Her mother had followed, and when her father didn’t come out, she’d gone in after him. Vaughn had stood there, the snowflakes falling all around her, and waited alone and helpless as her home burned to the ground. Both of her parents had perished in the fire, along with her aunt.
Vaughn had been taken to the orphanage by a neighbor who had seen the smoke and picked her up.
“You’ve seen snow?” Jonathan asked.
“Of course,” she said, putting a smile back on her face. The nuns at the orphanage had taught her that the snow had nothing to do with her parents’ death. And that she wasn’t to blame either. She’d been a child, and she couldn’t save them.
Vaughn had always thought that if they hadn’t taken her sleigh riding, they would still be alive. They would all have been home and could have somehow prevented the fire.
The nuns disagreed. They said it was God’s will, and she had nothing to do with it.
Vaughn still sat on the fence about that, but she no longer voiced that unpopular opinion out loud.
Living in an orphanage had taught her that believing in fate was more important than trying to sort out things that made no sense.
The telephone rang, jarring Vaughn out of her reverie.
From his one-sided conversation with the telephone, two words stood out for her: Tomorrow and Edward.
He put the handle on the box and turned to face her. “Looks like we’re entertaining tomorrow night.”
Entertaining. We? “Who are we entertaining?”
“My friend Edward from the military.”
“Oh dear,” she said, unable to hide the panic that enveloped her.
“What is it?” He asked.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
Chapter 12
“What do you mean you shouldn’t be here?” Jonathan asked. Vaughn’s words touched on the very issue at hand since she’d appeared in his window.
“I’m unchaperoned.”
“Edward won’t care. He’s merely driving through on his way home for holiday leave. He has a wife and child that he’s much more interested in seeing than us. In fact, he probably won’t even stay long.”
“Nonetheless, it isn’t proper.”
“Fine. I’ll tell him we’re married.” Jonathan wasn’t sure where those words came from, much less why he said them out loud.
He couldn’t tell his best friend and copilot that he was married. The next time they were flying together, he’d be forced to perpetuate a lie.
“Or that we’re engaged.”
“You mean betrothed?”
“Yes. To be married. I probably shouldn’t tell him we’re married.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very good idea,” she said.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Tell him I’m your cousin visiting for the holidays.”
A smile spread across his face. “You’re much better at this than I am,” he said.
She smiled back. “I was raised by nuns.”
He burst into a deep, genuine laughter. “You’re funny.”
“Maybe, but I’m serious.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll introduce you as my cousin.”
“There’s something else.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You have your two dresses.”
“They don’t quite fit properly.”
He ran his eyes along her thin frame. With the exception of the sweatpants, the dress seemed to fit her quite well.
“Trust me,” Jonathan said. “Edward won’t care what you’re wearing.”
Even as Jonathan said the words, he wondered if he was speaking more for himself than Edward.
Chapter 13
“Is there any clothing here that I could borrow? Besides yours.” Vaughn asked. Jonathan’s friend was coming over tomorrow, and she needed something suitable to wear. Though Jonathan assured her that her dress and soft trousers were the latest fashion, though not necessarily worn together, she felt like she was wearing her nightclothes. She couldn’t imagine that ladies wore such dresses out in public, especially not with their legs exposed beneath the short skirt. Only children were allowed to dress in such a manner.
“Pretty much everything went to charity,” he said. “Except for a few really old things that might be stored in the attic.”
Her hope soared. “The attic? Can we look?”
“Sure,” he said, “though I doubt there’s anything up there worth much.”
Vaughn’s excitement was undeterred as they went up to the second floor, down the hallway, and through a door that led to the attic. The orphanage attic had held treasure troves of invaluable objects. She’d had to leave most of it behind, of course, but her wedding dress had been one found in a trunk. She regretted that it had been lost.
Mother Sarah had told her that it was well over a hundred years old.
She followed Jonathan up the narrow stairs, practically humming with excitement.
When they got into the attic, she twirled around. So many trunks! She could spend hours here.
Jonathan laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone so excited about an attic.”
“This holds all the things that were important to people who came before us. It’s so very exciting.”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me what you want to look at, and I’ll move it around for you.”
“Everything.”
He chuckled. “All right. Where do you want to start?”
She walked around the attic, looking at all the trunks and moving around the abandoned furniture. It was a mystery how they got all these things up those narrow stairs.
When she asked him about it, he shrugged and shook his head.
She pointed to the oldest-looking trunk tucked behind a writing desk. Opening it up for her, he stepped back while she knelt in front of it.
She was quickly disappointed, however, because it only held quilts. Nonetheless, she took each one out and examined it. Then she carefully folded them back up and returned them to the trunk.
