Christmas After Dark: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Abigail Owen

  "Well, sure. What does it matter to you? You've been spayed. No more worries about men and whether they show up or not, and how they'll take your completely ridiculous, out-of-the-blue, melodramatic announcement that you love them."

  The only response she got to that crazy statement was the tiny noise that told her the cat had resumed washing his face with one delicate paw.

  She should work. She was well into her latest painting and was planning it to be a gallery piece. The colors and light and images had come to her in a flash of revelation when she was grinding the amethyst to make her paint. Paintings didn’t usually appear to her all of a piece like that. She had to coax them out; seduce and tantalize her Muse into coyly revealing a corner here and images there, or maybe giving her a hint as to the theme.

  But this one—this one had come to her all at once. It was a seascape, but not a beach scene. Not a calm, happy, ‘looking out at the water on a sunny day’ painting or a sunset—well, a sunrise, since she was in St. Augustine, Florida, and the sun still only rose in the east, as far as she knew. The arrival of vampires and shape shifters and even Atlantis into the world hadn’t yet changed that.

  No, this seascape was different. It contained a man. A tall, dark, and edgy man. All lines and angles; command and presence. On a ship. Standing at the bow, looking off across the waves toward the sunset.

  No Freudian messages there, right?

  She sighed. Where was he?

  The painting was all about freedom and adventure and barely leashed power. Things she knew little about. Well, freedom she had. Somewhat. Blindness was not a handicap. It was a disability that she’d learned to manage over the past eighteen years. It was a difference. Not a less-than.

  Not a defect.

  Just a difference, and everyone had differences.

  Okay, she wasn't adventurous either. She was a homebody, and had stayed in her little town of St. Augustine ever since she’d moved in with Aunt Jean after the accident that took her sight and her parents.

  She’d spent so many vacations and summers with Jean as a young girl that she could still envision everything about it: the brilliant sun shining down on white-capped waves. The Spanish-inspired buildings. The old fort, which had defended the city in centuries past and now served as a training grounds for soldiers again.

  The colors. Everywhere, the colors. The greenest green, the bluest blue. From azure to cerulean, from turquoise to ultramarine. Cobalt to emerald to cadmium blue. All the infinite shades of the sky and ocean in different seasons, at different times of day. Her fingers itched for her paints. Her power shone through her brushstrokes, and she would not trade it for a king’s riches.

  Her painting, though. This painting. All power and movement and the man’s fierce, commanding presence. It was Dare; of course it was Dare. Her Atlantean pirate who made her want to be adventurous and free.

  Her pirate? Maybe. If she could, just once, be very, very lucky and find her own Christmas miracle.

  The bell over the door jingled and she turned at once, but before she blurted out his name, the scent of lilac perfume told her it wasn't him.

  "Oh. Hi, Meredith."

  Meredith McMasters, Lyric's friend and assistant, started to laugh. "Nice. Has anyone ever been less excited for me to visit in the history of time? No, I think not."

  She was acting like a silly school girl, but it made her smile. "I'm sorry. I'm just—"

  "Distracted? Preoccupied? Losing your mind waiting for your Atlantean hottie to arrive?"

  "All of the above, I guess,” she admitted. "I don't know why, even. He said he might be here today. It wasn't a guarantee—it wasn't a date. I’ve just—” She hesitated, but then blurted, "I’ve just had this terrible feeling all day, scratching at the edge of my mind, that something is wrong. That something is wrong with him."

  "How would you know?" Meredith, the five-foot-nothing ball of pragmatism disguised as her best friend, pointed out. “He doesn’t even have a phone, you said.”

  "I know. I know.” She blew out a breath and resumed pacing back and forth. "Look. It's just that . . . it's just that today was going to be the day."

  "The day? Oh. The day. Oh, wow. And he hasn't even shown up?"

  Lyric paced the carefully measured length of her small studio, wondering whether she should go in the back to her tiny apartment and make some tea.

  Drink a shot of whiskey.

