The Ghost of Christmas Present

by Jenny Lykins

  "Oh. I would help, but...," he bent and scooped his hand right through the can, "...I have this problem." He smiled with all the charm of a mischievous six year old.

  Alane swallowed hard and chewed on her lower lip.

  "W-Would...ahh...you mind stepping to your right?"

  He continued that bone-melting smile as he slid down the counter a few inches. She snatched the can from the floor, then dumped them all in the nearest cabinet.

  "Am I making you nervous?"

  She merely cocked a brow at him in answer.

  "I'm not so bad when you get to know me. Really. Why don't you pour yourself a glass of wine and we'll talk by the fire."

  Her first impulse was a rude snort and a "Yeah, right," but she stifled them both. Instead, she found her nail cuticles infinitely interesting while she chewed on her lip again and wished fervently that he'd just disappear.

  "All right. I'll tell you what. I'll go wait by the fire and if you want to talk you can join me."

  He didn't wait for an answer. But at least he used the doorway when he left the kitchen.

  Alane stood in the center of the floor, wringing her hands, her stomach churning. If she talked to him for a while, would he go away and leave her in peace? Could she talk to him or would she just stammer incoherently? And would it be because he was a ghost or because looking at him was like looking into the face of Michelangelo's David?

  Whether she joined him or not, a glass of wine was a good idea. Good for the nerves. Strictly medicinal.

  She pulled her favorite white zinfandel from the fridge with a mental tweak to all the wine snobs who would look down on her choice. It took four tries before her shaking hands managed to center the corkscrew, and by the time she separated the cork from the neck, she was ready to forego the glass and do a bottoms-up with the bottle.

  She stifled that urge...after the first long gulp.

  Rummaging in the cupboards, she unearthed a wine glass and poured the accepted amount. When she started to stopper the bottle she flicked a glance at the glass, shrugged, filled it to the rim, then jammed the cork back into the mouth.

  With a few more sips she felt mellow enough to confront the lion in his den, so to speak. Or was she a Christian to the lions? Virgin sacrifice to the gods?

  All three?

  She eyed the glass of wine with suspicion, wondering if she should quit while she was behind and dump what was left down the drain.

  *******

  Jared watched her peer around the door then try to nonchalantly amble into the living room. She took a nervous sip of wine when she glanced at him and caught him looking at her.

  Damn, she looked even more beautiful, now that she had that over-stuffed parka off. Silky spun-gold hair kissed her shoulders; the kind of hair that falls perfectly back into place, even after a windstorm.

  She started to lower herself into the leather recliner, then glanced at him and moved over by the fire onto the floor, a good three feet farther from him. She took another sip of wine and looked at the ceiling, then at the wall, then at the fire, then finally at him. He let the silence stretch a minute.

  "How's the wine?"

  "Good. Good." She nodded. "Would you like...I mean, can you drink...?"

  "No, thanks. The stuff goes right through me."

  She grinned at that and took another sip.

  "So what do you do for a living?"

  "I paint." She swirled the wine in the glass and watched the liquid climb to the rim. "Dad was an artist. I hope to be as good as him someday."

  "A name I might recognize?" He was pulling teeth here.

  "Xavier Travis."

  Jared did recognize the name. During his wandering years he'd seen more than one of the man's paintings.

  "So, do you go by Travis? Are you here on sabbatical? Is someone joining you? Do you like dogs?" He tossed that last one in to see if she was paying attention.

  She blinked at him, then leaned back against a footstool, drew her legs up, and propped her wine atop her knee.

  "Ummm...yes, no, no, and only big ones."

  Good. A sense of humor.

  "So, what's your first name, or should I keep thinking of you as that gorgeous mortal?"

  He shouldn't have waited until mid-sip to ask that one. But she only choked for a second, then her eyes watered.

  "I'm Alane. Travis. Alane Travis," she clarified for any idiots who might be in the room.