The next trunk she chose was full of men’s clothing, so she quickly lost interest in that one.
The third trunk she had Jonathan pull forward held more treasures than she was prepared for. This one was packed full of Christmas decorations: delicate glass-blown balls and a fragile faded angel. There were also some little wooden toys, including a boat and a wagon.
“We should put these on a Christmas tree,” Vaughn said.
“We could,” Jonathan said, “but we don’t have a tree.”
Vaughn made a face and held a hand toward the window.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. “I’ll take these downstairs, and we’ll go out and cut down a tree.”
She sat back and smiled at him. “Thank you.”
Chapter 14
Jonathan picked up the trunk and carried it downstairs.
A Christmas tree.
With little more than a word and a glance, she had him ready to tramp through the woods to cut down a tree.
Jonathan hadn’t celebrated Christmas since his mother had died. After that, he’d been away and there hadn’t even been any reason to go home for Christmas. He’d started volunteering to stay on base so others could go home to families.
He barely knew this girl, but she had him thinking of making a home and celebrating holidays.
He set down the box and went back to the attic. She’d opened another trunk and had stood there holding what must have been a red ball gown up to her. His mouth fell open as their eyes met. Right there in this moment, this girl looked like she was in her element. Her face was glowing with excitement, and the dress flowed around her.
“Can I wear it?” She asked.
He swallowed thickly and searched for his tongue. “Of course,” he said. In that moment, he would have granted her anything.
She carefully folded the dress and set it back in the trunk. “Can you take this one down, too?” She asked.
He wasn’t sure why she needed the whole trunk, but he lugged it down to the guest room before running back up to her.
As he suspected, she was elbow-deep in another trunk. He went to kneel next to her, curious now.
He felt like the ghost of his ancestors that his mother used to tell him about. This was the first time he’d ever known anyone to actually look in any of these trunks. In his experience, the attic was a place to put things people no longer wanted around.
This trunk was different from the others. Older perhaps, and packed with a variety of things. It looked more like a family’s keepsakes than things no longer wanted.
She lifted a piece of paper with a faint gasp.
“What is it?” He asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
He shifted to look over her shoulder. It was a child’s drawing of a little dog with spots.
She put it aside and lifted the next paper, this time sitting back on her heels, her gaze locked on the drawing.
“What?” He asked.
She didn’t move. She seemed frozen.
He reached out and gently took the paper from her hands. He studied the paper, then looked back at her stunned face. He looked back at the drawing.
“This is you,” he whispered.
She nodded.
How could that be? How could a drawing of this girl, whom he’d never seen before yesterday, be in a trunk in his attic?
“But how?”
“I drew it.”
“You drew a picture of yourself?”
“I know it seems peculiar, but Beau asked me to do it,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.
“It’s really good,” Jonathan said.
“I’m quite accomplished.” Her voice broke with the words.
“That would be an understatement,” Jonathan said. He would have to think about the implications of this later. “What else is in there?” he asked, handing the drawing back to her.
She shook her head, her eyes locked on the drawing.
He slid the trunk toward him, curious now about what else could be inside.
There were some embroidered handkerchiefs and a small music box.
He took the music box and opened it. A little trill of sad music echoed through the attic.
There was one item inside. It was a little pin – a cameo.
He picked it up and stared at it. “Look,” he said, holding it out to Vaughn.
She lifted her gaze and studied the little pin. She was still as a statue. He wasn’t sure if she was breathing.
“It looks a little like you,” he said for lack of anything else to say.
When she lifted her eyes to his, they were bright with tears on the verge of spilling from her eyes. “I think it is,” she whispered.
She held out her hand, trembling now, and he placed the cameo in it.
She ran a fingertip over the image. “How?” She asked, looking back up at him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She closed her hand over the cameo. “I’d like to go to my room now,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, standing up. He held his hand out to her, and, after she put her hand in his, he pulled her to her feet.
He wanted to pull her to him. To comfort her. But she kept her gaze on the floor.
He was afraid that if he weren’t careful, she would break. She seemed like the delicate Christmas balls he’d carried downstairs in the trunk. So fragile she would shatter if not properly handled.
Chapter 15
Vaughn sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the likeness of her face on the cameo.
It was disconcerting enough that she’d found a drawing done by her own hand of her own face. She’d sat at the family’s dining room table and sketched a likeness of Beau. He’d then asked her to draw Abigail.
“Now you,” he had said.
“Now me what?”
“Now you have to sketch one of you.”
She’d laughed. “I can’t sketch myself.”
“Of course you can,” he’d argued and jumped up. A few minutes later, he returned with a hand mirror. “I’ll hold it,” he said. “So you can see what you look like.”
