The snow wasn’t as deep under the trees as on the bare lawn, but moving around still took effort. Jayne’s track lay ahead of him—the deep wells of her steps and between them the shallower brush of each foot, pushing aside the snow. She’d followed the trail, more or less, though occasionally she’d wandered to one side or the other, once where a perfectly circular bird’s nest had fallen out of the tree above, and another time where a spray of golden autumn leaves still shivered on a small branch.
Then she’d veered from the path altogether, wandering down a steeper slope, through a grove of hardwood trees growing close together, their trunks forming straight black lines between snow and sky.
Pausing at the edge of the grove, he called again, at the top of his voice. “Jayne? Jayne, what the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t answer and he forged on, seriously worried.
The girls heard his shout and came to join him.
Beth arrived first. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Ms. Thomas wouldn’t wander away in the snow,” Sarah fretted.
“She hates snow.”
“Yeah. She doesn’t like the woods, either.”
“Yeah.”
“Is she okay, Mr. Hammond? Have you found her?”
“No.” Reclaiming those climbing skills from the past, he crawled onto the wide trunk of a nearby fallen tree to get a wider view. “Wait. What’s that?” Dark blue cloth and a streak of mahogany hair lay farther down the hill. He called Jayne’s name again, but got no answer.
Back down in the snow again, he pinned each girl with his fiercest stare. “Do not. Leave. This place. I can’t rescue all of you.”
Sarah stepped forward from the group. “We won’t follow or turn back. We’ll stay right here. Go get her.”
He descended the slope as fast as he could, stumbling, falling several times, dodging trees and stumps and fighting the suffocating snow. “Jayne?”
There she was, lying facedown beside a huge tree stump on the opposite edge of a slight depression. Chris tried to hurry, tried to keep his head up, his eyes on Jayne.
But his foot caught and he fell forward, stretching his arms out, expecting a faceful of the white stuff.
Instead he dropped through the snow, and into a thick tunnel of thorn bushes underneath. The skin of his face tore going in, and tore again in different places as he reared up.
“Jayne!” She was less than ten feet away.
Her arm moved and she turned her head to the side.
Then he saw the bloody snow.
He floundered through the ditch they’d both tripped into, and sank to his knees beside her. Her face was turned away from him.
“Don’t move, honey, don’t move.” He panted, unable to catch his breath. “Just lie still. Let me check you out.” Stripping off his gloves, he felt over her arms and legs and slipped a cold bare hand under her jacket to explore her ribs and shoulders. “Can you feel your feet? Your fingers?”
She wiggled her fingers and flexed her feet as an answer.
“Knees? Elbows?” Her limbs seemed to work. “Okay, honey, I’m going to put my hand at the back of your neck. Can you roll to your side? I’ll help you—just push yourself over. Good.”
Lying on her side, she curled her arms into her chest and groaned. He gave her several minutes to recover.
“Now, honey, I’d like you to roll the rest of the way over. Don’t work too hard. I’ve got your head in my hand. Yeah, that’s right…just sink backward.” Still cradling her arms to her chest, she eased onto her back.
“Oh, Jesus,” Chris breathed. “You hit your face, sweetheart. Right on that big fat stump.”
“I did?” She’d kept her eyes closed since help arrived, but now she lifted her lids, trying to see. Black fog hovered at the edges of her vision as she focused on the man bending over her. Did she know him? Loose, waving brown hair, bright blue eyes, that sexy mouth—
“Chris?” Surging up, she grabbed his shoulders, making sure he was real. “Chris, are you okay? What happened? We started sliding and then the headlights pointed down…I heard trees breaking. Where’s the car?” She broke free of his gaze and looked around, then back into his face. “I don’t understand. Where are we? What’s going on?”
“Juliet?” he said in a strangled voice.
A black tide poured into her head. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear or feel. She sagged to the side, as everything started to spin….
Hands took hold of her. A man said, “I’ve got you.”
