The Gift Of Christmas Past Part 2

Close enough. "Aye."

She shook her head. "Impossible. I can't be in England. I was in Freezing Bluff, Michigan, half an hour ago. I fell into a pond." She was starting to wheeze. "I couldn't have resurfaced in England. Things like this just don't happen!" Her voice was growing increasingly frantic.

"Perhaps the chill has bewildered you," he offered.

"I'm not bewildered! I smell too bad to be bewildered!"

He had to agree, but he refrained from saying so.

"England! Geez! And backwoods England at that!"

"Backwoods?" he echoed.

"Backwoods," she repeated. She looked at him accusingly. "I bet you don't have running water, do you?"

Miles gestured apologetically toward the moat. "I fear the water runs nowhere. Hence the less than pleasing smell-"

"Or a phone?"

"Phone?" he echoed.

"Oh, great!" she exclaimed. "This is just great! No phone, no running water. I bet I'll have to haul my own water for a bath too, right?"

"Nay, lady. I will see to that for you." Let her think he was being po-lite. In reality, he didn't want her moving overmuch inside. She was sop-ping wet and he didn't want moat water being dripped all over his hall, sty that it was. Having the cesspit emptied into the moat had seemed a fine deterrent to attackers at the time, but he wondered about the wisdom of it now.

"Look," she said, planting her hands on her fluffy waist, "I appreciate the hospitality, such as it is, but what I really need from you is a bath, some hot chocolate and a bed, pretty much in that order. Sir Sweetums will have to wait until tomorrow. Things will look brighter in the morning."

19 She said the last as if she dared him to disagree with her.

So he nodded, as if he did agree with her.

"And then I'll figure out where the h.e.l.l I am."

He nodded again. Whatever else she planned, she certainly needed a bath. Perhaps her wits would return with a bit of cleanliness.

"Garretts never have hysterics," she said sternly, wagging her finger at him.

"Ah," he said, wisely. "Good to know." The saints only knew what hysterics were, but he had the feeling he should be relieved the woman be-fore him never had them.

"You are a Garrett?" he surmised.

"Abigail Moira Garrett."

"Abigail," he repeated.

"Right. But don't call me that. Only my grandmother called me that, and only when I was doing something I shouldn't have been. Call me Abby."

"I like Abigail better," he stated.

She gave him a dark look. "Well, we'll work on that later. Now, let's go get that bath, shall we?"

Miles watched her march off toward the stables. He smiled in spite of himself. The saints only knew from whence this creature had sprung, but that didn't trouble him. He'd seen many strange things in his travels. He liked her spirit. She made him smile with her bl.u.s.ter and babble.

"Miles?"

"Aye, Abigail?"

"I can't see where I'm going," she said, sounding as if that were en-tirely his doing.

"That shouldn't matter, as the direction you've chosen is the wrong one. The great hall is this way."

She appeared within the circle of his torchlight again. "Great hall? What's so great about it? Do you have central heat? What, no phone but a great furnace?"

Miles didn't even attempt to understand her. He inclined his head to his right. "This way, my lady. I'll see to a bath for you."

20 .

He led her to the hall, ushered her inside and rehung the torch. He set the bar back across the door. That was when he heard her begin to wheeze again.

"Garretts do not faint. Garretts do not faint."

"I'll be back for you when the tub is filled," he said, giving her his most rea.s.suring smile. "Things will look better after a bath."

She nodded. "Garretts do not faint," she answered.

Miles laughed to himself as he crossed the hall to the entrance to the kitchens. If she continued to tell herself that, she just might believe it.

Chapter Three.

ABBY SAT IN a crude wooden washtub and contemplated life and its mys-teries. It gave her a headache, but she contemplated just the same. Gar-retts didn't shy away from the difficult.

No phone, no electricity, and no Mini Mart down the street. Things were looking grim. She looked around her and the grimness increased. Had she stumbled upon a pocket of backwoodsiness so undiscovered that it re-sembled something from the Middle Ages? The fire in the hearth gave enough light to illuminate a kitchen containing stone floors, rough-hewn tables and crude black kettles. Not exactly Better Homes and Gardens worthy.

Abby stood up and rinsed off with water of questionable cleanliness. She wasn't sure she felt much better. Even the soap Miles had given her was gross. She decided right then that she was a low fat person, especially when it came to soap. At least she thought she'd just washed with a glob of an-imal fat. She filed that away with half a dozen other things she would digest later. On the brighter side, though, at least she didn't smell so much like a sewer anymore. She'd splurge on a fancy bar of soap when she got home.

She dried off with a completely inadequate piece of cloth, then looked at what Miles had given her to wear: coa.r.s.e homespun tights and a coa.r.s.e linen tunic. Not exactly off-the-rack garments, but they would do. She put the clothes on, sans her dripping wet underthings, and found, not surpris-ingly, that Miles' hand-me-downs were much too large. They might have fit if she'd kept her oversized down coat on under them, but there was no

21.

22 LYNN KURLNAD.

wearing that at present. She kept the tights. .h.i.tched up with one hand while she dumped her clothes and coat into the washtub with the other. She'd let them soak for a while. She didn't want to wash her leather Keds, but she had no choice. She dunked them in the tub a few times with everything else.

"Hachoo!"

