Christmas Kiss (A Holiday Romance) (Kisses and Carriages)

by L. L. Muir

  “I think a demon that would steal our Angeline would not quibble with such a wee detail. So ye’ve come back, but not to yerself—ye’ve come back to the way it was, the way it was in 1806, lass. And ye nearly died trying.”

  He pulled her to him, hugging her against him like he was trying to absorb her into himself. Her jaw was held tight. She had to talk through gritted teeth.

  “I didn’t die, Heathcliff. You can let go of me now.”

  He loosened his arms, but didn’t let go. He pressed his mouth into her shoulder, then murmured against her shirt.

  “And yer boon, lass. Would you deny yer boon? Have ye found at least a wee bit of happiness here?” He wouldn’t let her pull away. Maybe he didn’t dare see the look on her face, but he worried for nothing.

  “I won’t deny my boon, big boy. I promise. No matter what happens, okay?”

  Finally, he let her go. The tears in his eyes were different this time. Happy tears. He looked like a puppy that thought he was going to be left behind, but had just been invited to jump into the back of the truck. There wasn’t a sign in ASL to express it accurately.

  But then he was right back to worrying.

  “The Foolish Fire...comes not in twain.’Tis the coachman’s lanterns come for ye.”

  “What’s the Foolish Fire?” she asked, but hadn’t wanted to.

  “The Foolish Fire—the Will o’ the Wisp. Some legends say it will lead lost travelers to safety. Some say it will lead them to doom. Comes not in twain refers to the fact that it doesn’t come in pairs. If you see two lights, they are the coachman’s lanterns and ye should not trust them.”

  “Too late. So now what?”

  “With hands of white...and horses matched. He’ll guide thy love...to broken heart.”

  “Well, I’ve seen the white hands—at least one of them, anyway—and the horses were white. We can just skip the rest of that. What next?”

  “Forgive me, love.”

  She shook her head. “What’s next?”

  He smiled sadly then nodded. His hair fell forward and the shadow it caused made her move around so the fire would light up his face again. And a little voice in her head told her she’d better take a good long look, so she could remember.

  “Of measured dreams...he’ll grant behalf. And take from thee...e’en the beggar’s part. He’ll be comin’ for all I have, at midnight, or so read the letter.”

  “Keep going. There has to be something in the rest of it. Some way to beat him.”

  “He’ll calm the hounds... The wind he’ll wield when the Moon he walks ‘mong beasts and man. So be still yer hopes... Trust not the yield.”

  His eyes filled with pain then. Was he remembering the times he did not trust her? Or did he consider her to be the yield?

  “Going to take the moon’s word for it, and not trust me?”

  “I doona trust that I can keep you, lass. If ye, too, are taken from me, I dinna ken if I can survive it.”

  “Stop that. Keep going. What’s next?”

  He shrugged, shook his head, took a breath. “‘Til the hounds behowl the night again.”

  “So we know we’re safe when we hear some wolf howl?”

  “When the moon has returned to his place in the sky, the hounds will howl.”

  She marched to the window and looked out. The clouds were still thick. No moon. No stars. The wind was picking up a little and she wondered how close they were to midnight. Would the storm kick up again? Maybe they’d get lucky and the coachman, whoever he really was, wouldn’t be able to get through. Maybe she could be stuck there forever.

  But that wouldn’t get Angeline back.

  “So we’ll know when to stop worrying. Great. But we’ve got to get Angeline back before we worry about howling wolves. What next?”

  Heathcliff shook his head.

  “It’s okay. I can take it. I promise not to freak out. What’s next?”

  He shook his head again. “Nothing more, lass. There is naught more to the song.”

  Bree’s chest constricted. She had to pull hard to get air into her lungs. Then she had a thought.

  “Your grandmother taught you the song? Maybe there was more. Is it in a book somewhere?” If she was home, she could look it up on the internet. But she wasn’t home.

  She wasn’t home. Yet.

