Scrooge and the Single Girl

by Christine Rimmer

  “Mavis,” Jilly hissed. “I am so not happy about this.”

  From the shadows between the dresser and the wall, Mavis gazed at Jilly, mournful reproach in those big, blue eyes.

  “Mavis. Let me make myself perfectly clear.” Jilly raised her voice to a shout. “Get me out of here!”

  But Mavis only stood there—well, hovered there, really. Her pale, bony toes—just visible behind the dark shape of the dresser—didn’t quite seem to be touching the floor.

  Jilly looked at the dream-Will, lying there on the bed, sound asleep. Her shouting hadn’t disturbed him in the least. He turned over with a sigh, but didn’t open his eyes.

  Okay. She’d admit it. With his eyes closed, not scowling, Will Bravo was a hunk and a half. In this dream of hers, he slept nude—or at least, nude from the waist up. She couldn’t tell about the rest of him. The blankets covered that. He had shoulders for days. And beautiful, muscled arms…

  “No. Not. No way.” Jilly blinked furiously in an effort to make the sleeping, too-tempting Will vanish. He didn’t. She insisted, as if anyone was listening, “I said I’m not interested, and I am a woman who says just what she means.” She whirled toward the corner where Mavis should have been hovering. “You had better get me out of—”

  But the old woman was gone.

  “Jilly.” The deep, lazy voice came from behind her.

  “Oh, no. Forget it. I am not turning around.”

  “Jilly…”

  “I am not going to look. I am not even going to…” Well, all right, maybe just one little glance.

  She sneaked a quick peek. He was sitting up, holding out his fine, long-fingered hand to her, looking at her tenderly, pleadingly. “Jilly.”

  She gave in and faced him fully. “All right, what?”

  He wiggled his fingers at her in a come-hither gesture.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  He stared deeply, meaningfully, into her eyes as the sheet, of its own accord, slithered back from his fabulous naked body. Jilly tore her gaze away from those pleading blue eyes and looked lower. Wow. Some dream.

  She looked up again, into those tender, pleading eyes and a disembodied voice from somewhere near her left ear said, “Why not?”

  “Why not?” she cried. “You’ve got to be kidding. He doesn’t like me. I don’t like him.”

  “Jilly,” said the disembodied voice. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t real. It isn’t happening. So what if you hate each other in real life? This isn’t real life. This is only a dream.”

  Jilly considered. While she did that, the dream-Will conveniently froze in place—with his hand out and the covers down to his muscular thighs, looking at her longingly, his manliest attribute pointing proudly ceiling-ward.

  “Hmm,” said Jilly. It was clear that in this dream he found her overwhelmingly attractive. And she had to admit she really did enjoy having him look at her that way.

  Why not just go with it? Why pass up a chance to have him falling all over her for one magical night? Why deny herself? This was one situation where she could do anything she wanted, let this fantasy spin out wherever it wanted to go, and suffer absolutely no consequences after the fact.

  There was no “fact.” She wasn’t here. She was upstairs, sound asleep, dreaming all this.

  “Okay,” she announced. “I’ve decided. I’m going with this.”

  Nobody answered. And Will continued to sit there, still as a statue.

  Jilly cleared her throat. “Uh. Hello? Will?”

  But he didn’t move. He didn’t even appear to be breathing. She clapped her hands. Twice.

  Nothing.

  Terrific. What fun was this going to be?

  But wait. This was her dream. There had to be some way to—

  And it came to her. She put her hand in his.

  The room faded and reformed and she found herself on the bed with him, wrapped in those big arms of his.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he whispered. “For so long.” Jilly thought that was carrying the fantasy a little too far, but before she could tell him so, he asked, “You’ll help me out, won’t you?”

  She pulled back a little and peered up at him. “Uh. Help you out, how?”

  He didn’t answer her question, just gathered her close again, rested his cheek against her hair, and repeated what he’d said before. “Help me, Jilly.”

  “But—”

  “Help me out. God, do I need it.”

  She pulled back again, intending to explain to him that he really had to get a little more specific or she didn’t see how there was much she could do. But before she could say anything, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Good googly-moogly, what a kiss!

  He almost burned her lips off. It honestly felt as if steam was coming out of her ears.

  When he finally let her come up for air, she realized that her pjs had melted away. She was every bit as naked as he was.

  Only a dream, she reminded herself. Only a dream. Enjoy, enjoy…

  He guided her back onto the bed, kissing her as they went down. Somehow, it seemed he was kissing her everywhere, every part of her body, all at the same time—her mouth, her neck, lower, and lower still.

  Omigoodness. Yes, yes, yes!

  His lips were everywhere, all at once. And his hands, well, they were magic hands. He touched every inch of her, found all her most secret, most vulnerable places.

  She moaned and she cried out, closing her eyes….

  When she looked again, they were joined together. The bed, the room, everything was gone—everything but the two of them. They moved as one, floating in some warm, soft, enveloping space in the middle of nowhere, all wrapped up in each other, arms and legs entwined. She felt stunned by her own intense pleasure. Everything in that warm place seemed to glow. They glowed, Jilly and her fantasy lover, rolling and rippling, rising and falling, forever and ever….