  Or order some mail-order Valium—was that a thing? It should be a thing.

  "It's not even … it's not even that I expect him to say it back. It's just that after six years, I feel like I need to tell him. Need to find out. Be able to move on."

  Meredith’s footsteps drew near and then she took one of Lyric's hands in both of hers. "He's a fool if he doesn't love you back, and nobody needs a fool. So either way, you'll be better off once you know.”

  “I know. You’re right. You’re always right,” Lyric admitted, sighing.

  “So smart of you to realize it.” With a quick squeeze, Meredith let go of Lyric’s hand. "Well, whatever is stressing you out, I can see you've been cleaning. It looks amazing in here. When the tourists show up, I predict a sellout in minutes.”

  The studio and tiny attached gallery were Lyric’s pride and joy. Luckily for her, Aunt Jean had never subscribed to the theory that you can't make a living in the arts. She’d encouraged Lyric's talent for drawing and then painting, buying easels and colored pencils and paper and paints for her, going to art shows, driving her to special classes.

  It had started with art therapy. A way for Lyric to cope with her loss. Aunt Jean was a big fan of coping and therapy. But it had become so much more. The first time Lyric put her hands in clay; the first time she put charcoal pencil to paper, she knew she'd found something that would give her the world. She hadn’t been blind since birth. The car accident had taken her eyes as well as her family. So she knew color and shadows and light, and she could see the world in her memory and imagination.

  All it had taken was for her to build up the confidence to realize that she could draw what was in her mind without seeing the canvas. And then the surprise of learning about the insurance money from the accident that Jean had carefully invested for years, just waiting for Lyric to need it.

  She’d found the studio with its tiny attached apartment. She’d been ready, and had the money, thanks to her aunt’s careful stewardship. She had independence, and she guarded it fiercely.

  As for the painting, well, she remembered a lot. She imagined more. And, after all, she wasn't one hundred percent blind. There were glimmers of light sometimes. And lately—for the past six years, in fact—there'd been something else.

  Something more.

  She'd noticed it the first time she’d had the insane idea to grind up a gemstone into her paint. It didn't make sense. It was a gimmick, her painter friends told her. But it hadn't been a gimmick at all. It'd been a kind of pathway to taking one more step up the ladder toward the ultimate expression of her talent. Something about the gemstones actually helped her envision the colors of the images she wanted to create.

  And there was more. More that she’d never told anyone, not even Meredith, who would understand, or Jean, who wouldn't but would pretend to.

  When she sang—sang to the gemstones—she somehow felt that the tiny bit of vision she had left was enhanced. That light was brighter and filled more of her visual field. She could almost see colors. Certainly, she could imagine them in her mind more vividly than she'd been able to see them since the accident.

  It didn't make sense. She knew it didn’t make sense. But what made sense didn't always matter. What made sense was sometimes a barrier to art.

  And barriers were only something to break through. Go around, go through, or jump over. She’d learned that lesson the hard way eighteen years ago, and it wasn't one she was about to forget.

  But the barrier of vastly different cultures that stood between her and the Atlantean man she'd fallen in love with? The one w
ho called himself a pirate and said he was no good?

  Was that a barrier she could cross? Was that a barrier she should cross?

  She's been asking herself the same questions for the past year, with no better luck at finding answers than she was having right now.

  Meredith, who'd been setting up Lyric's paints and humming a Christmas carol to herself, finished the task and brushed her hands off on her pants. The sound shook Lyric out of her mental reverie, and she crossed the six steps to her right until she reached the counter. She picked up the plateful of hot steaming goodness and held it up toward her friend.

  "You may have noticed that I made gingerbread cookies for you?"

  "I was trying to ignore them. You're killing me. I swear I gain twenty pounds every Christmas just from your baking," Meredith groaned. “And the enormous amount of work that goes into it…”

  When Meredith’s voice trailed off, Lyric shook her head. Baking just took more preparation and attention to detail when you were blind. It wasn’t impossible. She tried to bite back the annoyance she felt at the unspoken “…since you’re blind.” Meredith was her friend.

