A Highland Ghost for Christmas: Gambling Ghosts Series (1)

by Jo-Ann Carson

  His life had never been fair, and he wasn’t ready to give Maddy up. Not his Maddy, so beautiful in spirit and in body. In the three hundred years he had been a ghost he had never been so attracted to a woman. And he had met plenty.

  He stopped in front of CeeCee whose black bushy brows locked in an inverted V above her burning eyes. “When people love each other that’s all that matters,” he said. His words sounded lame even to himself.

  “And what exactly do you think will happen when she sees you?”

  “She’ll fall more in love with me.”

  “Then?”

  “We can . . .”

  “Not even kiss,” said CeeCee. “The woman needs a real man. One with lips that can kiss, arms that can hold her tight and a real heart she can hear beat when she rests her head upon his chest. You, my haggis-eating sap don’t make the cut.”

  “But I . . . I love her.”

  The fire in CeeCee’s eyes dimmed. “Aah, so you have learned to love again. This is good news Cullen. Good news. A real break through.” She went to her door and opened it for him to leave.

  That was it? “What should I do?”

  “Drop a ghostly pair.”

  “What?”

  “Man up.”

  And as her powers flew him back to Maddy’s kitchen he heard her say, “Listen to your heart.”

  10

  Maddy's Hallelujah Chorus

  Maddy had not missed Cullen. The way the realms work makes time insignificant. He returned to her side to watch the shortbread bake. The kitchen smelled of butter and sugar baking in perfect harmony.

  “The smell of Christmas cookies baking takes us all back to our childhood,” she said. “Do you agree.”

  “Aye, it does. Especially when it’s a Scottish treat.” For Cullen, it brought back memories of his youth in the Highlands and of Bronwyn, the two being permanently entwined.

  He was thirteen the first time he kissed her and it had been Christmas Eve. After all these years, the taste of her still lingered on his lips. It was the most perfect moment in his life, one that nothing could change or erase.

  He looked at Maddy. She deserved that kind of moment and he couldn’t give it to her. Not now. Not ever.

  Maddy pulled out the pies and cut the cookies into triangular pieces. Cullen watched her beautiful hands at work, so delicate and soft looking. What would it feel like to have her fingers touch his face? He groaned loud and long enough to be heard.

  “Cullen?” She laughed. “You made a ghost sound.”

  He made it again, because she clearly liked it. They did enjoy one another’s company. It was the simple things they did that made them both feel happier. But what kind of future did they have, if all he could do for her was make her laugh with groans? After she died of course . . . But that would be a long time from now, or so he hoped.

  Hope. Yes, he hoped she had a good, long life, filled with the love of a good man and children. He could see her with lots of children. She really didn’t need him.

  They talked through the night about their lives. Maddy told him about her family and about their Christmas traditions. Her pure heart shone through her words.

  “Cullen, you’re awfully quiet,” she said.

  “The light is coming,” he wrote.

  “You’re going to let me see you?”

  It was the least he could do. Right? It was only fair. Right? CeeCee said it would make Maddy fall more in love with him, but that was just nonsense. It would just bring them closer.

  He lay down on the rug in front of her Christmas tree, adjusted his kilt and pushed back his unruly, red hair.

  Maddy opened the blinds and waited. It seemed to take forever, but finally the predawn light danced on the horizon giving a warm rosy glow to the sky. She looked around and there he was, Cullen Macfie under the Christmas tree.

  “Oh, my,” she said.

  “Do you like what you see?” he said out loud in a thick Scottish brogue.

  “Aye.” She laughed. Her face heated and she found it difficult to swallow. He was the most perfect specimen of a Highland warrior she had seen, and she had looked at a lot of romance covers. His chest was bare. She swallowed. He had broad shoulders and muscled arms. His finely sculpted abdomen was covered with red hair. Her eyes traveled lower. She had to look, after all. His red and green tartan kilt hung low on lean hips and beneath he had well-toned legs and long bare feet. Her warrior. Her eyes travelled back to his face. Her heart pumped faster than the last time she ran a marathon.

