The horses hurtled off in an agitated gallop that knocked the sleigh back and forth. Snow kicked up around them in a miniature blizzard, and the jarring unequal gait of the horses threatened to toss her out of the sleigh. She hugged the left side in a death grip. Zeit was stretched across the front of the sleigh and slid from side to side, but held tight to the reins.
“Whoa!” both men shouted, and Mr. Cowper grabbed the lines ahead of Zeit’s hands and tried to slow them. Zeit yanked back on the reins, halting them as the side of the sleigh opposite her tilted up in the air, cresting a large rock.
Hannah launched herself toward the raised side to prevent it from tipping.
The sleigh’s runner thunked against the rock, and she expelled a shallow breath. Wow. That was close.
“Are you okay?” both men asked at once, twisting to stare at her.
Her heart was in her throat, and she hadn’t started breathing again yet but, in theory, sure. “Yes,” she squeaked.
“I’ll get us straightened out,” Mr. Cowper said, taking the reins from Zeit.
A screech of metal against rock later, the sleigh was horizontal.
Zeit dropped down beside her and pulled her close. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her cheek as she hugged him back. If that had frightened an immortal, she didn’t feel so bad. The crazed ride had probably been only a minute long, but it had scared a lifetime out of her.
“I’m so sorry. Moira’s never done that before,” Mr. Cowper stuttered, gesturing at one of the horses. He put a hand to his chest which made her heart pound harder. Then, he dropped it as he shook his head. Oh, good, it was just the shock.
“Moira?” Zeit’s lips brushed the top of her head as he said it.
“My horse. My wife liked the name because…”
“It means fate. Yes. I know.”
“Does it? It’s a variation of Mary too, and she liked the connection to Christmas without it being obvious.” He exhaled. “Well, that was… terrifying. How about we take the short way back and get you two somewhere warm? I might need to give the horses some quiet time while I inspect the sleigh. I hope I can still do a few more rides. Some of the kids were really looking forward to it.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Zeit said. He didn’t loosen his hold on her, though.
“I just have that sort of luck,” Hannah said. Hopefully, she’d be able to breathe normally again sometime in the near future.
Zeit tugged her onto his lap and wrapped the blanket snuggly around her before adding the hold of his strong arms over top, nearly crushing her, but she didn’t care. She buried her face in his cotton sweater and listened to his heartbeat.
Mr. Cowper kept up a constant dialogue of apology and disbelief the whole ride back.
He wasn’t going to be more than six inches away from her for the rest of her life—especially with his abilities not being what they once were. He couldn’t stop time. He’d tried several times surreptitiously, but he couldn’t freeze the hand of time for even a second. It pushed onward despite how much he wished it otherwise.
For century upon century, he’d been master and now he was as impotent to direct its march as a mortal.
At least he could still summon his necessities—that aspect of his powers was still viable. If he’d lost that too, he’d think he was in some horrible nightmare. Zeit opened his suitcase to another pair of jeans and the shirt a man from a commercial on TV was wearing. The man in the commercial was giving a mortal woman a locket. Zeit patted the red shirt’s pocket and there was the jeweler’s box. He pulled it out and opened it. There against a back of red velvet was the heart on a thin gold chain.
“Zeit?” Hannah stood in the doorway, staring at him, her gaze focused on what he held in his hand.
“I haven’t changed yet.”
“Oh, okay.” She turned away.
“Wait. I have something for you.” He snapped the box closed as he carried it to her.
She blinked bright eyes as she opened it. “You didn’t have to…” Her mouth dropped open, and a tear spilled from her right eye as she blinked. The shiny drop traced a line down her cheek.
He caught the tear at her jaw with his finger. “You don’t like it?” The mortal woman on the commercial had seemed pleased. Another instance where TV was a sham.
She sniffed and shook her head as more tears pooled and fell. “No, I do. It’s just… I’ve always wanted a locket. My mom had one when I was really young and…” She shook her head again.
The aching was back in his chest—this time it was warm and pleasant, but it made it difficult to think of anything besides Hannah—Hannah holding the jeweler’s box almost reverently with her eyes full of happy tears.
“Where did you get this?” she asked. “When did you get this—we’ve been together all this time.”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. If only it hadn’t been so easy to get her a gift—he could tell her he’d hunted the world for it because he knew she’d like it. Next time. Next Christmas. He’d find her something far ahead of time. Something he knew would make her happy. This year, he’d just moved it from the plane of thought to this one, summoning it along with some dry clothes. Now that he knew a gift’s effect, he’d try harder. “Magic,” he said, instead of the truth. If Santa could use that as an excuse, he could too.
She pulled the necklace from the box. “Uhh, can you help me put it on?” She handed him the locket and turned, lifting her hair from her slender neck.
The chain felt too delicate in his hands, and his fingers fumbled as he tried to work the latch. He’d held time in his hand, but this gold jewelry was far more complex.
“How do I…?”
She dropped her hair and turned back. Putting her hands over his, Hannah showed him how to flick the impossibly small lever with his finger. It was clearly not designed to be operated by a full-size man. No wonder the man in the commercial had been so much smaller than him.
