Christmas Kiss (A Holiday Romance) (Kisses and Carriages) (17 page)

Of course she would.

Tears were already shimmering in her eyes by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“In here!” Heathcliff’s voice called from the parlor. “Come. Break yer fast,” he said cheerfully.

Three chairs sat around a small table in the middle of the room. The fire was giving off a lot of heat making Bree wish she hadn’t put a sweater on. She’d dressed in her own clothes, prepared for travel.  She wore her ragged jeans, her red rain boots. Her coat was draped across her suitcase just inside the bedroom, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

But speaking of notice, Heathcliff acted like he barely noticed her at all. He fussed over Angeline, pulled out her chair and showed her how to place her napkin across her lap. Then he pulled out Bree’s chair and left it for her, returning to his own side of the table so he could serve the child. If he had any comment on how she was dressed, he kept it to himself, but she doubted he’d even glanced her way.

“I forgot something upstairs,” she murmured as she turned and headed for the door.

“Coward,” he said, then started chattering to Angeline about why she needed to eat all the different things he’d prepared for her breakfast.

Bree’s feet slowed while she swallowed a pain in her throat, then she realized that all her crying the night before was what made her throat sore in the first place.

Why was he goading her? Was he aching to pay her back for embarrassing him the night before? Or was he just trying to keep up the pretense for Angeline? Either way, it didn’t matter. She didn’t care what she’d promised; she couldn’t bear to make small talk, and she was already headed up the stairs.

A few minutes later, there was a firm knock at the door. She stared out the window. The snow had stopped.

“I’ll just leave your meal out here then, shall I?” Something slid along the floor near the door, then his footsteps moved away.

An hour later, he knocked again.

“Brianna? Miss Colby, will you not eat something at least?”

She rolled over and pulled the blankets over her. Napping was an excellent way to make the time pass faster. Too bad she couldn’t get to sleep. She had no idea how long he lingered before leaving her alone again.

The third time he came, she heard his first stomp at the bottom of the stairs and every step he took after that.

He pounded only once. “Brianna Colby, ‘tis time you stopped your pouting and came out. Think of the example you’re setting for my daughter.” He breathed on the door for a minute, then lowered his voice. “Come out, my Catherine. Let’s not waste what’s left of the day. Come. Play on the frozen moors with me.”

She bawled for an hour.

* * *

The swelling had just left her face, thanks to the snow on the windowsill, when someone small knocked weakly on the door. Of course, it could have been Heathcliff, but Bree also detected the sound of little shoes. He had apparently found reinforcements he knew she could not ignore.

She was headed for the door when a note slid beneath it. In very elegant handwriting she had a hard time believing could belong to a man, it read,

Come see.

She opened the door to find Angeline grinning up at her as if they’d been playing
hide and seek
and Angeline had finally found her. The child clapped and jumped up and down, then took Bree by the finger and led her down the stairs. When they stepped into the parlor, Bree was confused. White sheets were draped over everything.

Was he packing up the house and going away?

She suddenly remembered a scene from Brigadoon. Gene Kelly’s character sees the error of his ways and comes back, looking for the bridge, for the woman he left behind. Bree imagined herself changing her mind one day, not being able to stay away, but when she returns to Scotland, Heathcliff might not be waiting.

Something screamed and Bree nearly peed her pants. It sounded like a cross between a dying sheep and music. The girl squatted down and ducked under one of the sheets, headed toward the sound. Bree had no choice but to follow. When she lifted the edge of the sheet over her head, she saw Heathcliff sitting cross-legged on a pillow with a turban wrapped around his head. His robe was white and looked terribly authentic.

“That is not what a bagpipe is supposed to sound like,” she told him.

He pointed the end of his pipe at a pillow and nodded for her to take a seat. The sound, caught and concentrated under the sheets, was excruciating. She found Angeline sitting against the back of the covered chaise with her hands over her ears, still grinning. The middle of the giant sheet was being propped up by a man-sized candelabra, the cups of which would hold enormous pillar candles—a chunky looking thing covered with rust and candle drippings that might have come from some ancient attic.