The sneeze echoed in the great hall. Abby dropped her shoes in the tub and ran for the doorway. She slipped and skidded her way out into the large gathering hall. Miles was standing by the wood piled high in the middle of the room, sneezing for all he was worth. He looked at her and scowled.

"Dab cat," he said, dragging his sleeve across his furiously tearing eyes.

"Where?" Abby said, looking around frantically. "Sir Sweetums! Here, kitty, kitty."

She saw a flash of something head toward the back of the hall.

"d.a.m.n cat," she exclaimed, taking a firm grip on her borrowed clothes and giving chase. "Come back here!"

"Abigail, wait!"

Oh, like Miles would be any help in catching the spirited feline. Abby scrambled up the tight, circular stairs, almost losing her balance and the bottom half of her clothes.

"Here, kitty, kitty-whoa!"

She would have fallen face first into nothingness if it hadn't been for that arm suddenly around her waist, pulling her back from the gaping hole that was the top of the stairs.

"We're missing some of the pa.s.sageway and a good deal of roof," Miles said, panting. "By the saints, woman, you frightened me!"

His fingers investigated a bit more around her waist. Abby would have elbowed him, but her situation was too precarious.

"What happened to your middle?" he asked. "And your arms?" He frisked her expertly. "Saints, I thought you were excessively plump!"

"That was my down coat, you creep. Stop groping me!"

"Hrumph," he said. His fingers stilled, but he didn't move. "Just what manner of woman are you, Abigail Garrett?"

"One on the verge of heart failure-if Garretts had heart failure, 23 which we do not. Now, can we please go back downstairs? It's really drafty up here." She looked out into the shadows. "And I've lost Sir Sweetums again." She had the most ridiculous urge to sit down and cry. "Just when I thought I had him. But how can I have him? He's gone." An unbidden tear slipped down her cheek. "I'm losing it." She sighed heavily. "I'll be the first in my family to go that way, you know. Garretts never lose it. We die in flamboyant, reckless ways. We never go quietly. Except me. I'm such a familial failure."

"The only place you are going, Abigail, is to a chair before the fire. You'll catch the ague here in this night air."

"Don't call me Abigail."

He grunted. "Turn around and keep hold of my hand. These stairs are steep."

Abby followed him, because he had her hand in his and didn't seem to want to let go. She didn't want to go downstairs. She wanted to keep her eyes peeled for her cat, who should have been chasing b.u.t.terflies in heaven. Instead, he was causing an allergic reaction to an inhabitant of h.e.l.l.

"I'm tired," she said.

And with that, she pitched forward. She felt herself be caught and lifted.

"Saints, woman, but you are a mystery."

"I can't handle any more tonight," Abby whispered.

She felt herself lowered onto something relatively soft.

"Then take your rest, slight one. Things will look better in the morning."

Abby thought they just might, especially since the last thing she heard was a sneeze.

ABBY WOKE, STRETCHED, and shuddered. What a lousy night. And what an awful dream! Too many chocolate chips eaten straight from the bag. She'd have to coat them in cookie dough the next time around to diffuse the impact.

She rolled out of bed with her eyes closed, mentally halfway to the shower before her feet hit the floor.

24 .

"Oof!" the floor exclaimed.

Abby stumbled as the floor under her feet moved. She would have hit the ground if it hadn't been for those hands that came out of nowhere and caught her. How it happened she couldn't have said, but she soon found herself sprawled out over a long, impressively muscled form, staring down into dark eyes. She looked in them for several moments before she figured out their color. Gray. Dark gray. Like storm clouds.

So, it wasn't a dream. Miles of Spend-whatever held her up just far enough for her to get a good look at his face. She really felt as though she should be polite and get up, but she found she just couldn't.

The torchlight from last night just hadn't done justice to this guy. Maybe she'd been distracted at the time by the clamoring her sense of smell had set up. She must have smelled very badly. It was the only possi-ble reason she could have done anything besides gape at the man she was currently using as a beanbag.

She propped her elbows up on his chest and took advantage of her vantage point. He was a stunner, even if he was a little bit on the unkempt side thanks to an abundance of s.h.a.ggy dark hair and a stubble-covered chin. He was beautiful in a rough, mountain man kind of way. He proba-bly lived off the land for months at a time. No fighting for mirror s.p.a.ce with this guy, no sir. Abby felt her blood pressure increase at the thought. He probably limited his toilette to dragging his hands through his hair a few times each day and shaving when his face got too itchy. She had the feeling he didn't use hairspray or mousse-which meant her feet wouldn't stick to his bathroom floor. Oh, yes, this was her kind of man. Handsome and low-maintenance.

"Hmmm," she said.

"Hmmm," he replied.

He was giving her the same once-over. He reached up and fingered her hair. It was unruly hair, she knew, and she opened her mouth to make an excuse for the riot of auburn curls, when he met her gaze and smiled.

"You have beautiful hair, Abigail."

Okay, if he wanted to like it, he was welcome to.

"Indeed, you clean up very pa.s.sably."

25 "What do you mean I clean up just pa.s.sably?" she demanded. "I was giving you much higher marks than that."

He grinned. "Indeed."

Abby tried to hold onto her annoyance, but it didn't last long against the dimple that appeared in his cheek.