“Cold?”

“A little.” Jilly was already scooting down, reaching for the afghan.

Will helped her, tucking it in around her. “Better?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She was thinking that she could feel his body’s warmth. Then he rolled away from her and stood.

“You’re leaving?” Jilly hoped she didn’t sound as forlorn as she felt.

“I was just going to get another blanket. But if you want to be left alone…” Will trailed off.

“I’d rather have company, actually.”

Pure self-indulgence, Bravo, Will was thinking as he got the spare afghan. She was fine. So what was he doing, lying on her bed with her, rambling on about himself? Just what she needed, after having the misfortune to be snowed in with him—a chance to hear his long, sad story: Nightmare Christmases I Have Known.

He should go, he thought, as he returned to the bed and stretched out next to her.

But he didn’t….

Scrooge and the Single Girl
Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In loving memory of

the house my mother was born in, a house

we filled with our family memories,

the house we always called the

Old House.

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

THE BRAVOS:
HEROES, HEROINES AND THEIR STORIES

THE NINE-MONTH MARRIAGE (SSE#1148)

—Cash Bravo and Abby Heller

MARRIAGE BY NECESSITY (SSE #1161)

—Nate Bravo and Megan Kane

PRACTICALLY MARRIED (SSE #1174)

—Zach Bravo and Tess DeMarley

MARRIED BY ACCIDENT (SSE #1250)

—Melinda Bravo and Cole Yuma

THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED (SSE #1322)

—Jenna Bravo and Mack McGarrity

THE M.D. SHE HAD TO MARRY (SSE #1345)

—Lacey Bravo and Logan Severance

THE MARRIAGE AGREEMENT (SSE #1412)

—Marsh Bravo and Tory Winningham

THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE (single title)

—Jonas Bravo and Emma Hewitt

MARRIAGE: OVERBOARD

—Gwen Bravo McMillan and Rafe McMillan

(Weekly Serial at www.eHarlequin.com)

THE MARRIAGE CONSPIRACY (SSE #1423)

—Dekker (Smith) Bravo and Joleen Tilly

HIS EXECUTIVE SWEETHEART (SSE #1485)

—Aaron Bravo and Celia Tuttle

MERCURY RISING (SSE #1496)

—Cade Bravo and Jane Elliott

SCROOGE AND THE SINGLE GIRL (SSE #1509)

—Will Bravo and Jilly (Jillian) Diamond

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Jillian Diamond left Sacramento at a little after two on that cold, clear Sunday afternoon in late December. She was barely out of town before the sky began to darken.

In the foothills, a light snow was falling. The fluffy flakes blew down, swirling in the gray sky, melting the instant they hit the windshield.

Jilly cast a quick glance at the seat beside her. “Voilà, Missy. Snow.”

Miss Demeanor, a small calico cat with one mangled ear and an ordinarily pleasant disposition, glared at her mistress through the screened door of the carrier that held her prisoner. Missy did not enjoy traveling.

Jilly faced the road again and continued, as if Missy cared, “Snow is good, you know that. Snow is part of the plan.”

The plan was this: Take one creative, contented single woman, add Christmas in an idyllic setting, mix well and come up with…a column. Or maybe an article, something suitable for the slicks. Options, at this point, were wide open.

And no, this was not to be your usual desperate, club-hopping singleton’s Christmas, not your ho-hum lonely career girl wandering aimlessly in a coupled-up world, with humor. Not your predictable tale of meaningless sexual encounters with guys who have it all—except for a heart. That was only what Jilly’s editor at the Sacramento Press-Telegram had asked for in the first place.

Jilly had told him no way. “Listen, Frank. I don’t care if half the time it seems to me that that’s my life, exactly. It’s not going in the Press-Telegram for everyone I know—not to mention two hundred and fifty thousand strangers—to read about.” She’d shot back a counter-proposal: the happy single girl’s Christmas. That is, Jillian and her cat and a Christmas tree, perfectly content all on their own, in some quiet, scenic, isolated place.

Frank had had the bad taste to stifle a yawn. “On second thought, never mind.”

So fine. Jilly decided she would do it on spec and sell it next year.

Which was why she and Missy were all packed up in her 4Runner, heading toward a certain secluded old house high in the Sierras, on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.

And the weather was cooperating nicely. Because, of course, for Christmas with the contented single girl, there should be snow, and it should be drifting attractively down outside a big picture window.

Too bad Jilly got going on this project a little late, thus necessitating settling for a setting a tad less than ideal. Most likely, there wouldn’t be any picture windows in this particular house. But Jilly was okay with that. She’d have mountains and pine trees and lovely, sparkly white snow. For the rest, she’d make do. She fed a Christmas CD into the stereo, pumped up the volume good and high and sang right along with Boyz II Men.

“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow….”

Which it did. The snow came down harder. Thicker. It was starting to stick, too. Jilly turned on the wipers and slid in another Christmas CD.

By the time she reached Echo Summit, she found herself driving through a true snowstorm. But the Chains Required signs weren’t up yet. Traffic was still moving right along. And she had four-wheel drive, so she was doing all right. Night was falling. Her headlights, set on auto, switched themselves on.

It was after she left the highway, not too far beyond Tahoe Village, that things started to get scary. But not too scary. She was handling it. At first.

Caitlin Bravo, a stunning and frequently overbearing woman on the far side of fifty, owned the house Jilly was looking for. Caitlin had provided detailed instructions for finding the place. There were a number of small, twisting mountain roads to navigate, but Jilly had it all mapped out. It should have been a piece of cake.

It would have been a piece of cake. In daylight, minus the blizzard.

Jilly turned off the Christmas music and tried the radio, but almost ran herself off the road in her effort to tune in the weather and drive at the same time. And really, she’d gone a little past the point where a weather report would do her much good. The view out her windshield told her more than she wanted to know. She should have checked the forecast a little earlier—like before she left Sacramento. It was a problem she had and she knew it. Sometimes she’d forget to look into important details in her enthusiasm to get going on a project that enticed her.

“So shoot me,” she muttered as she switched off the radio. She focused all her concentration on the snakelike, narrow road as it materialized before her in the glare of her low beams. She was deep in the forest now, pines and firs looming thick and shadowed on either side of the road.

She missed a turn and didn’t realize it until five or six miles later. Slowing to a crawl so she wouldn’t miss it again, she backtracked, searching. She found it. And then missed the next one, had to backtrack, found the turn at last, felt her flagging spirits lifting—only to realize she’d missed another one.

On the seat beside her, Missy was not pleased. Irritated whines had begun to issue from the cat carrier.

“Missy honey, I am doing the best I can, all right?”

The cat only meowed back at her, a petulant sort of sound.

“I’ll get us there, I promise you. And then it’s a nice, big bowl of Fancy Feast for my favorite girl.”

Missy said nothing. Just as well. Jilly needed all her attention focused on the next turn—which, for once, she actually found the first time around. She drove on, winding her way up and down the sides of mountains.

At last, at a few minutes after six, a good hour past the time she should have reached it, she found the rutted, snow-drifted dirt driveway that led to her destination. Her stomach growled. She thought of the bags of groceries in back. They contained ingredients for a number of gourmet meals. Gourmet, after all, had seemed the best way to go for this project.

Too bad what she longed for right now was some Dinty Moore chili, or maybe a big can of—

Jilly let out a startled cry and stomped on the brake as a doe leapt from the cover of the trees and directly into her path.

Luckily, she managed to stop before she hit it. And then it did what a deer always does. It froze directly in front of her vehicle and stared into the beams of her headlights, an expression of total surprise and dumb-animal disbelief in those big, sweet, bulging brown eyes.

Jilly rolled down her window, stuck her head out into the freezing storm and yelled, “Go on, you! Get out of here! Get lost before I make a jacket out of you!”

The doe blinked and took off, disappearing into the leafless bushes and pine trees at the other side of the driveway. Jilly pulled her head back inside, rolled up the window and brushed the snow out of her hair. Then she drove on, straining to see, the snow hitting the windshield so hard and thick, there was nothing but whiteness three feet beyond her front bumper.