  He had crystal blue eyes, a generous mouth set in a wicked grin and long, wavy red hair, which fell back behind his shoulders. Oh my, he was gorgeous. “Did you just talk?”

  “Aye,” he said and laughed out loud. “I can talk only in the pre-dawn light and only for thirteen minutes.” His thick accent made it hard for her to get everything he said, but there was no mistaking the amorous look in his eyes.

  “Cullen you have made me so happy these last two days.” If they only had a few minutes, there was no point in beating around the bush.

  “And you me, mo nihean dubh.”

  “My brown-haired lass. I know that one, but the way you say it . . .” makes me hot and bothered from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, but she didn’t say that.

  Cullen stood and walked towards her. Maddy stopped breathing. He looked down at her. His eyes softened and his lips trembled.

  “If I could only kiss you.”

  She swallowed. “I’m not sure I could handle that.” And that was the truth. He was the hottest man she had ever seen, so well built, so handsome and so sweet to boot.

  “Oh, I think you could, lass.” His deep voice was undoing her.

  Okay, she could die now and go to heaven. Cullen was even more than she expected. He wasn’t just sexy. He was hot, hot, hot. So freaking hot.

  “You’re making me blush,” she said.

  “Aye, your beautiful cheeks are a rosy red and I would like nothing more than to see what other parts of you are blushing.”

  Desire spiraled through Maddy’s body and pooled in her nether regions. But he was a ghost. She was just about to suggest the equivalent of phone sex, when he started to disappear, as if he were mist on a sunny day. “Nooooo,” she cried. But he was gone.

  The pen on the table began to move again. “I am still here mo maise. I have not left you.”

  Disappointment flooded her senses, icing out the lust that had possessed her only moment before. “I need sleep.”

  “Of course,” he wrote. “If it’s all right with you, I will lie by your side.”

  “Okay, I have a few minutes before I have to get ready for work.” She lay down in her bed and imagined him at her side. It was a comforting thought, but it was, after all, only a thought.

  On the way to work, she received a text from Hank. “I know I shouldn’t chase a woman who stood me up, but I can’t help myself. I thought we connected.”

  Hank? Oh fudge. She had forgotten their coffee date. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to stand you up.”

  No answer.

  “Let me make it up to you today.”

  After a second’s pause: “Tell me where and when and I . . . will . . . be . . . there.”

  11

  Jingle Bells Rock for Coffee

  The next night Maddy and Cullen made gingerbread. Maddy wanted to make ghosts with the cookie dough, but Cullen wouldn’t let her. He wanted traditional Christmas cookies, so they cut out men, women, children and reindeer. The smell of fresh gingerbread baking in the oven flowed through the house, and white flour flew through the air.

  Cookies that became deformed were given to Booker, who contentedly watched from underneath the table, as if a ghost and a human were a normal thing in his pack.

  “What are you doing?” Maddy said as a scant handful of flour flew towards her.

  “Trying to make you laugh,” he wrote.

  She pulled flour through her hair and stared at the empty-looking apron.
“Oh yeah.” She grabbed a handful and threw it at him. A few minutes later the floor had a good covering.

  “Enough,” she said through laughter.

  He wished he could grab her and tickle her. Actually there were a lot of things he wanted to do with her. “You seem different tonight,” he wrote.

  Damn. It must show. “I just need more sleep tonight.”

  “Okay. Is that all?”

  She grabbed a broom and started sweeping. “Of course.” He read her easily. She had never been able to manage two boyfriends at once, but she thought if one were a ghost, it might just work.

  Cullen put the dust pan in place to scoop up the flour. They worked so well as a team. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “No, no. I love spending time with you.”

