He trudged through the snow, which was nearly as high as his knees, and directed his course by instinct, since he couldn’t see well enough to verify his direction. The uncovered skin of his face burned, and his throat ached from the cold air.
He couldn’t really tell how long he’d been fighting the blizzard when he saw a hint of red in the distance.
“Helen!” he called, surprised by how raw his voice sounded.
“I’m here!” She wasn’t that far away.
He pushed toward her voice until he found her. She must have fallen down and was now struggling to her feet, hugging something under her coat.
“What the hell are you doing out here? Are you crazy?” He had to speak loudly to be heard over the wind, but he probably didn’t need to speak quite as loudly as he had. She really was an infuriating little thing sometimes, and she didn't even sound contrite.
“Don’t yell at me. I was getting back fine on my own.”
When she started defiantly back toward the mansion, he saw how far her words were from the truth. She was limping quite dramatically.
“What happened?”
“I just twisted my ankle. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk to you, since you’re being so rude.”
“I’m sorry if I was rude, kid,” Cyrus said, trying to hide his impatience. He really wanted to get them both out of the snow and wind. “I was worried about you.”
“I was fine,” she replied, sounding a little less indignant.
Deciding the rest of the conversation could wait until they’d gotten inside, Cyrus reached down and hauled Helen up so he could carry her. She was small, even for a twelve-year-old, and she normally wouldn’t have been any sort of a burden. But she was wearing a puffy coat that kept slipping against his wet gloves, and she was carrying under her coat what he discovered was an enormous hardback book.
He discovered this when it accidentally clobbered him in the shoulder.
He bit back a few expletives as he fought to keep her from sliding out of his arms, and his muttering wasn’t quite under his breath when he heard her start to giggle.
“Some heroic rescue this turned out to be,” she said, still laughing as she tried to help by grabbing onto his neck.
He almost strangled from her tight hold, but at least it kept her from falling back into the snow. “You are an ungrateful little wretch who deserves to be left to the mercy of frostbite and polar bears,” he grumbled as he was finally stable enough to start back to the house with her.
As expected, she wasn’t remotely fazed by his words. “I wish there were polar bears. That would be so cool. I watched a documentary about them on Monday and all the scientists say they're doomed, that there’s no hope of them surviving much longer in the wild because of all the climate change and the glaciers melting. The little baby polar bears are the cutest things in the world. It’s so sad. I thought you weren’t going to come today because you were too scared of the snow.”
She was like a glint of white light. Sharp, quicksilver, ever-changing, maddeningly ephemeral. And she was rambling right into his ear so he could hear her over the whipping of the wind. Although he was now breathless from the cold, wind, and effort and she hadn’t even paused to breathe between her sentences, Cyrus didn’t have any trouble keeping up.
“I wasn’t scared. I was trying to be smart and not drive when the road conditions were too bad, but I made it after all. At the moment, I’m rather jealous of the polar bears, since they are made to withstand these kinds of blizzard conditions and we're not.”
“You wouldn’t be jealous if all your ice was melting and you had to swim and swim and swim to look for seals and other food that just isn’t there anymore. They showed one that was so hungry—poor thing—she tried to catch a whale to eat.”
“Did she get it?” Cyrus let out a relieved breath as he reached the back door to the house, stepped inside, let Helen slip down to the floor, and then shut the wind and snow outside with a click of the door.
“No.” She’d remained on the floor in a heap of puffy red coat, snow-caked strawberry-blond hair, and clever green eyes. “It was so sad I almost cried. Poor, starving polar bear.”
Cyrus could see that her empathy for the creature was genuine, and he wondered how an isolated, neglected girl could still have such a soft heart and generous spirit.
“We can discourse on polar bears more later. Now you need to warm up.”
“I’m not that cold,” she said, clearly lying since her teeth had started to chatter. She pulled the book she’d been hugging out from under her coat, and he saw it was an oversized sketch book. “And you need to warm up too.”
“I intend to warm up,” he told her, taking off his hat and coat and trying to shake off the snow.
When the housekeeper appeared and asked if everything was all right, Cyrus asked her to make sure Helen changed out of her wet clothes and put on something warm.
Then, his duty done, he went back to his room to take a hot shower and change clothes, since his socks, the bottom half of his pant legs, and his collar were all soaked from the snow.
Fifteen minutes later, he left his room, feeling much better, and stopped by the library.
Helen was curled up with a blanket on the rug in front of the fire, looking at a large book of glossy nature photography and sipping a mug of something hot. Her hair was still damp, but it was braided into two long braids, and she wore a thick green sweater with black leggings.
“Are you in a better mood now?” she asked, grinning at him brightly when he came in.
He frowned. “I was never in a bad mood.”
“Yes, you were. You snapped at me. I was very offended.”
Since she didn’t look offended, he didn’t take her words seriously. “I told you I was worried about you.”
“Were you?” she asked, looking almost hopeful. “Are you sure you weren’t just annoyed because I got trapped in a blizzard?”
He tried to suppress a smile. “I thought you said you were doing fine getting through the snow on your own.”
“Oh.” She looked momentarily taken aback, but then she smiled at him blithely again. “I was, but thanks for coming after me anyway.”
