Unforgettable Christmas Dreams: Gifts of Joy

by Rebecca York

  “Hmm, I have a feeling I know who will be bidding against each other on this item.” Knowing Cliff, Lexie thought he would pay any amount to keep the piece from his nephew.

  “That was the idea,” Chelsea admitted. “More money for charity.”

  “You would have had bidders competing against each other no matter which painting you donated,” Michael murmured, pulling her closer.

  Chelsea blushed and grinned and Lexie noted the diamond ring on the other woman’s left hand. So the engagement was official. Lexie quickly looked away.

  “Rumor has it you have a new book contract,” Marie said to Michael.

  But it was Chelsea who enthusiastically said, “Michael is going to write a fictional account of the human trafficking that went on here for decades.”

  “All names changed to protect the innocent,” Michael promised.

  “Congratulations,” Lexie said, zeroing her attention onto one of her workers waving to her. “I need to get back to work. I’ll see you both at the ball.”

  Seeing how right Chelsea and Michael were for each other, as were Brandon and Marie, Lexie felt a sharp pang of longing. Would she ever find someone to love, to share things with again?

  Would she ever have a second chance at a real life?

  ***

  It was that idea of wanting a second chance that finally convinced Lexie to accept Marie’s dare to try the psychomanteum at the House of Seven Gables, the bed-and-breakfast run by Chelsea’s aunt, Sophie Caldwell. Marie had tried to push Lexie into doing it before, but pragmatic Lexie had resisted.

  Since she’d ridden out to Drake House in one of the garden center’s trucks with her workers, Marie drove her into town. They left the car in the parking lot near the church and walked the short distance to the B&B, which was situated on the harbor.

  “I just wish you the same happiness I rediscovered with Brandon.” The sun had set and Marie pulled her wool coat closer. “I never thought it would happen, but it did. Who’s to say it can’t happen for you? You just have to learn to let go.”

  “Katie is my life.”

  “I didn’t mean let go of her, just…”

  “I know. But every time I look into her eyes, I see Simon. Maybe I’m not meant to be with anyone else.”

  Maybe that’s why her life consisted of running the family business and raising her twelve-year-old daughter. Period. No time off for good behavior.

  “Or maybe you’ve just decided to protect yourself against potential loss,” Marie said. “You don’t know what will happen in that room. Maybe you’ll learn the truth about what happened to Simon. Isn’t that worth the risk? The truth can give you peace. And then you can move on. You can’t protect yourself from love forever, Lexie. Love is a good thing. Simon wouldn’t want you to be alone. He would want you to find someone to fulfill you as a woman, as well as a mother.”

  Lexie sighed. “Now you’re romanticizing.”

  “You could use a little romanticizing. If only you could commune with Simon, perhaps you could let him go, move on to someone new. It’s more than time, Lexie.”

  “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  No use arguing with Marie when she got an idea into her head.

  Lexie figured that giving in to her friend’s insistence that she visit the psychomanteum was romantic enough for anyone. Basically, she’d agreed in order to get Marie to stop fretting over her. And, she had to admit, there was something else.

  Even though she wasn’t a believer, a little part of her wished she could see Simon one last time….

  They circled the House of the Seven Gables with its long, two-story porch. The bed-and-breakfast faced the harbor and was situated directly across from a seafood restaurant, a prime stopping place for tourists who came to sail or take boat rides to see the waterfront estates.

  As they turned the corner, the wind whipped up with an odd wail and Lexie pulled the front of her brown suede Sherpa jacket closed against the chill. The wind out of nowhere and the late afternoon mist coming off the water seemed to be omens of some kind.

  Either that or her imagination was working overtime.

  The long building of green shingles with red and white trim had dormer windows under the gabled roof. Lexie quickly took the steps up to the front door, Marie following. The Christmas wreath hanging there was decorated with miniature duck decoys, small sailboats and Maryland crabs. Lexie couldn’t take credit for the unusual holiday decor. Sophie Caldwell had her own unique ideas.

  Like the psychomanteum.

  “Ah, there you are,” Sophie said when they entered the hall.

  Just coming out of the office, the owner of the B&B retied the lace-trimmed apron covering her dark skirt. Attached to her green blouse was a pin as striking as the porch decorations — Rudolph the reindeer, his red nose blinking on and off. As usual, her graying blond hair was pulled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and a gentle smile played over her lips.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Marie said. “But Chelsea stopped by with her painting for the auction, and I guess we lost track of time.”

  At the mention of her niece, Sophie beamed. “Is that all?” She looked to Lexie. “I was afraid that you’d changed your mind.”

  “Hard to do when someone’s twisting your arm behind your back,” Lexie muttered.

  Sophie checked Lexie’s arm as if expecting to see it in Marie’s grasp. Then she shook her head and said, “Can I get you girls something? Tea and some fresh cookies?”

  “Oh, no, not for me.” A spiraling sensation Lexie defined as pure fear shot through her, making her stomach cramp at the thought of food. “Just the…um…”

  “Upstairs,” Sophie said kindly, then turned to Marie. “While you wait, you and I can have a nice catch-up in the kitchen, dear.”

