In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance

by Nathan, Sandy

  “I certainly bet you are!” A servant brought the nobleman a plate with samples of the various dishes that had been served. “Look at this piece of beef,” rare, succulent roast, “I bet this is grass-fed.” He raised his voice. “I had to wait in the airport. Bored, nothing to do. Looked up Leroy Watches on the Internet. Amazing what you find.”

  Brilliant smile, flashing teeth, his wispy blond hair curling a little. Such a handsome man. He leaned forward a little, drawing in everyone in the room. “Evil will never look the way you think it should,” Grandfather had said.

  “Did you know that our friend Leroy is not only a cattle rancher, he caters to our friends of the Jewish persuasion.”

  If he had said, “Roasts babies for consumption in street cafes,” the group’s reaction could not have been greater. Leroy remembered what Doug had told him about prejudice. It was there; he hadn’t run into it yet. But now it was directed, not against him, where it would have been gauche, but against his dear friends. Leroy jumped at the bait.

  “Well, I expect the rabbis would like you to refer to them as rabbis and their people as Jewish people, or Jews, but you’re right. I raise the best beef in the country and I see that it’s made Kosher in the strictest ways. I’m not a rabbi, so I don’t do the Shechita. But I’m there, making sure everything is done right. My customers know me. I know the value of religious ceremonies and how much doing them right matters.”

  Dashiell pursed his lips and sat back, making a joke. “Well, I stand corrected. There’s such a problem these days, isn’t there, with counterfeit Kosher foods? Beef that isn’t slaughtered properly. Food being sold that isn’t really Kosher. All the law suits being brought. Those poor people”—the word sounded like “idiots” in Dashiell’s mouth—“whose souls depend upon the purity of their food not knowing if they’ve eaten truly Kosher foods.” He was mocking Jewish people who ate Kosher, Leroy’s friends and customers. Maybe mocking people who thought they had souls. But so smooth …

  Leroy felt himself expand, felt the room grow smaller. “If you’re saying, and I know you’re not, because you’re too much of a gentleman, that my beef isn’t truly Kosher and I’ve been defrauding my customers, you’d be in a dueling situation in the old days. Back when my relatives used to jump ship from the Wild West shows. But I know that isn’t what you’re about.”

  He and Dashiell knew that what the latter wanted more than anything was for Leroy to lose his temper and pulverize the nobleman. He almost got his wish. Leroy was as angry as he had been in high school when Tommy Blunt Knife and his friends teased him about being the only virgin in eleventh grade. Tommy almost got to see what restrained sexual energy could do, martial-arts-abilities-wise. So did Dashiell. But Leroy pulled himself in, as he had then.

  “What you’re wondering is if I can shoot a bow and arrow better than you. That’s it, isn’t it?” Leroy challenged the Duke.

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “You spendin’ the night here? Good. We’ll have a competition, first thing.”

  “I say, fellows, that sounds like a capital idea. First thing, about ten, after breakfast,” Lord Ballentyne said, eyes glittering.

  “I was thinking more about six, Your Lordship. I’m going to Italy tomorrow.”

  “Six? Well you won’t have much of a gallery cheering you on. But some of us may make it. Capital. Right on. Competition!”

  Lord Ballentyne rose at the head of the table. “We have a special treat tonight. Normally, we retire to brandy and cigars while the ladies …” Ballentyne paused, looking puzzled, “do whatever they do.

  “Tonight, we’ve arranged ‘a little night music.’ My daughter’s favorite quartet is in the ballroom. We can’t quite fill the ballroom with the present company, but I’d bet we can stir up a nice rhumba!”

  Leroy might have enjoyed a spot of ballroom dancing after that massive pig-out of a dinner. Why these people didn’t weigh four hundred pounds, he didn’t know. But Dashiell attached himself to Lady Arabella like he was a barnacle. To her credit, her ladyship did not like it.

  As she whirled by in Dashiell’s strong, manly arms, her soul emitted little silent screams for help. All the while, she smiled like she was having a wonderful time.

  “Excuse me, Your Grace, I’d love to dance with Lady Arabella, with your permission.”