  She was four feet from Heathcliff, but it seemed like the Grand Canyon at the moment. They weren’t even from the same time, for hell sakes. There was no way they were supposed to be together.

  He must have read her thoughts, because he hurried toward her with his arms out, probably to hug her to death again. And as much as she would like to let him, she couldn’t do it.

  She stepped back and held out a hand to stop him. “Don’t! We can’t do this.”

  “Whatever it is ye’re thinkin’, lass, ye must cease thinkin’ it.”

  “I’m thinking we’re not supposed to be together. This was a fluke. This was a cruel joke by a cruel...whatever he is. Leading us to a broken heart, right? He never intended to let us be together, don’t you see? In the end, we... Can’t. Be. Together.”

  He stepped forward again, his head shaking in denial, but in his eyes, she could tell—he was afraid she was right.

  She ducked away and put more distance between them. He didn’t turn to follow her. His shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “We can’t be together,” she said carefully. “But you and Angeline can. You have to take it back, Heathcliff. You have to take back the wish. Take it back and you can at least have Angeline. You don’t need me. You two are clever. You can work out a way to communicate. Make up your own signs. You were doing just fine. You didn’t even need me after all.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Trust not the yield, Heathcliff. You can’t trust what there is between us. That’s got to be what it means. Don’t trust it. Take back your wish. And it will probably send me back.” She just hoped she wouldn’t wake up in that ditch again, or standing in her suitcase in the middle of the road. If she did, she’d take a chance and crawl around looking for her handbag, for the cell phone. She wasn’t going to wait around for the Foolish Fire, or lanterns. She would use good old technology to save her ass.

  Heathcliff finally turned and came at her. She had no chance to get away. His hands raised to her face. His mouth pressed frantically against hers and their faces crushed into each other in a fervent kiss. She finally had to pull back to be able to breathe. But before she could find his lips again, he was moving away from her, taking huge strides over to the window.

  “I take it back,” he roared. “I take back the breath. I take back the sigh. I take back the wish I made, the plea for help.” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “I refuse this boon! Take it away!”

  He lingered there and she realized he didn’t want to look at her again. It broke her heart, but she padded quietly to the door and opened it.

  And the clock from the parlor began to chime.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Midnight.

  She’d heard the clock chime for a week and it had never before taken so long to strike the hour. Never. Everything happened in slow motion.

  Heathcliff had a hold of her hand before she ever took a step into the hall, then they were there, together, taking each stair in unison. They moved like one person, looking forward, no need to look at each other. Nothing to say.

  The clock struck midnight as they walked off the last step.

  The first knock rang through the hall like the coachman had brought his own knocker from Hell.

  They open the door together. The coachman stood with a grin on his face. He wore the same top hat. Behind him, one of the carriage horses shook his mane and she recognized the jingling. Was Angeline sitting inside that warm, comfortable coach?

  “Good even, Miss Bree. And how was your tour of the Heart of Scotland? Did you enjoy it? The Heart of Scotland?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You wanted to know
the Heart of Scotland. And now you do. It beats in yon chest, it does.” The man looked at Heathcliff’s broad upper body. “It beats in the chest of most Scotsmen, truth be told. But this particular Scotsman needed your expertise, you might say.”

  He addressed Heathcliff.

  “And you, sir. You got what you asked for, did you not?”

  “I asked for help, to communicate with m’ new daughter, but ye took her away, ye bastard. How dare ye? Where is my child?” Heathcliff shook, but held his ground. Bree was surprised he didn’t try to jump on the man and beat a confession out of him. But then again, he probably wasn’t a man at all. And who knew what he’d do if they pissed him off?

  “Well, as to that,” the old man’s smile slipped. “Ye were told she was yers for the now. Ye were not told she would be yers for all time. Besides, the child is mine and not truly a child at all. She couldna speak because she is a moon child, ye see.”

  Heathcliff’s hand squeezed hers in a bruising grip and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Angeline was okay. She didn’t belong to him anymore, but she was okay. And if Heathcliff wasn’t going to fall apart, neither would she.

