Scrooge and the Single Girl

by Christine Rimmer

  Maybe two-thirds of the way, he lost his footing and went rolling. Fine, he thought, perfect. It would get him to her faster.

  He hit the bottom and crashed to a stop against the trunk of a tree. With a groan, he surged to his feet. He’d landed close. Good. Two steps and he was standing over her.

  “Jilly…” He knelt beside her and reached out, oh-so-carefully smoothing the hair, sticky with blood, away from her forehead.

  And there it was, another bump, rising on the left side, exactly opposite the one she’d acquired the other night. It was bleeding, but not too badly. If he hadn’t been so starkly terrified for her, he might have smiled.

  She wouldn’t like it, another bump like that. The good news was it didn’t appear that any of the blood had gotten on her coat this time.

  He was not a man who prayed—but he did then. He prayed that she would come to, look at him, for God’s sake, that she was going to be okay. He prayed and he tried not to think that it was Christmastime, that bad things—the worst things, the horrible, ugly things—always happened at Christmastime.

  “Jilly…” Very gently, smoothing more hair out of the way, he put two fingers at the side of her throat.

  Yes! A pulse—a strong and steady pulse.

  And right then she groaned and batted his hand away, sucking in a deep breath, which caused her to groan again. She touched her head, whimpered, and rolled to her back, groaning some more as she did it, her sweet face scrunched up in an expression that told him rolling over had not felt good.

  He ripped off his coat, wadded it in a ball and gently eased it beneath her head.

  She moaned some more and touched the new injury a second time. “What…?” Her eyes popped open as she pulled her hand away enough to see the blood on her fingers. “Oh, no. Not again….”

  “Jilly. Jilly, can you hear me?”

  She blinked, focused on him, blinked again. “Will?”

  “Yes. That’s right. It’s me, Will.”

  She lifted her head, looked around, then let it drop back to the pillow of his jacket again. “What happened?”

  She knew who he was. She knew she’d been injured. What she’d said when she saw the blood on her hand led him to believe she even remembered that a tree branch had dropped on her a few nights ago.

  The tight bands of dread and terror that had clamped around his chest eased a little. He realized he’d hardly been breathing and let himself suck in a long, hungry gulp of freezing winter air.

  “Jilly, you fell. Into a small ravine not far from the driveway at my grandmother’s house.”

  “I fell?” She was scrunching up her face again. And then her eyes widened. “I remember. There was a dog. Oh, Will. He was the sweetest thing. The way he looked at me, through those big, soulful brown eyes. I just loved him on sight, I swear I did.”

  What the hell was she babbling about? He couldn’t begin to guess. “Listen. Concentrate.”

  “Concentrate,” she repeated, as if the meaning of the word eluded her. Those heavy brows drew tightly together and she squinted up at him. “All right. What?”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else, other than where you hit your head?”

  “Oh, come on. I hurt everywhere.”

  He chuckled at that, though the sound had a frantic, strangled quality to it. “I know you do, sweetheart. What I mean is, do you think anything’s broken or sprained?”

  She closed her eyes. For several seconds she was very still. Then, slowly, she moved her head from side to side.

  “Is that a no? Are you giving me a no?”

  She made a low noise in her throat. “Yes, Will. I am giving you a no. I don’t think anything’s broken. Or even sprained. I honestly don’t. I think that I have bruises on my bruises and it’s not going to be fun to drag myself out of here. But I’m okay.” And then she smiled. He’d never in his life been so grateful to see a woman smile. “Hey, pretty good, huh? I roll down the side of a rocky ravine and the worst I get is another whack on the head. Do I lead a charmed life, or what?” She started to sit up.

  “Uh-uh. Better not.” Gently but firmly, he guided her back down. “Rest a few more minutes.”

  “It’s cold out here. I’m not lying out here for long, I’m warning you—and where’s your jacket? You’ve got to be freezing.” She frowned, felt behind her head. “Oh. Here it is. I want you to—”

  “Jilly, damn it. Lie still.”

  “But you need your—”

  “I’m fine. I don’t want my coat.”

  “You don’t have to shout.”

  She was right. She was hurt and the last thing she needed was to hear him barking orders at her. “Sorry. Just…keep the coat. Please.”

  “I won’t lie here forever.”

  “Just for a few minutes.”

  “Oh, all right.” She closed her eyes—for maybe thirty seconds. Then they popped open again. “Where’s my hat? I’m not wearing my hat.”

  “I’m sure it’s on the hillside somewhere. We’ll find it. Relax.”

  She sighed. “Will?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you see the dog?”

  She was back to the mysterious dog again. He shook his head.

  She insisted, “There was a dog. Honestly. The cutest thing. Brown-and-white spotted. Shorthaired. I’m sure it was the animal I saw before—remember, yesterday when we were shoveling, and then also Christmas Day when we—”

  “I remember.”

  “He looked so sad and hungry.”

  “You’re saying you were chasing a dog just now?”

  “Um-hm. But I lost him. He disappeared into the trees.”

  The last thing she needed to worry about at this point was some stray mutt. “Well, the dog is gone now.”

  “There were tracks. I’m sure if you—”

  “Jilly. Are you listening?”

