Home In Time For Christmas. Heather Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ like nothing she had ever seen before. They were reproductions, she was sure, but they must have cost a mint—they had been singularly crafted and were sewn, sole to body, with leather strips meticulously threaded by hand.

      Quit with worrying about his state of dress! she warned herself in a puffing silence. He was heavy. She was barely managing to drag him a quarter incha second. She could hear herself grunting and puffing in the cold air, and yet she was straining so hard that it seemed her muscles and lungs were on fire.

      Then, suddenly, words in a deep, masculine and explosive tone sounded loudly against the stark landscape.

      “Good woman! What on God’s own earth are you doing to me? ”

      She dropped his ankles and stared at him, speechless. He was still stretched out, but sitting up, legs out in the snow, staring at her as if she had lost her mind.

      “Oh, you’re alive!” she gasped.

      To her dismay, he appeared both surprised and puzzled. “Yes, yes, I am. I believe. It is cold, so I must assume this feeling means alive.” He offered her a rueful and very puzzled grimace. “Excuse me, but… who are you, and where are we?”

      She frowned. She didn’t much mind the who are you part of the question, but the where are we was more than a bit disturbing.

      “My name is Melody Tarleton. We’re in the middle of the road, heading toward Gloucester. You ran out in front of me. I struck you with my car.”

      “Your car?” he said, truly puzzled.

      She pointed. He tried to rise, staring at the car—gaping at the car, actually. Inwardly, she groaned. What? Was he taking this reenactor thing far too seriously?

      “Yeah, yeah, my car. I hit you. I’m responsible, I’m so sorry, except you did run right out into the road. And that’s insane, you know. Totally insane. What, are you crazy? There’s black ice all over, with the temperature going up and down all the time.”

      He stared at her, still frowning, blinking furiously. He looked her up and down, noting her sleek wool coat with its fur-lined hood—now completely soaked and covered in melting flurries. He looked at her face, and then around him. Of course, other than her car against the snowbank, there was nothing to see but snow-covered trees.

      “Please,” he said with quiet dignity, “I don’t understand. I swear to you that I have never seen such a conveyance. Or anyone that looks quite like you.”

      Anyone that looks like me? He had to be kidding. She studied him in return. His face was lean, well sculpted, and yet, in a way, he actually resembled Mark.

      But he wasn’t Mark, and she knew Mark had no family. He was just a very strange stranger she had just hit on the road.

      “Look, did I break any of your bones?” she demanded.

      “I don’t think so,” he said.

      So what the hell was she supposed to do now? He had to be bruised and in pain. She couldn’t leave him on the snow-laden, icy road.

      Mark would have told her to get in the car as quickly as possible. He might have picked the guy up, but only to drop him at the nearest police station. If he’d been with her, he’d never let her try to help the man. He’d be instantly convinced the guy was a serial killer.

      Mark wasn’t with her.

      And she made her own choices. And that, to her, was important. She wasn’t against accepting advice, but as far as her life went, she had to make her own choices.

       So here, she had a choice.

       What to do?

      He didn’t look like a serial killer. Then again, was there an actual look? Was there a stereotype, were they blond like Swedes, dark and romantic like Italians or Spaniards. Did they dress up in colonial costume?

      “Let’s get out of the snow,” she said. She started walking. He followed her.

      “You have no horses,” he said.

      “It’s a car,” she said. “It has an engine, a battery… pistons. I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic, I have the oil checked and leave it with the Ford people.”

      “The Ford people?” he asked.

      She gritted her teeth. “Stop it! Enough. You look great. I don’t own or manage any of the historical museums around here. You don’t need to keep up the act.”

      He stopped short, looking at her with indignation again. He stood very straight, and he was handsome and imposing, like a hero out of an adventure book. “My dear young woman, I assure you, I am not performing in any manner. I don’t know where I am, nor do I understand this fascinating mode of transportation you refer to as a car. I…” His voice trailed off. He staggered forward, his knees buckling. She caught him, and he regained some of his strength, coming back to a full stand, but still leaning upon her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

      If he was acting, his work was worthy of an Academy Award. Melody was afraid she had managed to give him a good clip to the head with the front bumper, and that he was suffering some kind of dementia because of it.

      “Let’s get to the car, and hope that I can get us out of this snowbank. My cell phone isn’t working.”

      “Your cell phone?“ he said.

      “Oh, God!” she groaned. “Never mind. Let me just get you home.”

      She managed to get him to the car, she climbed in across the passenger seat.

      He jumped as she revved the engine.

      “It’s all right, that’s the engine,” she said. “Please, just get in, and fasten your seat belt.” Before he could ask, she added, “The harness, right here. It saves lives, trust me.”

      He got in and, with her assistance, put on the seat belt.

      She forced herself to move slowly, patiently, and she managed to back out of the snowbank. Cautiously, she began to drive on the road again.

      “Unbelievable!” he murmured.

      She shook her head. “Okay, you don’t know where you are. But where were you before I hit you?”

      He stared at her. His handsome features knit in thought, and then confusion.

      “New York,” he told her. “I was standing on the gallows, a rope around my neck.”

       Great! He was crazy. He was a homeless lunatic.

       Either that, or he’d somehow hit his head really hard when she’d struck him.

      She narrowed her eyes, staring very carefully at the road, wondering if she hadn’t completely lost her mind. She had picked up a madman.

      “I don’t want to know what part you were playing,” she said, trying to keep her tone even. “I need to know who you really are, and СКАЧАТЬ