Turning, Hannah lifted her hair again, and he draped the necklace around her neck and, after several failed attempts, he got it latched. The golden heart settled right above her beating one, and the moment was heavy with import. The pressure in his chest squeezed like he’d managed to stop time, and it was pushing back. The rise and fall of her chest as she breathed told him it had nothing to do with time or his grasp of it.
“Done?” she asked.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss above the clasp of the necklace. A shiver vibrated across her. “Yes,” he whispered against her skin before lifting his head.
“Thank you.” Her skin flushed as she rubbed her thumb across the face of the gold heart. She opened it. “It needs a picture inside.”
“We should get it a picture then. Of what?”
Hannah laughed softly. “Us. Together. Maybe in front of the tree.”
He’d never taken a picture of himself or had one taken. He’d never wanted to be that memorable to a mortal.
She closed the locket and pressed the locket against her lips.
Zeit’s chest burned. He’d given her more than a golden heart. He knew it.
Damn those mortal commercials. He was in over his head, and he didn’t want to rectify his position. “How about I finish getting dressed, and we can go eat dinner?”
“Afterward, there’s a dance, but I don’t know how to dance,” she said.
“I do. I can teach you.” Nothing could possibly go wrong while they were dancing… hopefully.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was the second morning she’d awakened in his arms, and he was once again staring out at the sun, looking like he’d spent the night quantifying misery. If she gave him time to think about their relationship, it didn’t leave him thinking cheerful thoughts.
Not that she was thinking happy thoughts about their future. He wasn’t aging. She was. Eventually, that’d get weird. Eventually, she’d ask him to let the next sleigh accident kill her.
But, for right now, she was going to actual
ly live.
“Did It’s a Wonderful Life come on again?” she asked. When she’d gone to sleep, they’d been watching his choice of movies appropriate for holiday viewing: Die Hard. He liked when things exploded.
“What? No.” He didn’t rush out of her bed like he had the previous morning.
Last night, dancing in a dark corner of the lodge’s great room had been magical. It had fulfilled something she’d never put on her bucket list, but should have.
“Then, why are you sad this morning again?”
“Am I?” He frowned. “Is that what’s wrong with me?”
“I don’t know. You look sad. What were you thinking?”
“That New Year’s Eve is coming faster than I’d like, and I can’t seem to stop it.”
He’d put on a t-shirt last night to sleep in and had even insisted they stay on top of the covers. It was cute he was being all prudish. At least she’d conned him out of a few kisses while they were dancing because Die Hard wasn’t the mood-striker for that sort of action.
“Why do you want to stop New Year’s? Because it’s the uhh… anniversary or whatever?”
“Have you heard the myth of Father Time and New Year’s? How the old year dies and a new year begins?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“Father Time is my father.”
She bolted up from his chest. “Your dad is going to die?” No wonder he was so sad.
He smiled up at her. It was more an amused expression than a happy one, but it was better than the frown he’d been wearing.
“No, but there is a sacrifice demanded so that those of us who control time can grant extra moments of fate when it’s deserved. Someone must die. A mortal’s lifetime is chosen for each son of Father Time. One lifetime in exchange for a multitude of others.”
“And last year it was me?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She swallowed. “Will it be me this year too?”
“Not if I have any say in it, but I don’t know what happens when I choose not to carry out the Fates’ will. They may ask one of my brothers to carry out the task, or someone else might be chosen in your place.”
“You’ll take someone else in my place?” That didn’t sit well with her.
He shook his head. “No, never again. I’ve saved many lives over the centuries by manipulating time and fate, but that’s when I could tally them as numbers.” He sighed. “They’re not numbers anymore. You’re not a number. It’s not an even exchange. You might be worth twenty of those I save.” He rubbed his free hand down his face. “I couldn’t place a value on you, even if I could quantify other mortals.”
He went back to staring morosely out the window as she leaned back against his chest. New Year’s Eve was approaching and possibly the end for her if someone else was sent. Much of this year had felt out of her control—and even though Zeit had explained that, it still sucked. While she couldn’t determine what happened on New Year’s Eve, she could decide to really live in the meantime.
“Are you saying I’m priceless?” she asked finally.
Zeit’s eyebrows scrunched together before he looked down at her. “Of course you are.”
She grinned. “Of course I am.”
A ghost of a smile lifted one side of his mouth. If only she could kiss this better—she would. “We’re on borrowed time. New Year’s is coming fast.”
He needed a real smile on his face by the end of the day. She climbed out of bed and dragged him along too. “Well, go get dressed. We’ll eat breakfast and go make a snowman.”
He walked toward his room, but stopped in the doorway. “Okay, but you stay close to me from here on out. By my side—right by my side, no more than an inch away.”
That idea had her full support. “I don’t think anything can happen to me while we’re making a snowman.”
“Like nothing could happen when you were caroling or taking a sleigh ride?” He raised his eyebrows.