The outer edges of the tent were held up by a half dozen chairs and the only other interruptions in the four-foot high ceiling were Heathcliff’s tall bagpipes.

He stopped blowing on the mouthpiece, but the instrument continued to groan.

“It’s not supposed to sound like a bagpipe,” he yelled. “I’m charming snakes!” He started blowing again, since the bag of the bagpipe was quickly running out of air. Then he raised his eyebrows and nodded to a pile of gold cords and tassels that had probably been stripped off the green plaid curtains. When his servants came back after New Year’s, they would have to put the whole room back together again.

Finally, he glared at the tassels as if they’d failed to perform as expected, and gave up blowing.

“We’ll be needin’ new snakes,” he told Angeline.

The girl forced a frown and nodded, then she grinned.

Bree couldn’t resist. “I’m sorry to break it to you, Mr. McKinnon, but whatever snakes might have been lurking around here have fled into the snow to save themselves from your music.”

He smiled, but he wasn’t amused. He looked a little sad, probably because she hadn’t called him by name.

Seeking for something that might lighten the mood, she shook his little note of truce and pointed to Angeline.

“Cheat,” she said.

Angeline grinned.

“Thief,” he said.

Before she could take offense, she realized his hand was on his heart.

“Unfair.” She started to get off the pillow.

“Wait. I’m sorry. Dinna go. We’ve quite run out of games to play, Miss Colby. We were just about to start a goose chase.”

“With a real goose?” She hoped not. He’d probably kill he poor thing and cook it for supper.

“Poor choice of words. We were merely about to go to the kitchens to rummage up a wee picnic.”

“Food, I could do,” she said.

When given the option, Angeline chose to bring their meals back under the tent to eat. Bree helped her get situated, then headed back out of Arabia to get her own food. Heathcliff was there, at the edge, to help her to her feet. Then he helped her into his arms and spun her out into the hallway.

“Stop,” she said firmly, but the rest of her wasn’t really resisting. She’d been in his arms enough to feel comfortable there. Far too comfortable.

“I just want to visit for a moment, while the child is occupied.”

“Your mouth doesn’t work unless you’re holding me?”

He rolled his eyes. Okay, so it was another poor choice of words.

“Let us agree that we willna worry about midnight until it is but a quarter of. What say you? We can enjoy the day, enjoy the evening, and at 11:45, and not a moment before, we can worry about who might appear at the bloody door.”

“Maybe no one will come,” she said, trying to draw out the conversation just a little longer.

He raised a finger to the side of her nose. “No, Brianna. We will speculate not a moment more. If ye find yer mind wandering there, ye must kiss me—to distract yerself, of course. And
I
shall—”

She clamped a hand over his mouth, then realized what she’d done. She sucked in a breath and held deathly still. Her fingers wanted to move, but she wouldn’t let them. She stared at her hand, dreading what he might do with his lips, wanting them to press against her skin so badly she could scream. But they didn’t move. And he wasn’t smiling.

She didn’t want to look up at his eyes, but her gaze was pulled there, like he was a vampire who might be able to compel her to do anything he wanted. Maybe he was some kind of witch after all.

It was too bad the gold fire she found in those couldn’t be bottled and sold. She’d make millions.

His nostrils flared, but she couldn’t run. She didn’t want to run. But she didn’t want him to know just how close she was to melting, so she struggled to remember what they’d been talking about. Oh, yeah.
Kissing.

“
You
shall do no such thing,” she said and pulled her hand away. “You twiddle your thumbs or something.”

“Coward,” he whispered, staring at her lips. “Agreed, so long as you make use of the diversion I’ve assigned to ye each and every time ye worry over the other side of midnight.”

“Fine.” But he’d just made sure that she thought about midnight every time she looked at his lips. And he knew it too. She wasn’t going to point that out, though, or the fact that his brogue was getting more drastic.

As she ate her lunch, she realized he’d kind of given her a gift, in that she had to stop worrying about what she would tell her mother. Today was simply their last day to play house.

