“ ‘Celebrate,’ ” Shannon supplied.
“What do people celebrate on the Fourth of July?”
“Our freedom from English oppression.”
That concept seemed too much for the little girl. “Hmm—Do you have something red to wear, Shannon?”
“No, I don’t think so. The only red garment I have is my robe.”
“That will be good,” DeeDee agreed solemnly. “I’ll wear my long white nightgown, and Daddy can wear his blue pajamas. I’ll go and tell him right now. We’ll celebrate our freedom from—o—o—possums.”
Shannon started to correct DeeDee, but she’d turned her wheelchair and was gone in a flash of excitement. It didn’t matter anyway. Freedom was freedom, and maybe little freedoms were as important as big ones. DeeDee deserved a celebration. Even if she wasn’t totally there yet.
While she dressed for the picnic, Shannon talked to Kasey. Their imaginary conversations were a long-established habit that reassured and calmed her.
“He’s just a man, my employer. If I were more experienced, I wouldn’t be reacting this way. In a month I’ll be gone and all this will be a—dream.”
Shannon took the dark-red velvet robe from the closet and considered what she’d wear beneath it. The lace-edged sleeves of her flannel nightgown didn’t fit the cut of the robe, yet wearing only her underwear would be uncomfortable. Finally she opened the bureau drawer containing the NightDreams lingerie. Did she dare?
The white gown would have been her choice, but the sheer neckline was too high. Jonathan would see it and might misinterpret what she’d done. The red gown clashed with the robe, leaving only the black, slinky garment. It had full shoulders that couldn’t slip, a handkerchief hemline that wouldn’t show beneath the long, full skirt, and a plunging neckline that would be hidden by the fitted waist of the robe.
She carefully brushed her long hair, catching a swatch and pulled it behind one ear, where she anchored it with a sprig of greenery and a red ribbon. Donning the golden slippers, she studied herself once more in the mirror. She looked, not like Kaseybelle, the child-fairy, but like some ad-copy model from a fantasy world.
The house was quiet as always until she reached the halfway point down the main staircase, where the peal of childish laughter echoed down the corridor. Shannon paused, willing the wild beating of her heart to still. “You’re simply going on a picnic, Shannon, to celebrate freeing the possums.”
“Freeing the possums?”
Jonathan stepped out of the shadows, a crooked smile on his lips. “Possums?” he repeated.
“It’s a long story,” she whispered, caught up in the magic of the vision. He was wearing blue, as DeeDee had planned, not pajamas, but a blue smoking jacket, cut like something a Persian prince might have worn in an old movie. It was embroidered in black and gold. He looked as if he’d just stepped from the pages of The Arabian Nights.
“I have all night,” he answered, his voice low and tight. “DeeDee said that we were dressing up and that I should wear blue pajamas. This is the best I could do. Do you approve?”
He held out his hand.
Approve? Shannon felt the intensity of his presence, her mind fragmenting in shifting sensations of light and dark, of heat and cold. The lean planes of his face were drawn into serious contemplation. His dark brows seemed permanently arched, and his lips were narrowed into a smile that, if she didn’t know better, might be amusement.
She lowered her lashes and took his hand, sighing involuntarily as they touched, then waited as the heat of their shimmering connection stilled. “I think,” she said softly, “that you know you more than pass inspection. But I don’t matter. It’s DeeDee we have to satisfy.”
“I’d hoped for your approval as well.”
“Why? Surely you’ve had all the admiration any man would ever need.”
“Not from fantasy women.”
“Oh?” As he drew her down the corridor toward the parlor, Shannon knew that they were flirting, exchanging nonsensical whimsy, neither believing nor expecting to be believed. This was a night of pretending. And both acknowledged with their dress that they would play the game.
“I think that a man who designs and manufactures NightDreams must have experienced the ultimate fantasy.”
“Perhaps, my mystical lady, perhaps I’m about to.”
“Daddy, Shannon, look at my tree.”