  "Jared Elliott, at your service. I'd offer you my hand but I don't have much of a grip."

  She smiled and bowed her head as she shook it.

  "So, Alane Travis, you're here to work, you're working alone, and you have a soft spot for large dogs. Got a husband? Kids?"

  She cringed and took another sip.

  "Can't find a man who understands the artist in me. And my only child is a mutt named vanGogh. He lost an ear in a dog fight before he landed in the pound. I rescued him from death row."

  Ah! A sense of humor and a soft heart.

  "What about you?" She took him by complete surprise until he realized the wine had loosened her tongue enough to ask. "Your story's got to be more interesting than mine."

  Now it was his turn to cringe.

  "Well, my name's Jared Elliott, as I said."

  "Yeah...," she said leadingly, but he remained silent. "How long have you been...," she waved the hand holding the wine glass at him, sloshing some onto her fingers, "...like this? Let's see. What would be the politically correct term? Bodily deprived? Pulse impaired? Heartbeat challenged?"

  Definitely mellowing. He'd have to encourage her to imbibe more if she clammed up on him again.

  "Two hundred years."

  "Huh?"

  "I've been like this," he gestured from head to toe, "for two hundred years."

  "No, you haven't!"

  "Yes. I have."

  "Say something to me in...no wait. That's not right." She blinked. "You don't sound two hundred years old."

  He bit back a grin and wished he could smooth away the silken strand of hair that had flopped over her eye.

  "What manner of speech would the good mistress have me speak? I vow my life has seen many. Wish you that I converse as a rebellious traitor to the crown? A damn Yankee? A really swell World War II vet? How about a real cool cat, or maybe a groovy dude? Of course I can be awesome and radical, and even bad, but you're such a def chick I can probably just be myself."

  When he finally wound down she had the goofiest, most endearing smile on her face he'd ever seen.

  "Point taken," she said.

  He tried not to be smug.

  "But you don't look two hundred years old, and I don't mean in age. Don't you guys walk around in shrouds or the clothes you were buried in or something?"

  Jared rolled his eyes, then leaned back and sprawled his legs out toward the fire. "Thank Hollywood for that myth. But guys like Shakespeare and Dickens started the rumor." A sudden mischievous urge overwhelmed him. "Would you believe me if I looked like this?"

  Alane again choked on her wine and she stared at her ghost through a blur of teary eyes. He rose from the matching recliner clad in gray, skin tight knee breeches, hosiery, and shoes with buckles. His heretofore short, yet shaggy hair was several inches longer, pulled back in a que with a black ribbon. A vest to mid-thigh and cutaway jacket finished the picture of a man who could have signed the Constitution. With the flick of a lacy cuff, he bowed.

  "I never powder my hair. Attracts bugs."

  In the blink of an eye he wore a Confederate officer's uniform, then a zoot suit, then a pair of chinos and a tee shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled in the sleeve and hair slicked into a ducktail. He faded into bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed shirt with below-the-shoulder hair, then ended in loose cut jeans, logo tee shirt and a baseball hat on backwards. Before she could breathe, he morphed back into his boot-cut jeans, oxford shirt, and cabled crewneck sweater, as devastatingly handsome in that simple attire as he’d been in all his other personas. Too handsome
for her own good.

  "Sorry," he shrugged with a smile that was anything but sorry. "I don't get a chance to show off much."

  Alane closed her mouth, wondering vaguely how long it had been hanging open.

  "Poi...," she cleared her throat, "...point well taken." She looked at her nearly empty wine glass, then set it aside and pushed it further away. "How did you...become...," she wiggled her fingers at him, at a loss for words.

  "Heartbeat challenged?" he supplied. She cringed on the inside and damned the wine for making her so witty.

  She gave him a weak smile.

  "I don't need a demonstration, by the way," she hastened to add.

  He lifted his head and grinned, but his smile didn't have the usual megawatts behind it. He sighed.