  He cut in; the first and only time he’d exercised the privilege. She pulled away from Dashiell with a little force, like breaking some kind of membrane that had caught her. Arabella clutched his shoulder and pulled closer to him than might have been warranted, given the length of their acquaintance and her position. She was shaking.

  “Oh, thank you,” she whispered. “He wants to marry me. He said my father had consented. Oh, dear. What am I to do?”

  He pulled her straight in front of him and held her a foot or so away from his body, staring at her. He spun her around a few times until they got to a couple of chairs and then indicated that she should sit.

  “Don’t you know how to say no, girl?” Her sweetness was a curse and a blessing. Arabella looked at him with those clear, innocent eyes, like Bambi’s mother probably had before the fire burned her up. “Listen to me: tell him NO. Tell him no so hard it rattles his socks. And tell your father the same way. If that asshole climbs on you or tries to touch you, kick him in the balls as hard as you can.”

  Her shoulders rose and her head went forward. “Oh,” she giggled. “Oh, my.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, girl. He is not the sort who will stop unless you hurt him and hurt him good. I’ll talk to your father if you want, but you have to handle His Grace.”

  “You’d help me?” Wide eyes. Who wouldn’t help her? What was wrong with these people?

  “Yeah, I’ll help you, but you gotta learn to do it yourself. I’m not always going to be here. Do you know that the women at my reservation carry knives a foot long? Start carrying them when they become women. A man messes with them is gonna loose his cojones.”

  Her eyes widened even more. “They castrate men for making advances?”

  “That an’ more. You better take a lesson, Your Ladyship …”

  “Call me Arabella.”

  “Arabella.” Sounded so nice in his mouth. “Arabella. Whatever you do, do not marry that man. He’s a bad man.”

  “I know that, Mr. Watches.”

  “Leroy.”

  “Leroy.” She paused, as if thunderstruck. Leroy. “He’s a bad man, but no one sees that. All they see is how he looks and his money and his title and his vineyards. But you saw that he’s bad. And you saw that my Grandmamma really is nice …”

  “It’s what I do, Arabella. I’m a healer. Now, would you like to dance?”

  When he got on the dance floor with her that time, she wasn’t scared. She held onto him, then pulled a little away, and gazed into his eyes. Her pretty face kept working and she looked at him a way he’d seen before. But he’d always walked away and not let the girl have her feelings about him. She looked at him as though he was the most beautiful man in the world. He didn’t walk away.

  He held her the way he’d just learned that week, smiling down on her. Something happened: the back of his tuxedo split open and the biggest rocket ship that NASA ever launched went up his back and out the top of his head. His eyes bugged out. So did hers. Pleasure flashed through him. He pulled her close, his belly a little lower than her chest. She wasn’t very tall.

  “What is it, Leroy?” Her voice was filled with alarm.

  “I don’t know, Arabella. It feels good, though.” Did he have two soul mates? When he held Cass, it had been like NASA let loose with every rocket or even firecracker that they ever had. This wasn’t as much, but this was big. She felt like heaven in his arms. She wasn’t a skinny girl like the magazines showed. She was rounded and maybe a little chubby. It went with her softness and innocence. Arabella was a virgin, he knew that for sure. As virgin as he was. She’d saved herself for the right man.

  Was he that man?
How could that be?

  “Oh, no,” Arabella cried. Leroy looked across the ballroom. Dashiell was dancing with the pretty blond Lady Clarissa, Arabella’s young cousin, holding her far too close for a teenaged girl. “He can’t have her.” Arabella cried, pulling away and darting across the floor. Leroy followed.

  “Clary, I just got the best idea,” she yanked her cousin from Dashiell’s embrace. “Leroy said he’d be your escort when you make your debut in November. Won’t that be wonderful?”

  “Yes!” Clarissa jumped and clapped her hands as though she’d won the lottery. “Oh, thank you. My friends are going to go wild!”

  Leroy was surprised that an African American/Native American purveyor of Kosher beef would be such a prize.

  “But I thought you were going with me, Clary darling,” Dashiell’s words seem to ooze from his mouth. “I asked first.” He looked directly into Leroy’s eyes, a challenge.

