In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance

by Nathan, Sandy

  “Grandfather, you’re here!”

  “Of course I’m here. I love you. And your life is so exciting. I’ve never had a spirit warrior have to choose between an English noblewoman and the daughter of the richest man in the world.” Grandfather would have clapped his back, if he weren’t a specter. “Good job, my grandson.”

  Leroy slumped, miserable. “Yeah. Great.”

  “Not only did you find two of your soul mates, you …”

  “Does everyone have more than one?”

  The old ghost shrugged. “I don’t know, but the Great One is big-heartedness, Leroy. Not stingy at all. Everyone probably has many soul mates. That’s efficient too. The Great One wants soul mates to marry and have children so the world is a better place. What if you had just one? Say one soul mate was in Asia and the other was in South America. How would they ever meet?”

  “Then why do people get so excited when they meet their soul mate?”

  “They always look in the wrong places. Bars and places like that. They should go to church. Where did you find Cass?”

  “She was in a whorehouse. And Arabella was in a giant mansion where they wouldn’t let me in except because I was Will Duane’s … boy.

  “Grandfather! What should I do?”

  “Arabella is really something, Leroy. Her room is very easy to find. You go back to the main landing, turn left and down the other big hall. Her room is the third on the right. Facing the front of the house.”

  “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  “I am. She looks so soft, but she outwitted the demon. Smart. And strong. Doesn’t she look pretty in blue?”

  “What are you doing?” Grandfather had disappeared. Shit. His grandpa had gone, leaving his tip of the day: the location of Arabella’s room.

  He wanted to hug and kiss her until her hands lost that terrible chill he’d felt and her face returned to its normal sweet self.

  But he was afraid of what would happen if he walked into her room. What if he took her in his arms, and laid next to her? What if he saw that fine, pale skin, and her cloud blue eyes up close? If she lifted her lips to him, what would he do? She was his soul mate, as much as Cass, but differently.

  Cass, even if she hadn’t been ruined, would never be as sweet and willing as Arabella. Cass would always be a handful like that racehorse he’d ridden on the polo field. Fast, and quick, and exciting.

  Arabella would make him happy.

  “Arabella?” he knocked at her door. The lady’s maid opened it.

  “Her Ladyship is sleeping, sir.”

  “I’ll just peek in. I wanted to see that she is all right.”

  “Yes, sir.” The maid left.

  Arabella’s face made the palest ivory and the most lustrous pearls look coarse. She lay on her back, one hand drawn up by her cheek. Quilts of finest silk, sheets of embroidered cotton covered her to her chin. Her eyelashes were a soft brown next to the glow of her skin. He brushed the fine, pale hair from her forehead with his fingertips. He leaned over and brushed her cheek with his lips. He leaned over and fell in love.

  When he lifted his head, her eyes were open. “Leroy.” She couldn’t say more. Her arms pulled him down. She buried her face in his neck, shuddering. “I was so afraid, Leroy. Dash was going to marry me, and they were all going to …”

  “But they didn’t, and they never will. I’m here.”

  “Leroy, Papa … And Mama … Allie …”

  “I’ve helped them, ‘Bella, as much as I can.”

  “Please, don’t leave. I think I’d die if you left.” A hand shot out and drew him closer. He could feel her soft breath on his face and neck. She didn’t smell like anything, except sweetness. His lips drifted downward. He drifted downward, until he was lying next to her on the bed. She was kind and sweet, with a soft chubbiness that wasn’t quite fashionable, but he loved.

  Fire ran through him, through her, all over them. Soul mates. She grabbed him, plastering her body against him. He could feel her breasts, soft hips, the roundness of her. She seemed to be suspended in the air. She pulled his face to her and kissed him, holding the back of his head.

  He responded like a bass to an expertly fished Zara Spook lure. Leroy’s mouth grabbed hers and held on. She kept touching and petting, with both hands. Leroy was on a losing course.

  She moaned, moving without guile. “Oh, Leroy, I want something …” She didn’t know any more than he did what she wanted.

