A Holiday to Remember (10 page)

“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 stopped 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.

Jayne had started screaming.

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.”

“Oh, my God.” She covered her face with her hands. “The girls must be distraught.”

“What about you? Do you remember the dream? Do you remember waking up?”

Jayne kept her face hidden as she struggled with the question. If she told him about the dreams, the confusion and the fear, would he use them against her? Would he insist she was discovering her “real” self—Juliet Radcliffe?

Could he be right?

“I saw trees.” She took a deep breath, letting her hands fall into her lap, but keeping her eyes closed. “All kinds of evergreens, thousands of them. No snow on the ground, just dark earth and that piney, woodsy smell.

“Then there was only one tree, not in the woods but in a room
with mirrors on the walls, and a shiny dark floor. The tree was decorated for Christmas, with white lights and silver icicles.”

“Okay.” Chris leaned forward to take her hands in his. “What else?”

“I—I’m not sure. I was waiting for…something. Something I’m afraid of. I can’t find a door or a window, can’t get away. All I can do is sit and wait.” She opened her eyes to look at him. “That’s all.”

“That was the dream?” When she nodded, he asked, “Was waking up still part of the dream?”

“Maybe.” Jayne pulled her hands free to massage her eyes with her fingers. “I—I’ve had these moments when I wasn’t…well,
oriented
is the technical term. For a few seconds, I feel as if I’m somewhere else.”

“This afternoon on the path?”

Jayne shrugged. “A couple of other times, too. And the strange dreams.”

She waited for him to take advantage of her confession, but he sat without speaking, staring at the floor between them, for a long time.

“I don’t recall much about my life,” she found herself saying into the silence. “I remember things my grandmother told me about my family, my childhood. But when I try to search for—for my own memories, I come up against a barrier, like a blank wall.”

Chris got to his feet and went to put more logs on the fire. “Does this wall exist at a particular point in time? Does it have a before and after? For instance, do you remember last week?”

“Of course.”

“Last year?”

“Yes.”

“Ten years ago?”

“Ten years ago, I was a freshman in college. That was just after my grandmother died.”

“How old were you then?”

“Twenty. I started later than usual,” she explained, before he could ask. “I developed meningitis when I was eighteen, and nearly died. It took me a couple of years to recover enough to go to school.”

“You remember being sick?”

“I remember waking up from the coma with my grandmother by the bed.”

“In a hospital?”

“In her house. They had sent me home to die, she said. That I woke up at all was a miracle.”

“Ah.” He turned back to the fire, pushing the logs around with the poker even though the blaze was going well.

“What does ‘Ah’ mean? What are you thinking?” When he didn’t answer, she forced her stiff and aching self off the sofa and went to stand beside him. “It’s my brain. My life. What should I know?”

Still, he didn’t look at her. “I’m not sure. You had a bad fall this afternoon—that’s enough to be worried about. You’ve been under a lot of stress. I think…I think you should let this go until we get out of here. Then maybe you can talk to somebody about what’s going on.”

“‘Somebody’ as in a therapist? Doctors?”

He shrugged both shoulders, and winced. “Maybe.”

“You don’t get to be a therapist without taking therapy, Chris. None of this came up in my training.”

“Maybe you needed—what’s the word?—a catalyst.”

“You?”

This time he shrugged only the good shoulder.

She grabbed the arm with the poker to keep it still. “You’ve
been pushing me for days to remember something I don’t. Now, suddenly, you want me to get counseling? When the snow melts?”

Without shaking off her grasp, he returned the poker to the stand. Then he faced her directly and cupped his hands around her upper arms.

“You’re right. I barreled in here thinking I knew what was going on. But…” He pulled in a deep breath. “Things are much more complicated than I realized. I don’t think there’s an easy answer anymore. Or even a right answer.”

He lifted a hand to run his fingers lightly over her scraped forehead, along her temple and the line of her jaw. After hesitating a second at the point of her chin, he brushed the pad of his thumb over her lips.

His blue gaze met Jayne’s. “We have a HanYuleMasZa celebration to endure and seven girls to entertain until the power comes on. I’m willing to let the problems of the past rest for now. If you can.”

He’d conceded the battle. She wouldn’t have to defend herself any longer. Chris was willing to accept her as Jayne, not Juliet. And he touched her as if Jayne meant something to him. As if Jayne was the woman he wanted.

But the questions he’d asked, the discrepancies he’d forced her to acknowledge, couldn’t be ignored. Jayne realized she needed to discover the truth about herself and her life. Somehow the present and the past would have to be reconciled before she could be sure of who she was.

But not right now. “I can do that,” she assured him, with a slight smile. “Something to eat and a good night’s sleep seem like enough to manage for one night.”

“Don’t forget KwanChrisHanYule.” He grinned at her.

She sighed. “I only wish I could.”

A
FTER A DINNER
of skewered hot dogs followed by s’mores for dessert, the girls worked awhile longer on their holiday preparations, but none of them required the least prompting to change into pajamas and settle in the library for an early bedtime.

Chris had no intention of continuing his story tonight, even when the usual requests for more started. “Let’s take a break,” he suggested. “I’d like to hear some of your stories.”

