by L. L. Muir
The way her chest tried to cave in when he’d given her permission to leave made the decision easy. Besides, she wouldn’t find much open on Christmas day, let alone find someone who might help her get her ID back.
“I’ll take it,” she said. “I’ll stay. I’ve got to clear my name, right? Prove that I’m not part of that old man’s joke.”
“Excellent.” He walked forward until he was standing next to her. Together, they watched the girl open her presents. The whole time, Bree kept glancing down to make sure his knee wasn’t still showing. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe.
The biggest bundle was one of the antique dolls from the shelf in the nursery. The girl hugged it to her, but then looked at Heathcliff with a little worry on her smooth forehead.
“Yes, it is yers to keep,” he said. “If ye stay or go, the doll is yers.”
She closed her eyes and gave the doll a little hug before she reached for the smaller package. When it turned out to be only a little scroll, she frowned up at him again.
“Go ahead. Open it,” he said.
Her little fingers slid the ribbon off the end and unrolled the paper. Then she shrugged and shook her head.
“Ye cannot yet read?” he asked. “Then I shall tell ye what it says. It is yer new name. Forevermore, this shall be yer name. You must take very fine care of it. Can ye do that?”
She nodded, probably not understanding how she would go about taking care of her name. She also looked like she was going to wet her pants if he didn’t tell her what it was.
“Yer name is Angeline.”
She closed her eyes and hugged the paper for ten long seconds, then she grabbed her doll and started dancing around the room.
Bree turned to the big Scot and patted the side of his chest not covered by the plaid sash. The muscle beneath the crisp cream shirt was hard as a rock.
“You did very well for your first try at Father Christmas,” she said.
His dark eyelashes dropped against his cheeks as he looked at her hand. She snatched it back.
“Thank ye,” he said, but she didn’t know if he was thanking her for the compliment, the pat, or for getting her paws off him.
* * *
“Why is the snow on your head not melting,” Brianna asked.
Heathcliff took a moment to ponder whether she was merely trying to ruin his concentration on the chess board, or whether, by some miracle there might be snow on his head. Then he remembered the goose. He reached up, felt about, then plucked a feather from his hair. He’d been afraid he’d not found them all.
“Because it is nay snow, Brianna. It is a feather.” Lord how he loved the feel of her name on his tongue. “I’ll have ye know it has been a very long time since I have plucked a goose. I made a bleedin’ mess of it, pardon me language. I was told I should always save the downy feathers, but they’re not the easiest of things to gather. Come spring, I fear we will not be sure all the snow has melted from the bailey until a determined wind comes to blow all the blasted things away.”
Her eyes had widened with every word, so he’d rambled on, to see how big they might grow.
“A goose? You killed a goose? Like, a real live goose? I’m no vegetarian, but I can appreciate a pretty bird, you know?”
He could not help but frown. Perhaps American geese were a bit prettier than Scottish geese.
“A live goose? I could hardly kill a dead goose, lass.”
She shrugged her pretty shoulders. “I just feel like I have blood on my hands, that’s all. Did you kill this goose to feed us?”
“Now, why the bloody hell would I have killed a goose otherwise, if not to feed us? And why would the blood be on yer hands? I am the butcher today.”
She frowned, considering, then nodded. He was but glad she’d given up arguing over the violence of putting food on the table. He could hardly offer them turnips for Christmas, could he?
Angeline was now holding the discarded feather between two fingers. Her wee bottom lip stuck out just a bit farther than usual, and he was not about to have the same argument with a child who could not speak.
“I am certain the bird was proud to know ‘twas to be yer Christmas Goose, Angeline.” Besides, he’d promised the fowl it could live until Christmas, not after. And he’d not specified how long into the day that would be. Getting the thing out of the barn was his Christmas gift to Macbeth. The horse had been harried enough and the weather had warmed a bit, even without the appearance of the sun. The beast no longer needed a goose to keep him moving and warm.
The girl looked relieved, and even happier to hear her name once again. He would have to remember to repeat it often. She grinned and blew the feather off her fingers, then raced around the room to catch and blow it all over again. Later in the day, when it came time to remove the goose from the spit, she seemed to make no connection between the meat on her plate and the feather she’d played with all the afternoon.
The blasted woman sighed over the meal a dozen times before finally taking a bite. After that, it seemed the taste of the foul was nigh fine enough to raise her appetite a bit higher than her sensitivity.
“This is wonderful,” she said around a mouthful, then reached forward and ripped off a large meaty leg. For the rest of the meal, she waved it about her like Henry the Eighth while she told Angelica the most outrageous Christmas stories, including one she told in song, about a snowman who came to life one day.
The child asked, with her hands, if he might allow them to make such a snow man. He told her it would be much too cold to attempt such a thing until the following week. His answer seemed to sober Brianna who claimed to have no more Christmas stories to tell. The rest of the day was spent playing games and resting from games. He never got the chance to finish his conversation with Brianna.
“Happy Christmas, Angeline.” He pressed a kiss to the pale wee forehead and tucked the child into her bed. After Brianna gave her the same treatment, the lassie dropped the doll to the floor and laid her little scroll on the pillow next to her head, then closed her eyes.
