“Grab the glasses, please,” Sam said. “And the champagne. Thank you, everyone.”
Daniel picked up the tray he had saved earlier. As they stepped back out to the parlor, there was another arrival.
It was the old werewolf Victor Alden, who had dressed up as Santa for as long as Daniel could remember and came to Mycroft House to hand out gifts.
“Ho, ho, ho!” Victor said, bearing a big red bag. “Why, ’tis Samantha Mycroft. My dear, you have been very, very good this year. I have a lovely gift for you.”
“Oh, Santa, that’s wonderful—but you have to come toast with us first.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Victor set down his bag. “Everything going well here?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Sam said.
He nodded. “I was hoping…I was hoping the darkness wouldn’t ruin the night.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I will not let the darkness ruin the night.”
She smiled and headed out with Daniel. Victor followed them into the parlor, where both Others and humans of all faiths filled their champagne glasses and stood together to toast the holiday.
“To love, tolerance and understanding,” Father Mulroney said.
“To you, dear guests, who understand that goodness is in the love a person spreads, and not in the words he chooses to describe himself,” Samantha added.
“To Mycroft House,” Daniel said, looking at Samantha as he lifted his glass. “A place where Sam has carried on the tradition of the true meaning of the Christmas season. All of us, no matter who—or what—we are learn here that love for our fellow man is the greatest gift we can bestow.”
“Hear, hear!” Father Mulroney said, and began to play “Amazing Grace,” his beautiful tenor voice so powerful that even Tobey went silent and listened.
Everyone applauded when he finished, and Rabbi Solomon said enthusiastically, “Please, someone keep it going.”
This was his chance, Daniel thought. Maybe.
He walked over to the piano. “I know one—Samantha and I used to do it together all the time when we were younger. If she’ll join me…?”
She looked as if she had given up on Christmas cheer and just wanted to kill him.
But everyone in the room began to applaud and urge her on, so she forced a smile and walked over.
“‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’” he announced.
Her smile was brittle. But Father Mulroney began to play, and she began to sing.
They were immediately in sync, taking their parts, and the song was fun and a little bit sexy.
It was as if they had never been apart, as if they had sung together every day, as if they hadn’t missed a beat in their lives….
But of course, they had. And when the song was over, people laughed and patted him on the back as they complimented him.
And he lost sight of Samantha.
Determined, he looked through the house. He found August and Sally in the kitchen, chatting as they set the desserts on trays.
“Looking for Sam?” August asked him. “I think she went outside.”
Daniel hurried to the front door, then paused. He looked back into the parlor. Father Mulroney was still playing, but now with Tobey on his lap and Father Alistair sitting next to him. Everyone had a suggestion for a carol. The room seemed to be ablaze with lights, a beautiful beacon against the darkness that had settled over Salem.
He slipped outside. Sam was there, staring up at the pale sliver of a moon that had somehow made its way through what seemed to be an eternal darkness.
“Sam,” he said softly.
She turned to him. Her eyes looked huge and luminous. When he moved, the plastic Santa began to sing “All I Want for Christmas.”
“Oh, for the love of God—Please pull the plug on that thing,” she begged.
Laughing, he stepped through the snow and found the cord.
Santa went silent.
“Not a bad song,” he said lightly, walking over to her.
She didn’t move. They were alone at last. Now the only singing was coming from the house.
“You’re doing a great job here,” he told her.
“So great that they sent you to check up on me,” she said.
“Sam,” he said, and set his hands on her shoulders, seeking her eyes. “They sent me because every one of us needs someone sometimes. But…”
“But what?” she demanded.
“They needed to send someone,” he said, then inhaled deeply. “They sent me because I asked to come here. I requested this assignment.”
“Oh? So I’m an assignment now?”
He laughed softly, but he felt as if there were a vise around his throat. “Sam, I asked to come after I spoke to your father—and mine. I told them that they were wrong to have suggested that we couldn’t be together and still perform all the duties that would fall our way. I told them that I was sorry, but I couldn’t serve if we couldn’t be treated with respect and understanding.” He realized that she might laugh in his face for taking a stand that might no longer represent her feelings. But he didn’t care. He was willing to risk everything.
He caught her hand and went down on one knee. “Samantha Mycroft, I am incredibly, incurably in love with you. Nothing in my existence matters without you. I realize that in this day and age I’m supposed to ask you first, but I happened to be with your father so I asked him for your hand. Well, not really. I told him—and my father—that if you would have me, I was going to marry you with or without their blessing. So…I realize that this is awkward, but I can’t see a way of making it better if I don’t just tell you the truth…if I don’t try to make you understand that I was a fool, afraid that you were more responsible than I was, that you would reject me…that you would move on happily without me. But I know now that while you may still reject me, I can’t go on with life without at least begging you to forgive me…without telling you that you are everything to me, that I love you with every fiber of my being. Sam, will you marry me?” He took a deep breath. “You don’t have to answer right this instant. I’m sure you really want to shove snow in my face, but…you asked what I want…and…”
She was staring at him incredulously. He had no idea what she was thinking.