  Jilly closed her eyes again.

  And they were back in his bedroom, lying contentedly side-by-side. He captured her hand, brought it to his mouth and pressed those wonderful lips of his to the back of it. She actually felt his breath on her skin.

  Without stopping to think, she did it again, let her eyes drift shut.

  And that time, when she opened them, she found herself lying in the bed upstairs, dressed in her fuzzy pjs once more.

  Will had not come with her. Sweet old Mavis was tucking her in, bending close, smiling slightly, blue eyes mysterious and maybe a little bit sad.

  Jilly certainly felt sad. “Oh, Mavis. Why do the good dreams always have to end?”

  Mavis spoke for the first and only time in Jilly’s beautiful, bittersweet almost-Christmas dream. “The dog was named Snatch.”

  “Huh?”

  But nobody answered. Mavis was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Jilly woke to daylight.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the pink ceiling and remembered the strange, lovely dream she’d had the night before. She let out a big sigh. Wouldn’t it be something if—

  But no. Jilly knew dream from daylight. In the real world, nothing had changed between her and Will Bravo. They disliked each other intensely. They’d been tricked into being here in this house alone together.

  And this morning, she would pack her gear and hit the road.

  She sat up. And there was Missy, perched in the same spot as last night in Jilly’s dream. This morning, however, the cat showed no inclination to begin fading away.

  “Rreeow?” Missy rose on all fours and strutted toward Jilly across the chenille spread.

  Jilly laughed and caught the cat in her arms. Missy consented to be held. She even purred and reached up a paw to bat Jilly’s nose.

  Jilly giggled. “Oh, sweetie. Happy Christmas Eve and I love you, too. And you’re forgiven your flirtation with Mr. Personality downstairs. Just tell me it’s over between you.”

  Missy was admitting nothing. She continued to purr, looking up at Jilly thro
ugh those lazy amber eyes.

  “Listen here. You might as well start getting over him, because you and I are outta here as soon as I can pack up the car.”

  Missy had heard enough. She squirmed. Jilly let her go and turned to the window.

  It didn’t look too promising out there. The storm had passed, yes. But the sky was a threatening gun-metal gray that seemed to warn of more bad weather on the way. Jilly got up on her knees and peered down at the snow on the ground.

  It looked…deep. Maybe a foot. Maybe more. From that angle, she couldn’t see the vehicles, just the slope of the porch roof, a patch of sparkling-white ground, a lot of pine trees and the snow-covered, evergreen-blanketed mountains all around.

  Jilly sank back onto the mattress and bit the inside of her lower lip. Was she snowed in here?

  She refused to believe that. Surely the county snow-plows would have been at work for hours by now. Maybe the long driveway would still be snowed over, but if she could make it to the road, she should be fine from there.

  She had chains—and she knew how to put them on. In spite of what some people thought, she was a capable woman who could do what she had to do to get herself out of a jam.

  And being snowed in with Will Bravo definitely qualified as a jam. Jilly shoved back the covers. Time to get up and get going.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked when she came downstairs. He was scowling when he said it, which kind of ruined the effect of showing concern for her health.

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “There’s cereal,” he said. “And instant coffee.”

  He’d set his radio on the kitchen counter, turned up a little higher than last night and tuned—surprise, surprise—to NPR. “Winter came a little late to the Sierras this year,” said a voice from the radio. “But no one would argue that it’s finally here. Reports are that—”

  Jilly tuned it out. The cereal was Froot Loops, and the instant coffee was Belgian crème Cappuccino, and it was as eerie as her dream last night how closely Will Bravo’s taste in food paralleled her own.

  They sat down at the drop-leaf table. Jilly poured milk on her Froot Loops and stirred her instant cappuccino and told herself she was going to eat quickly, get packed and get out.

  Still, as she chewed her cereal and sipped the steaming chocolate-flavored coffee, she just couldn’t help shooting sideways glances at her surly host, wondering how any one person could be so utterly awful in real life when just last night, in her dreams, he’d been the sweetest, most tender man in the world—not to mention one heck of a kisser, the kind of lover who never tired, who could kiss every part of her body simultaneously, a man who literally glowed in the dark.

  She was about halfway through her cereal when he fisted his spoon and hit the base of the handle twice—hard—on the tabletop, startling her so that she almost choked on a Froot Loop. “What?” he growled, and then, “What?” again, as if there was some chance she hadn’t heard him the first time.

  When she finally managed to swallow and could breathe again, she shouted, “What?” right back at him.

  “You keep…looking at me.” Those lips that looked just like the wonderful, sensual lips of her dream-lover were curled in disgust—and she had to stop thinking about that silly dream.

  Right now was what counted. And right now, in the thin light of a cold winter’s morn, she could easily toss her instant cappuccino right in his snarling face. “Well, excuse me for breathing. I certainly have no intention of—”

  “Just stop it, okay? Just knock it off.”