DeeDee was wearing a long white nightgown with lace along the hem and the neck. Her dark hair had been pulled up on the back of her head and tied with a bright red bow. She was holding a bowl of popcorn, already threaded on a long thread.
“It’s beautiful, DeeDee,” Shannon said, pulling away from Jonathan and dropping to the sofa beside DeeDee’s wheelchair. “I thought we were going to eat first.”
“Oh, we are. Instead of eating on the floor, Mrs. Butter has set a table by the window. Lawrence has a surprise outside, and when we’ve finished eating, he’s going to turn it on.”
DeeDee handed the popcorn to Mrs. Butterfield and began to maneuver her wheelchair to the side of a small table set up in the bay window on the side of the fireplace opposite from the Christmas tree.
In the middle of the table was a cheerful candle arrangement with candy canes and greenery. Little white angels held bright red napkins.
DeeDee had been right about the menu. There were sandwiches, little corkscrew fried potatoes, and for dessert, ice cream with red raspberry syrup. DeeDee hurried them through every bite of the meal.
When Jonathan had scooped the last of his ice cream into his spoon, DeeDee waved her hand against the window. “Now, watch, Daddy.”
At her signal a star suddenly ignited in the top of a tree at the edge of the woods. In the darkness it glowed like a beacon.
“Ohh, Daddy, isn’t the star beautiful?”
“The star is beautiful, punkin.”
“And he’ll be able to see it, won’t he, Shannon?”
“Who?”
DeeDee ducked her head and mumbled the words. “Santa Claus. I want him to know exactly where I live, else how will he be able to bring what I want most of all in the whole world?”
Jonathan stood and lifted his daughter in his arms, and the two of them stared out at the cold night sky. “He’ll see, darling, and he’ll bring it. Tell Daddy what you’re going to ask for.”
“Nope. Has to be a secret. Won’t bring it if I tell.”
“Of course he will, darling.”
“He didn’t last year. I told my teacher and she wrote it down and he never brought it.”
“I know, that’s why I want to make sure he knows in plenty of time,” Jonathan said, making up his plea as he went. “Sometimes Santa gets very busy and loses lists.”
“Not this year, Daddy. Me and Shannon are going to his castle to talk to him. He’ll know, ’cause I’ll tell him.”
Aghast that her plan to spur DeeDee into working hard was about to backfire, Shannon racked her brain for a solution.
“DeeDee, maybe you’d better practice what you’re going to tell Santa. Pretend your daddy is Santa and tell him what you want.”
“Nope, it’s a s’prise. Now, Daddy, we have to decorate our tree.”
Jonathan gave Shannon a helpless look and turned away from the window.
The tree wasn’t exactly straight, and with DeeDee’s limited access, the bottom was heavy with ornaments. But when Mrs. Butter turned off the lights and Jonathan plugged in the tree, a chorus of Ahhhs was sweet music to all their ears.
“Now, Daddy,” DeeDee said, “put the popcorn around the tree and we’ll be done.”
DeeDee held one end of the rope while Jonathan wound it around the tree. Then he stood back and pronounced, “It’s the prettiest tree I’ve ever seen.”
“Anybody for some hot chocolate?” Mrs. Butterfield wheeled a small cart in the door and began to pour the hot, sweet liquid into small white Christmas cups.
Jonathan sat in the big easy chair and sipped his chocolate. “No
w what do we do, sweetheart?”
“Shannon says we sit in your lap and listen to Christmas carols.”
“Oh? That sounds intriguing.”
“Shannon says that DeeDee sits in Daddy’s lap,” Shannon said as she slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her on the couch. She leaned her head back on the thick pillows and watched Jonathan and his daughter. Before long DeeDee’s eyes were drooping.
Shannon wondered what DeeDee’s mother looked like. There were no pictures in the castle, either of Jonathan or of his wife. DeeDee’s dark, silky hair was the same as Jonathan’s. Where their hair touched, they blended and, except for a hint of silver along Jonathan’s temples, Shannon couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
They were both beautiful. Both special. Both in need of loving and being loved.