Poor mite, he thought, and turned his back, bending down to start a fire to keep Angeline warm until Brianna joined her later on the bed. It had nothing to do with the moisture gathering in his eyes.
The woman waited for him in the hallway. No doubt she did not wish to traverse the darkened stairway alone, but as he turned to precede her, she pulled on his arm to stop him. He could not ignore the warmth of her touch and when he turned back to her, he moved rather closer than he should have, for it would have been a simple thing to bend down and press his lips to hers. Simple, and natural as well.
For a moment, she said nothing.
“Are you up to granting a Christmas wish, Mister McKinnon?”
He let his frown show his displeasure at addressing him thusly.
“Fine. Heathcliff. Will you grant a Christmas Wish?”
“If I can.”
He wondered if she would ask him for a kiss, but dared not promise to grant whatever she might ask. The lass was clever and might take advantage. At the moment, however, he hoped she would take advantage only of his proximity.
“Well, yeah. I’m starting to wonder if you can, too, but I’m going to ask anyway.”
Ah, then. She was not about to ask for a kiss after all.
“If it is possible to grant your wish, I’ll do so, but I’ll be expecting ye to grant a wish of mine as well. Christmas and all that.”
Her breath quickened. She knew exactly what he would ask. Well and good, then. If she shared her wish, she’d be agreeing to his.
“I’d like you to suspend your disbelief until New Year’s Eve.”
He glanced at the high ceiling while he tried to interpret her meaning. She spoke so strangely sometimes. As much as he hated to admit it—for it would likely mean the forfeit of his Christmas Kiss—he would have to concede his ignorance.
“Explain what you mean, Brianna.” He so enjoyed saying her name.
“Like when
you’re watching a movie—suspend your disbelief. Pretend you believe me. Pretend you trust Angeline. Pretend you don’t think I’m a thief. Just pretend, until we can get this straightened out. It’s going to be pretty miserable around here if you can’t even trust a little girl enough to let her make a freaking snowman out of Christmas snow. It’s not like it’s even regular snow. It’s actual Christmas snow. Can’t you pretend, even for a little girl, that Christmas snow could be magic?”
She was getting a bit loud, so he put a finger up to his lips, to remind her that the lass was but on the far side of the door, trying to sleep. She looked at the door and nodded her understanding, then pulled him to the head of the staircase.
“And while you’re at it, you can pretend you believe that I’m just an American on vacation who got screwed over by a couple of old Scottish con artists.” She dropped her chin to her chest and sighed. “That sounds so stupid! No wonder you can’t believe me.” She turned aside and took a step toward the chamber door. “Never mind,” she said sadly.
It was his turn to stop her. Her arm was small but strong in his grasp. She barely resisted when he pulled her up against him. The sconce light barely had room to shine between their faces.
“Wait just a moment. Your Christmas Wish is to have me ignore the facts, ignore my suspicions, and pretend to believe you are as you say, and that the child has but been abandoned to my care, and the pair of ye knew nothing of each other before ye found each other here, in my home?”
She nodded and looked down again. He took one hand from her back so he could lift her chin, but kept her close. Dark blue pools shimmered just below a layer of tears that threatened to follow their fellows down the sides of her face.
“And if I can do such a simple thing as pretend for the remainder of our time together, ye’ll grant my own Christmas Wish?”
She gasped and tensed beneath his touch, as if only then realizing that it was he who was asking for a blind promise, that perhaps he would ask for more than just a kiss from her. He should have been offended by her fear, but she was right to be wary. After all, they’d known each other but for two days, and for half that time, he’d kept her behind lock and key. She’d likely feared the worst of him long before now.
“I’ll take but a kiss from ye, Brianna. I’ll grant yer boon, if ye would grant mine. And I’ll ask nothing more of ye, I swear it.”
She nodded only slightly, but then it grew in strength as she took a deep breath and made her decision clear. Her eyes closed and her chin lifted, but he merely stood and watched, trying to instill the sight in his memory—a little vision to entertain him months from now, after he should have forgotten the shape of her face, the tilt of her brows, the dip in her bottom lip.
No, he wouldn’t forget. He’d draw her, before he had the chance to forget any of it.
Her eyes opened, lifted in confusion.
He looked into them while he lowered his lips to hers, gently, firmly. Her eyes fluttered shut and he joined her in that darkness that existed only for the two of them. The kiss was perfection with a swift moving undercurrent that swept him up. He could not get close enough to her and he pulled her tight, to share his frustration.
She pushed at him and before he had his eyes open, she was out of his arms and running for the bedchamber.
“Wait!” He needed a moment to clear his head, to sort out the shadows. He could not allow her to run from him in fear, but the door was open and that shiny black dress was slipping through. “Wait! Brianna!”
As he reached her door, it closed quietly, but firmly. He felt, more than heard, the large trunk sliding across the floor. It thumped against the wood.
“Brianna,” he said softly. “Forgive me. I would have never...” Well, of course he could claim no such thing. In truth, he did not know what might have happened. He’d hardly been thinking clearly. “I hope I would have controlled myself.”