“How’s the ankle?” He lowered himself to the floor to sit next to her on the rug.
“It’s not too bad,” she replied, showing him a wrapped ankle by sticking a foot out from under the blanket. “Jenny wrapped it up for me. Did you want some cocoa? Jenny gave me marshmallows and whipped cream since I’d had such a bad time of it.”
Cyrus could tell from the inflection of the final words that Helen was quoting the housekeeper directly. It sounded just like the woman. “No, thanks. It won’t be long until dinner.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked, frowning at him. “Cocoa isn’t food.”
He couldn’t keep up with her moods. She was evidently annoyed now because she’d interpreted his idle remark as implying that she had too big an appetite.
“Why did you come?” she asked, changing the subject again. “Really.”
Cyrus gave a half-shrug, feeling momentarily uncomfortable. He searched for an offhand response but couldn’t find one. “It’s what I always do.”
“But you said you couldn’t make it.”
“I could make it after all.”
Helen peered at him with such scrutiny it felt like she could see into his soul. “Did you come because of me?”
“Yes,” he admitted, feeling awkward at the admission but telling her the truth anyway. “I did.”
Helen’s face burst into a wide grin. It was a shining thing. “I’m so glad.”
She was just a child, and she would never be as jaded as he was. But they were alike in one way at least.
Cyrus was used to people wanting to be around him, but it was always for what he could offer them. He spent his days surrounded by people—friends, women, hangers-on—but he was still mostly alone.
And if someone—anyone—had driven thr
ough a snow storm just to be with him, Cyrus would have been awed and gratified too.
He was glad he'd decided to come.
* * *
“So I’m told you were unwise this afternoon and ventured out into the snow,” Drake Owen said from over the crown roast he was carving.
They had all dressed appropriately for their traditional Christmas Eve dinner—Cyrus and his father both in jackets and Helen in a dark red dress. They’d just finished the soup course.
“Yes,” Helen said, looking unabashed at the cool comment. “I went to my retreat to read. I didn’t know it would get so bad. If you were worried, I’m surprised you didn’t rush to my rescue like Cyrus did.”
Cyrus shifted slightly in his chair, wishing Helen hadn’t drawn attention to his concern for her earlier.
His dad slanted Cyrus a sardonic look but didn’t say anything to him. Instead, he turned back to Helen. “You’ve heard of the Ligurian tribes?”
“Ye-es,” she replied, stretching the word out as if she were wracking her memory. She didn't seem startled by the abrupt change of subject. “They’re connected to the Roman Empire somehow, aren't they? I’m sure you’ve told me about them before.”
“They were alpine tribes, mostly barbaric. But they were brave and stubborn, and they were successful for a long time at fighting off Roman rule. In the first century BC, Donnus, king of the united tribes, managed to make a peace with Julius Caesar and negotiate autonomy for his people, but the grandson of Donnus failed, and Nero ended up annexing their province after all.”
“Really?” Helen asked, her eyes wide and her voice breathless. “How interesting!”
Her voice was too breathless and her eyes were too wide. Suddenly Cyrus realized her interest wasn’t genuine. He tried to keep his amusement from reflecting on his face.
“A small band of Ligurian warriors refused to submit to Roman authority and vowed vengeance. So they set out over the Alps to infiltrate the heart of the Empire and assassinate Nero himself. They were tough, weathered, and experienced, but they got caught in a freak snow storm as they were passing through the Alps."
“Did they freeze to death?” She slanted Cyrus a look, and he thought he caught a discreet wink.
“All but one of them did, but there was something noteworthy about that one who survived.”
Helen’s forehead wrinkled, and Cyrus suspected she might really be a little bit interested in the story now.
“She was a woman,” Cyrus put in. He didn’t actually know this anecdote, but he thought it was a good guess.
His father looked faintly displeased by the interruption, but he recovered quickly and nodded solemnly. “She was a woman. Why do you suppose she survived when the rugged male warriors couldn’t?”
Helen thought about this for a moment. “Can women withstand the cold better than men?”
“Exactly. They tend to have more fat for insulation,” his father drawled, pausing to check Helen’s reaction, which was a scowl, “And they have a higher gradient of temperature from skin to body core, which means they can maintain their core temperature longer than men.”
“Well, good for her,” Helen said, “The Ligurian woman, I mean. Obviously, she didn’t succeed in assassinating Nero, but, still, A for effort.”
His father almost smiled. “Indeed. She lost several fingers and toes to frostbite, but was hailed as a hero by all of her fellow tribesman. Her spear was preserved as a memorial to her valor.”
“I would love to have that spear. Do you think you could find it? It would be the perfect Christmas gift for me next year!”
Cyrus stared at Helen for a long time until he realized she was actually teasing his father.
His dad seemed to realize it too. His eyebrows went sky high. “Are you humoring me, child?”
She snickered. “Of course not. I love it when you tell me about ancient history, and with that spear and my Renaissance dagger I could have a whole collection of old weapons.”
Cyrus thought he caught a flash of amusement in his father’s eyes, but all the man said was, “Hmm.”