  “Fine. Gotcha. No problem at all.” She shoved another spoonful of cereal in her mouth and stared with bleak determination into her bowl. She honestly, sincerely intended not to so much as glance in his direction again.

  But she couldn’t help herself. He astonished her, he truly did. How could anyone be such a complete and total—

  She realized she was looking at him again.

  He realized it, too. And he was not happy. He muttered something incomprehensible, grabbed his empty cereal bowl and shoved back his chair.

  Missy was under there.

  She let out a horrible, injured yowl, followed by an angry hiss. Then she took off, so terrified she ran right into the wall.

  “You’ve squashed her tail!” Jilly leapt to her feet. Missy shot off again, this time in the direction of the sofa bed in the living area. “How could you? Poor Missy. She’s hurt.”

  He could not have cared less. He turned for the sink, grumbling roughly, “Keep that animal out of my way.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she cried to his broad back. “Just shut your mean mouth.”

  Missy had disappeared under the sofa bed. Jilly went after her, getting down on her hands and knees and calling softly, “Missy, come on. Come on, Missy honey…”

  But Missy wouldn’t come out. She had backed herself way into the far corner among the dust balls and she glared out at Jilly, not budging an inch.

  Jilly considered crawling under there and trying to get hold of her, but she didn’t want to traumatize her further by grabbing her and dragging her out. Better to get ready, get everything out to the 4Runner, then come back for the cat. She pulled her head out from under the sofa bed and got to her feet again.

  In the kitchen, she cleared off her place, washing out her bowl and mug, scrupulously ignoring Will. Once she’d cleaned up after her breakfast, she spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, washing her face, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and applying rudimentary makeup. She indulged in a minute or two of studying the purple knot on her forehead, deciding it didn’t look much worse than last night and telling herself to be grateful she didn’t have a big shiner to go along with it. It was throbbing just a little.

  She found the Tylenol on the shelf above the toilet and shook a couple into her hand. Then she bent over the faucet and gulped enough water to wash them down. That should get rid of her headache—and if it didn’t, she knew what would: to get the heck out of here and away from Will Bravo.

  When she left the bathroom, she went straight upstairs. She made the bed, packed up her suitcase, grabbed her CDs and her boom box, and marched down the stairs. She’d paused at the door to pull on her boots and get into her coat and hat when Will spoke again.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Leaving.” She crouched to tie her laces.

  “Jillian.” He let out a very weary breath. She would happily have thrown her boots at him if they weren’t already on her feet. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Didn’t you hear the radio?”

  “I don’t care what the radio said.”

  “Then look outside. It’s snowing again. It’s going to snow all day. We are snowed in. And we’re going to stay that way at least until tomorrow—and very likely until the day after that. The highways are closed. All the roads are impassable. You’ll never get ten yards down the driveway.”

  “I’ll manage.” She stood and grabbed her coat.

  He set his huge book aside and rose from his easy chair. “Jillian. Listen. I’m sorry about your cat.”

  “Tell that to Missy. She’s the one whose tail you crushed.”

  “Get it through your head, will you?” He spoke quietly—but she could hear the strain in his voice. He was exercising considerable effort not to start shouting again. “We’re going to be here, alone together, for a couple of days at the very least. We’re going to have to find a way to get along with each other.”

  She reached for her hat. “A minute ago, you said you were sorry for what you did to Missy. Did you really mean that?”

  “I want that animal to stay away from me, but I didn’t mean to injure it.”

  “You’re sorry.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, too. But I will go stark, raving out of mind if I don’t get out of here and away from you.” Jilly jammed her hat on her head, picked up her
suitcase, her CDs and her boom box and stomped out the door.

  Will winced as she slammed it behind her.

  Damn. What the hell was her problem? She would not hear the truth.

  So all right. Let her try to leave. It wasn’t going to happen. She’d be back inside, driving him nuts with her incessant chatter, her sneaky oblique glances and that irritatingly arousing perfume of hers, within minutes of the time she climbed behind the wheel.

  At least it wasn’t dark out there. And the wind wasn’t blowing that hard yet. She should be able to find her way between the house and her vehicle without having something else fall on her.

  And on second thought, why not just sit back and enjoy the five minutes she was away? He sat down in his chair and picked up his book.

  His enjoyment didn’t last long. About ten seconds later, there she was again, bursting in the door, headed for the kitchen this time. He heard her banging around in the fridge.

  She went out again, arms full of grocery bags. He’d read maybe three pages when she returned again. That time when she headed back out the door, she was trying to manage both that big bag of cat litter and another bag with God-knew-what in it.

  He should have stayed out of it, especially considering that the whole thing was an exercise in purest futility, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from offering, “Look. Do you want some help with that?”

  “I can manage, thank you.” She set the bag of litter down, opened the door, picked up the bag and went through. The door stayed open for several drafty seconds, no doubt while she juggled the litter and whatever she had in her other hand. Finally, she reached inside and yanked it closed.

  Maybe a minute and a half later, it blew open.

  Will swore. At length. He started to stand, then dropped back into his chair.

  He’d be damned if he was going over there and shutting the damn door for her. She’d be back soon enough. She could shut it herself.