  “Well, I tell you what, Your Grace. If Lady Clarissa agrees, how about you and I have a little game of bow and arrow tomorrow morning? The winner escorts Her Ladyship.” Leroy had neglected to say that his martial skills were far below his healing skills, but they were above any of the spirit warriors but Wesley Silverhorse. That was saying something.

  “Of course, Mr. Watches. Though competing for a young lady’s hand is rather déclassé … I’d be delighted to oblige if Lady Clarissa wants it.”

  Clarissa stood with her hands together with an expression of wild glee. Being used as a pawn was clearly the highlight of her life.

  “Are you sure?” Arabella’s knit brows said her idea had gone badly awry.

  “I’m very sure,” Leroy said. “But I’d better get my beauty sleep. After I beat His Grace, I’m off to Italy for Will.”

  He walked up the stairs to the main hall, leaving the whisper of Will Duane’s name behind him. He hadn’t mentioned Will all evening, wanting to impress people on his own. Leroy didn’t want to play on Will’s influence. But why the hell not? he thought. Let them wonder who he was and why he was there.

  13

  One Messed Up White Man

  They sat in the lounge area outside Will’s steam room, having talked inside the steam room as long as they could without being poached. The two men wore towels wrapped around their middles. All of Carl’s flamboyant tattoos showed on his dark skin.

  Will scrunched up his nose and said, “That hurts, doesn’t it? Getting tattoos?”

  “Yeah.” Carl scratched his jaw with his leonine hand.

  “Why did you do it, Carl?”

  “To keep me from doing what I’d done all my life. Grandfather told me to. He drew them on me, all of them. They’re sacred.”

  “Sacred tattoos?”

  “Yeah. Hard for a white boy to understand, eh?”

  “Yes. You can’t get them off.”

  “Oh, you can, all but these green-colored ones, but it costs a ton and hurts worse.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “So I looked tougher than anyone in the pen and didn’t get gang raped every other day. An’ have to kill however did it afterward.” He nodded. “An’ I did ‘em for my sins. These are for my sins.” He indicated his whole body. “I didn’t do what they convicted me for, but I did plenty other stuff. I told Grandfather about it, and he told me to get the tats. Hurt plenty, I’ll tell you. I got rid of lots of sins with these babies.” He turned to Will so quickly that the older man pulled back.

  “When are you going to get rid of your sins, Will?”

  “What?”

  “You told me that you were jealous of Leroy and your daughter. That you would never let him marry her because some doctor said she was brain-damaged. You never bothered to ask him what happened on the trip, if she died. If she was really brain-damaged or maybe he did something to protect her. You didn’t check it out at all, just flipped out.”

  Will puffed up to explode.

  “Don’t pull that shit with me. You ain’t God. Don’t even come close. I’ve been with God, you ain’t it. You are one messed up white man and that’s all.”

  Will sat huffing. He couldn’t pull anything with Carl. No Will Duane screamers, no power plays. No subtle, “I’m better than you.” Carl wasn’t afraid of him, knew what Will really needed, saw that he got it, and cared for him. Carl might have been a hula dancer from the North Pole; he was out of Will’s reality. He loved Carl Redstone, and through Carl, he had remembered why he invited him and the others to live with him.

  That morning he’d walked out looking so rough, Carl had taken him to the private eating area of his quarters, sat him down, fed him, and then did something that had him blubbering his brains out for hours. He told him everything. When he was empty, Carl cleaned him up, put on a suit and went with him to the Headquarters, where he sat next to Will all day. He’d kept it up since, home or at the office.

  Carl scared the crap out of Frank Sauvage and everyone associated with him. Sauvage had asked Will to remove Carl from the premises. Since Carl was sitting in his office, he had to make his speech in front of Carl. Will watched Frank Sauvage’s hands shake as he tried to make a case that Carl caused disruption in the offices.

  “I c’n stop wearin’ my feathers, if y’ want,” Carl’s deep baritone rattled Sauvage further.

  “That’s not …”

  “He stays. Personal security, Frank. It’s in my contract. Do you have a reason for being in my office?”