  "Oh, another time. Young mistress must be sorely wearied from her lengthy journey. Retire to your bedchamber and sleep well this night. We shall speak again on the morrow."

  Slowly, very slowly, he stretched out a hand toward her. When she forced herself not to back away he passed his hand along her cheek. Instead of the cold, clammy feeling she expected, her cheek felt as if a warm, summer breeze had kissed it.

  Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jared watched her sleep. The wine had hastened that process, he was sure, but even at that she'd lain awake far into the night, watching for someone who wouldn't allow himself to be seen.

  Ah, but she was lovely. For the first time in more years than he'd let himself count, he gave in to the ache for the gentle touch of a woman. Just her touch. A finger on his brow to swipe his hair from his eyes. Hands on his shoulders to rub away the knots there. A loving palm on the cheek to remind him to shave.

  He closed his eyes, imagining it, but the mere thought hurt like a dull blade through the breast.

  He moved to the bed and sank down beside her. Focusing all his will, knowing it would cost him strength, he concentrated and traced the tips of his fingers along her jaw.

  Sweet Gabriel in heaven, the feel of her shot through his soul like a drug. He held the connection, savoring the moment, until his strength began to ebb.

  He left part of his soul behind when he lifted his fingers from her face.

  Closing his eyes, he dropped his head in denial. For nearly two centuries he had walked this earth alone, at times feeling his loneliness, at times enjoying his solitude. But during those years he'd remained constant in accepting his fate. In life, he'd been unwilling to give of himself, and because of that his wife and unborn child had died at his hands. He hadn’t been able to give the ultimate gift - himself - and his wife had died trying to love him anyway.

  He deserved the curse her mother had laid upon him as he lay, broken at the foot of the stairs, his wife's twisted body tangled with his.

  And now, when no chance of love existed for him, he looked at the sleeping woman lying curled on her side and knew for the first time what selfless, all-encompassing love felt like.

  He'd fallen in love, and feared it would be a process that would last throughout an eternity.

  In the space of a heartbeat he walked the frigid shores of the lake, unable to feel the cold nor smell the perfume of the trees.

  He would give the earth and the moon and the stars, were it in his power, to have but one day to love Alane Travis with more than his heart, his mind and his soul. To feel her head against his chest, her breath against his face. To smell the scent she wore and taste the sweetness of her kiss.

  He would give any wealth he had, but all he had was a solitary

  non-existence. A vacuum in which he'd lived with no feelings or emotions for decade upon decade.

  Now, God help him, the vacuum had been broken.

  *******

  Alane rolled over and came slowly awake, trying to remember exactly where she was. Oh yes. The cabin.

  Her eyes flew open and she searched the room as memories of the night before returned. Surely it was a dream. Surely she hadn't spent the evening drinking wine and conversing with a ghost.

  Her first impulse was to curl into a tight little ball and pull the covers over her head, but Mother Nature forced her to climb out of bed and find her way to the bathroom in her hopelessly wrinkled clothes.

  The living room looked normal. No sign of shimmering air or guys she could see through. The kitchen looked just as she'd left it the night before. Groceries still on the table. The bottle of wine sat at the edge, a testament that she hadn't dreamed the whole thing. Then again, considering how little wine was left in the bottle, she may have dreamed part of it.

  Moving on to the bathroom, she peered around the corner, half-expecting him to float through the wall. Once she determined the room was empty, she rushed through the necessary activities before brushing her teeth and dousing her face with a splash of cold water.

  Feeling a little more in charge, with no sign of the resident ectoplasm, she finger-combed her hair and shuffled into the kitchen to start her morning IV drip of caffeine.

  After putting away the rest of the groceries, throwing a conglomeration into the Crockpot for dinner, then pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee, she began to wonder if the whole thing really had been just a result of too much wine and a long day of driving. After all, the guy really was too good-looking to be true, with all that black-brown hair and greenish, brownish eyes. Really, had anybody that good-looking ever really walked the earth? And if that's the way they grew them two hundred years ago, she’d been born in the wrong century. Besides, if he was real, that meant she was attracted to a dead man. And she was much too level-headed to ever do something that foolish. Nah, she'd dreamed that one up for sure.