Suddenly, her vision returned. Her eyes were open and she could see Chris Hammond leaning over her with panic in his eyes.
Jayne blinked hard. “Chris? What’s happened?” He protested, but she ignored him and sat up, putting her back against the tree stump she’d seen just before she hit it. Her face ached. “That’s right—I tripped, and I couldn’t stop the fall. I must look awful.”
She pressed gentle fingers to her forehead and nose, feeling a wide expanse of broken skin and swelling. “Oh, I am a mess.” Scooping up some of the damn snow in both hands, she cupped it against her injuries. “Are the girls okay?”
“They’re fine.” His voice still sounded strained.
“Is there anything I can do to look less frightening?”
“Don’t think so.”
Jayne laid her hands in her lap and took a good look at Chris’s face. “You’re all cut up, too. I’m so sorry.”
He drew a deep breath and sat back on his haunches. “Why did you leave the trail? What in the world are you doing this far into the woods?”
Using her hands and feet, Jayne moved backward and up, so she could sit on the stump’s flat top. She didn’t want to think about those confusing minutes on the trail, the echoes of her dreams, the feeling that she’d been there before.
“I heard Taryn say she wanted mistletoe. I thought I saw some close to the ground.” She tried to twist at the waist to point out her find, and got a taste of how sore her muscles were going to be. “Ow. It’s there.” She cocked a thumb over her shoulder. “Behind me.”
Chris’s gaze didn’t search out the mistletoe. “You must have hit your head pretty hard. What do you remember after you fell?”
“Um…nothing,” Jayne realized with surprise. “I saw the mistletoe and took a step toward it, then I was falling…and just now I woke up.”
His eyes narrowed. “You remember waking up?”
“With you leaning over me.” When he continued to stare at her, she frowned at him. “What’s wrong? Did something else happen?”
He drew a deep breath, then blew it out again. “No. Nothing. I guess.” He put both hands on one knee and straightened up, then reached out to her. “We’d better get back to the girls. I told them not to move from that spot and Sarah promised they wouldn’t.”
Jayne gave him her hand and he started pulling her to her feet. But when her full weight came to bear on her right leg, she gasped and sat down again. “I think I hurt my knee. Why don’t you bring them here so they can get the mistletoe? Maybe by then I’ll feel like walking home.”
Chris started to say something, then turned to go back to the trail. In a few minutes the girls surrounded Jayne, exclaiming over her face. When she told them about the mistletoe, Haley and Monique trudged off and returned with a bagful.
“Very good.” Jayne smiled and stood up from the tree trunk, pretending the simple move didn’t hurt like hell. “Let’s get back to the manor. It’s time for lunch. Be very careful walking up to the trail. We don’t want any more falls.”
The girls, young and graceful, gamboled through the woods like puppies, falling and getting up with no trouble at all. Jayne followed as fast as she could, but her knee had stiffened, her whole head throbbed with pain and her right eye was swollen almost shut.
She looked at Chris, walking beside her. “I’m getting a black eye, aren’t I?”
He nodded. “A doozy.”
“Wonderful.” They reached the edge of the trail and she stoppe
d to lean against a convenient tree. “What are you upset about?”
“Me? Nothing.” But he wouldn’t meet her eyes with his own.
“Did I say something I don’t remember when I was waking up?” Surely she hadn’t told him she cared about him, or even that she thought she was falling in love with him. That would be so foolish…so futile.
“Nothing important.” He turned toward the top of the trail, where the girls waited beside their tree. “Do you need some help?”
“No, thanks.” She straightened up, swallowing a groan. “I can make it.”
But pride only got her so far on her own. The trail wasn’t steep, but as her bruises woke up, as her knee began to swell and her cuts to burn, she began to wonder if she could manage the rest of the journey back.
Chris had left her to walk at the front of their little Yule procession, carrying the heavy end of the tree. When Jayne stopped for the fourth or fifth time, however, he called Sarah and Monique to help Selena and Haley with the tree, telling them to go ahead with the other three girls.