  “Me too, ‘Bella.” His spirit warrior’s virginity was going to be lost in the bed of a beautiful English noblewoman and he didn’t care.

  And why should he? He felt something real and true for her, the soul energy that would bond them for a lifetime. She was lovely and had a title. She still had her money. He didn’t care about that, but he had some ideas about what they could do. They could make this place a better hotel that Le Meurice. Leroy stopped fighting her and began kissing and touching in earnest.

  Cass’s eyes burst into his mind, wild, and frantic. She needed him desperately. Leroy couldn’t stop. He fought with himself. Fumbling and mumbling, he dragged himself from Arabella’s arms. “I’m so sorry, ‘Bella. I can’t.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to force myself on you. I’ve never behaved like this, but …” She frowned, studying him and realizing she wasn’t the problem. “There’s someone else?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?” Pale fire lit her eyes.

  “Cass Duane.”

  Her eyes widened in horror. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Arabella pulled away. “Oh, Leroy, you can’t be interested in her. She’s awful. Is that why Will’s giving you this trip? So you’ll marry her?”

  “There’s not enough money in the world to force me to marry someone I don’t love. We’re soul mates.” He wanted to shut up, but couldn’t. “Just like you ‘n’ me are soul mates. I’ve got to leave.” He spun and left the room.

  When he slept, he dreamt of a soft woman in blue who loved him in her dreamy way, giving him everything he wanted, mostly herself. He could see them on the mansion’s rear patio, laughing as Fulton and a gang of maids waited on them and their kids. Softness surrounded him. That skin. Those eyes. Her sweetness. A good, gentle life.

  Cass burst through those dreams, a Molotov cocktail tossed into a polite drawing room. “Help me!” she screamed in his mind, real screams from the girl who didn’t get away. “Don’t leave me, Leroy. Don’t forget me! I love you.” He sat up in bed sweating, feeling his heart pound. He got up and got a drink of water, wiped himself down with a damp cloth. He paced around his room a bit, stoked the fire.

  He needed to marry Arabella in the next twenty-four hours or go back to California and make Will tell him where Cass was. Shit, he could take some of the warriors and find her himself.

  A faint knock that might have been his imagination sounded at his door. He didn’t answer. It occurred again. Maybe there was a problem somewhere. He put on his robe and went to the door.

  “Yes?”

  Arabella pulled him into the hallway. She threw herself at him, grabbing and kissing. She didn’t ask, and she didn’t stop. “Leroy,” she gasped.

  He lunged, spinning and shoving her back against the wall outside his door. He lifted her up so that her legs could reach around him. Neither of them knew what they were doing, and yet they knew, because every creature knows what they were about.

  He let her kiss him again and again. He let her do more than that. He liked her soft flesh and warmth, her probing tongue. He’d like everything she offered. She certainly wanted to give him more. He felt her body and let her touch him until he was groaning. Sweat covered him.

  He wanted to rear up on her like one of his stud horses on a mare. He wanted to do it again and again, as he heard the little noises she was making. She moaned for him. He wanted to roll with her all night …

  He opened her robe and searched under her gown. She was wearing panties, just a wisp be
tween her legs. His fingers slipped along their elastic, seeking an edge.

  Everything, all the Ancestors, Kachinas, Supernaturals, the nailed Jesus and the plain cross reared up all around him. Inside him. They said: NO! He stiffened and let her feet gently drop to the floor.

  “I can’t, Your Ladyship, not until I’ve sorted it out with Cass.”

  “How can you do that? How can you leave me like this?” Her hair was messed and her features swollen. Her lips parted. “Please. Help me.”

  He did something he’d not done before. Placing his hand in front of her belly, he let some energy go through it. Pulsing. Warming. Pleasuring. She convulsed and fell against him, limp.

  “Oh, Leroy. What did you do? Oh, my God.” She wasn’t frantic anymore. She shuddered and wilted, clutching him. “I love you, Leroy.”

  He did it again, stretching it out. She shuddered harder and longer. He watched her, fascinated. He wanted to see her full out, no stops. He wanted to see her spread for him, all night, not just twice.