  "No hangover?"

  Alane jerked as if she'd been shot, this time slinging a mug full of coffee against the wall in a sort of impressionistic caffeine mural.

  "Holy crap! I'm going to make you wear a bell around your neck if you don't stop that!"

  He shrugged innocently and said, "It's not on purpose. Honest."

  Alane snatched a wet dishcloth from the sink and started mopping the wall.

  "What do you want anyway?" Her nerves felt like rubber bands stretched to the max. When he didn't answer she glanced at him over her shoulder.

  He stood there, hurt evident in his eyes, though he tried to mask it with a careless shrug.

  The coffee stains and wet dishcloth forgotten, she wanted to bite her tongue in two for snapping at him.

  "I thought you might need a hangover remedy. I had my share of them before I took the ultimate cure."

  Irreverent. She was vacationing with an irreverent ghost who had a face and body to die for.

  "No! I don't! And don't you ever even think that again!"

  "Excuse me? What?" Alane asked, afraid his answer would be what she thought it was.

  "To die for. I am not to die for. Have you any idea what you're saying when you use that term?" He towered - hovered - over her, his rage mingled with an underlying fear she didn't understand.

  She generated more than a little rage of her own.

  "I didn't say anything. I thought it. Which means you've been reading my thoughts like some kind of...of...paranormal eavesdropper! Well, I don't appreciate it, Casper, so stay the hell out of my head!" She threw the dripping cloth through his head, hitting the kitchen window with a splat and making one more mess to clean up.

  The nerve of him! The unmitigated gall! If she could get her hands around that vaporous neck of his, she'd choke the life right out of... Oh!

  She speared him with a glare, sure he'd be highly amused if he read those thoughts, but he didn't look amused. He looked as angry as she.

  "There are very few things in life 'to die for,' Alane. And I am certainly not one of them."

  "That's just a... Nobody ever means it when... Oh, for pity's sake, why am I on the defensive? You're the one in the wrong." She narrowed her eyes and searched his face. "Have you been wandering around in my head all along?"

  He snapped his mouth shut and had t
he decency to look at least a little uncomfortable.

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Not the whole time."

  "Not the whole time? When were you not? When I was asleep?"

  When his gaze dropped to the floor, she had her answer.

  She stomped right through him and snatched up the dishcloth again, biting back a gasp and fighting to ignore the melting warmth she felt as her body passed through his. From the corner of her eye she saw him turn and watch her start back to work on the coffee-stained wall.

  "I'm sorry about the eavesdropping," he said in a voice that weakened her knees.

  She rinsed out the cloth and started on the floor.

  "It's easy to forget one's manners when you spend so much time alone."

  She worked her way halfway under the table, then around to the other side of the wall.

  "Will you forgive me?"

  She pulled herself to her feet, walked through him again as if he weren't there, then turned on the water to rinse the cloth. When she turned back around to finish the job, he was gone.

  *******

  Alane sat, curled in the corner of the couch, wearing three pairs of socks, two sweat shirts, sweat pants, wrapped in a blanket, with a sketchpad propped against her knees. A virtual bonfire roared in the fireplace and a charcoal pencil dangled, forgotten, from her fingers.

  Maybe she'd been too hard on him, ignoring his apology the way she had. He did have a point about spending so much time alone and all. And it would be awfully hard to resist reading someone's mind.

  She wiggled into another position and kicked off the blanket.

  He'd been gone since morning. All day long she'd kept expecting him to show up and shock another ten years off her life. She'd finished cleaning the kitchen, unloaded her paints and other materials from the car, as well as a forgotten bag of groceries. She'd unpacked, brought in enough firewood for the night, then spent the last several hours trying to sketch something - anything - that wasn't the face of her ghost.