The driveway was very long. Or at least, it seemed that way in the dark, with near-zero visibility. Jilly rolled along with great care, hunched over the steering wheel, peering into the wall of white in front of her, trying not to run into a pine tree or another startled deer.

Okay, truth. She was getting worried. She could end up snowed in up here in the middle of nowhere, with nobody but Missy to turn to. “Oh, not good,” she murmured under her breath. “Not good at all….”

But then she reminded herself that she did have her cell phone, that people knew where the old house was and knew she was headed there. She would be all right. She could call for help and get it eventually if it turned out she really needed it.

However, on the subject of the house, where was it? What if she’d somehow managed to miss it? What would happen if she—

And right then she saw it.

“Oh, thank you,” she cried. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!”

Not twenty feet ahead, the driveway opened out into a clearing. And in the middle of the clearing she could make out the looming shadow of the old house, with its high-pitched roof and long, deep porches. Smoke trailed up from the chimney-pipe and the golden light inside shone like a beacon through the swirling, blinding—

Wait a minute.

The golden light inside?

The house was supposed to be unoccupied.

Jilly reached the clearing. She pulled in beside the vehicle already parked there. Then she turned off the engine and sat for a moment, staring at the lighted house as snow gathered on the windshield, obscuring her view. Who could be in there? What in the world was going on?

About then she turned her head and looked through her side window at the other car. The window was fogging up. She rubbed at it with her open palm and peered closer.

“Omigod.”

It was Will Bravo’s car. She was sure of it. It was a very distinctive car, the Mercedes Benz version of a sport utility vehicle. Silver in color. What did they call it? A G-Class, she thought.

Will Bravo’s car.

Jilly shivered. Will was Caitlin’s middle son. The only one of Caitlin’s three sons who remained a bachelor, the other two having married Jilly’s two dearest friends, Jane Elliott and Celia Tuttle.

Will Bravo’s car….

Everything was starting to make way too much sense. “Caitlin, how could you?” Jilly whispered under her breath. She felt tricked. Used. Thoroughly manipulated.

She grabbed her purse from the floor in front of the passenger seat and fumbled through it until she came up with her phone. She’d stored Caitlin’s number, just in case she might need it. She punched it up. But when she put the phone to her ear, instead of ringing at the other end, all she got was static.

Jilly yanked the device away from her ear and glared at it. Terrific. So much for being able to count on her cell.

Missy meowed.

Jilly shoved the phone back in her purse, stuck her arm over the seat and got her coat and hat. She pulled on the coat and jammed the hat on her head. Then she hooked her purse over one shoulder, grabbed the cat carrier, leaned on her door and climbed out into the raging storm.

Chapter Two

Will Bravo was just about to sit down to his solitary dinner of franks and beans, with a copy of Crime and Punishment for company, when someone knocked on the kitchen door.

What the…?

His grandmother’s cabin was off the beaten path in every way. To get there, you had to have directions. Even when the weather was good, nobody ever just dropped in. Which was why he was here in the first place. He wanted to be left alone.

Whoever it was knocked some more.

Will went over and pulled open the door, and Jillian Diamond blew in on a huge gust of snow-laden wind. She was wearing a red wool hat, a big shearling coat, faded overalls, lace-up boots and a red-and-green striped sweater with a row of red reindeer embroidered on the turtleneck collar. In her left hand, she clutched an animal carrier from which suspicious meowing sounds were issuing.

Will couldn’t believe this. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Now, wasn’t that going to be fun to explain? Jilly thought. She caught the door and pushed it shut, then set Missy’s carrier on the warped linoleum floor, sliding her purse off her shoulder and dropping it next to her unhappy cat.

“I asked you what you’re doing here,” Will demanded for the second time.

She didn’t know where to start, so she countered provokingly, “I could ask you the same question.”

He studied her for a moment, his head tipped sideways. And then he folded his big arms across his broad chest and informed her, “I’m here every year from the twenty-second or twenty-third until the day after New Year’s.”

Jilly swiped her hat off her head and beat it against her leg to shake off the snow. “Well, sorry. I honestly didn’t know.”

He grunted. “You could have asked anyone. My mother—” Oh my, Jilly thought, surprise, surprise. “—my brothers. Even, more than likely, your two best friends.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“Well, this may come as a rude shock to you, but asking if you were going to be here never even occurred to me.” Yeah, okay. Maybe it should have occurred to her. Given what she knew about Caitlin Bravo, it all seemed achingly obvious now. But that was called hindsight and it and $3.49 would get you a venti latte at Starbuck’s.

He was glaring at her, as if he suspected her of all kinds of awful things, as if he didn’t believe a word she had said. She didn’t even want to look at him.

So she didn’t. She looked away, and found herself staring at the single place-setting and the thick hard-bound book waiting on the ancient drop-leaf table about three feet from the door. Delicious comfort food smells issued from the pot on the stove.

“Answer my question,” he growled at her. “What are you doing here?”

From the carrier, Missy meowed plaintively. “Look,” Jilly said with a sigh. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I swear I didn’t have a clue that you were going to be here.”

He made a low scoffing sound. Jilly could see it all, right there in his gorgeous, lagoon-blue eyes. He thought she was after him. He believed she had known that he was staying here, that she’d followed him up here to the middle of nowhere to try and hook up with him.

She threw up both hands. “Think what you want to think. The deal is, though I truly hate to put you out, it’s very bad out there. I’m stuck here for the night and we both know it.”

He did more scowling and glaring. Then at last he gave in and muttered grudgingly, “You’re right. You’re going nowhere tonight.”

Oh, thank you so much for admitting the obvious, she thought. She said, “Right now, I need to get a few things in from my car.” Missy meowed again. “Like a litter box and some cat food, for starters.”

“All right. That’s reasonable.” Various coats and wool scarves hung on a line of wooden pegs beside the door. He grabbed a hooded down jacket. “Let’s go.”

Nothing would have given her more pleasure than to tell him she didn’t need his help. But there was her pride—and then there were her suitcases, the cat supplies and the various exotic lettuces and veggies and the hormone-free fresh turkey she’d brought to roast for her happy single-girl’s Christmas feast. And what about that bottle of good pinot grigio she’d bought to enjoy with her Christmas dinner, not to mention the pricey champagne she’d bought to toast the New Year? No way she was leaving them outside to freeze. If she trekked everything in alone, it would take two trips, maybe three. And it really was cold out there.

“Thank you,” she said tightly as she stuck her hat back on her head.

Outside, even under the protection provided by the porch, the icy wind seemed to cut the frozen night like the blade of a bitterly sharp knife. Once they moved off the porch and into the open clearing, it got worse. They struggled against the wind, getting beaten in the face with freezing snow, finding no shelter as they passed beneath the single bare maple tree between the vehicles and the cars. It wasn’t really all that far; it only felt like a hundred miles.

When they reached the cars at last, she went around to the rear of her Toyota and lifted the hatch. She passed him a twenty-pound bag of cat litter and another bag containing cat food and a plastic litter box. He managed to handle all that with one arm, so she also gave him the smaller of her two suitcases—it had her pjs in it, and a change of underwear, all she’d need for one night. Then, after giving him a backhanded wave meant to dismiss him, she turned to the bags of groceries and started going through them, consolidating the food items that had to go inside.

Will hadn’t budged. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at her over the howling of the wind.

“Just go on inside!” she shouted back.

But of course, he didn’t. What was it about some men? Congenitally incapable of following instructions.

“I asked you what the hell you’re doing!”

So she told him. “Perishables!”

He didn’t say anything after that. Just stood there, looking at her, eyes narrowed, mouth turned down at the corners, ice collecting in his bronze eyebrows, his ears and that handsome blade of a nose turning Rudolph-red.