  NO! said all the sacred ones around him.

  “I like you like that, Arabella. I want to make you feel good and know how much I like you.” He stopped. “No. I love you. I do. But I’m not free.”

  He heard his cell phone ringing in his room. Only one person would be calling. He went in and pulled the antenna out of the boxy brick.

  “Will?”

  “She’s in bad trouble. Leroy. She may be dead. It’s my fault. I was wrong about everything; I need you. Please …” The old man could barely talk. He sobbed and hiccoughed. “Please. I’m sorry.”

  “You got me.”

  “You’ve got to get to New York, fast. Doug and Hannah are already on the way. Havertin … They’re killing Cass. Can a plane pick you up?’

  “A helicopter could land in the front lawn, if you fixed the lawn afterward. There’s a big storm here. Fifteen minutes? I’ll be ready.”

  Arabella was standing in the doorway. She straightened her robe. “What’s happening?”

  “Darlin’, I have to leave.” She looked stricken. A row of velvet pulls hung on the wall by his bed. “Which one of these do I pull to get Tom?”

  “The servant’s rooms are here.” She pulled the correct velvet rope.

  “You’d better go. You shouldn’t be in my room.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Then stand out in the hallway so no one thinks you and I … I have to change my clothes.” He shut the door. A few minutes passed.

  “Sir. What’s happening?” Tom dashed up and Leroy opened the door.

  Arabella gasped when he came out into the hall. Leroy wore a black shirt and black jeans. Earrings studded his ears and a black scarf was tied tightly around his head. Brilliant marks flared on his skin. They looked like glowing brands. The feathers on the back of his neck glowed as though they were on fire.

  “Tom. I need you to pack my stuff. You and Rich drive the car back to London. Pack up my clothes and send them here,” he handed over a piece of the Manor stationery that was stocked in each room. He had debated on where to have his things sent. The ranch? Will’s? He was too pissed at Will and his dad to use either address. He gave the Numenon headquarters, care of Doug Saunders.

  “I’ll leave,” He looked at his watch, “in a couple of minutes.” The rain had stopped. “Will is sending a helicopter. Arabella, gardeners will be out tomorrow to repair the damage to the lawn.

  “Things will straighten out, Arabella. Use your lawyers, and use Fulton. And use Tom.” He turned to his valet, “You’ll help her, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will never forget you, Arabella.” He kissed the soft flesh inside her forearm, his lips lingering the tiniest bit.

  Then he gave up fighting and pulled her to him, lips melting together, bodies all but fusing. He showed her the tiniest bit of the passion he felt for her. But he broke it off.

  “Is it Cass?” Arabella’s cheeks were streaked with moisture. She grabbed at his arm.

  “Yes. They’re killing her.”

  39

  Psycho Therapy

  Time was fuzzy for Cass. She didn’t know when she’d been brought to the hospital, and didn’t remember much of her life before it. She’d have bursts of memories like fireworks, and then time went back to being like pudding. Mushy. You could squish it through your hands, but you couldn’t see anything in it.

  The hospital where she gained weight had been nice. She’d been there before. She knew a couple of the nurses. They understood. She didn’t know what she had looked like when she got there. Who wanted to see herself dying with guck pasting her eyes shut? The nurses let her know how close to death she had been, but they didn’t lecture her or show her pictures of herself.

  “Cass, do you want some more tapioca? It’s on your diet?” the night nurse dropped by, smiling. Her diet was everything. She could stuff herself all day. Cass took the tapioca. She loved tapioca pudding.

  The nurses let her lay around eating and doing what she wanted. They listened if she wanted to talk, and didn’t want to know more than what she could talk about. If they knew anything about her past, they didn’t bring it up.

  “Was there a man with me when they brought me in?” she asked her favorite nurse.

  “A couple. Doug Saunders.” Cass knew him very well. They had been a couple at one time, until she bit him and he needed thirty-six stiches. She felt sorry about that. The nurse kept talking, “And a black guy. African American. He seemed to be a doctor or something. He was with you a long time. They practically had to pry him off of you to get him to leave.”