Then he walked back to where Jayne stood. “Sure you don’t need some help?” His tone was brusque, but his eyes were kind.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “I didn’t remember coming this far.”
He put his arm around her back, with his hand firmly tucked beneath her arm. “Sometimes the way home seems to take forever.”
Jayne only nodded, as she stepped down again on her bad knee. They didn’t talk again for the rest of the hike. She discovered walking was easier if she wrapped her arm around Chris’s waist, too, allowing him to carry a little more of her weight on that bad side. He took a firmer hold in his turn, and even through her many layers of clothes she could feel the pressure of his fingers on the side of her breast. If her heart hadn’t already been pounding from exertion, his touch would have jump-started the engine.
By the time she hobbled into the building, the girls had shed their snow clothes in the storeroom and wanted to hover around as she shed hers.
“I’m fine,” she assured them. Then she looked at the jumble of outerwear on the floor. “This room, however, is not. Please hang up your coats and scarves and spread your gloves and hats on the table to dry. Finally, take your boots and knock the snow off of them outside before you set them in the hallway near the door.”
Grumbling, they followed her orders, giving Jayne a chance to peel off her outer layers in relative privacy. The building felt colder to her than before, which she chalked up to reaction. A cup of tea would solve the problem.
But an hour later, bundled into a blanket and snuggled into the corner of the sofa closest to the fire, with a mug of tea half-finished, she had to admit she still felt chilled. The off-and-on dizziness and blurred vision she kept to herself.
Chris sat on the arm of the sofa, peering into her face, his fingers moving gently over the line of her jaw. “I’d bet you’re in shock. Who knows how long you were unconscious before I got there?”
“Not long, I’m sure.” She brushed his hand away, because she couldn’t be sure her reaction would remain hidden. “I’ll be okay if I stay warm for a while. Would you mind building up the fire?”
“No.” His tone and sharp movements conveyed irritation.
With all the girls in the kitchen making lunch, she felt it safe to ask, “What have I done this time?”
He jammed another log into the blaze. “Besides nearly killing yourself?”
“Not intentionally, I assure you.”
The logs shifted as he stabbed the poker between them. Flames shot up the chimney and heat gusted across the room. “I get tired of being pushed away. You wouldn’t even let me clean up those scrapes on your face.”
“Why would you expect anything else?”
“Because…” He ran a hand through his hair, but didn’t finish the sentence.
“We’re not really friends, are we?” Jayne squeezed her eyes shut against the spinning in her head. “We’ve only known each other a few days.”
“What difference does that make?
The question stunned her, and she stared at him with her mouth open. Was he implying…had he begun to think about her as someone beside Juliet?
“Lunchtime!” Selena sang out from the doorway. She came in carrying a tray for Jayne—cold cheese sandwiches, chips and soda. The rest of the girls followed with their own plates, plus one for Chris, who retreated to his chair by the fireplace. Over these last days each girl had claimed a space of her own. Haley sat on the end of the other sofa, closest to the fire, with Taryn beside her and Yolanda by the other arm. Beth and Selena occupied the two armchairs facing that couch, while Monique and Sarah filled the other sofa with Jayne. After the strenuous morning, they ate in silence for a few minutes because even dull food tasted good when you were hungry.
Then Haley sighed, holding up half her sandwich and staring at it. “I wish this was a piece of sausage pizza.”
“Mmm.”
“That sounds so good.”
“I’d wish for black olives and mushrooms,” Beth said.
Jayne was quite proud when no one insulted that choice.
Monique added her own favorite, instead. “Spinach and garlic for me.”
After another pause, Taryn said, “I wish Mr. Hammond would go on with the story.”
Amid the chorus of agreement, someone asked, “What other kinds of adventures did Chase and Juliet have?”
Chris looked at Jayne for permission. She gave him a slight nod, hoping her obvious hesitation would persuade him to refuse.