Jilly turned back to her bags of groceries. It didn’t take all that long to get everything that wouldn’t hold up in a freezing car down to four plastic bags—one of them being the turkey. She hefted the bags out of the car and shut the hatch.

“Here,” Will shouted. “Give me—”

“No,” she hollered back. “I’ve got the rest. Let’s go.”

He gave her another of those dark, mean looks he was so good at. Now what? He was peeved because she wouldn’t let him carry the heaviest load? Was there no end to reasons for this man to be mad at her?

She turned her back on him and started for the porch. He was right behind her when she got to the front door. She set down the bags in her right hand to reach for the knob—and his hand came around and grabbed it first. She resisted the urge to glare at him over her shoulder. He pushed the door inward. She picked up her bags again and stepped inside.

It only took a few minutes to set up Missy’s comfort station in a corner of the bathroom, which was right off the kitchen. She let the cat out of the carrier as she dished up the Fancy Feast and filled a water bowl.

Once Missy was taken care of, Jilly joined her in the bathroom, shutting the door on Will, who was standing by the ancient drop-leaf kitchen table, staring bleakly at the bags of groceries.

Jilly used the facilities and washed her hands. When she entered the kitchen again, he’d moved her grocery bags to the long counter beside the darling, classic-looking round-sided Frigidaire. “What is this turkey doing in here?” he demanded.

“The rumba?” she suggested cheerfully.

He opened the Frigidaire and began stashing her lettuce and vegetables inside. “You know what I mean. You could have left it in your car.”

“No way. If I’d wanted a frozen turkey, I would have bought one. That’s a free-range, all-natural fresh turkey and it’s going to stay that way.”

He grumbled something under his breath. She couldn’t make it out and decided it was probably better if she didn’t try. He moved stuff around on one of the shelves in the fridge, then he picked up the turkey, stuck it inside and shut the door. “All right. Your cat is taken care of and the food’s put away. I’m going to eat now. It’s only franks and beans, but you’re welcome to join me.”

Oh, how she longed to hold her head high and refuse. But Jilly really loved franks and beans. As far as she was concerned, franks and beans ranked right up there with Dinty Moore chili. With Kraft mac and cheese. With bacon burgers. With her hands-down favorite of all time: Cheez Doodles.

And speaking of Cheez Doodles, she had several bags of them stowed out in the 4Runner. She should have thought to bring some along when they were lugging everything else inside.

“Do you want the food or not?” her ungracious host inquired darkly.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

He got down a plate, dug a fork out of a drawer. “Milk?”

“Yes, please.” She found a glass in a cupboard and poured it for herself. Then they sat down, put their paper napkins in their laps and dug in.

Oh, it was heaven. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. With effort, she restrained herself from making ecstatic groaning noises. At that moment, eating the hot, lovely food, she could almost be grateful that she’d found Will Bravo here, that she hadn’t arrived to find it all dark and deserted, had to start the fire herself and worry about being all alone out here in this creaky old house while a blizzard raged outside and her cell phone was on the blink.

But then she looked up and caught him glaring at her and all her good will evaporated.

He said, “Now tell me. Why are you here?”

She shoved in another mouthful of beans, chewed them and swallowed. Then she gulped a little milk. Let him wait, she was thinking. It’s not going to kill him. Outside, the wind wailed.

Will went on scowling. Good gravy. How could she ever have imagined she might get something going with him?

And okay, she’d admit it. At one time—up until just a couple of weeks ago, as a matter of fact—she’d cherished the doomed hope that she and Will might get it together.

They had seemed to have a lot in common. Both from the same hometown, which was New Venice, Nevada, in the Comstock Valley, about twenty miles away from this dreary old house, down a number of twisting, turning mountain roads. They had both settled, at least for now, in Sacramento. And then there was the most obvious connection: his two brothers had married her two best friends.

And also, well, she might as well admit it. She’d been blinded for a while there by the kinds of minor details that have made women fools for certain men since the dawn of time. Blinded by things like his good looks and his social veneer—okay, it was hard to believe, looking at him now, but Will Bravo could be a major charmer when he chose to be. And along with the charm, he had that slightly dangerous rep as one of those yummy bad Bravo boys. Oh, and she mustn’t forget his impressive professional credentials: Will was an up-and-coming attorney on the Sacramento scene. For a while there, she’d dared to imagine that just maybe Will Bravo could turn out to be the man of her dreams.

But not anymore. Her eyes were wide open now. She saw him for what he really was: sour, sad and angry. Lost and alone—and determined to stay that way.

So let him. Tomorrow, when the storm was over, she’d pack up her Toyota, put Missy in her carrier and make tracks for home.

“Jillian,” he said in a low, warning tone.

She set down her glass and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “All right. It was like this. I needed an isolated cabin for a holiday piece I’m working on.”

He was staring at her, a sneering curl to his mouth. She knew what he thought of her. That she was shallow, one-dimensional, flighty in the extreme.

Far be it from her to disappoint him. “Originally, of course, I imagined a place with cable and central heat and a nice view of Lake Tahoe. One with a fully equipped kitchen and chef-quality appliances.” She waved her fork airily. “Unfortunately, it’s just been too crazy lately. One project after another, if you know what I mean. By the time I got around to making the arrangements, options were limited. More than limited. I couldn’t find a place.”

“So you called my mother.”

“No. First, I called Celia.”

He blinked. Then he gave out grudgingly, “Makes sense.”

And it did. Celia Tuttle, who was now Celia Bravo, had spent most of her working life as a personal assistant, first to a television talk-show host and then to the man who was now her husband, Will’s brother, Aaron. It was part of Celia’s job to know how to find just about anything anyone might need on very short notice.

“Celia reminded me about this house,” Jilly told him.

“And suggested that you give Caitlin a call.” He was getting the whole thing into perspective now, she could see it in his face. He was accepting the fact that she had been tricked every bit as much as he had.

Caitlin Bravo was a hopeless matchmaker when it came to her sons. And Aaron and Cade were all taken care of now. Only Will had yet to find a wife.

The son in question nodded wearily. “Okay. You called Caitlin. She offered you this place.”

Jilly nodded. “Your mother was smart. She played it just right. She told me all about how primitive the setup would be, reminded me of all the old stories about your grandmother.” The house had once belonged to Caitlin’s mother, Mavis McCormack, known to everyone in Will and Jilly’s hometown as Mad Mavis. People whispered that Mad Mavis’s ghost still haunted the old house. “But somehow,” Jilly added, “your mother forgot to mention that you would be up here, too. Isn’t that surprising?”

“Not in the least.” Will stared at the woman across the table from him. She’d taken off her big coat and her funny hat, shoved up the sleeves of her red-and-green turtleneck and dug right into the food he’d offered her. She had wild brown hair with gold streaks in it and sparkly gray-blue eyes under thick, straight, almost-black eyebrows—eyebrows so heavy they should have bordered on ridiculous. Yet somehow, they didn’t. Somehow, they looked just right on her.

Attractive? All right, he’d admit it. She was a good-looking woman. If you liked them slightly manic and obsessively upbeat. She had her own business—Image by Jillian, it was called. She counseled fast-track execs and other professional types on how to dress for success—business casual, with flair. She also wrote an advice column, Ask Jillian. The column had started out as a weekly, but recently it had gone to Monday through Friday in the Sacramento Press-Telegram.

Yeah, he knew all about Jilly Diamond. His mother had made sure of that.

“I’m here every year,” he reiterated grimly. “And Caitlin knows it.” He was thinking that he wouldn’t mind strangling Caitlin as soon as he could get his hands on her. He was thinking that she deserved strangling. After all, he’d made it crystal clear to her that Jillian Diamond was not the woman for him.

The woman who wasn’t for him said, “Well, Caitlin didn’t tell me you’d be here, or I promise you, I wouldn’t have come.”

At first, he’d thought otherwise. The last time he’d seen her, at that party of Jane and Cade’s a couple of weeks ago, he could have sworn she was interested. It hadn’t been anything obvious. Just the feeling that if he looked twice, she would, too.