  But, still. Lyric put the plate back on the counter. "If you don't want any…”

  "Gimme."

  Better. Lyric took a deep breath. She was on edge because of Dare and everything that hinged on this visit. Not because of anything Meredith might or might not have been planning to say. Let it go, let it go. Calm, peace, serenity, sugary gingery goodness.

  They sat on stools at the counter, drinking coffee and eating cookies, and talked about everything and nothing, deliberately dancing around the only subject that held center stage in Lyric's mind.

  Where was he? Was he okay?

  Would he even come – would he ever come again?

  It wasn’t like she could email sexypirate@Atlantis.com and get an answer.

  "He never even gave me a phone number."

  "I know. That's just wrong. Are you sure he's not married? The no-phone-number thing is a big red flag to me," Meredith grumbled.

  No. He wasn’t married. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew that much. He would have told her. Six years, after all.

  "It hasn't been that long since Atlantis came up from beneath the sea," Lyric reminded her friend. "It's not like they had cell phone service available down there."

  "I know, I know. But it’s time for him to get one now," Meredith pointed out, while taking another cookie. “‘Can you hear me now’ and all that.”

  "Well, maybe it's no good to him. After all, he's a ship captain. Maybe there's no service in the middle of the ocean. How would I know?" Her stomach started to ache, and she strained to hear something—anything—that might tell her he was coming. The bells on the door, the sound of his boots striking the sidewalk outside the gallery, somebody yelling Avast, me hearties…

  She was totally losing it.

  "They did have Wi-Fi on the cruise I took," Meredith said.

  "I don't really get the feeling his ship is a cruise ship. It's more like a cargo ship. He transports things." Cargo ship. Ha. He was a pirate. He’d told her often enough, usually in a harsh tone with an edge of bitterness. She should stay away from him. She should. But…why did a tingling sensation feather across her skin, seductive and enticing, at the mere thought of him? Why did she feel hot and cold and giddy and dreamy and as if her skin cells each individually became electrified whenever he was near?

  She suddenly realized Meredith was talking to her and wrenched her mind out of its ever-so-deliciously arousing reverie and back to the conversation at hand.

  "Aha. Listen. You already told me, that night we went out for cactus margaritas, that the man calls himself a pirate. He doesn't even have a last name, or so he claims. I don't think this is the kind of guy you need to get involved with, whether he shows up or not. Whether he says he loves you or not. It scares me." The words were accompanied by a deep sigh.

  Lyric could hear the sincerity in the troubled sound of her friend’s voice. She nodded, but then shook her head. "No. I've been talking to him for six years. Granted, only a few times a year, and then only for a few hours at a time. But he's not secretly married. He's not hiding something evil. He's not a criminal. He's ... special. Kind of funny and brilliant and—"

  "I know, I know. He's all that and a bag of chips," Meredith said, resignation clear in her tone. "I hope he shows up. I really do. Do you want me to stay?"

  "No ... no. I'm fine. You got all the new paints set out?"

  "All set out in the proper order," Meredith confirmed. "We didn't get the yellow ochre that you wanted, but it’s supposed to come in next week. Hey, I gotta run. Things to do, yada yada."

  "Why don’t you take some cookies with you? Take lots."

  Meredith laughed. "But my ass will never fit in my jeans again if I eat one more cookie. You keep them. I bet pirates love gingerbread cookies."

  She leaned in and gave Lyric a quick hug, and then headed out, the sound of whistling accompanying her footsteps as she went. Meredith was someone who always lived in the moment, and sometimes Lyric wished she could be more like her friend.

  She stood, taking a cookie and biting into the warm, gingery goodness, and took the twelve steps from the counter toward her easel. The painting was nearly finished. She’d had thoughts the night before about what she might do next, and thinking about it carried over into her dreams, which wasn't all that unusual for her. She dreamed of bright vibrant colors, as if the moonlight gave wings to her imagination and offered her the gift of what the day had stolen from her.