But either her signal was too weak or he chose to misunderstand the message. “Okay,” he said, settling back with his mug of hot chocolate. “I’ll keep it short, though, because you’ve got other things to do.”
Jayne decided she would be forgiven if she slept through the afternoon’s installment. When Monique and Sarah moved down to stretch out on the carpet, Jayne put her legs up on the sofa, hoping to ease some of the aches in her shoulders and back. She was vaguely aware that one of the girls tucked a soft pillow under her head. Another blanket fell over her.
With her eyes closed, the blurred vision didn’t matter, and the dizziness eased. The shivering subsided as she started to warm up. She was thrilled to be so sleepy…to be falling asleep….
Chris told the girls some of the funnier anecdotes from his adventures with Juliet over the years—the summer trail ride during which his horse had deliberately run him into a tree branch and knocked him flat on his back; the winter afternoon they’d outskied a small avalanche; the Christmas Day they’d volunteered to cook dinner for Charlie and almost burned the cabin down.
What Chris didn’t detail was the ripening physical relationship they experienced. These girls didn’t need to hear how kisses matured, how one touch kindled the need for more, how resolutions were made only to be broken. He’d preserved Juliet’s virginity for her, whether she appreciated the effort or not.
But only just. And only until she was seventeen.
For the rest of the afternoon, however, he suggested the girls work on the decorations for their holiday. Since glue seemed to be involved, he pointed out that the tile-topped kitchen table would be easier to clean than the polished antique ones in the library.
He was pretty proud of himself for the idea, since now Jayne could sleep in peace, without the voices of the girls disturbing the rest she sorely needed. He planted himself in the armchair closest to the library door, in case anyone tried to wake her. Or glued their fingers together and needed help.
Since he hadn’t been getting much rest himself—in a frigid room on a hard bed, troubled by dreams of Juliet when he did sleep and haunted by memories of making love with Jayne when he lay awake in the dark—only a few minutes passed before his eyelids drifted down.
Just a little while, he told himself, easing his head into the corner of the chair’s soft cushion. Only a short nap.
Next thing he knew, he was on his feet, eyes wide open.
Jay
ne had started screaming.
Chapter Ten
Chris was beside her in a second. The girls arrived a moment later.
“Jayne, honey, wake up.” As he took hold of her shoulders, she started to fight, slapping at his arms, hitting his chest with her fists.
“No, no. Please…” She was crying now, more than screaming, and cowering in the corner of the sofa. “Don’t.”
“Jayne, stop it.” He gave her a sharp shake, made his voice equally sharp. “You’re scaring the girls.”
She froze, and turned her face out of the pillow. “Girls…what girls? I don’t remember…” The tears started again.
As she had stared at him, though, Chris thought her gaze seemed…different. Not just confused and terrified, but…well, the only word that occurred to him was young. She’d had that same expression out in the woods, when he’d have sworn she remembered who she was.
He glanced at Sarah and the rest of the students, standing speechless at the sight of their headmistress in total panic.
“You all should go back into the kitchen,” he told them gently. “Figure out what we can pull together for supper.” They hesitated, and he tried for more concrete directions, like Jayne’s would be. “See if you can find some hot dogs—we could cook on sticks over the fire.”
Once Sarah had shooed the last of the girls across the hall, Chris left the couch long enough to close the library door. When he turned around, he saw immediately that a different woman now confronted him.
Jayne had straightened up, smoothed her wrinkled sweater and the blanket, and fluffed the pillows at her side. She’d removed the band holding her hair, combed her fingers through the tangles, and was in the process of restoring her ponytail when he sat down in front of her on the coffee table.
“Your hair is beautiful,” he said quietly. “Why not wear it loose?”
“It’s always in the way.” A thread of unease ran through the pragmatic answer. With her hair fixed, her clothes neater and her hands gripped together in her lap, she met his eyes. “What just happened? What did I do?”
“You woke up screaming. And crying.”
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