  “And I with you, my darling.” He took a fresh towel from the drawer and wetted it under the tap. Gently he washed her face with it. The warmth of the water and the softness of the touching made her heart flutter. She had read about that reaction in books, but had never experienced it first-hand. A gentle touch can mean so much. A few drops of the water trickled down her neck inside her blouse to her cleavage. Her pulse kicked up.

  “Will you let me see you tonight?”

  “Of course, but let me wash your hair and watch you sleep first.”

  He woke her hours later before his coming-out time. As the predawn light rose above the horizon Cullen’s ghostly figure appeared by the Christmas tree once again. This time he had flour in his hair.

  “I’ve waited all night for this,” he said out loud.

  Maddy wanted to throw her arms around him, but of course she couldn’t, so she edged towards him. Close up he looked even more drool worthy than at a distance. His cheekbones were chiseled perfectly and the stubble on his cheeks made him look as though he had just rolled out of bed. Yeah right. Give your head a shake. That facial hair had been in place for hundreds of years.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Damn, her face must have given her away again. “I just wish I could kiss you.”

  He nodded. “Just one kiss, and I would be happy forever.”

  Her eyes filled with tears and she wasn’t even sure why. “Our time together has been so wonderful. You’ve helped me heal. You’ve made me happy. But …”

  “Aye. It is bittersweet.” His figure dissolved into nothingness.

  As Maddy dressed for work, she wrestled with her feelings. Never had she been involved with two men before and she didn’t like the weight of guilt seeping into her heart. She decided to tell Cullen about Hank that night.

  12

  More Rocking

  After work she met Hank for the second time. She expected the spark between them to be diminished after her baking adventure with Cullen, sort of drowned by the flour of her supernatural, ghostly affair, but she was wrong. So wrong. The spark between her and Hank grew.

  He told her funny stories about his childhood claiming that his feet were always too large and that explained his clumsiness, but he didn’t look klutzy to her. He looked pretty darn perfect, like a blonde Ken doll with a sexy dimple that came out when he smiled at her, a mega-watt smile, which made her feel like the only woman in the room. Hell . . . in the universe. Butterflies began propagating in her stomach. When she left the coffee shop he brushed her cheek with a kiss that made them dance.

  “I know there are only two days left before Christmas, and that you’re probably really busy, but I’d love to see you again.”

  Without even thinking, she nodded. “Tomorrow’s my last day at work. Let’s meet again, same time, same place.”

  13

  Frosty the Snow Fight

  After dinner Maddy and Cullen baked sugar cookies in the shape of Christmas trees using white, red and green icing to decorate them. He managed to get the sticky icing over everything, but their cookies were miniature masterpieces of art and tasted divine, and that was what mattered. They put them away in tins for Christmas.

  Booker ate his quota as well.

  Afterwards Maddy and Cullen sat on the sofa by the Christmas tree. She sighed. “That was fun. I couldn’t have baked so many cookies without your help.”

  “So you forgive me for making a mess.”

  “I forgave you the moment you picked up the mop.”

  “Uh-huh. So what’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothing.”

  Cullen continued to write. “Something’s got into you. I can feel it. I hope you haven’t been talking to Kevin.”

  Maddy looked out the window, trying to think of a way to explain Hank. It had started snowing. Large, fluffy, white flakes floated to the ground. “Look!” She pointed. “It’s snowing.”

  “How about a snowball fight?” Cullen said.

  “Seriously?”

  “I love the snow.”

  “Okay, but you have to wear a hat, so I know where you are.”

  “That’s fair.”

  And so they went out at ten o’clock and played in the snow. Cullen made large grunting sounds as if he were being hit.

  The soft snow, the perfect kind for making snowballs, fell around them. Maddy made four balls and searched for Cullen. He looked stationary, so she started throwing. No grunts. Hmm.

  And then she felt him lift her into the air and gently lay her down on the ground blanketed by the newly fallen snow. His cold breath touched her face.