Looking across the tent, she noticed shadows under his eyes, and in them.

“What are ye contemplating, Brianna?” His tone implied she owed him a kiss.

“I was thinking you must not have slept well. There are dark circles under your eyes.”

Angeline frowned his way, but he laughed away her concern. “I slept.” There was an odd tone to his voice, though, that gave him away. He was lying.

“I think Laird Gorgeous—”
Oh, my hell!
She turned her face so he couldn’t see just how embarrassed she was. “I mean, Laird McKinnon needs a nap. What do you think?” Bree refused to look his way. Even when he laughed himself silly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Bree woke with a start. She’d been having a nightmare about Angeline, stuck inside the tent with snakes while she and Heathcliff tried to find the opening.

She sat up and her head brushed against the drooping white cloth. Angeline was still fast asleep on the pillow beside her, and the soft growling that filled the tent was coming from Laird Gorgeous. Their three pillows were set in a triangle and he still lay where he’d begun, on his back. His turban had tumbled to the side and his dark head of hair nearly covered the pillow. She was going to miss that hair.

Bree needed to stop doing two things: imagining running her fingers up his chest and through his hair, and thinking of him as Laird Gorgeous. She closed her eyes and groaned when she remembered saying the words out loud. When she opened them, his dark eyes were open. And staring. At her.

Well, at least he wasn’t laughing anymore.

The clock on the mantle began to strike and they remained frozen, eyes locked, while they counted the hours. One. Two. Three. Four. And then a pause before Bree could breathe again. They’d slept for two hours. The sleepless night before had cost them two hours. They had eight hours left.

He grinned and moved his hands. She realized he was twiddling his thumbs and what that meant. He’d been thinking about midnight. And damn it, so had she!

They both glanced at Angeline while at the same moment someone began pounding on the door. The little girl rolled over and blinked.

The pounding didn’t stop, which meant it wasn’t Bree’s heart making such a racket. And as much as she might have wanted someone to come to her rescue days ago, she was ticked their little moment was ruined. It looked like Heathcliff was worried about more than just getting interrupted. He crawled past her with a pretty menacing frown on his face, like he was psyching up to face the coachman!

“The note said midnight.” She crawled after him. “It’s only four, right? It’s not dark yet, so your clock can’t be wrong.”

“The clock isna wrong,” he said as he helped her to her feet. 

He pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers, but before she could get her hands around his neck, he was backing away.

“Ye owed me a kiss, lass. Ye ken the truth of it.” He smiled, but it was forced. Then he headed for the door. She followed in his wake since her hand was locked around his forearm.

“Don’t answer it,” she whispered.

“I must, lass. I’m laird here. I may be needed.”

“You won’t leave us here alone, will you? I can’t face midnight alone! And what if the coachman—?”

Heathcliff patted her hand, then peeled her fingers off his arm.

“I will be right here with you come midnight, lass. I swear it.”

He turned to go, but she could tell he wasn’t eager to see who was pounding on the door.

She thought about staying put, pretending she wasn’t scared out of her mind to find out that their time was up, that the old guy had decided to move up his watch so he could get to bed earlier. Her grandpa used to do that, when she and her cousins were staying over on New Year’s Eve. He’d move the clocks forward so they’d all go to bed sooner. They’d be the only ones whooping and hollering on the front porch, racing each other to the cars for the one time a year when they were allowed to honk the horns.

Then, after they’d been in bed for a while, they’d hear fireworks and horns going off all over the neighborhood. They’d just assumed the neighbors celebrated a lot longer than normal, not that they’d been tricked by their beloved Grandpa.

If the coachman had really decided to come early, she was going to be pissed.

Pissed beat scared any day, and she marched up behind Heathcliff ready to rip someone a new one. The man standing inside the entryway wasn’t the old coachman though.

“I’m sorry to be bothering ye, Laird McKinnon. Truly I am. But we all thought ye would wish to ken what was happening down at the inn, sir.”

“And what is happening down at the inn, Charlie?”

The guy noticed Bree and tried not to look surprised, but failed miserably.