No Christmas Like the Present (11 page)

Chapter 11

They wouldn't let her get near him. Hands and arms kept pulling her back, she didn't know how many, only that she couldn't get to the hole in the ice that had just swallowed Fred. Lindsay's heart slammed against her ribs like a jackhammer. Gradually she realized she was screaming.

“Calm down,” said a husky man on her right. He had her arm locked behind her. She focused on him long enough to see he was one of the dozen or so safety attendants she'd seen scattered around the lake.

Why was he wasting his time holding her back, when he should be helping Fred?

She stopped screaming, not because he said to calm down, but because she was exhausted by the futility of screaming. Her arms ached, and she stopped pulling against the other hands that restrained her. Abruptly she felt limp. She couldn't take her eyes away from that jagged hole, its edges like huge, carnivorous teeth.

How long had it been? Thirty seconds? Three hours?

She turned to her red-vested watchdog. He had a broad, ruddy face. “You need to—”

He put a hand on her shoulder, as if afraid she might go berserk again, and nodded toward a cluster of other red-vested workers on the ice, about midway between the hole and the crowd of skaters.

The scene started to make some kind of sense. With what seemed like agonizing slowness, the safety crew dispersed to form a chain, lying flat and facedown, leading across the precarious cracked ice toward the hole. Each one grasped the legs of the man in front of him—ready, she realized, for a secondary rescue if the ice cracked any further. Lindsay's eyes fixed on the opening again. Could anyone still be alive under there?

Could
Fred die? She didn't know.

This is all my fault, all my fault, all my fault,
although she couldn't say why, except that if it weren't for her, he wouldn't be here to begin with. Even now, she wasn't doing him any good. She'd been completely useless. Worse than useless—she'd panicked.

A black-gloved hand gripped the ice at the edge of the water.

Lindsay stepped forward without thought, only to have the attendant take a firmer grip on her shoulder. She watched, helpless, as the first man reached the gloved hand. Slowly, they pulled a limp black figure out of the hole.

The next thing Lindsay knew, the beefy attendant next to her had shoved her head down between her knees, practically knocking her off her feet.

“I'm not going to faint,” she said.

“Not now, you're not,” he agreed.

She straightened, slowly, still restrained by the rough hand at the back of her neck. To her alarm, they were taking Fred's droopy form
away,
supported by three or four of the men, toward the skate rental shack across the lake from where she stood. “I have to—”

“You have to wait here,” he said with exaggerated patience. “The paramedics are on their way. We need to get him dry, check his vital signs . . .”

Vital signs.
Lindsay felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. The idea of Fred's flesh-and-blood vulnerability hit her full force once again. Would his body work the same way as anyone else's when they examined him? She had no idea.

It's all my fault.
But even her guilt seemed self-centered, so she closed her eyes and directed all her energy, prayers and concentration into one thought:
just let him be all right.

Fred remembered very little of what came next. But then, very little of it made sense.

He found himself in some sort of crude back room, all concrete and wood, surrounded by red-vested attendants. They covered him in stale-smelling blankets, checked his pulse, and generally made nuisances of themselves. There was only one thing he needed. Didn't they know that?

“Is Lindsay all right?”

“Who's Lindsay?” one of them said.

Another one said, “She must be the one who was out there screaming her head off.”

Fred tried to shove himself upright, and two of them pushed him back down with unnecessary zeal. He fell back on the small, rickety cot like a sack of potatoes. Cold, wet potatoes.

“They're bringing her over here to wait for you,” a third one said, and Fred instantly rated him the only useful one of the lot.

Things got hazy after that. They seemed obsessed with making sure his heart and lungs worked. From somewhere, they produced dry clothes for him. That, at least, made sense. His hands and feet were numb at first; then they were on fire, which the men assured him was a good thing. The rest of him was cold, cold in a way he'd never been before. He'd heard the expression, “chilled to the bone,” and now he knew exactly what it meant.

Finally, they let Lindsay in. A paler Lindsay than he'd ever seen before. She'd obviously been worried, and for some odd reason her concern was a welcome sight. He tried to think of something clever to say, to show her he was all right. Nothing came.

Lindsay didn't say anything either. Just went to him and draped herself over him in a gentle, protective hug. Her hair fell across his face. It tickled abominably, and nothing had ever felt more wonderful.

There was nothing else he needed.

 

 

An hour later, he still couldn't get warm.

Fred huddled on Lindsay's couch, buried under the arsenal of blankets she'd brought out to him. She'd put him at the end of the sofa closest to the fireplace, though she acknowledged that the blue-orange gas flames didn't contribute much in the way of heat.

Not that it mattered. This cold came from inside, probably the way most people would feel after being dunked in sub-freezing water. But he'd never felt any kind of cold, beyond that brisk, tingling feeling at the surface of his skin, or that delicious, bracing air that made him feel energetic. He'd never even shivered before. Now, he couldn't seem to stop.

And Lindsay couldn't seem to sit down.

She was off in the kitchen, doing what, he wasn't sure. She hadn't stopped searching for ways to make him comfortable since they stepped in the door. When all he really wanted was for her to
land,
preferably somewhere within reach.

Finally he got his wish. Lindsay arrived with a steaming mug in hand—only one—and placed it on a tray she'd set up next to the sofa. She sat beside him, leaning against his arm, and Fred closed his eyes. Even through the layers of blankets, she brought a warmth he could feel.