Just like her.
The record ended and Jonathan opened his eyes. For a long time he watched Shannon. She knew he was watching. She could always tell.
“Thank you, Jonathan,” she said softly. “DeeDee will remember this always.”
“So will I. I don’t have many memories like this. Do you?”
“No, my Christmases were very different. Sofia tried, but she didn’t understand. There were always presents and people, too many people. They came on Christmas morning and throughout the day. I didn’t know any of them, but my mother thought it was terribly important to have people around her on holidays. Somehow it measured her success and it made the loneliness stay away. Sometimes I think she worried so much about being alone that she drove everybody away.”
“But you like to be alone too.”
“I always thought so, but this was nice. This was almost like a real family. Thank you for including me.” Shannon stood up. She’d gotten stiff sitting there in the half-darkness. And sentimental. It wouldn’t do to let her employer know how deeply she’d been affected by that belonging.
“Thank you, Shannon. For being here.”
Jonathan stood and followed her from the room, stopping in the doorway as DeeDee roused. “Daddy, is our tree the most bea-u-ti-ful in the whole world?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I thought so.”
She laid her head on his shoulder and went back to sleep. Together Shannon and Jonathan climbed the stairs to the second floor. As they reached the turret, Jonathan paused. “Shannon?”
“Yes?”
He didn’t answer. His arms were filled with a little girl in a white nightgown. His heart was spilling over with emotion. His mind was treading in dangerous waters.
“Please tell me …”
“Of course I will. What do you want to know.”
“Why were we celebrating our freedom from possums?”
Six
Only a soft light glowed from the lamp beside her bed. Shannon, still wearing the burgundy robe, was standing by the window, looking out at the star below in the woods. It made the woods look as if they’d been sprinkled with diamonds. The scene was so beautiful that she felt tears gather in her eyes.
What was happening to her? For so long she’d stayed away from people and commitment. There’d only been Willie, and he understood her fierce need for privacy. He’d respected that and made it possible for her to live the life she wanted and still be a part of the outside world.
Now, in a few short days, this lonely, powerful man had torn away the trappings of her world and thrust her into one where she didn’t belong. She couldn’t allow herself to learn to care for his child, or him. Her stay was temporary, and learning to care would hurt her. Shannon knew about caring and having that kind of love discarded like a change of clothes.
No, she couldn’t let herself feel anything. But she had. The events of the evening had crept into her mind and settled there like a drug that could become addictive. Sitting there, in the glow of the decorated Christmas tree, with DeeDee in Jonathan’s lap and the Christmas carols playing on the stereo, she could, just for a moment, believe that she belonged.
The night was clear and hauntingly beautiful. Even the coldness of its beauty didn’t melt the look of warmth in Jonathan’s eyes when he’d left her earlier. Now she was restless. If it wasn’t so late, she’d slip back down the stairs and walk in the snow. She’d stop by Jonathan’s room and ask him if he’d go with her, if he’d—
When she heard the light knock on her door, she thought she was imagining it. Then it came again.
“Shannon, it’s me.”
Shannon opened the door. “I thought you could enter any time you like.”
“I could, but I’d rather you invite me in.”
She could barely talk, her lips were shaking so. “Why are you here, Jonathan?”
“I didn’t want the night to end. Do you?”
“No,” she whispered, and knew that she’d been waiting for him to come to her.
“Do you know what you’re wearing in your hair?”
“My hair?” She tried to focus on his words. “A ribbon?”
He stepped into the room, closed the door, and leaned back against it. “Such lovely hair,” he whispered. “I’m glad you don’t restrain it. I like the way it surrounds your face with gold. You look like sunshine.”
She felt as if she’d died, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and his voice was reverberating inside the vacuum. “What about my ribbon?”
“Not the ribbon,” he said, taking a step forward, “the sprig of green you’ve tied it around.”