She’d laughed again. But the little boy had her heart. If he wanted her to sketch a picture of herself, she would do it.
After she finished, Beau had gathered up all three and taken them to Nathaniel in his study.
She’d heard them talking, but she didn’t know what they said. She did know that Nathaniel had sent Beau off to bed, and he had kept the sketches. It was the last she had seen of them.
That had been one week ago.
There was only one explanation. One that her brain wasn’t ready to accept.
When her traveling party had been set upon by Indians, she’d been sent from 1714 to 1820.
Had she traveled through time again, this time while she had been sleeping?
Perhaps the calendar hanging downstairs was correct. Perhaps it was indeed 1969.
Someone had saved her drawings – sketches she’d done in 1820 and they had been kept here all these years.
It was plausible, she admitted.
What wasn’t plausible, however, was why someone had had her likeness crafted into a cameo.
She studied the cameo again. Perhaps it wasn’t her. Maybe it just looked like her. Cameos all looked sort of alike anyway with their ivory silhouettes.
Despite her denials, she knew it was her face. In the picture she had sketched, she’d sketched herself holding a single rose. And unlike most cameos, her face was looking forward. It was an eerily accurate facsimile of the sketch she had done only days ago.
She’d only been with the Becquerel family for two months. She doubted she’d made such an impression on them that they had requisitioned a cameo in her likeness.
She sighed. It was a mystery it seemed that she would never solve. For whatever unknown reason, fate had set her down here.
Little Beau and Abigail were in the past.
I must let them go and move forward.
Chapter 16
Jonathan opened the door to the truck and, picking Vaughn up by the waist, set her in the passenger side of the truck. She gasped, but settled herself in the seat, studying the dashboard. She was wearing the sweatpants and sweatshirt he’d gotten for her. Besides that, she was wrapped up in his wool coat.
He went around and got in the driver’s seat.
A small, knowing smile played about her lips. “You forgot the horses,” she said.
He grinned. “We don’t need horses.”
She frowned. “You’re daft.”
He started the motor and she gasped, grabbing the seat.
“It’s alright,” he assured her.
“What magic is this?” She asked.
“There’s no magic,” he said. “Just an old truck.” The truck was one he’d picked up at a buddy’s used car lot for a song and a dance. It was an old truck he could leave if… when… he was sent back to Vietnam. Jonathan missed his Ford T-bird.
He’d sold the T-bird when he went into the Air Force, knowing that his life would revolve around airplanes for the next few years. Besides, he’d wanted to get all his affairs taken care of… in case he didn’t return from war. Two of his close buddies hadn’t made it home.
One of his friends had left behind a wife and child. Jonathan had promised himself he wouldn’t leave anyone behind. It had been easy to do with his parents gone. Jonathan had been an only child, so there was no one. He’d been able to focus on his military career. He been given an Air Medal among a few other medals which were hidden away in a shoebox in his bureau.
Without someone to share them with, they meant nothing.
He glanced over at Vaughn, whose eyes were glued to the road in front of them, her gaze intent. Perhaps someday he could show his medals to her.
The thought sent off a trigger of alarm. Jonathan had no family. No ties. His family was the Air Force.
Emotional ties would be distracting. His commander’s words from basic training came clearly back to him. The Air Force is now your wife, your mistress, and your girlfriend. Don’t even think about another woman. The Air Force is a jealous woman, and she requires all your attention from here on out.
Jonathan knew better, just as he’d known better at the time, but the words were etched into his brain.
He’d lived by them for eight long years now.
“What makes it go?” Vaughn asked.
He looked over at her, her eyes bright with fascination as he steered the truck out onto the dirt road.
His commitment to the Air Force forgotten, he smiled. She was a blank slate, and he wanted to show her everything. “It has a motor,” he explained. “The simplest explanation is that I control the speed with my feet and steer it with this wheel.”
She sat forward, watching with obvious fascination. “Does everyone travel like this?” She asked.
He thought about the airplanes that he flew, buses, and trains, but went with the simplest answer. “Yes,” he said.
“No more horses?”
“A few people have them, but they ride them for fun.”
No more horses. So the girl had expected to travel by horse. He’d heard of communities that still used horses and buggies. What were they? Mennonites? Or Amish? It all suddenly made sense to him. She wasn’t familiar with the telephone or the car, or any other of the obvious trappings of modern life.
There were many possible explanations for how she came to be here. Maybe she’d been kidnapped and dropped off here. Or maybe she’d lost her memory and somehow ended up here.
Whatever it was, he considered it divine intervention that she’d landed in his bedroom and not somewhere that would put her in danger.
Jonathan would protect her until she figured out where she belonged.
Once Upon a Christmas Page 4