  “I gotcha,” he said, but he knew she couldn’t hear him. He traced her face with a snowball.

  “I’m cold,” said Maddy. “Let’s go in. I’d like a hot chocolate by the fireplace with you at my side.” Cullen complied, but he ached inside to hold her. She fell asleep on the couch and he watched her. Her cheeks were a ruddy red from the cold.

  In the predawn light Cullen appeared in front of Maddy. They held each other with their eyes and for thirteen minutes everything in the world felt right.

  14

  It's Beginning to Look Messy

  After work, Maddy met with Hank for their third coffee date. This time they went to her favorite place a few blocks from her home. Christmas tunes played over the speakers, as the snow continued to fall outside in large flakes. A Christmas tree decorated with children’s crafts and cookies sat in the corner. Gingerbread men hung from ribbons over the large, picture window. The air smelled of cinnamon and ginger. A bowl of candy canes sat beside the cash register. Shoppers laden with bags strolled in, along with the regulars from the neighborhood. With only two days left until Christmas, the place buzzed with holiday cheer.

  Hank gave her is full attention making her feel as if she were the only woman in the world. They talked about their families and about Christmas.

  When it came time for them to part, he kissed her lips gently, and she felt transported to another world. Her entire body melted like snow. She looked up at him. “Tomorrow I’m leaving to be with my family for the holidays. I’ll be back in a week and we can get together then.”

  Gently he brushed a strand of her hair away from her face. His fingers lingered on her cheek. “I’m not sure I can wait that long.” He gave her a sad smile that made her feel missed already.

  15

  I'll be Home for You

  When Maddy opened the front door of her home, the smell of roast beef cooking in her oven almost knocked her over. Good thing she hadn’t started early on her New Year’s resolution to go vegan. “I’m home.”

  The candle-lit table was set with her best dishes, and a bluesy Christmas song played over her speakers. The room was set for love.

  After dinner, they watched her favorite Christmas movie, Love Actually is …, with Booker sitting between them. When she got up to dance to the music, Cullen joined her wearing the throw blanket so she could see him. He didn’t even make fun of her when she cried at the sentimental parts. She fell asleep on the sofa before the credits finished. Four late nights had taken their toll.

  She awoke to Cullen in his full body singing in his deep, rich voice. Oh my. There could not a
more perfect man. He held her with his eyes and she felt caressed by his heart. Thirteen minutes passed quickly.

  “Mo maise, it is time for me to go.”

  “I want you to hold me.”

  “I canna do that, Maddy, or at least not so that you would feel it.”

  “Kiss me?”

  He shook his head. “At best it would feel like kissing a dead fish. At worst, a Popsicle. But mostly it would feel like kissing dead air.”

  “What are we to do?”

  “I could bathe you with a warm washcloth.” His right brow rose. “Like I did last time.”

  Heat rose to Maddy’s cheeks, but it didn’t seem right at all. She didn’t want a washcloth love affair. “Am I being selfish keeping you here? Is there something I can do to help you, you know, go upstairs?”

  “To heaven, ya mean?”

  She nodded.

  Cullen shrugged. “I’ve never been what you would call angel material, lass.”

  “But you’re good, and kind, and caring. You may like cheating at cards, booze and women, but your heart is made of the stuff of angels.”

  His rumbling laughter had a deep bawdy tone that made her laugh. “My head-shrinker tells me I can make it, if I put some effort into it, but I don’t know that I want to. Can you imagine me with wings?”

  “I bet heaven is a beautiful place and Bronwyn would be there.”

  His face darkened. “Aye, I would go for her, but there is no guarantee she will be there and no guarantee that she would want to see my sorry arse. I did get her killed.”

  “Oh, I bet she wants to see you.”

  Cullen stepped closer to Maddy and vanished with the dawn. Too tired to talk any more, she picked up her cell phone and headed upstairs. She had time to get a couple hours sleep before she set out on her road trip.