“No, I don’t know. Mrs. Butterfield gave it to me, from the arrangement she was making for the table.”
“Dear Mrs. Butter. I wonder if she knew what she was doing? Yes, of course she did. She always knows.”
“So, I’m a California girl. What is it?”
“It’s mistletoe. Do you know what happens to a woman who stands beneath the mistletoe?”
She didn’t know anything at that moment. And if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to repeat it. She simply stared at him, watching him materialize from the darkness. Sunshine, she thought, sunshine turned darkness into light.
“She’s asking to be kissed.”
Her lungs were burning. The glow inside her had flared up with such heat that she wondered why he couldn’t feel the sizzle. Closer he came. More severe, more intense were the lines in his forehead. She reached out, holding up her hand as if to ward him off, then felt the fabric of his jacket meld with fingertips that unbuttoned and touched the heated skin beneath.
He groaned. “I told myself I wouldn’t come here again. I told myself that you’d soon be gone and you’d take the yearning with you. I told myself that touching you would be wrong. But you got inside my mind and messed up all my rules.”
He placed his hands on either side of her face and held her, allowing their bodies to acknowledge the heated longings restrained by the boundaries of mind and the clothing. Then slowly, without closing off their vision, he lowered his head.
Lips touched. Lips parted. Lips gently asked, and took, and promised more. She sighed. He groaned. Desire acknowledged desire and became fierce in its demand.
“Shannon,” he whispered, and gave in to the need to touch her hair, exalting in the silky feel of it as he wound it through his fingers. He knew that this woman was fragile, some precious gift that had come to him unexpectedly, a gift he didn’t merit.
What could he offer this woman who deserved all a man had, when he had nothing left to give? His fingers stilled, and for a moment he could hear her breathing in the silence.
“Jonathan? What’s wrong?”
She felt as if she could read his mind, so closely entwined were they, two people who sought solitude and yet needed not to be alone; who hid their needs from the outside world but couldn’t conceal them from each other. “It’s all right,” she said, touching his face with her hand. “It’s the magic. We’re caught up in it. It isn’t real. I understand.”
But he didn’t respond.
“You’d never hurt me, Jonathan. I�
��m not afraid of you.”
He pulled back and looked down at her, her blue eyes clear and beautiful in the half-light of the lamp. “I’ve heard it said that the eyes are windows to the soul,” he murmured. “How can it be that in yours I see such beauty and so much pain?”
“I don’t know,” she answered as honestly as she dared, “but if this is true, then half of you is concealed, and the other half remains in the shadows. Come into the light, Jonathan.”
He turned his head away.
“No.” She caught his face and forced him to look back at her. “I understand that you do not wish me to know, but I want to touch what I cannot see.”
With her hand she rimmed the edges of his angular face, outlining the narrow edges of his clenched lips and moving up his nose to his brows. Across one eyebrow, she followed the tie of his patch across his forehead, drawing a line of heat around the edges of the material.
“Now, as an artist, I’ve committed you to memory.”
“And as a woman?” he rasped.
“I don’t know how to do that, Jonathan. Please,” she whispered in a voice so low that he had to lower his head to hear. “Please, teach me.”
He didn’t stop to think. Instinct and a terrible, burning, selfish need took away all reason. He’d thought there would never be a second chance for him to feel with his soul. But this magic moment had come unexpectedly and unbidden into his life.
He kissed her, slowly and tenderly, feeling the trembling of her response and the shyness of her tentative touch beneath his jacket. Between kisses the buttons on her robe were unfastened, and it fell to the floor around her feet like a velvet pool.
“Sweet heaven,” he said as he allowed his eyes to sweep over the black nightgown. “Our research department is wrong about the women who wear black. You’re a goddess from the sun who caught me in her spell.”
“Oh.” Shannon looked down at her body and groaned. “I didn’t expect you to see. I needed something under the robe. I’m sorry. It isn’t me.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry that you’re wearing NightDreams?”
“Yes. I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m something I’m not.”
Night Dreams Page 7