“All I want for Christmas is you,” he whispered.
She flushed. A beautiful shade of red. It went well with her sweater. And her hair, and her eyes and…
“Sam?”
“Get up, please! Someone might walk out here and see,” she said.
He got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Sam. I had to tell you.”
She started to turn away. “It’s this darkness,” she said. “I know I’m not the right person to handle it, but I have to be here, to try.”
“But I could be here with you,” he told her. “I know I left you before—but you told me to leave, remember? Two years ago I came here…confused. My father, your father…both of them were so determined that we couldn’t be together, that we had to be strong and do our jobs. Well, Sam, my strength came from knowing that I was going to come back here and be with you, if you’d have me. They wanted us to stand alone—but they were wrong. None of us stands alone. I told them that. I pointed out that the council only exists because no one really stands alone. We need one another. And we need love. Nothing shows us that as much as this time of year. Love is the greatest gift in the world. I love you, Sam. I have since I met you. I will into eternity—no matter what the future may bring.”
“What?” she gasped.
“I love you. And I will love you forever.”
She stood silent, staring at him. And then she began to laugh.
He frowned, watching her.
“Is that…a no?” he asked.
But it wasn’t. She sudden
ly threw herself into his arms. And she kissed him.
She kissed him.
It was the kind of kiss he had dreamed of through long nights away. It was an easy kiss, a passionate kiss, a natural kiss, a wet, sloppy kiss that was the most erotic kiss he had ever known. It was filled with intimacy and promise.
She broke away at last and stared up at him.
“Um… Is that a yes?” he asked her huskily.
“I’ve never been all that anyone wanted for Christmas before,” she told him.
He smiled. He looked up at the sky.
It was still dark, of course. No matter what, it would be dark now.
But somehow the world around him seemed to be filled with brilliant light in a rainbow of colors.
“It feels like the sun just broke through,” he told her.
She leaned against him. He smelled the faint, soft scent of her perfume. He thought about the woman who had plunged into icy water to save a foolish boy, the woman who could bring together a room of people and Others, the woman who instinctively knew what a child needed. And he was more than ever in love.
He reached into his pocket. “I, um, happen to have this. In case you said yes,” he told her.
“Let me see!” she begged.
He popped open the box. It wasn’t a huge diamond, but it was a beautiful one. Radiant light seemed to stream from it.
“The light is inside us,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“That’s what Father Mulroney told me today. He said the light is inside our hearts. We can fight the darkness.” She looked at him and smiled slowly. “Yes, Daniel Riverton, I will marry you. I will certainly have a few choice words to say about the way we parted, but then I suppose you might have a few, too.”
“Well, you are pigheaded and proud, and you did tell me to get out.”
“You were supposed to know I didn’t mean a word of it. I was just giving you an out.”
He smiled. Her temper was already flaring deliciously.
“May I?” he asked her.
She nodded.
He slipped the ring on her finger.
“Let your light so shine….” he quoted softly. “Matthew 5:16,” he added with a smile and a grin.
“No, let our light so shine,” she said.
From the house, they could hear Father Mulroney’s voice raised in song: “Joy to the World.”
“There are dark days ahead,” she murmured.
“We’ll be here to face them. Together.”
She nodded solemnly. “However, I’m forecasting a brilliant night.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s go inside and join the guests. They’ll go home. Eventually. And since I’m a Christmas present… Well, traditionally, you do get to unwrap one gift on Christmas Eve. And I plan on being the best gift you ever get.”
They kissed again beneath the sliver of the moon, and radiance seemed to be all around them.
Light and love came from within.
And Daniel knew it was going to be a beautiful Christmas morning.
Because there would be love. And love, he believed, was light.
And as the saying went, love conquered all.
“Merry Christmas, Sam,” he said huskily.
And she said the best words in return.
“Merry Christmas, my love.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for a sneak peek at
WICKED DEEDS
the latest thrilling tale of romantic suspense
in the Krewe of Hunters series
by New York Times bestselling author
Heather Graham.
Available now from MIRA Books
PROLOGUE
In Dreams
It was dark, and it was night, and she was followingalong a strange wooded path.
Vickie Preston fought against it; good things never started this way.
But she wasn’t in deep woods. She was not far from some kind of a city—she could see light through the trees.
The light seemed strange. It wasn’t the contemporary, bright luminescence of electricity that shined with such fervor that it was easily seen from space. This was different. Soft light. As if it came from candles or…gas. Gas lamps.