He didn’t have that feeling anymore. Now, she looked no happier to be stuck with him than he was to have found her at his door.

And that was absolutely fine with him.

He heard a strange, soft rumbling sound and saw something furry in his side vision. Her cat. It had emerged from the bathroom and was sitting beside his chair, looking up at him, eyelids lowered lazily, an expression of near-ecstasy on its spotted face, its orange, black and white tail wrapped around its front paws. The rumbling sound, he realized, was coming from the cat. The damned animal was purring so loudly, he could hear it over the howling of the wind outside.

Jillian said, “Okay, Will. Now you tell me. What are you doing up here all alone for the holidays?”

He turned from the scary look of adoration in the cat’s amber eyes and gave it to her straight. “I hate the holidays. I want nothing to do with them. I accept the fact that there’s no way I can avoid this damn jolly season altogether. But I give it my best shot. I decorate nothing. I don’t send a single Christmas card. I shop for no one. And I keep my calendar clear from the twenty-second on. I come up here to my eccentric dead grandmother’s isolated house. I remain here until January second, without television or an Internet connection, with only a transistor radio to keep up with the weather reports and my mobile phone in case of emergencies.” He indicated the Dostoevsky at his elbow. “I catch up on my reading. And I do my level best to tell myself that Christmas doesn’t even exist.”

She stared at him, one of those too-thick eyebrows lifting. He waited for her to ask the next logical question, which was “Why?” When she did, he would tell her to mind her own damn business.

But she didn’t ask. She only said, softly, “Hey. Whatever launches your dinghy.”

They did the dishes together, not speaking. She washed and he dried.

As he hooked the dishtowel on the nail above the sink, he said, “There’s a bedroom down here, off the living area. I’m in there. You get the upstairs all to yourself.” He gestured at the door beside the one that led to the bathroom.

Jilly got her suitcase and her purse and followed him up a narrow flight of steps to a long, dark, spooky attic room. He flicked a wall switch at the top of the stairs. A bare bulb overhead popped on. In the hard, unflattering glare it provided, Jilly took it all in, from the single small window at the head of the stairs to the dingy gray-blue curtain in a pineapple motif at the opposite end.

Someone had taken the time to Sheetrock the slanted ceiling and to paint it and the low walls bubble-gum pink. Too bad they hadn’t bothered to cover the nails or tape the seams. The floor was the same as downstairs—buckling speckled linoleum. Three single beds were arranged dormitory style, with their headboards tucked under the lowest line of the eaves.

Oh joy, Jilly thought.

“There’s a double bed in the other room.” Will gestured at the curtain. “You’d probably be more comfortable in there.”

She went through, set down her things and turned on the small lamp by the bed. This area was pretty much identical to the one she’d just left: Sheetrocked and painted pink, with a single dinky window at the end opposite the curtain. The head of the bed butted up under the windowsill.

Will was standing by the curtain. “Everything okay?” He didn’t look as if he cared much what her answer might be.

“Fine.”

He left her, ducking back through the curtain. She heard his steady tread as he crossed the first room and went down the creaking stairs.

The bed, which was made up already and covered in a threadbare chenille spread, consisted of a set of box springs and a mattress on a plain metal frame. Jilly dropped to the side of it. The springs complained and the mattress sagged beneath her weight. Lovely. She looked at the window and saw her own reflection, ghostly, in the glass. Up here, under the eaves, the eerie sighing of the wind was even louder than downstairs.

She glanced at her watch. It was just seven-thirty. It would be a long, long night.

However. She did have her phone. And she had a few pointed questions for Celia. For instance, did Celia know that Will would be at Mad Mavis’s old house? Was Celia in on the matchmaking scheme, along with the devious, domineering Caitlin?

Jilly had a hard time believing that. For one thing, Jilly had never so much as mentioned to either of her closest friends that maybe—just possibly—she might have considered dating Will Bravo. And she’d also been careful not to ask questions about him. She’d scrupulously avoided showing too much interest when his name came up in conversation.

She did know there was tragedy in Will’s past. A few years ago, he’d lost a woman he truly loved. Her name had been Nora. But Jilly had only heard about her in passing.

“Poor Will,” Jane had said a month or so ago. “He was so in love. Did you know? Her name was Nora. Cade told me he’s still not really over her, even after five years….”

And about a week later, Celia had mentioned that Will and Nora had planned to be married. And that Nora had died before the wedding.

But Jilly never got the details. She didn’t let herself ask for them. It had never been anything solid, anyway, those stirrings of attraction she’d felt for Will. And in the end, he’d squashed her feelings flat, leaving her exceedingly glad that she hadn’t said a word.

Jilly dug her phone out of her purse and pushed the Talk button—and got the same crackling static she’d gotten earlier, when she’d tried to call Caitlin.

“Wonderful.” She tossed the phone down on the bed and let out a groan of frustrated boredom.

She thought of the Cheez Doodles she’d left out in the car. A bag or two could really help to get her through the night. And while she was at it, she could also grab her boom box and CDs. Since Caitlin had warned her that the cabin had no television or stereo, Jilly had brought along the boom box and a thick black zippered folder full of tunes. And not only that. Now that she thought about it, she remembered she’d stuck a few intriguing novels in her overnighter. The evening didn’t have to be a total bust, after all.

On the negative side, getting the snacks and the music would mean another freezing excursion out to her car. But not to worry. There was good news here. This time she could handle it herself in a single trip. No need to get the scrooge downstairs involved.

Her coat and hat were waiting where she’d left them, on the pegs by the door. She was pulling on the coat when Will said, “What’s going on?”

She flipped her hair out from under her collar and reached for her hat. Only then did she bother to face him.

He was sitting in the easy chair in the living area, reading his big, fat Russian novel. He’d dug up an old radio from somewhere and had it tuned in to what sounded like it might be an NPR talk show, though he had it down so low, who could say for sure? Missy lay curled in a ball on the rag rug at his feet, looking as if she belonged there. The cat seemed to like him—a lot. While Jilly understood that cats were contrary by nature, the idea of her own sweet Missy developing a kitty crush on Will Bravo didn’t please her at all. To Jilly’s mind, it was carrying contrariness altogether too far, not to mention that it bordered on disloyalty, considering the way Jilly felt about the man.

“I’m going out to my car. I forgot a few things.”

He frowned. “It’s pretty wild out there. Are you sure you can’t get along without whatever it is?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. We’re talking utter necessities.” She smiled brightly and gave him an emphatic nod.

He was slanting her a doubtful look. “You need some help?” He didn’t sound terribly anxious to get up from that comfortable chair and trudge out into the freezing, windy darkness.

But at least he had offered. She said, more pleasantly than before, “No, thanks. I can manage.”

He shrugged and went back to his big, boring book.

She pulled open the door and went out into the icy night. A huge gust of wind came roaring down the porch just as she stepped over the threshold, so she had to struggle with the door in order to get it shut. Then she wrapped her coat close around her, hunched her shoulders against the cold and headed for her car.

The snow was thicker on the ground than it had been the last trip out. And the storm itself seemed worse, the wind crueler, the snow borne hard on it, not falling at all, but swooping in sideways, stinging when it hit her cheeks. The branches of the pines that rimmed the clearing whipped wildly, making those strange, ghostly crying noises as the wind rushed between them. Jilly forged on to her car, passing beneath that lone maple tree, hearing those creepy crackling sounds, like bones rubbing together, as the branches scraped against each other.

At the Toyota, she hauled up the hatch and crawled inside. She got the boom box from the back seat, then climbed over that set of seats and got the CD folder from where she’d left it on the front passenger side. Then she backed out, grabbing a bag of Cheez Doodles on her way. She almost reached for her laptop, too. But it would just be something else to drag back outside tomorrow morning when she loaded up to leave, so she vetoed that idea.

Easing her boots down to the snowy ground, she got the hatch shut. She had the CD folder tucked under an arm and the boom box and the bag of cheese snacks in either hand as she started for the house.