  “Sure,” Marie said, though she was staring at Lexie as if for a cue.

  “Go.” Lexie shushed her off and headed for the stairs. “I need to do this alone anyway.”

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Lexie proceeded up to the third floor and headed down the hallway, stopping only in front of the door to the psychomanteum. This was just plain silly. A pragmatic person, Lexie didn’t succumb to flights of fancy. Why, then, did she feel as if her limbs were made of lead?

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped into the room whose ceiling was painted black and whose walls were hung with black curtains. Her heart was beating double time and her stomach was knotting as she looked around. A chair in the middle of the room faced an ornately framed mirror that leaned against a wall. Chests and small tables around the room held candles of various sizes. Lexie dimmed the ceiling fixture and the room immediately became spookier.

  Her legs felt like rubber as she moved to the chair and sat facing the mirror.

  Now what?

  She supposed she should light the candles, but it was as if something had a grip on her and she couldn’t move. The back of her neck prickled and her breath came harsh and she had to force it through stiff lips.

  Stop it! This is silly!

  It was. Really. And yet she couldn’t make herself leave. She sat there, frozen, staring into the mirror. She let her own image go out of focus and instead thought of Simon as she had last seen him — tall and rangy, shaggy dark brown hair framing a rugged face and heavy-lidded deep green eyes.

  “Simon, why did you have to die?” she whispered, her stomach churning. “Why did you have to leave me?”

  Questions she’d asked the ether over and over again through the years, especially when she’d learned that she was pregnant and again after having a baby she’d vowed to raise on her own.

  She got no answers. Not then. Not now.

  She concentrated harder.

  Remembered the first time Simon had pulled her braids and teased her when she was six.

  Remembered the first time he’d pushed a bully away from her when she was eleven.

  Remembered the first time he’d kissed her when she was
fifteen.

  So many memories, each one treasured, never to be forgotten, all to be taken out and examined at will, usually when the loneliness got to her. Times when she found it hard to believe he was dead at all. Surely part of her would have died with him!

  She’d never felt lonelier than now, when her vow was to leave all those memories behind and go on. To make new ones. Maybe to meet someone she could love who wasn’t Simon Shea.

  Could she do it?

  “Simon, if you can… if it’s possible… come back to me now, even if only for a moment. Assure me that I can trust the future. Let me say goodbye properly.”

  Not just by spilling tears over his grave.

  For years, she’d dreamed of Simon. Dreamed of the first and only time they’d slept together. Dreamed that they’d run away together as they’d planned. Dreamed that he wasn’t dead at all, but was by her side, raising their daughter.

  Dreamed that she was happy when she was anything but.

  Could she abandon her dream world to the real one and trust that if she found someone new to love he wouldn’t leave her alone and brokenhearted as Simon had? Could Simon reassure her that wouldn’t happen?

  No matter how hard she tried to see her ghostly love in the mirror, no matter how much she needed to do so, Lexie simply couldn’t.

  Her anxiety receded.

  Her stomach leveled.

  Her heart slowed to a normal beat.

  “Goodbye, then,” she whispered and left the room.

  She raced downstairs to the kitchen where Marie and Sophie were laughing and scooping cookies off metal baking sheets. They looked up and when Marie’s gaze met Lexie’s, her expression fell. “No luck?” she asked.

  Lexie shook her head. “Thanks anyway, Sophie.” To Marie she said, “I need to get home, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Wait, I’ll drive you.”

  “No need. I could use a run.”

  Lexie was already backpedaling out of the kitchen. She practically ran from the B&B out into a pea-soup fog. Slowing, she felt for the stairs, then once on solid ground picked up her pace once more.

  She hadn’t been kidding about needing a run — she felt as if she were being chased by memories — but took it slower than she might have because of the fog. The boots she wore were practical for her work, but not for running. Jogging parallel to town, she waited until she could steer clear of the shops and anyone she knew and then crossed over to the other side.

  Avoiding Thornton Garden Center and any employees still around who might detain her, she zigzagged the few blocks to a gravel road that fronted a couple of properties, including her own. The house was closer to the water than the road.

  Taking the shortcut through the woods, Lexie once more got that weird feeling she’d had when forcing herself into the psychomanteum. Her pulse was racing and her stomach cramping.

  Man, she’d really spooked herself! There was no reason to fear crossing through the familiar woods.

  So why did she?

  The pines seemed to close in on her and the wind whistled a message she couldn’t understand.

  A warning?

  Weird things had been going on in Jenkins Cove, but not around here. And they were over. The criminals were dead or behind bars.

  So why did she get the distinct feeling that danger lurked right around the corner?

  “Thank you, Marie,” she muttered. Her friend had opened her to unrealistic expectations. It was her own fault that she was turning them into something else.

  Slowing to a stop, she stooped over to catch her breath. And regain her sanity. She took a moment to look around, peer deep into the surrounding fog.