  The most amazing thing about the hospital was her daddy called. She hadn’t talked to him since last Christmas when she screamed at him. Before that must have been a year. Or years. He called one day, and he kept calling. For the first time ever, maybe, she felt like things might work out. Like she might really get better.

  “Daddy, I remember someone when I was brought here.” She described the man with funny colored eyes. “Who was he?”

  “There wasn’t anyone like that, Cass.”

  She asked the nurse again. Yes, he had been there. He was very tall. She asked her father again, adding the part about him being tall. “No, Cass. It was just Doug and the paramedic crew.”

  Why would her daddy not tell her about him? Maybe he was “the help.” If daddy considered him inconsequential, he would disappear in his eyes. If he was, like, an orderly or something, he’d go poof! to her father. Would having brown skin be a problem? A brown-skinned PhD candidate, no. A brown-skinned orderly? Big problem.

  She decided that was it and stopped asking about the guy. She’d track him down when she got out. The ambulance company would know.

  As soon as she could, Cass started back running. They let her, if she followed the doctors’ orders. She did exactly what they said. And they let her do more. She had to be in shape. Cass knew that she always had to be able to escape and fight her way out.

  They had a punching bag in the hospital gym. For releasing hostility. She made it sing. She broke the connection of the little speed bag to its mooring, she hit it so hard. Cass Duane never went down easy. Or for free, she smiled sadly. Once, it had been for free.

  She weighed one hundred and forty pounds when she left the hospital. She had gained fifty-five pounds and looked like a pig. The head doctor called her into her office when she hit a chubby one hundred and thirty and told her she would be “moving on to a more advanced level of treatment” in a while. She thought they moved her in September, except that the pudding filled her head and she forgot.

  Big time pudding when they moved her to the Havertin Institute. They moved her at night, sedated, she thought, because her memories were so garbled. Her memories were normally garbled, but not as screwed up as they were that night. She remembered glimpses of a white colonial building with floodlights around the roof. A white marble entry hall. That was all she knew of the place, except for the day room, her room, and so
me corridors.

  This was where she was supposed to have a “more advanced level of treatment.” Cass had been in eight mental hospitals, counting this one. She knew something about mental hospitals. This place was shit. How her dad stuck her in there, she’d never know.

  She also found out that she had been branded brain-damaged by the hospital. She was not brain-damaged. She just couldn’t remember things very well and had big holes in her life. Like years were gone. That wasn’t brain-damage. That was fucked up. And given what she could remember, the more years missing, the better.

  After two weeks, Cass hated the Havertin Institute with every molecule of her body and every wisp of her soul. She hated it from the moment she woke up to the time she fell exhausted into her bed. She hated all the staff and admins and patients and everything she did and they did and even the walls. Everything. Why not? Who heard of a schedule like Havertin’s? None of the other places she’d been in had been like it.

  6:30 AM

  Get up and get dressed. Cass had never gotten up at 6:30. Even at summer camp when she was twelve, she got up at 10 AM. If she got up at 6:30, she wasn’t awake, despite having her eyes open and moving around. No one needed to get up that early there, anyway. Nothing they did all day meant anything.

  6:45

  Go to dining hall and eat breakfast. She didn’t eat breakfast. They didn’t have anything she liked anyway. All they had was oatmeal and shit. The dining room looked like detention in grade school; metal and plastic tables with benches cemented to the floor. Appetizing.

  7 AM

  Clean your room and make the bed. That’s what maids were for.

  7:15 to 9:30

  Housing unit group 1. This was the first therapy attempt of the day. They got the women in her hallway to sit in a circle and talk about their feelings. Cass had been hospitalized seven times before. She knew what bullshit talking about feelings was.

  Who cared about her feelings? Who cared about truth? When she was in the hospital gaining weight before being sent to Havertin, her father lied to her. There had been a man with funny-colored eyes. He’d held her and made her feel like she had a future in this fucking, stinking world.