She got as far as the big maple tree when a particularly hard gust of wind struck. She heard a sharp, explosive sound and glanced up just in time to see the heavy bare branch come crashing down on top of her.

Chapter Three

That cat of Jillian’s got up and stretched. It had started purring again. Loudly. It sat and licked its right front paw for a minute or two, then swiped the paw twice over its tattered ear. And then it just sat there, >looking up at him. Adoringly.

Will found the situation nothing short of unnerving. “Get lost,” he growled.

The cat didn’t move. The purring, if anything, seemed to grow louder. Mentally, Will drew the line. If that animal started rubbing itself against his leg, he was going to kick it. Firmly.

He didn’t like cats. Or dogs. Pets in general left him cold. Strangely, most animals seemed to like him. He didn’t get it. He just wished they would leave him alone.

The cat rose up on all fours and took a step toward him.

“Don’t,” he said loudly.

The cat dropped to its haunches again and went back to staring and purring with low, dreamy eyes. Will stared back for another two or three seconds, a hard stare, a stare meant to impart how unwelcome he found the attention of animals in general and raggedy-eared calico cats in particular. The cat stayed where it was. He began to feel it would be safe to get back to his book.

He had just lowered his gaze to the open volume in his lap when a particularly hard gust of wind wailed outside. Faintly, he heard that popping crack—like a distant pistol shot. He recognized the sound. A nearby tree had lost a good-sized branch.

He glanced up in time to see the cat blink and perk up its one good ear. Reluctantly, he thought of Jillian. Was it possible that she—?

Ridiculous. No way she could have managed to walk under the wrong tree at exactly the wrong moment. He was just edgy because it was Christmastime, and in his experience, at Christmastime, if something bad could happen, it would.

He shook his head and looked down at his book again. These interruptions were damned irritating. As if he didn’t have enough trouble keeping all those Russian names straight even under the most ideal of circumstances.

He read on. One page. Two.

How long had she been out there, anyway? Five minutes? More?

He looked up again. This time he found himself staring at the door, waiting for her to come bursting through it, that mouth of hers going a mile a minute, her arms full of whatever it was she just couldn’t last a whole night without.

But it didn’t happen. The door stayed closed.

So what? he tried to tell himself. She was Jillian, after all. Who knew what went on with a woman like that? She was probably only dithering as usual, fiddling with all those grocery bags, deciding she needed this or that, then changing her mind.

He tried to go back to his book one more time.

But it was no good. She’d been out there too long.

He swore and slammed the book shut.

Jilly blinked. For some strange reason, she was lying down, looking up through the bare branches of a tree at the stormy night sky. The wind was blowing hard and the snow was coming down and it was very cold. Also, she had a doozy of a headache.

She moaned and put a hand to her head, felt something warm and sticky. “Eeuu,” she said. “Ugh.”

Really, it was too cold to be lying around in the snow.

With effort, she turned over and got up on her hands and knees. From that position, though she found she swayed a little, she could see the tree branch that had hit her. It was directly in front of her. The memory of that split second before impact came back to her. She supposed it was a good thing she’d looked up when she did. As a result, it hadn’t landed right on top of her but had only kind of grazed her forehead. She touched the tender, bloody spot again. A goose egg was rising there. Now, that was going to be really attractive.

And wait a minute. Her hair was blowing into her mouth, plastered against her cheeks. Which meant her hat was gone. Now, where could it have—?

“Whoa,” she said as she realized she was listing to the right. She put her hand back down on the freezing snow. It sank in about five inches, all the way to the hard, rocky ground below.

Better, she thought—if, in this situation, there was such a thing. At least on all fours, she could keep her balance.

She turned her head—slowly, since it did ache a lot—to the right. Through the blowing tendrils of her hair, she saw a bag of Cheez Doodles and a tree trunk. She looked the other way, saw her boom box and CD folder and beyond that a ways, an old house.

Ah. She remembered everything now. That was Mad Mavis’s house. She was staying there. Just for the night, as it had turned out. Will Bravo was in there, reading Crime and Punishment, listening to National Public Radio, and, she hoped, beginning to wonder why she hadn’t come back in yet.

But no. Forget Will. He didn’t like her. He didn’t want her here. It would be a big mistake just to lie here, waiting for him to put down his book and come out and rescue her.

And besides, she was an independent, self-reliant woman and that meant she could take care of herself. She’d got herself into this jam and, by golly, she’d get herself out.

Could she stand?

Carefully, she lifted one hand again—and almost pitched sideways. She put the hand down.

“Ho-kay,” she muttered to herself. “Standing up goes in the Doubtful column.”

She glanced with regret at her Cheez Doodles. But there was no hope for getting them—or the boom box or the CDs—inside. Not this trip. She needed both hands in order to crawl.

So she started moving, slowly, with difficulty, more dragging herself, really, than crawling. She was thinking that if she could just make it to the porch, she could pound on the wall and Will would come out and help her the rest of the way. He might be a jerk, but he wasn’t a total monster. Maybe she could even convince him to go get her Cheez Doodles and her tunes—not that she was counting on that. Oh, no. Just hoping.

She was perhaps a quarter of the way to the porch when she started thinking that maybe she could force herself upright, stagger forward for a while and then go ahead and continue crawling when she fell down again. Yes. That would probably work. She really was feeling less dizzy by the second, which was a very good thing, as the less dizzy she was, the faster she could get herself back inside and out of this bone-chilling cold. She levered up onto her knees.

Miracle of miracles, she stayed there. Her teeth were chattering harder than ever, but she didn’t think she was going to fall over just then. She shoved at her unruly, wet hair, pushing it out of her eyes. Next step, bring one foot forward and—

But she didn’t get to that, because right then, she noticed that Will was striding toward her through the snow.

In no time at all, he was looming above her. “Damn it, Jilly.” The wind was making a lot of noise, and he spoke softly, for once. But still, she made out what he said.

Hey, she thought. Jilly. For the first time, he’d called her Jilly. Was this progress—or just a wild hallucination brought on by a blow to the head?

She didn’t much care. “You know, I have to admit it. I’m really glad to see you.”

He didn’t reply to that. She wondered if she’d even managed to say it aloud. And then she forgot to wonder as he knelt down and scooped her up into his strong arms, pulling her close to his hard, warm chest. She hooked an arm around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder with a sigh, all the reasons she disliked him for that moment forgotten.

Her head throbbed as he rose to his feet again, but the pain hardly registered. She was just so grateful he had come out and found her. She snuggled closer as he carried her into the house, stopping to stomp the snow off his boots before he went in, kicking the door closed with great authority once they’d crossed the threshold into the warmth and the light.

He took her to the narrow iron bed that served as a sofa and gently laid her down. He tucked pillows tenderly beneath her head. With care, he smoothed her snow-wet hair away from her face, frowning, looking at the goose egg swelling at her temple.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“I’ve seen worse.” He patted her arm in doctorly fashion. He’d been such a complete crab since she’d knocked on his door that evening, it came as a pleasant surprise to learn that he could drum up a very respectable bedside manner when he had to.

Her booted feet, still encrusted with snow, hung over the side of the couch. He dropped down there and undid the laces and slid them off. She went ahead and straightened herself out on the couch as he stood.

“Right back,” he said, and left her. She watched him set her boots by the door and then, still wearing his jacket, he disappeared behind the half-wall that marked off the living area from the kitchen.

She groaned and felt the bump at her temple. Her fingers came away smeared with blood. But it wasn’t too bad. She strained to look down at herself. Everything in the right place, it seemed to her. And there wasn’t that much blood. She could see a few drops on her coat, but nothing to get too worried about.

He returned with an ice pack and a damp cloth, sat down beside her and oh-so-gently began dabbing at her temple.

She winced. “Let me…”

He gave her the cloth. She cleaned herself up. Then he passed her the ice pack. She set the soiled cloth on the table beside her and pressed the ice pack over the bump. It felt good. Soothing.