The terror of both situations had faded enough that she could say, “Yes, well, caroling… that’s dangerous. I almost expect to cheat death when I’m doing that.”
“Cheating death,” he said with a shake of his head before turning and going back to his room. “What should I wear?”
“Whatever you want,” she said as she opened her suitcase. If only she’d brought sexier clothing.
“That’s actually the problem.” He ducked his head back in.
“Well, what are your options?”
“Anything.”
“You can wear anything?”
“Yes.”
“Like you could wear a lemon yellow shirt and golf pants?”
“Theoretically?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Not even then. They’re like loafers.”
“Oh! That reminds me, you should open the other gift from me and then we can wear pajamas to breakfast.”
“Loafers reminded you of my gift?” His eyes widened in horror—it was so cute.
“Yes, see, now you’ll have to open it.”
“Now, I want to open it even less. I can still pretend it’s something unrelated to loafers.”
He was being ridiculous. “I will give you other gifts. There are other holidays.”
He stared at her. “Holidays after New Year’s Eve?”
Zeit was determined to be dire and ominous. It really wouldn’t work with her new plan to live each day to the fullest. “Fine! I’ll open your gift for you.”
He blocked the doorway with his body.
“You’re being childish,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is it me behaving like a young mortal? You’re threatening to open my gift.”
“That I gave you!” They glared at each other. “Okay, I’ll just tell you what it is.”
Zeit’s jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Yes, I would. It’s a…”
He dove forward and covered her mouth with his hand. “I’ll open it!”
Hannah smiled against his hand. He must have felt it because he rolled his eyes. When he removed his hand, she asked, “Remember when you told me I was priceless?”
Instead of responding, he stalked over to the nightstand and picked up the red-foil wrapped gift. He shook it one last time before opening it. The slippers were black so he could even wear them when he went back to wearing his vampire-hunting clothes.
“These shoes are not very practical.” He stared down at them, obviously less impressed than he had been with the chocolate orange. You couldn’t win them all.
“That’s because they’re slippers. You can wear them inside. They go with pajamas. I didn’t know you could somehow come up with anything you wanted, but I thought you might like to ditch the boots for when you were walking around inside the rooms.”
After yanking one out of the box, he held it up and examined it. “I guess I could try it,” he said with the same level of enthusiasm he’d had for It’s a Wonderful Life initially. Considering how that turned out maybe she should destroy the shoes.
“Never mind. It was a dumb idea. I can…” She went to grab them, but he held them out of reach.
“No, they’re mine, and I’m going to try them.” He sat down and slid one on his foot. “Is it supposed to feel like you’ve strapped a pillow to your foot?”
“If they’re any good, yes.” She went to get her own slippers. When she returned, he’d put the other one on and was walking around.
“I like them.” He said it as if she’d torn the words from his mouth.
“Good. Let’s go have some breakfast.”
Making snowmen was a lot more difficult than Christmas commercials on mortal TV made it look. Hannah was rolling the middle portion while Zeit supervised… because his kept falling apart.
“It looks bigger than the lower portion,” he pointed out.
She stopped and shook her head at him. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Come over and help me lift it onto the bottom.”
After he’d set the middle section onto the lower portion, he stood back and eyed it critically. A snowball hit his head. Zeit frowned at her.
“Stop!” Hannah said. “Sometimes the best things in life are all misshapen and…” She tilted her head. “We should really do that one again.”
Zeit laughed as he brushed snow from his face.
It took them another three attempts to get what they both deemed were acceptable snowman portions.
“Hey. Coal.” With raised eyebrows, Hannah held up the two lumps of coal that had come in his snowman kit. “Get a good long look because this is what you’re getting next year.”
He couldn’t stop smiling at her. A dozen times each hour today, he wished he could slow down time because he wanted to spend more time with Hannah—he needed that. She was singing “Frosty the Snowman” with a carefree abandon he’d never felt before. If only he didn’t have the end of the year looming over him.
“Okay, pass me his corn cob pipe,” she said.
He pulled the “pipe” out of the box and stared at it. “Our snowman is a smoker? And this is a kids’ song?”
“It was written back before people worried about things like their lungs,” she said, reaching for it.
He pulled it away. No. It wasn’t right. “His days are already numbered, and he’s playing with fire—actual fire?”
“Ohhhh, right.” She tilted her head. “Wow, that does make him a bit of a rebel, doesn’t it? I bet the snowladies were all suitably impressed.”
Zeit looked around. There were mortal children all around. Young impressionable mortal children. He put the pipe back in the box.
“Or he’s not really a rebel. He likes to play things safe. Then again,” she tapped his coal eyes, “he did earn his coal. Maybe he’s got nothing to prove. There should be buttons in the box.”
He pulled off his glove to search through the bottom of the box, pulling out three buttons. “What is he buttoning up?” he asked as he handed them to Hannah.
She’d started pressing the buttons into his middle snow section, but she stopped and bit her lip as she stared at the round button still in her hand. Finally, she shrugged and pushed the last one in. “I think you’re overanalyzing this.”
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