  There was nothing threatening her other than her own imagination.

  No danger.

  No nothing.

  Or was there?

  A rustle was followed by ghostly movement deep in the woods.

  A deer, Lexie told herself. Just a deer.

  Even so, she backed off, toward the house, her gaze pinned to the very spot through the trees where she’d seen something…

  Only when she was just about there did the fog shift for a moment.

  And for a moment — just that moment she had wished for — Simon Shea stared back at her.

  Chapter Two

  Simon pulled back, making himself invisible a moment too late. An expert tactical fighter, he should have known better than to expose himself like that.

  He’d simply wanted to get closer.

  With senses honed sharper than the average person’s, he watched her ghostlike figure through the fog as she gazed around, seeming alarmed. And confused. She continued on her way, faster now, every so often glancing over her shoulder as if her nerves had gotten the better of her. As if she were expecting to see him there, behind her.

  But was it him that she’d seen?

  Had she actually recognized him?

  Doubtful, he thought. He wasn’t the boy who’d left Jenkins Cove all those years ago. He’d matured. Had bulked up. Had grown harder. Though the last wasn’t necessarily something she would notice, at least not at a distance. But both time and a life working as a mercenary had changed him.

  He might have grown harder — a requisite for his survival — but the moment he’d spotted Lexie coming from the dock area, Simon had known he still had a soft spot for the girl he’d been forced to abandon. He’d recognized her tall, graceful form immediately, and a closer look made him feel as if time had stood still. Her dark hair was as long and as thick as ever, her skin as pale and smooth, her gray eyes as large and inviting. And though she wore a sheepskin jacket, he had a sense of familiar curves more lush than ever.

  Wanting to know more about the woman Lexie Thornton had become, Simon hadn’t been able to stop himself from following her.

  He hadn’t meant to scare her, but of course he had. Too familiar with the vibes put out by fear—mostly people who’d feared him—he could sense what Lexie was feeling and therefore was extra careful not to repeat his mistake.

  He didn’t want her to know he was here in town, at least not yet.

  He didn’t want anyone in Jenkins Cove to know.

  Until he learned the truth about what had happened to him thirteen years ago, he wanted to remain a ghost.

  Only after seeing the news flash about a mass grave found a couple of miles outside of the town proper — and that those buried there had had their organs harvested — did he realize that he had to return to Maryland and learn how he’d ended up in some third world country bearing arms. He’d been a victim of human trafficking as much as any of the victims in that grave. The only difference was that he was still alive.

  At least his body was.

  Before the media had its field day with the story, he’d been wandering the States, aimless, having freed himself at last from the company that had controlled his life for so long. Employment as a soldier in a private army had its financial rewards, however, and when he’d left, he’d had more money than he’d needed.

  What he hadn’t had was a life.

  Not that he’d come here to reclaim his. Simon knew it was too late for that. In more than a decade working for Shadow Ops, a private military company hired by the CIA to run “peacekeeping” operations in third world countries, he’d done things he’d never imagined doing. Like the time a month into his enforced service when, after delivering medical supplies to a village in Somalia, he’d been surrounded by an angry mob. He’d thought he could bluff his way past them and back to his unit, until he’d been caught from behind and a man with a knife came at him. If he hadn’t reacted fast, Simon would have been stabbed to death.

  In the end, the assailant lay dead, the one who’d held him wounded. Afterward he didn’t even remember what had happened. It was only much later that he’d reacted to his first kill.

  He’d been brought to his knees, his stomach emptying.

  The dead man’s ghost had haunted him day and night for months afterward.

  Eventua
lly, Simon had hardened himself against the reality of war, the only way he could deal with it, since violence had quickly become a way of life.

  Just because he finally freed himself of that life didn’t cleanse him of what he’d been forced to do. He couldn’t escape his past, and he wouldn’t wish himself on any other human being, certainly not on a woman he’d once loved.

  His jaw tightened at his reaction to seeing Lexie again.

  She reached a house set in a semicircular stand of pines. It was a neat two-story with an upper deck overlooking the woods. Did she get to the deck from her bedroom? Suddenly imagining himself on the bed there with her, Simon cursed. What was he thinking? She was probably married with a couple of kids. No room for someone like him in her life.

  Unlocking the front door, Lexie stepped halfway inside before turning again to look his way. Even protected by the deepening woods and fog, Simon slid behind a tree and leaned his back against it. He closed his eyes for a moment and cursed himself for following her.

  Now Lexie would be afraid because of him.

  He’d never meant for that to happen.

  He simply hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d had to follow her, would have to learn everything he could about her and her life.

  His mistake.

  Again.

  Because now Simon knew something irrefutable, something that would only bring him more misery, more heartache, something he didn’t want to admit, didn’t want to think about.

  Thirteen years might as well have been thirteen days.

  He was still in love with Lexie Thornton.

  ***

  Weirded out thinking she’d seen Simon, Lexie hovered around the door and every few seconds looked out the window. But if anyone had truly been out there, he was gone now.