He peered more closely at her, his brow furrowed. “Do you know who I am?”

That made her smile. “As if I could ever forget.”

He actually smiled back—well, almost. There was a definite lift at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me.”

“Your name is Will Bravo—and thanks. For coming out and checking on me.”

“No problem. Are you hurt anywhere else, except for that bump on your head?”

She considered a moment. “No. Nowhere. Everything’s fine.”

“Did you lose consciousness?”

“For a minute or two, I think.”

He got up again and went through the curtain at the end of the makeshift sofa. He came out with a cell phone, punched a button on it. But when he put it to his ear, he shook his head.

“Not working, huh?”

He turned the phone off and set it down. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

“I tried mine earlier. It didn’t work either.”

“The storm, probably—not that cell phones ever work all that well up here.”

“How comforting.”

“I was going to call 911.” His mouth twisted ruefully.

“It’s all right. I’ll be fine. Though I could use an aspirin or two.”

He frowned. “Better not.”

She dragged herself to a sitting position. “Because?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You are feeling better.”

“I am. Better by the minute.” She slipped off her coat, one arm and then the other, switching hands to keep the ice pack over her injury. “If I could just have that aspirin. Or Tylenol. Or—”

“No. You should wait, I think. See if you develop any symptoms.” He took the coat from her and went to hang it by the door.

She asked, “Symptoms of…?”

“Serious brain injury.”

She pulled the ice pack away from her forehead and gingerly poked at the goose egg. “My brain is fine.” He turned toward her again, clearing his throat in such a way that she knew just what he was thinking. “Don’t go there,” she muttered.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—and keep that ice pack on that bump.”

“Right. Tell me more about these possible symptoms.”

“Things like nausea, disorientation, seizures, vomiting…”

It wasn’t going to happen. As she kept trying to tell him, she was just fine. “And if I do develop those symptoms, then what?” He was back to his old self again, glaring at her. She told him what. “Nothing. Because there’s nothing we can do. We can’t call 911. The phones don’t work. We can’t get out of here because of the storm. We’re not going anywhere until tomorrow, at least.”

“And your point is?”

“There’s nothing to wait for, no medical professionals to consult. What happens, happens—though, as I keep telling you, I’m going to be fine. So could I please have a couple of Tylenol?”

He disappeared into the depths of the kitchen. He was back maybe two minutes later, with a glass of water and the pills she’d asked for. She took them. “Thank you.”

He waited until she’d set the empty glass on the little table beside the sofa bed and then he asked, “Where are the things you went outside to get?”

She confessed, “I left them where they fell, under that tree out there. I couldn’t carry them and crawl at the same time.”

“And what, exactly, are they?”

Reluctantly, she told him.

He grunted. “Absolute necessities, huh?”

“So I exaggerated—and don’t worry, I don’t expect you to—”

But he was already turning for the door again. She let him go. It wasn’t really dangerous out there, between the house and the vehicles—as long as you didn’t have the misfortune to be under a tree when it lost a big branch. And what were the odds of that happening again?

No worries. He’d be fine.

And he was. He came back in the door a few minutes later. He had her boom box and her CDs and even her hat. “Your Cheez Doodles must have blown away.”

It could have been worse. She thanked him again.

He set her things on the kitchen table and then turned to find her starting to stand. “Stay there.”

She made a face at him—but she did sit back down.

He shrugged out of his jacket. “Just lie back and relax for a while.”

“I told you, I feel—”

“Jillian. Humor me.” He hung the jacket on its peg. “For an hour or so, just stay there on the couch where I can keep an eye on you.”

She didn’t like the way he said that. As if she were some spoiled, undependable child who might get into all kinds of trouble if left to her own devices.

Not that she could completely blame him for seeing her that way. After all, she had gotten herself into trouble and she was very lucky he’d been around to help out. She had no doubt she would have made it back inside on her own, but it would not have been fun crawling the rest of the way, and her boom box and CDs would still be out in the snow.

So okay. She owed him. She’d do what he told her to do—for an hour. She glanced at her watch—8:05—and then slanted him a look from beneath the shadow of the ice pack. “I’ll lie here till five after nine, and that’s it.”

He said nothing, just went back to his chair, picked up his book, sat down and started reading again.

Jilly plumped up the two skimpy throw pillows and stretched out once more on the creaky old sofa bed. She readjusted the ice pack so it would stay in place by itself, which meant her right eye was covered. She folded her hands over her stomach and stared, one-eyed, at the ceiling.

Like the walls, the ceiling was paneled in wood. What kind of wood, she had no idea. It had all been painted in high-gloss white enamel long, long ago. The enamel was yellowed now and cracked in places.

For a while, as she studied the ceiling, she strained her ears to hear the radio. But he had it turned down so low, all she could make out were two voices speaking with English accents—maybe about world hunger, though there was no way she could be absolutely sure. What in the world, she wanted to ask him, is the point of listening to the radio if you have it down so low, you can’t hear what they’re saying?

But she didn’t ask him. Who cared? She didn’t. Let him read his big, fat, pretentious book.

He turned a page. The propane-burning wall heater not far from the kitchen door came on—a click, followed by a rushing sound as the gas was released and set alight by the pilot. Outside, the wind went on howling away.

Jilly sighed. She glanced at her watch—8:17. At this rate, she’d be an old woman by the time the hour was up.

Yes, she knew it. A total inability to lie still and do nothing unless she happened to be asleep was another of her faults. But she would do it. She would keep her agreement with him. Forty-eight more minutes of staring at the ceiling coming right up.

Missy, who’d apparently taken it upon herself to wander into Will’s bedroom, came sliding through the split in the curtain—this one printed with palm trees—that served as his bedroom door. She strutted across the black-and-red spotted linoleum, tail held high.

Jilly couldn’t resist. She lowered her left hand close to the floor and gestured to Missy to come over and see her.

Will looked up. “Problem?”

“No, not at all.” Jilly folded her hands on her stomach again and made herself stare ceiling-ward. But a minute later, she couldn’t resist a glance in Missy’s direction.

The traitor. She’d found a seat near Will’s feet and was looking up at him as if she understood the true meaning of love at last.

Jilly lifted the ice pack briefly in order to check out the bump on her head. It didn’t feel all that bad. And her headache really was better. There was no reason at all for her to lie here one minute longer.

Except that she had said she would, and that she owed Will and this was what he wanted from her, so that if she went into convulsions or started imagining that she was Napoleon, he would be right there to…what?

To nothing. As she’d kept trying to tell him, if brain damage was in the offing, there wasn’t a thing he’d be able to do.

He must have felt her exasperated stare, because he looked up again. “What?”

“Nothing.” She carefully set the ice pack back in place, stifled a sigh and took up staring at the ceiling once more.

Decades later, it was 9:05. Jilly set the ice pack on the side table, and swung her feet to the floor.

Will glanced up from his book. “How do you feel?”

“Good. Fine. Incredible.”

“Maybe you ought to—”

She put up a hand. “Don’t. I did what you wanted. I’m feeling great. May I please be excused?”

He grunted. “All right, Jillian. Go.”

I am dismissed, she thought. At last.

She stood. There was a slight throbbing in her temple, but nothing to worry about. Very manageable.

She headed straight for her coat.

She was just reaching to lift it from the peg when he demanded from behind her, “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

Lord, give me strength, she thought. Let me get through this night without murdering this man. She calmly took her coat off the peg.

“Jillian. Are you completely insane? You almost got yourself killed once tonight. You’re not giving it another try.”

The pure disgust in his voice really got to her. She had a powerful urge to start shouting rude things. But somehow, she managed to keep her cool as she faced him, holding out the coat. “See that? Bloodstains. Once they’re set, they’re almost impossible to get out. I’m taking this coat in the bathroom and I’m getting to work on these spots.”

He blinked. “You’re not going outside.”

“No. I’m not.”

“You’re going to spot-clean your coat.”