“Goodnight, Mr. McKinnon.” Her whisper said it all.
He stepped back and straightened. “It shall not happen again, Miss Colby.”
As he walked briskly to his own cold bedchamber, he hoped he was telling the truth.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was a long night of arguing—with herself of course. She shouldn’t have run. Yes, she sure as hell should have. No, I was dumb. No, I was lucky to have gotten away. For an hour, she worried what she would say to him in the morning. After she decided to say nothing at all, to let him do all the talking, she fell asleep.
She woke with a headache, but decided to ignore that too.
It would do her no good to think about what she could be doing with the rest of her vacation time—if she could get away from there. Besides, if this place was snowed in, it was likely the rest of the Highlands were too. And she’d rather be stuck in a beautifully furnished castle than exploring castle ruins in bad weather or watching Scotland stream by out the window of a bus. At least here, in McKinnon’s castle, she had a much better chance of running into a painfully handsome Highlander every day. And if she ever told her friends the truth about her vacation, which wasn’t likely, they would agree with her.
But why had the coachman written that note? Did he think she was someone else? Impossible. He’d asked her for her full name. He knew she wasn’t his accomplice. So why write it unless he knew McKinnon would read it and it would upset him?
And would anything really happen on New Year’s Eve? They had to assume so because there was a little girl involved. They had to protect her, but protect her from what? Someone who had a grudge against McKinnon?
And why didn’t he go to the police?
Because he didn’t have a freaking car? What kind of twilight zone had she stumbled into?
She shook her head as she left her room. She couldn’t possibly be buying the whole 1806 theory. She just had to prove to McKinnon that it was time to give up the pretense. And she’d start at the top. She was a Colby, after all. No fear.
The door she believed would lead out onto the roof was blocked shut by snow, sadly. She had to settle for leaning out of windows to see the extensive bailey and outbuildings. The East tower was off-limits, Heathcliff had said, probably because it was his personal space. Since it wasn’t likely she’d find enchanted things in there, like they did in movies, she didn’t mind honoring his request to ‘mind her own business.’
Of course he would have never said it that way.
“Do me the honor of avoiding the East Wing,” he’d said. Mr. Formal. Always. Just like he’d speak if he was from the 19th century, just like he’d said.
She laughed at herself. She really hadn’t been drinking the Kool-Aid, had she? Besides, Heathcliff had admitted the truth on Christmas Eve. Or had he?
She continued her solo tour of Castle McKinnon that was really a quest for the tiniest proof of something twentieth century. It didn’t even need to be from 2012. It just had to be something more modern than 1806.
There was nothing in the bedrooms upstairs. She checked every drawer, every shelf. Nothing. Even the wall paper looked vintage. The linens were odd, but lovely. And every bed had drapes for keeping the heat around the occupants when the fires went out during the night. That made her think of heat vents, then she couldn’t find any of those either. But this was Scotland, and it was a castle; putting in a heating system would have probably cost a grundle of money. Probably more than plumbing. And electricity...
Bree found an odd pan with holes in the lid attached to a long handle. Was it a popcorn popper for over the fire? Was popcorn a modern thing? She grabbed the pan and hurried to the stairs. There was a chance she had her proof, but she would just ask, casually, what it was used for.
The warm green and red plaid dress he’d left for her kept Bree from rushing down the stairs. No wonder women in long gowns seemed more dignified—they had no choice. She had to hold onto the skirt and the pan handle with one hand and the railing with the other. If she fell down that long curve of stone steps, she’d break her neck.
By the time she reached the bottom, she felt a bit queenish. Her posture was even better. She was about to start humming when she realized someone else already was. It was a man’s voice, and since there was little chance anyone had braved the storm, it had to be McKinnon. By the time she reached the parlor doors, he was singing. And she recognized the tune.
Let not yer cries call down the moon.
Let not yer prayers be led astray.
In the coachman’s guise he’ll grant yer boon,
And ye shall rue the price ye’ll pay.
Bree peeked into the room. McKinnon was standing in the center of the large rug wearing his kilt again, damn him! Had he given her the dress so they’d match all day?
It was going to be a long day if she had to spend it with a guy who didn’t have the decency to keep his knees together while wearing a skirt! She’d spent most of Christmas day looking away. But she forgot about all that while she watched Angeline danced around him, slowly, to match the pace of the melancholy tune first sung by the carriage driver. Her little hands were elegant as they stroked the air, like fine little paint brushes.
When he hit the chorus, the girl stepped in front of him and reached up, to place her hands against his chest. He stopped singing, looking confused. Angeline just smiled and gave him a nod. Then he started the chorus again while she...felt it.
“Take back the breath.
Take back the sigh.
Give not yer name.
Yer boon deny.
The Foolish Fire
Comes not in twain.
‘Tis the coachman’s lanterns
Come for ye.”
The girls hands dropped away, but he caught one and held on, shaking his head. Then he reached down and placed his hand flat against the child’s chest, between her collar bones. Then he nodded.
Bree frantically wiped tears from her eyes so she could see.
He was asking the child to sing. And when the tiny voice began to hum, Bree didn’t know who was more surprised, McKinnon, herself, or Angeline.