  They’d just had another soul-baring session in the steam room, when Carl hit him with, “When are you going to clean up your sins?”

  Will had told him some questionable things he’d done in business that had fortunately made everyone involved, especially the stockholders, more money than anyone could conceive. So those weren’t bad things. But they could have gone the other way. And were going that way now.

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t tell what I said.”

  “I didn’t, did I? Just you and me are here. Hannah’s got the security on this house so tight I can’t whisper to Roxy in bed.

  “When are you going to clean up your sins?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “With Leroy? When are you going to talk to him about what happened with Cass and how he’ll never marry her?”

  Will blinked, and kept blinking.

  “You’re not going to be right until you clean that up. Do you know what he did for you? Why Enzo Donatore isn’t all over that hospital now?”

  Will scowled.

  “Leroy and Cass’s scrambled brain. Donatore can cut through Hannah’s security like melted butter, and see you sitting on the can, if he wants. But not with me next to you.”

  Will’s head fell forward as he gaped. “And not with us here, on your place. He can’t see Leroy at all, only where he’s been. An’ he could never see Grandfather, or the Mogollon Bowl. What happened there was the result of human evil, which is what you’re harboring for Leroy.”

  Carl was silent a minute, giving Will time to think.

  “OK. I’ll call him tomorrow.” He looked at the multitude of clocks on the wall, set for different parts of the globe. “It’s one a.m. in London.”

  “Good. Then I’ll go to work with you tomorrow.”

  “You’d stop going with me?”

  “Yes.” Carl indicated the tattoos covering most of his body. “I didn’t do this to repent so I could guard a sinner.” Will thought about that some more. Carl continued, “Grandfather said there was something you told him after your sweat at the Meeting, something you wanted more than anything in the world.”

  “He talked about that? But he didn’t tell you?” Will was appalled. “He wouldn’t tell you?”

  “Of course not. That’s why I asked. What do you want more than anything in the world?”

  Will shut down tight. Mouth clamped, shoulders dropped, eyebrows dropped and furrowed. The words leaked out, “I want to know my former wife is safe and well. I want her to be happy. I’d like to talk to her, and apol
ogize for what I did.”

  “So find her.” Will remained shut, clam-like. “You could die tonight. Donatore is having wet dreams over getting you. You may not get another chance at what you want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Leroy’s over there. He might be able to look around, inadvertent-like. He might be able to find her.”

  “Leroy?”

  “Of course, Leroy. He saved Cass. He can probably find Mrs. Duane.”

  Will couldn’t move. Of course he could, better than anyone. And Donatore couldn’t see him. Leroy was there, in Europe, now.

  Hannah had traced the international toll-free number he had, his only link to his ex-wife, to a place that would never yield the secret of Kathryn’s whereabouts to him. He could never send operatives there. He would always be suspected in that place. But the heir to a Native American spiritual dynasty would be welcomed.

  The number originated in the Vatican.

  “I’ll call Leroy tomorrow and confess my sins.”

  14

  Bows and Arrows

  He got to the archery range at 5:30 in the morning, before Dashiell Pondichury, the ninth Duke of Lancature. Arising so early wasn’t hard; he’d barely slept. Arabella’s pale blue eyes and sweet smile swam before him. The way her soft arms had felt, even through the wool of his tuxedo, never left. Thrills of pleasure swam up and down his spine. Love washed over him like the waves of the ocean he’d only seen from the airplane. Arabella. Who was she? What was happening?

  He was somewhere, in total blackness, asleep, when she came to him. Leroy sat up, covered with sweat, and stared into space. Cass’s dark blue eyes riveted him. She was screaming in terror. “Don’t leave me! Don’t forget me! Please, Leroy, don’t forget me! I love you.”

  Cass felt what he felt, and knew what he knew. At the deep soul level where they were joined, no lies existed, no hiding. Nothing but truth.

  He knew her truth. Her pain seared him. She loved him. She lived because of him and for him. Cass was his soul mate, not Arabella. What had happened earlier that night had terrified her. And she was getting better; she had much more energy than when he first saw her.