She had, she thought, stumbled into a different time, a different place. She made a turn, and the darkness was gone, things changing suddenly in that way of dreams; she was in a city, and it was day, late afternoon perhaps, with evening on its way.
People were rushing about, here, there and everywhere.
“Vote! Fourth Ward polls!” someone called out.
A woman with a big hoop skirt pushed by Vickie, dragging a man about by an ear. “Harold Finder! Voting is no excuse for my husband to show himself in public, drunk!” she said angrily.
Harold was twice his wife’s size, but Mrs. Finder seemed to have an exceptional hold on his ear!
They had just come from what appeared to be a tavern. Vickie looked about, wondering why no one noticed her. They were all dressed so differently; men in frock coats and waistcoats and cravats and women with their tightly corseted tops and great, billowing skirts. Granted, she was sleeping in a long white cotton gown, “puritanical,” or so Griffin had teased her.
No, no, oh, yuck! You know how I feel about our dear historical Puritans! she’d told him.
Vickie, like Griffin, had grown up in Boston. She’d become a historian and wrote nonfiction books. Despite trying to understand the very different times they had lived in, she just didn’t care much for the people who had first settled her area—they were completely intolerant.
Griffin could usually just shrug off the past; he’d been a cop when she’d first met him and he was an FBI agent now. The past mattered to him, but mostly when it helped solve crime in the present.
He’d been sleeping next to her, of course. They were on their way to Virginia from Boston, ready to start a new life. But they’d stopped in Baltimore, at a hotel… They’d laughed as they got ready for bed, he’d teased her about the nightgown…
She did not look like a Puritan!
Griffin had assured her that she wouldn’t wear the “puritanical” gown long, and she hadn’t, but then, freezing in the air-conditioning of their hotel, she’d put it back on…
She was glad, of course. Otherwise, she’d be walking stark naked around this unknown and bizarre place.
Where was she?
She turned to the doorway of the “polling place” where Harold and his wife had just departed. She could hear all manner of laughing and talking. It was definitely a tavern. Gunnar’s Place.
And there was nothing indicating Puritan Massachusetts here—she wasn’t in Massachusetts and these people certainly weren’t Puritans.
She walked in, wondering if women were welcome. It didn’t matter. No one seemed to notice her.
The place was smoky and dusty. Barmaids were hurrying about, handing out drinks. Men were being solicited for their votes.
There was a lone man seated on a wooden bench at a table, head hanging low. But when Vickie entered, he looked up, and he beckoned to her.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said impatiently. He stood, wavering.
He was a small man, just a little shorter than Vickie, maybe five-eight to her five-nine. His hair was dark and a curl hung over his forehead. His eyes seemed red-rimmed and sunken in his face, which was quite ashen, with a yellow pallor.
She knew him.
She’d seen his picture throughout her life; she’d loved his work. She’d loved that he’d been born in Boston—even if he had come to hate that city. There was a wonderful statue of him now, a life-size bronze figure of the writer, hurrying along with a briefcase and a raven.
She knew his face from so many pictures and images, a man haunted by demons in life, most of those demons brought about by his alcohol addictio
n. She’d always wondered if more knowledge during his age might have helped him; a really good therapist, a good program…
“I’m hallucinating you, you know. Delirium tremors,” he told her gravely. “But I have been waiting for you, Victoria.”
“I love your work!” Vickie said. She flushed. It was a dream, or a nightmare, and she was having a fangirl moment. She needed control and decorum.
“Yes, well, then, you are brighter than my insidious detractors,” he told her. “But here’s the thing. You must stop it. I am being used—my work, my memory. It was good—it was all good, until I came here, until I reached Baltimore. Then, they…were upon me.”
“They who?” she asked. “No one knows—it’s still a mystery.”
“They were upon me,” he repeated.
Vickie reached across the table and set her hand gently upon his. He was trembling, she realized, violently. “You’re not looking very well,” she said.
And he turned to give her a rueful smile. “No. I will not be here long, you see. But I’m glad that you made it, so glad that you’re here. It’s happening again. And you must do something. You must stop it. No one will see, because it’s much the same. Do you understand?”
“Not a word,” she assured him.
He looked across the room and seemed concerned; he stood suddenly and hurried toward the door. Vickie raced after him.
She didn’t see him at first. He was on the ground, slumped against the building. She tried to reach him, but there was already a man at his side, attempting to help him. She noted an address then, Lombard Street.
As she stood there while the one man tried to help, people continued to hurry along the street. Hawkers shouted out their wares—and their candidates. Drinks were promised for votes; there was laughter, there was a rush of music, someone playing a fiddle…
She tried to reach the fallen man, thankful that at least someone was helping him.
Across the bit of distance between them, he opened his eyes and looked at her.
“I have to go now,” he said.
Do You Fear What I Fear? Page 6