thin air, but his voice filtered in from nowhere.

"Party pooper."

*******

He didn't like the sound of the
one-sided conversation, nor the sickly look creeping over Alane's
features.

"A buyer?" Her face paled. "I didn't
realize it was for sale."

For sale? It couldn't be for sale. The
same family had owned the place for fifty years.

"Today? I'm afraid not. They'll have to
wait until I've left to come and measure." She glanced up at Jared
with a look of panic.

His stomach churned, and for the first
time in two centuries he felt queasy.

"I'm sorry, but I'm working. They'll
have to wait until after the twenty-sixth. No, I know you wouldn't
have asked. Yes. Well, thanks anyway."

Alane dropped the receiver from her ear
and let it dangle from her fingers, forgotten.

"They're selling the cabin," she said
as she brought her eyes up to meet his. "The owner died last summer
and the heirs have a buyer for it." She shook her head, denying the
words. "And the buyers had the nerve to want to come out here today
and measure for curtains and carpet and to see if their big screen
TV will fit through the door."

A muted, obnoxious beep sounded from
the telephone receiver and Alane blindly fumbled it into its
cradle. She rose from the couch and roamed aimlessly around the
living room, touching things, stopping and staring out a
window.

"What do we do now?" She turned and met
his gaze.

He cursed himself and Katherine's
mother for not being able to wrap her in his arms and comfort
her.

But he could. For her, he could. He
lifted his arms and focused, willing to give up everything in order
to soothe her.

"Don't you dare!" She stepped back and
blinked teary eyes when she realized his intent. "Yes, I want to be
held. I want to feel your touch so badly I ache for it. But I'd
never forgive myself if I caused your death."

He started to point out that he was
already dead, but levity would only make things worse right now. He
dropped his hands and shook his head before he spoke.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do.
We're going to take one day at a time. One minute at a time. And
we're not going to waste even a split second mourning the
future."

"But there is no future! If they sell
this cabin, how will we be able to see each other
again?"

Jared stepped up to her and traced his
hands along the length of her arms. When she shivered he brought
his lips to brush across hers.

"We'll not mourn the future," he
repeated. "We'll live a lifetime in these next five days, and when
they're over, we'll worry about the future then."

She stared up at him with shimmery
beads of tears hovering on her lower lashes. He wanted to rail
against the fates for giving him what he could never have, like a
man dying of thirst with a lake of cool, fresh water just beyond
his reach. Instead he forced his best boyish grin and tried to make
his voice sound light.