  “I hate it when you treat me like I’m brain-dead.”

  “Forget the dog.”

  “But—”

  “Please. Forget the dog.”

  She looked at him with the dangerous gleam of impending mutiny in her eyes. “I just think—”

  “Please.”

  Finally, she sighed. “All right. I’ll forget the dog. For now.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gingerly, she poked at the new lump on her forehead again. “Ugh. I do not believe this. One lump on each side.” She shivered. “And I’m cold. You must be freezing.” She lurched to a sitting position so fast, he didn’t have time to make her stay down. “Ow. It hurts to sit up.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “But it’s manageable.” She was already drawing her legs under her.

  He grabbed her shoulder. “No, you don’t.”

  She batted at his hand. “Oh, stop that. I’m fine. And we can’t hang around down here all day. We’ll freeze to death.”

  “You really believe you can make it back up that hill?”

  “What else is there to do?”

  “You can stay here. I’ll go up and get—”

  “Forget it.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “You don’t need to finish. You already said the part I don’t like, which is that I would stay here.”

  “It’s only until I can—”

  “No way. I can make it. I know I can.”

  She seemed pretty sure of herself. And if she got a few steps and realized she’d overestimated her current capabilities, they could always do it his way. “All right. Let’s go.”

  She flashed him a big smile to show how game she was. “Give me a hand, will you?”

  He slid in close and she wrapped her arm over his shoulder. “Ready?” he asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Here we go.” He levered her upright.

  She groaned, but she got there. “Oh, my poor head is spinning….”

  “Want to lie back down?”

  “Not on your life. Put on your coat and let’s go.” She looked so
damned adorably determined.

  He warned, softly, “I’ll have to let go of you to do that. You’ll have to stand on your own.”

  “Got that. Let’s try it.” Her cheeks were bright red and so was her nose. Her breath came out as a white cloud. Her forehead looked like a topographical map. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful in his life.

  She nudged him with her hip. “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re still holding on.”

  He was. It had just occurred to him that he didn’t want to let go. Ever.

  Now, how the hell had that happened? It wasn’t supposed to happen. This was an interlude they were sharing, wasn’t it? Something sweet and passionate, tender—and temporary. She was helping him with his Christmas issues and they had become lovers. For a time.

  He’d given up thinking about how they’d deal with what had happened between them when it was over. Maybe he’d been avoiding thinking about that. But one thing he’d been sure of. This wasn’t going to be permanent.

  So why, he wondered, was it suddenly so damn difficult to imagine letting go?

  “Will? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” He stepped away from her.

  She wobbled a little, but then she pulled it together. “See?” Her smile was smug now. “What did I tell you?”

  He scooped up his jacket. “Okay, let’s start climbing.”

  She stumbled more than once on the way up. But she didn’t complain about it. She just went to all fours until she found her footing again. Whenever he offered a hand, she waved it away.

  “Fine so far,” she told him, and “I can do it,” and “I’m okay. Really.” And she was, as far as he could see. She was doing just fine.

  She found her hat about halfway up. “You were right.” She beamed him one of her beautiful smiles. “Here it is.” She shook off the snow and pulled it on her head.

  At the top, she let out a big breath. “Whew.” She looked down to where they had been. “We made it.” And then she veered off to the left.

  He caught up with her in two strides and grabbed her arm. “Not that way,” he said gently and tried to turn her toward the driveway.

  “Will, look.” She pointed at the snow, at a set of animal tracks leading along the rim of the ravine. “The dog.”

  “What about it?”

  “He went that way. We can follow him and maybe we’ll find him, after all.”

  He wanted to shake her. And he wanted to protect her. And the desire to grab her and hold her and never let her go seemed to keep getting stronger as each minute ticked by.

  “Come on. Let’s find him.” She tried to shrug off his grip.

  He held on. “Listen to me.”

  “You know, you’re squeezing my arm really hard.”

  He loosened his grip, but he didn’t let go. “Say that we caught up with the dog.”

  “Okay, great. Say we did.”

  “If we caught up with the dog, then what?”

  She looked at him, so hopeful, so determined, her forehead all bumps and bruises, blood in her hair. “We would bring him back to the house.”

  “How? The animal wouldn’t come to you before. What makes you think it’s going to be different now?”

  “Well, but we can’t just—”

  “You’ve been hurt. The last thing you should do right now is to go trooping off into the woods after a stray dog.”

  “But what if he meets up with a mountain lion, what if he—”

  “Jilly.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her so she faced him fully. “You can’t save every stray creature that runs across your path.”

  She glared at him. “I can try, damn it.”

  He cast about for the words that would get her to do what was best for her. “Look. You said you think this dog was the same animal you’ve seen twice before.”

  “I know it is.”

  “Then have a little damn faith, would you? The dog’s lasted this long. Maybe it knows what it’s up to. And there are other houses in these mountains. It probably belongs to someone who lives in one of them.”

  “But he was so skinny. And he didn’t have a collar….” Her mouth twisted. She looked up at him, pleading with her eyes. He refused to give in. At last she let out a long sigh. “All right. I’ll go inside.”