  “And who are you supposed to be, The Man in the Moon?” Bree couldn’t help but sneer. It was just so ridiculous! She couldn’t believe she was standing there with two other adults having such an impossible conversation.

  “Did I not give ye leave to call me such?” The coachman turned back to Heathcliff. “And now, the piper must be paid, good sir.”

  “But I didn’t ask for help until after ye’d already given her to me. If she’d never come, I would have never needed the help. Ye were scheming to drive me mad all along!”

  “Oh, ye’ve asked me for many a thing o’er the years, young Heathcliff, but what ye truly wished for, ye still hold in your hand.”

  Bree looked down, but the only thing Heathcliff was holding was her fingers. At least it looked like he was—her fingers were so numb from holding on so tight, she couldn’t feel much.

  As if he’d just stepped onto a stage, the coachman sang the song again. When he was finished, he looked disappointed, like he’d expected them to break out in applause.

  “Well, lassie, ye got your Christmas kiss. Ye got to be appreciated for the gifts ye possess. Ye saw the Heart of Scotland. Now you must hand it back.”

  Heathcliff pulled her hand against his chest and looked into her eyes. “No. Stay, Brianna. Stay.”

  The old man laughed. “She canna stay, good sir. There is no choosing to be done here.”

  “Ye have taken my child.” His voice broke. She knew how it must be killing him to be told Angeline could never be his. “Ye have taken my child, now ye would take Brianna as well? What kind of monster are ye?” Heathcliff’s voice boomed across the cold courtyard. If Bree were the coachman at that moment, she would have run like hell.

  Instead, the old man snorted and rolled his eyes, then looked back at her.

  “The only question left for you, lassie, is this. Did you go back to being happy?”

  It was a trick question, it had to be. If she answered wrong, she might just drop dead. I’ll go back to being happy, or die trying. “Yes, I went back to being happy, okay?”

  “Fine then. That’s fine then. I have a reputation to maintain, you understand. Satisfaction guaranteed and all that.”

  “Give him back his child,” she said.

  “Does he have a child, then?” The old man’s eyes twinkled and it wasn’t in a jolly-old-Saint-Nick kind of way, either.

  “Angeline,” she said.

  The old man rolled his eyes and dismissed her question with a wave of his white glove. “Are you not getting cold out here? Ye’ve not much on.”

  And suddenly, her suitcase was next to her with her coat laid across it as she’d left it upstairs.

  She rocked back on her heels in shock. Heathcliff put an arm behind her to steady her, like he was used to seeing blatant acts of magic.

  “A kind heart ye have, to try to keep my child warm. And ye gave her a name as well. Touching, but I assure you, quite unnecessary. As I said, she is but a moon child. But my favorite bit...” The man broke into laughter. It took a minute for him to be able to speak again. “My favorite bit was when ye tried to convince herself, and the lass, that ye were a witch!”

  Heathcliff tensed beside her.

  The Coachman, moon or not, sobered quickly. He did not look pleased.

  “I lent you one of my own,” he told Heathcliff. “You wanted a family. You did not specify how long you wanted one. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

  “What year is it?” Bree asked to distract them both.

  “Here? Now? No year.” The man was back to grinning, and as infuriating as that was, it was better than him being angry with Heathcliff.

  “No year? I thought it was 1806,” she said.

  “No, my dear. I took ye both out of time, to give ye your wishes.” He turned to Heathcliff. “I must apologize for the little ruse earlier, sending a sprite to play the part of Charlie. I used a bit of foolishness to get ye away from yer home whilst I collected my child. Ye showed every indication that ye might go out the window after her, so I thought it best if ye weren’t present. I had a devil of a time keeping Miss Colby contained as it was. I could have never controlled the pair of ye.”

  The devil rubbed his hands together.

  “And now, we can get down to men’s business, sir.”

  “Business? You mean to rob the place? If ye be the moon, what need have ye of worldly things?”