“That’s what I said.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

There was something about the way he said ridiculous. She knew what he meant by it. Oh, yes. She did. He meant that she was ridiculous.

“Will Bravo. You are pushing me. You are pushing me too far.”

“Just put the damn coat back on the peg. Go upstairs and lie down.”

“You are so hateful. So bitter. So mean.”

“Jillian—”

“It’s not my fault a tree branch fell on me. I’m very sorry you had to come out and rescue me.”

“I didn’t say—”

She waved a hand. “I don’t care what you said. I’m saying that I wish you’d just stayed in here by the fire with that damn book of yours. I would have made it in on my own.”

“You were barely—”

“I was getting there. All right, it wasn’t pretty, but I was managing.”

He dared to open his mouth again.

She didn’t even let him get a word out. “I want you to listen. I want you to hear me. I am sorry to be here, sorry to disturb you. I was tricked into being here. I swear if I’d had even a suspicion, even a scintilla of a notion that you might be here, I never, ever would have come within a hundred miles of this place.”

“I don’t care what—”

“I’m not finished. I’m not even close to finished.”

He raked a hand back through his hair, and he glared at her good and hard.

As if she cared how hard he glared. He had pushed her too far and he was going to get it.

She hit him with the one thing she would have sworn, until that moment, that she would never, ever have revealed to him. “I heard what you said about me two weeks ago at that party at Jane’s.”

He actually flinched. Good. He should flinch.

“I was right around the corner in the front hall when your mother suggested you ought to go and say hi to that ‘sweet little Jillian.’ Tell me, Will. Do you happen to remember what you said then?”

“Jillian, I—”

“Oh, no. Please. Wait. Don’t tell me. Let me tell you. You said that if you were looking for a woman—which you were not—the last woman in the world you’d go after would be me. Because you find me flighty. That’s right. Flighty. Flighty and…how did you put it? Ah. I remember. I’m ‘A silly woman with a silly job. A woman of absolutely no depth, a slave to fashion, the kind of woman who would jump over a dying man on the street in order to be at the head of the line when they unlock the doors for Nordstrom’s after-Christmas sale.”’

Chapter Four

Jilly noticed with a high degree of satisfaction that Will didn’t seem to have anything more to say. There was a long silence, one that crackled with mutual hostility.

Finally, he muttered, “Are you through now?”

“Oh, absolutely. I am done, concluded, finished in the truest sense of the word—and may I please go take care of my coat?”

“Be my guest.”

Her head high and her shoulders back, Jilly headed for the bathroom, shutting the door good and hard when she got in there, and then catching sight of her self in the cracked full-length mirror on the back of that door. What she saw was not encouraging. Her hair gave new meaning to the words matted and stringy. The knot on the right side of her forehead was turning a very unflattering shade of magenta.

Jilly wished a lot of things right then, as she stared at her pitiful reflection in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She wished she’d just written the piece Frank had asked for in the first place. Certainly wandering the club scene, guzzling Cosmopolitans, listening to tired pick-up lines couldn’t be worse than this. She wished she’d never called Celia about finding a cabin, wished she’d taken a pass on the suggestion that she get a hold of Caitlin—and yes, she had been reluctant, after what she’d heard at Jane’s party. She wished she’d gone with that reluctance and never picked up the phone.

As a matter of fact, she couldn’t wait to get home, to spend Christmas with her own family, after all. Next to what she’d been through up here at Mad Mavis’s ramshackle old house, she was actually looking forward to having her mother and her two very married sisters sending her the usual pitying looks, dropping subtle hints about how much happier she’d be if she found someone special, had a baby and did something worthwhile with her life for a change.

But wait. What was this?

Looked like a serious case of Poor Me, oh yes it did. And though Jillian Diamond had a number of faults, wallowing around in self-pity was not one of them.

Jilly straightened her shoulders again and carefully smoothed a few straggling strands of hair away from her injury. Okay, it was ugly. But it could have been much worse. And her hair would look a hundred percent better once she’d taken a brush to it.

Too bad her brush was upstairs….

But later for that. First things first. Her coat required attention.

The bathroom lacked the usual white porcelain sink. Instead, two deep concrete laundry sinks lined the outside wall, a long window above them. Jilly turned to the sinks and flipped on the cold water.

As she moistened and blotted the soft suede of her stained coat, she decided that she didn’t feel so low, after all. There was something about telling a person the one thing you would have sworn you’d never confess to them that was very freeing. Somehow, it didn’t even matter that he hadn’t apologized. His response wasn’t important.

Jilly bent over her coat, dabbing and blotting. To be fair, she would have to say that he had looked just a little bit embarrassed at what a complete jerk he’d been. She found that appropriate. He should be embarrassed.

“There,” she said under her breath, holding up the coat and examining her handiwork. “Best I can do until I can get it to the cleaners.”

She took the coat back out through the kitchen and hung it at the door, taking scrupulous care not to look in Will’s direction. Next, she padded over to the little table by the sofa bed and collected her empty water glass, the bloodstained cloth and the ice pack. She washed the glass, rinsed out the cloth and hung it over one of the bathroom sinks. She emptied the ice pack, leaving it, with the glass, in the dish drainer to dry.

Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a long, hot soak in that clawfoot bathtub. But it was Will’s house—more or less. Somehow, she felt it would be nothing short of rude just to get out her bath salts and fill up the tub without asking him first. And since the last thing she wanted to do was speak to him again, the bath was out. She carried her boom box and CDs upstairs and came back down with her vanity kit. She cleaned her face, brushed her teeth and did what she could with her hideous hair.

Finally, there was Missy to deal with. Jilly carried the litter box and water bowl upstairs. Then she went to get the cat.

As Jilly had feared, Missy was reluctant to leave the newfound object of her inexplicable devotion, but Jilly tempted her with a few cat treats and that was the end of that. She closed the door to the kitchen before she carried the cat up the stairs.

As soon as Jilly put her down, Missy took off. Jilly shrugged and got out her lovely soft micro-fleece pajamas with the blue and yellow stripes on the bottoms and cheerful daisies on the top. She was pulling them on when Missy started crying from the foot of the stairs.

Too bad. She’d get over it.

Jilly slid her Ray Charles Spirit of Christmas CD into the boom box, turned the volume low enough that it wouldn’t disturb the Grinch downstairs, and got out the three novels she’d brought.

There were two juicy romances and a nail-biting thriller. She chose the thriller. She had no desire at all to read about men and women working out their problems, enjoying great sex and finding lasting love. Not tonight, anyway.

Jilly got under the covers, plumped the pillows against her back and started reading. Eventually, Missy quit meowing pathetically at the stairway door. She appeared at the side of the bed, jumped up next to Jilly, curled in a ball and went to sleep. Outside, the wind wailed and the snow blew against the window, making a sound like someone tapping to get in.

The CD ended. Jilly hardly noticed. The thriller certainly did deliver the goods. It was a tale of a serial killer who murdered young women in various gruesome ways. He broke in on them late at night—they all lived in isolated houses—and no one heard their terrified screams.

The book was probably a bad choice, in hindsight. One of those books that shouldn’t be read at night, in the dim attic bedroom of a house rumored to be haunted, with the wind howling outside and a view of a dingy curtain with pineapples on it—pineapples that, somehow, had begun to resemble ghostly faces, grinning malevolently.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Jilly whispered aloud as she marked her place in the book and set it aside for the night. She was safe in a warm bed. No deranged serial killer lurked outside—and if one did, he certainly should be frozen to death by now. The pineapples in the curtain were not evil faces. Mad Mavis was long gone. And Jilly did not believe in ghosts.

But just to be on the safe side, she left the lamp on. She turned away from the light and snuggled down with Missy purring at her back.

Her headache, she realized, was completely gone. She allowed herself a smug little smile. Take that, Will Bravo. No brain damage for this girl. She yawned.

It wasn’t long at all before she drifted off to sleep.

Jilly woke some time later. She was lying on her stomach with her face buried in the pillow.

She lifted her head, blinked, and looked out the window above the bed.