  He barely had time to enjoy his relief before he realized there was a bargain coming.

  “But,” she said.

  “Hit me with it,” he muttered bleakly.

  “I’ll go on inside. You follow the tracks and see if you can find him.”

  No damn way. Now she’d managed to get out of that ravine, he wasn’t taking his eyes off her until he was certain she was going to be all right. She must have picked that up from his expression, because she came up with another idea.

  “Well, then, how about this? We’ll go in together. I’ll behave myself for a while. You’ll see that, once again, I have escaped the looming specter of brain damage.”

  “Brain damage is nothing to joke about—and how long is a while?”

  “An hour.”

  He scowled at her.

  She offered, “Two?”

  He said nothing.

  Her mouth went tender—and her eyes knew way too much. “Oh, Will. I know you’re scared. Since it’s Christmastime, of course you’re expecting the worst. But it’s not going to happen. I’m going to be fine. How about this? I’ll do what you said. I’ll have some faith that the dog will survive another day. But then, tomorrow morning, when it’s been over twelve hours and I’m still fine, we’ll go out together. We’ll see if we can find him.”

  It was all these damn conflicting emotions that were doing him in. She’d been hurt and he wanted to take care of her. But she wouldn’t let him take care of her. She wanted to go traipsing off on a wild goose chase after some lost dog. And that made him want to shout at her. And then, he couldn’t stop asking himself, how could any injured person be so damn sexy, standing there, shivering, at the edge of that ravine?

  “What do you say?” she asked softly.

  He swore. “All right. It’s a deal.” He grabbed her arm again.

  And he refused to let go until they were back in the house.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jilly meant to be a model patient, she truly did. But she’d never been all that good at being sick even when she really was sick. There was just too much to do to waste time lying around getting well. And to have to rest and be still and try to be quiet when there was nothing wrong with her beyond a few bumps and bruises, well, it was a lot to ask.

  But she’d made an agreement. And she would try to stick by it.

  Will insisted on tending her injury. After she rinsed the blood from her hair, he made her stand by the sink while he used a pad dipped in peroxide to clean the bits of dirt and debris out of the abrasion that crowned her newest goose egg.

  “Oops,” she couldn’t help teasing him, “looks like death by infection is outta here.”

  For that, she got a scowl and a grunt.

  “Will you stop worrying?” she implored.

  “Yeah. Eventually. For now, lie on the sofa. Rest.”

  “For how long?”

  “Jilly, you promised you’d behave.”

  “I’m behaving. I just want to know how long I have to lie down.”

  “At least an hour.”

  “Oh, great. It’s not bad enough I roll into a ravine. I have to lie down for an hour. You know I really hate that. Just lying there, with nothing to do.”

  He only looked at her, the way a put-upon parent might look at a recalcitrant child.

  She asked, sheepishly, “So would you mind if I got my laptop first?”

  “I’ll get it.” He had the ice pack all ready. He handed it to her. “You lie down.”

  Carefully, she pressed it to her left temple. “And bring both of the pillows from my bed, will you? The ones on the sofa are too skinny.”

  He was already at the stairs b
y then. He signaled he’d heard her with a wave of his hand.

  Jilly trudged into the living area and plunked herself down on the edge of the sofa bed. She pulled the ice pack away and prodded her new bump a little. Then she put the pack to her temple again and looked at her heavy green socks for a while, noting the way her head pounded when it was lowered, acutely aware of all her new aches and pains—at her left hip, the small of her back, her right shoulder. Those areas would probably be black and blue by tomorrow.

  She sighed. Oh, well, at least it was overcoat weather. To the world at large, the damage wasn’t even going to show—well, except for the disaster that was her forehead. Hmm. Maybe what she needed was one of those slouchy Ralph Lauren straw hats.

  She heard him coming back down the stairs. “Oh, thank you,” she said, her heart melting a little when he appeared around the corner from the kitchen, carrying everything she’d asked for—and a bag of Cheez Doodles, too. He helped her to get comfy sitting up against the pillows, her snack beside her and her laptop on her knees.

  The hour started out fairly well. She spent a few minutes fooling with her e-mail correspondence. But that was awkward, since one hand was occupied holding the ice pack in place. Next she went to the Web to get in a little research on a possible future column. But then she made the mistake of looking up.

  Will sat in his easy chair, cell phone in hand, his face a grim mask. He stared straight at her, clearly awaiting the first sign of coma or convulsion so he could dial 911.

  She laid the ice pack aside long enough to shut down her computer. “All right, Will.” She set the laptop on the floor. “We need to talk.”

  He frowned. “About what?”

  Where to begin? “I’m fine. Can’t you see? Nothing terrible is going to happen to me. And all the progress you’ve made in the past few days is going to be worth exactly zip if you refuse to give up all these irrational fears.”

  His lip curled—and not in a smile. “Irrational.”

  “Don’t sneer at me. I said your fears are irrational. And I think, if you’ll examine them a little, you’ll see that I’m right.”

  He sneered some more. “In the past five days—since you’ve been around me—you’ve had a tree limb fall on your head, your cat has disappeared, and you’ve fallen down a ravine.”