  “Oh, ye’d be surprised. Besides, it is not yer worldly things I’ll be collecting this night. I truly have no wish to be laird of the manor and all that.”

  “Then what is it ye mean to take from me?”

  The old man looked at Bree. “All ye have. And at the moment, ye have this woman’s heart. I’ll take that.”

  His eyes sparkled as he reached forward, toward Bree’s chest, as if he was actually going to reach inside her ribs and take out her heart. There was something clearly wicked about his smile and she realized he really meant to do it.

  She remembered the feeling from only a little while before, like someone had reached in her chest, pulled out her heart, and held it in front of her while she bled out. But she couldn’t seem to move a finger to stop him.

  “No!” A blade appeared out of the top of the coachman’s white glove. Heathcliff had stabbed the hand with a long dagger from beneath. Who knows where he’d been hiding it? But no blood appeared.

  Heathcliff pulled the blade free. The glove closed over the hole made by the dagger and sealed itself shut.

  “Ye will not harm her.”

  “Ye mean to make another wish?”

  “I give an order.”

  They stood nose to nose.

  “And why should I take an order from a mere mortal?”

  “Because we loved yer daughter.”

  “She had no need of yer love.”

  “We gave it just the same.”

  “Ye got your wish.”

  “I take it back.”

  “Ye take it back?”

  “I do. If it means Miss Colby shall be unharmed, will be returned to her time, to her life, then I take it all back.”

  Bree stepped forward. “And what happens if he doesn’t take it back?”

  “Then I take ye. There are many moon children. None have a voice. Ye would prove amusing to them, I think.”

  “It is done, Brianna. I have taken back my wishes. All of them. Family. Help. I want none of it.”

  “Then give me yer name, son.” There was a strange edge to the coachman’s voice that made Bree shiver.

  “Never,” said Heathcliff.

  The old man laughed, then began to sing. “Take back the breath, take back the sigh. Give not your name, your boon deny. Yer grandmother taught ye well, yer lairdship.”

  “She did. I’ll not give my name to the devil.”

  The coachman laughed long and hard. “Ah, laddie. I be
not the devil.”

  “The devil’s brother, then.”

  Still laughing, the coachman gestured toward the carriage. Inside, a lantern burned brighter.

  “I never intended to take the lass’s heart. It was but a jest. The pair of ye are just so serious, it was impossible to forebear teasing.” The man sobered. “But the teasing is at an end. Time to go, lass. Now.”

  Heathcliff’s hand clamped down on her arm.

  “The deal is unstruck, Laird. The carriage will return her to where she began. This little interlude, out of time, never happened.” He waved his fingers. “Come.”

  She wasn’t about to worry Heathcliff by mentioning the fact that she might just be headed back to a partially submerged car in a partially frozen stream. He would worry enough as it was. Or would he?

  The man said it never happened. Would they both forget?

  But there was no time to wonder. She had to get out of there and not make it any harder on Heathcliff by kicking and screaming and making a scene. He’d lost the child he was hoping to keep and raise. He’d fallen in love with her, only to have her dragged away by... Dear Lord, she was going to have to commit herself into a real loony bin.

  None of this was real.

  Heathcliff looked stricken. She must have said it out loud!

  “None of this was real,” she said again, taking his hands in hers. “Just tell yourself it never happened.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “And you, Brianna Catherine? Will you tell yourself it never happened?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Heck no. I’m going to write it all down as soon as I can, so I don’t forget a second of it. I just don’t want you to hurt, that’s all.”

  “I’ll cherish every pang, my love.”

  She clamped her arms around his neck, this time trying to absorb him, pressing the feel of him into her memory like a flattened flower between pages. “I love you. I’m sorry I never got around to confessing it, but I love you.”

  “And I you, lass.”

  The coachman cleared his throat.

  Reluctantly, she let go and turned away. Just in case, she glanced at the old man to see if maybe his heart might have softened a little and he could just go away and forget about them.