  Almost Christmas. She’d had to smile and evade with so many people. She had an amazing group of friends whom she loved and who loved her. She'd received a multitude of invitations to spend Christmas with this family or that; with this couple or that group of singles. She would have no lack of choice for where to eat her Christmas goose, if anybody even ate Christmas goose anymore outside of the Dickens tale. But she hadn’t wanted to commit to anything because she had The Plan.

  The Plan had two steps: Tell Dare she loved him, and invite him to stay with her for Christmas. What could be simpler?

  She moaned and smacked her forehead with her hand. What could be simpler? Ha. What could be more impossibly dangerous to her self-esteem?

  Or her heart?

  But six years…it was time to paint or put away her brushes.

  Christmas was her favorite time of the year. It had been the week before Christmas six years ago when she’d first met Dare. He’d barged into her studio, larger than life, blocking what little light glimmered at the edges of her awareness and taking up more psychic space than was possible, as if he defied the laws of physics themselves. He'd been rude, arrogant, and fascinating.

  "Are you the artist? And what kind of name is Lyric for an artist? You should be a musician with that name." The growl of the voice that asked the question was rich and deep, like honey poured over melted chocolate. A tiny shiver went up Lyric's spine at the sound, and she turned toward the visitor, paint brush in hand.

  "No, I'm the cobbler," she said brightly. "Do you need shoes?"

  He laughed, but she could hear the note of surprise in his laughter. Maybe he wasn't a man who found much humor in life.

  "Point to you. You're the painter, I’m the pirate. I've got your gemstones. Do you have my money?"

  "I have your money. If you're a pirate, what are you doing on land? Do you have the habit of making all your deliveries personally? Even I have an assistant. Maybe you're not a very good pirate."

  She brushed her hands off on her skirt and then put them in her pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling a little. She didn't know why, but she instinctively knew she didn't want him to see it. She needed a strong front with this one, she could tell already.

  She walked over to the counter and reached underneath for her purse. "How many gemstones, what kind, and what do you want for them?"

  She raised her face to look in the direction of where
she sensed his was and ignored his sharp inhalation.

  He’d just figured out she was blind. They all took a moment or two to get used to the idea.

  She waited for the questions, sighing a little to herself. Here we go.

  How can a blind person be an artist? A painter?

  Or the false flattery—the condescension. Oh, what a nice painting you have there. (“For a blind person” was always implied, if not outright stated.)

  She wasn’t some kind of trained monkey or an oddity for people to stare at. She turned down any media requests that held the slightest hint of being about how good she was—for a woman painter. How good she was for a blind painter.

  She just wanted to be a good painter. Period.

  “So, I have a question," he said.

  Lyric took a deep breath and steeled herself for the stupidity, knowing it would ruin the incipient fantasy she had going about him just from the sound of his voice.

  "Is that a cat, or a footstool with feet?"

  She laughed a little bit at the memory. He’d caught her off guard and made her laugh then, too. Made her smile. Made her want to talk to him. They’d talked for hours, and she'd even invited him to dinner, which had been a bold move for her. She was a homebody, and he was a man she'd never met before.

  A self-proclaimed pirate.

  She'd been exhilarated by her daring—ha. Daring. She was making stupid puns now.

  But Dare had declined. He’d said he had other engagements to keep. She’d fancied that she heard a little regret in his tone, or so she comforted herself later.

  But he came back. He came back the next month, even though she hadn't put in an order with the intermediary for more rare gems. Only gemstones from the Fae lands worked as a catalyst for her paints, and they were very hard to get.

  Dare came to visit her, anyway. He brought a few stones, and then a month later, he brought a few more. These were from Atlantis, he’d told her. From his personal collection.

  He wouldn’t let her pay for them, and he’d told her some crazy story about how she could cause an international incident between Atlantis and the United States if she refused his gift.