The clouds had cleared. The storm was over. A full moon shone in on her, casting a magical, silvery light through the narrow attic room.

And wait a minute. The lamp was off. Odd. Hadn’t she left it on?

Jilly pushed herself to her knees and brushed her sleep-tangled hair from her eyes. She picked up her watch from the nightstand and peered at it.

Midnight, on the nose.

Jilly set the watch down and turned over, dragging herself up to a sitting position. She saw Missy, then. The cat was sitting at the end of the bed, golden eyes gleaming eerily in the moonlight, watching her. Jilly stretched out a hand.

And Missy vanished—or rather, she faded away, first becoming transparent and then, poof, gone. Just like that.

Jilly pondered her cat’s Cheshire-like disappearance. All was not as it should be.

And who was that skinny old woman standing at the foot of the bed, the one in the quilted blue bathrobe and the ruffled hairnet, the one with the face that vaguely resembled Caitlin Bravo’s? The one with Will’s blue, blue eyes?

“Mavis?”

The old woman nodded. Imagine that. First, her cat literally faded away. And now she was being treated to a visitation from Mad Mavis McCormack.

“This is a dream, right?”

Mad Mavis smiled. For such an old, wrinkled woman, she had surprisingly white, straight teeth. She stepped forward—right through the bed—and held out her hand.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Jilly said.

But Mavis just went on standing there, her lower half disappearing into the bed, holding out that bony hand until Jilly looked down and discovered that she’d taken that hand, after all.

The walls around them were melting, the bed disappearing. Jilly closed her eyes.

When she opened them, she and Mavis still held hands, but now they stood side-by-side. There was another bed in front of them. A man lay sleeping on that bed, facing away from them. Jilly knew who the man was even before she noticed the curtain on the other side of the bed—the one that led to the living area and was printed with palm trees.

“Mavis, I am begging you,” Jilly whispered. “Don’t do this to me. Okay, maybe for a minute or two, for a fraction of a nanosecond, I might have been attracted to him. But not anymore. It’s really over, you know? I mean, it never even got started. I don’t want anything to do with him. I just want to forget he even exists. And I most certainly don’t want him taking up space in my dreams.”

Mavis began fading backward, her skinny old hand passing out of Jilly’s grip without either of then actually letting go. She floated toward the corner of the room, drifting past the ladder-back rocker under the window, insinuating herself between the far wall and an old dresser with a yellowed lace runner and a streaked mirror in a heavily carved frame.

“Mavis,” Jilly hissed. “I am so not happy about this.”

From the shadows between the dresser and the wall, Mavis gazed at Jilly, mournful reproach in those big, blue eyes.

“Mavis. Let me make myself perfectly clear.” Jilly raised her voice to a shout. “Get me out of here!”

But Mavis only stood there—well, hovered there, really. Her pale, bony toes—just visible behind the dark shape of the dresser—didn’t quite seem to be touching the floor.

Jilly looked at the dream-Will, lying there on the bed, sound asleep. Her shouting hadn’t disturbed him in the least. He turned over with a sigh, but didn’t open his eyes.

Okay. She’d admit it. With his eyes closed, not scowling, Will Bravo was a hunk and a half. In this dream of hers, he slept nude—or at least, nude from the waist up. She couldn’t tell about the rest of him. The blankets covered that. He had shoulders for days. And beautiful, muscled arms…

“No. Not. No way.” Jilly blinked furiously in an effort to make the sleeping, too-tempting Will vanish. He didn’t. She insisted, as if anyone was listening, “I said I’m not interested, and I am a woman who says just what she means.” She whirled toward the corner where Mavis should have been hovering. “You had better get me out of—”

But the old woman was gone.

“Jilly.” The deep, lazy voice came from behind her.

“Oh, no. Forget it. I am not turning around.”

“Jilly…”

“I am not going to look. I am not even going to…” Well, all right, maybe just one little glance.

She sneaked a quick peek. He was sitting up, holding out his fine, long-fingered hand to her, looking at her tenderly, pleadingly. “Jilly.”

She gave in and faced him fully. “All right, what?”

He wiggled his fingers at her in a come-hither gesture.

“You can’t be serious.”

He stared deeply, meaningfully, into her eyes as the sheet, of its own accord, slithered back from his fabulous naked body. Jilly tore her gaze away from those pleading blue eyes and looked lower. Wow. Some dream.

She looked up again, into those tender, pleading eyes and a disembodied voice from somewhere near her left ear said, “Why not?”

“Why not?” she cried. “You’ve got to be kidding. He doesn’t like me. I don’t like him.”

“Jilly,” said the disembodied voice. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t real. It isn’t happening. So what if you hate each other in real life? This isn’t real life. This is only a dream.”

Jilly considered. While she did that, the dream-Will conveniently froze in place—with his hand out and the covers down to his muscular thighs, looking at her longingly, his manliest attribute pointing proudly ceiling-ward.

“Hmm,” said Jilly. It was clear that in this dream he found her overwhelmingly attractive. And she had to admit she really did enjoy having him look at her that way.

Why not just go with it? Why pass up a chance to have him falling all over her for one magical night? Why deny herself? This was one situation where she could do anything she wanted, let this fantasy spin out wherever it wanted to go, and suffer absolutely no consequences after the fact.

There was no “fact.” She wasn’t here. She was upstairs, sound asleep, dreaming all this.

“Okay,” she announced. “I’ve decided. I’m going with this.”

Nobody answered. And Will continued to sit there, still as a statue.

Jilly cleared her throat. “Uh. Hello? Will?”

But he didn’t move. He didn’t even appear to be breathing. She clapped her hands. Twice.

Nothing.

Terrific. What fun was this going to be?

But wait. This was her dream. There had to be some way to—

And it came to her. She put her hand in his.

The room faded and reformed and she found herself on the bed with him, wrapped in those big arms of his.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he whispered. “For so long.” Jilly thought that was carrying the fantasy a little too far, but before she could tell him so, he asked, “You’ll help me out, won’t you?”

She pulled back a little and peered up at him. “Uh. Help you out, how?”

He didn’t answer her question, just gathered her close again, rested his cheek against her hair, and repeated what he’d said before. “Help me, Jilly.”

“But—”

“Help me out. God, do I need it.”

She pulled back again, intending to explain to him that he really had to get a little more specific or she didn’t see how there was much she could do. But before she could say anything, he lowered his mouth to hers.

Good googly-moogly, what a kiss!

He almost burned her lips off. It honestly felt as if steam was coming out of her ears.

When he finally let her come up for air, she realized that her pjs had melted away. She was every bit as naked as he was.

Only a dream, she reminded herself. Only a dream. Enjoy, enjoy…

He guided her back onto the bed, kissing her as they went down. Somehow, it seemed he was kissing her everywhere, every part of her body, all at the same time—her mouth, her neck, lower, and lower still.

Omigoodness. Yes, yes, yes!

His lips were everywhere, all at once. And his hands, well, they were magic hands. He touched every inch of her, found all her most secret, most vulnerable places.

She moaned and she cried out, closing her eyes….

When she looked again, they were joined together. The bed, the room, everything was gone—everything but the two of them. They moved as one, floating in some warm, soft, enveloping space in the middle of nowhere, all wrapped up in each other, arms and legs entwined. She felt stunned by her own intense pleasure. Everything in that warm place seemed to glow. They glowed, Jilly and her fantasy lover, rolling and rippling, rising and falling, forever and ever….

Jilly closed her eyes again.

And they were back in his bedroom, lying contentedly side-by-side. He captured her hand, brought it to his mouth and pressed those wonderful lips of his to the back of it. She actually felt his breath on her skin.

Without stopping to think, she did it again, let her eyes drift shut.

And that time, when she opened them, she found herself lying in the bed upstairs, dressed in her fuzzy pjs once more.

Will had not come with her. Sweet old Mavis was tucking her in, bending close, smiling slightly, blue eyes mysterious and maybe a little bit sad.

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