He wanted to raise his arm and put it around her, but he couldn't quite summon up the energy. And he didn't know if he should.

Things had gone terribly wrong, and he suspected he knew why.

“Drink that,” she said. “It should help warm you up.”

He'd never been fussed over before either, another new experience. He couldn't decide whether he liked it or not. He did know he'd been pleased, in some perverse way, by the concern he'd seen in Lindsay's face back at the lake, but that seemed wrong. He shouldn't be glad to see her upset for any reason.

So he cooperated, and sipped from the mug she brought him. It tasted strange and salty, not at all what he'd expected. “What is this?”

“Chicken broth.” She started to move. “I'm sorry, can I get you—”

“No. Please.” He almost laughed. “Don't get up again. You're the only warm thing in here.”

She settled back down, her soft weight returning to lean against his arm. Fred took another cautious sip from his mug, trying to equate the taste and smell with those chicken pieces he'd seen Lindsay eating the other day. Eons ago.

A moment later, her hand reached for his under the blanket. But instead of holding his hand, her fingers traced below his palm and came to rest on the inside of his wrist. Checking his pulse?

He said dryly, “And what is that going to tell you?”

Her fingers went still, and he regretted his tone. “I don't know. I think normal is supposed to be seventy-two or something like that.” She slipped her fingers loosely through his. Better. “When they had you back there to check you over, I was afraid they might find a fifth heart or something.”

That loosened a chuckle in his chest. It had a strange ache to it; he wasn't sure if the sensation was physical or not. “I hadn't thought of that.” All he'd thought about was where Lindsay was, and when they'd bring her to him. “A
fifth
heart?”

Her shoulder shrugged against his arm. “I guess I figured if anyone had an extra heart, it would be you.”

Fred stared at the fire. She had no idea what a selfish creature he'd turned out to be. He'd strayed far off the mark of his assignment—her best interest—and thought only of himself. And Headquarters had let him know it, in no uncertain terms. “This was no accident, you know.”

Her head lifted away from his shoulder, and he was sorry he'd said it. “What?”

“Think about it. That lake opened up under one person.” He smiled slightly. “You and I haven't exactly been playing by the rules, you know.”

“You mean—instead of being struck by lightning, they . . . ?”

He shrugged, trying for a lightness he didn't feel. “You have to admit, it was an effective way to get my attention.”

In the soft glow of the firelight, her lovely eyes went round and horrified. She released his fingers and sat back, away from him, taking her warmth away with her. “Then it
is
my fault.”

What was she talking about? And what was he trying to do to the poor girl? With an effort, he freed his hand from the layers of blankets and reached for hers. “Lindsay. Relax. It's
my
fault. I'm the one who's not doing my job. After all, they didn't drop
you
through the ice.”

He wouldn't have thought her eyes could get any larger, but they did. At last he caught her hand and squeezed it. “Know what? Maybe I could use something else after all. Some hot chocolate?”

He didn't know why he thought that might make her feel better, but it seemed to.

 

 

In the kitchen, Lindsay allowed herself a brief moment to rest her elbows on the counter and cover her eyes. She took several deep breaths, keeping them quiet so Fred wouldn't hear.

This isn't about you.
Caving in to her own emotions wouldn't do him any good.

He wanted a cup of hot chocolate. This, she could do. Lindsay opened the cabinet by the sink. Ovaltine. Milk. And yes, a dash of vanilla.

A few minutes later she returned to the living room, mug in hand. Lindsay froze and stared, not moving, until the slow movement of his chest reassured her that he was breathing.

It was a sight she'd never seen before, and somehow strangely disquieting.

Fred Holliday was sound asleep on her couch.

 

 

Lindsay woke to another unfamiliar sound: a man's cough from down the hall. Her eyes snapped open, and she swung her legs over the bed before her brain could catch up.

Fred, coughing. This couldn't be right.

She hastily grabbed her robe, then stumbled out to the living room. The coughing came again as she headed down the hall, and she tried to assess it with an amateur ear. Maybe not a deep, lung-wracking cough, but it didn't sound good.

All six feet of Fred lay twisted across Lindsay's five-foot couch, and a night's sleep hadn't improved the position she'd clumsily stretched him out into last night. The multiple blankets she'd pulled from the cabinets, and her own bed, knotted around him. His eyes were closed; she couldn't tell if he was awake or not. Gingerly, she rested the outside of her fingers on his cheek. Hot. Of course.

And unshaven. Fred had never needed a shave before.

At her touch, he opened his eyes, his expression glassy at first. One arm came up to encircle her shoulders, pulling her down in a loose sort of hug. He murmured, “Are you my guardian angel?”

A Fred joke, or was he hallucinating as well as feverish? Lindsay straightened to get a better look at him, and his arm slid away with no resistance. There seemed to be no strength in it.

He said, “Something tells me that hot chocolate's gotten cold.”

Well, that at least, was lucid. “Eight hours will do that,” she said.

“What happened to my coat?”

All right. He definitely wasn't all there. “It got wet.”

“I know that, silly. I mean, where is it?”

“Hanging over a chair in the kitchen. I brought in all your clothes last night.”

“Oh. I feel different.” He glanced down at the navy blue sweatshirt he wore, with sleeves that barely reached his wrists. His change of clothes had been cobbled together last night from well-meaning bystanders. Everyday, wrong-fitting, contemporary street clothes must feel very strange to him.