From Monique’s loud, “No way,” to Sarah’s doubtful frown, they all rejected that idea.

“Not the bad stuff. You must have had some good times in your lives. Can you think of one to talk about?”

When he glanced at Jayne, the expression on her face knocked the breath out of him. That smile, the one he’d wanted to see, beamed at him from across the room. He read pride in her gaze, affection and maybe love. At least she loved what he’d just done. That was a great step toward the real thing.

Before they turned their flashlights off, each girl told a story of her own. Monique had them all cheering her play-by-play basketball win. Taryn told about a séance where she’d spoken to her dead grandmother, and none of the girls expressed the least doubt. Beth’s Bat Mitzvah disaster story made everyone laugh. Selena talked about finding a stranded whale on a California beach, and the girls cried when they learned the animal couldn’t be saved. Chris had to blink his eyes a couple of times to see clearly after that one.

Haley gave them a funny account of her first ice-skating lesson at Rockefeller Center in New York. Yolanda described watermelon seed spitting contests in Baton Rouge in the summertime and the ribbons she won each year.

Sarah’s turn came. She paused for a few seconds, then
said, “My story is about how I got stranded in the middle of a blizzard with six people I didn’t like very much.”

The girls around her stirred. Several of them glanced at Jayne in protest.

But the headmistress kept her gaze on Sarah and didn’t lose the smile she’d been wearing when the last story ended.

“From what I knew of them,” Sarah continued, “they were all hard to get along with. One of them was just a brat, a weird new girl who couldn’t get along with anybody. The Jewish girl was always bragging about how rich she was and how she could have anything she wanted.”

Taryn had buried her face in her pink bunny. Beth burrowed into her sleeping bag and turned her back on everyone.

“The two black girls acted like everybody else was putting them down because of their race, when really people didn’t want to be with them because they just didn’t cooperate. The girl from California acted pretty much the same, in Spanish. And the girl from New York thought everybody else was stupid because they hadn’t grown up in ‘The City.’”

Now even Chris looked to Jayne for intervention, because the big library suddenly felt like the interior of an iceberg.

“But the most amazing thing happened when the power failed.” Sarah hugged her knees to her chest. “Suddenly, we were in trouble. No heat, no lights, no way to cook except over the fire. There was some complaining at first, some arguments.

“But gradually, everyone started to cooperate. Nobody cared much where they’d come from anymore, or what problems brought them here. What mattered was being able to take care of ourselves…and each other. We all wanted to be warm, we all wanted to eat. So we all started doing what had to be done. Together.”

She looked at each of the other girls in turn, even to the point of getting up and walking over to kneel in front of Beth.

“So from now on, whenever somebody asks me to think about the good times in my life, the memories I want to keep forever, this week will be at the top of my list. The week when I learned how to love every single one of the girls I thought I didn’t like.”

Chris found himself blinking his eyes again, especially when all of the girls piled on top of each other in an effort to share hugs. A long time passed before they all felt satisfied they’d given and received enough love.

Sarah stood up again. “Something else I learned this week—what being an adult and taking responsibility really means. I hope I can face tough situations with the same strength and kindness and imagination that Ms. Thomas and Mr. Hammond have shown us this week.”

All the girls rose then, and gave a standing ovation. Jayne let her tears show but, being a guy, Chris blinked his back. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried so often.

Then he realized he
could
remember when he’d cried like this. But he didn’t want to think about the past tonight.

So he grinned at their applause and said thanks, then went outside to bring in more logs. He stood for a while by the woodpile, hoping the girls would be asleep by the time he went back. And he noticed a change in the air, a softness that predicted warmer temperatures and melting snow.

Even Jayne had fallen asleep when he returned to the library. He set his logs down as quietly as possible and fed the fire to be sure they’d be warm all night.

Then, because he thought he’d earned it, Chris settled into one of the armchairs. With his feet stretched out on the ottoman and his head wedged at just the right angle into the
soft corner, he closed his eyes and spent the night with seven girls. And one woman.

Which was why they were all awakened the next morning by the sound of someone knocking on the glass panes of Emmeline’s garden doors.

“I
CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’VE
been trapped up here for four days without power.” Steve Greeley shook his head and took another gulp of coffee. “Drinking only instant coffee.”

The deputy grinned at Jayne and she was forced to smile back, though every cut and bruise on her face protested. “We’ve been pretty comfortable, overall. The fireplace made all the difference, of course.”

Steve had driven his snowmobile from town to check on Jayne and the girls, as promised. Ron Pruitt, another member of the Ridgeville sheriff’s department, had come with Steve on his own snowmobile. She and Chris had brought the men into the kitchen, where the girls had made an appearance before asking if they could go back to bed and get warm again.

“Having somebody who knows how to cook on the fire must’ve helped.” Ron commented. “Not many people have that skill anymore.”

Jayne nodded, pretending to sip her coffee. The truth was, she didn’t know what she’d done in her childhood. Listening to the girls’ stories last night had demonstrated exactly how little she remembered of her own life.

“It’s too bad you got hurt, though.” Steve studied her face, which the mirror had already told her looked like a mask from the latest horror film. “I think you should see a doctor. Right away. And the girl with the hurt wrist needs to go down with us, too.”