* * *
Cyrus had gotten White Christmas cued up, and Jenny had brought in cider and sugar cookies, but Helen still hadn’t arrived.
He had no idea what she was doing.
After dinner, Cyrus had found his father and mentioned to him privately that someone really needed to keep a better eye on Helen when her nanny wasn’t around, since she could have been seriously hurt out in the blizzard by herself with a twisted ankle.
He should have known better than to think such a comment would produce positive results. His father had just arched his eyebrows. “Despite your white-knight complex, the child is not in need of rescuing.”
“I don’t have a white-knight complex,” Cyrus argued, already knowing he’d made a mistake in bringing the subject up at all. “But she’s your responsibility—both legally and morally.”
“Quite true. And that means she’s not your responsibility.”
Cyrus had just given up.
He was still brooding over the conversation, though, and it was making him increasingly bored and impatient in waiting for Helen. He was just about to go looking for her when she finally came jogging into the room, rather wobbly on her twisted ankle, with a wrapped box in her hands.
“This is for you!” she declared, placing the box on Cyrus’s lap and climbing up onto the couch beside him.
Cyrus stared down at the present. Helen must have wrapped it herself, since the bow was off-center, the seams weren’t perfectly straight, and the tape was applied with extraordinary abundance. “Shouldn’t I wait until tomorrow morning?”
“I’ve got other presents for you tomorrow. This one is for tonight. It’s for you to wear tomorrow!” She grinned at him brightly.
Cyrus swallowed hard and felt a clench of dread in his gut. He could only imagine what Helen had picked out for him to wear.
“I got one for your dad too,” she said.
Well, that helped a little. He carefully unwrapped the box, instinctively avoiding ripping the paper. It was a sweater box, and his imaginings were realized when he lifted the lid to reveal a gaudy red, green, and gold sweater with a giant appliqué of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on the front, complete with jingle bells hanging off the antlers.
Helen clapped her hands in delight.
“Uh, wow,” Cyrus said. He darted a look over at Helen and saw that she was holding back hilarity, so he relaxed and shared his true thoughts. “You can’t really think this is my kind of sweater.”
“Of course it’s not. That’s why you need it. You and your dad both need to get into the Christmas spirit more, so I got you these sweaters. His is sort of like this one, but his Rudolph has a nose that lights up instead of jingle bells on the antlers.”
Cyrus almost choked at the vision of his father in such a sweater.
“And I have to wear this tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“All day?”
“All day.”
“I thought you liked me.”
She giggled helplessly. “I do like you. That’s why I got you a pretty sweater to wear.”
Cyrus sighed and smiled at her, mentally calculating how little time he could manage to wear the sweater without hurting her feelings.
“I guess that means you like my dad too.”
Her expression changed a little. “I like him most of the time. He’s okay. He’s not as bad as he pretends to be.”
Cyrus didn’t believe that for a minute, but he was happy that Helen was able to hold onto the delusion. “He seems to like you too,” he said, realizing as he said the words that they were true. His father would never openly show affection, but there had been genuine amusement in his eyes when he’d interacted with the girl.
“He does. Most of the time he forgets about me, but when he remembers he likes me.”
The words were strangely poignant because they were so matter-of-fact and good-natured. Helen had g
rown out of the unnatural composure of the ten-year-old he’d first encountered on the side of the road two years ago, but she was still too isolated. Too self-sufficient. She was fearless and interacted well with other people, but she always held the deepest parts of herself back, as if she couldn’t trust anyone to really love and care for her.
Realizing that she was expecting a response, Cyrus said quickly, “Well, that’s something, since he doesn’t like very many people.”
She peered at him strangely. Finally, she said, “You think he doesn’t like you?”
Cyrus was taken aback by her insight. That had been precisely what he'd been ironically reflecting on. He didn’t answer, but Helen didn’t seem to need him to.
“He can like me because he doesn’t love me,” she said.
His chest hurt for a moment as he thought about her words, but he shaped his mouth into a wry smile. “I suppose you think there’s some sense in that remark.”
“You know what I mean. That’s the way he is. He can’t like the people he loves.”
Cyrus took a deep breath. Couldn’t speak for a minute. Wondered—hoped—it was true, that his father loved him despite all evidence to the contrary.
After a long stretch of silence, Helen said in a small voice, “My dad used to love me.”
He turned to look at her, feeling a sharp stab of pity. “Do you remember him?”
She nodded. “He loved me. So did my mom.” She stared at the blank television with something deep and aching in her eyes. “At least I know someone did once.”
He wanted to say something comforting, something to reassure her, but all the words he could think of seemed empty.
So he didn’t say anything. He just sat with her on the couch. After a minute or two, he gave her a little punch on the arm and said lightly, “Thanks for the sweater. I’ve never had one quite so incredibly garish.”
She stuck out her tongue at him, her sober mood lifting like a fog. “I know that’s not a compliment. Now you’ll have to wear your sweater next year too.”
Cyrus laughed, feeling strangely lighter, as if talking to someone honestly—even if it was just a little girl—had helped somehow. “As long as you make my dad wear his too.”
Eight Christmas Eves Page 3