“There you are.” The misty Mrs. Courtney gave Jess a wide smile. “I need you clearheaded,” she said, silently snapping her hazy white fingers. “As I said, we haven’t much time.”
“Who
are
you?” Jess rasped.
Mrs. Courtney shook her head in dismay. “We don’t have time for explanations...”
“Who are you?” Jess asked again, rising shakily from her chair. “A gift. You said this was a gift, and I had to watch Jimmy die. It was sordid and ugly and... and I can’t go through that again.
Who are you
?”
As it had in her apartment, the shimmering figure changed. From Mrs. Courtney to Jess’s brother Peter, crying because for the first time he wouldn’t see his kids at Christmas. From a department-store Santa to her mother, crying over spoiled plans. Her sister, Marty, when she’d been six and had found that special toy beneath the tree, and then a drunken Uncle Emmitt. Her father, apparently shocked to learn that Santa had delivered the expensive dollhouse Jess had her heart set on, to Jimmy, his eyes cutting upward to the mistletoe.
And back to Mrs. Courtney. “Now do you realize what I am?”
Jess shook her head, unable to speak.
“I am the Spirit of Christmas. I am made of all your memories, good and bad, rolled into one.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Jess felt as though she’d been physically and mentally wrung out. Her muscles ached, her eyes burned, and she couldn’t think clearly.
“You’ve seen one Christmas,” the entity said softly. “Now it’s time to see another.”
“No.” Jess shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Remember, Jess, that this is the future. It hasn’t happened yet, and is not unyielding.” Mrs. Courtney floated from her perch. “Some aspects of the years yet to come are meant to be; others are only waiting to be shaped by your hand. Your future is what you make of it. Look around you.”
Jess surveyed the office that should be familiar, but many things had changed. There was an ornately decorated Christmas tree in one corner, and a plastic Santa hung in the window. There was a strand of real pine above the door, filling the office with that unmistakable scent.
She looked down at the calendar on her desk. Again, three years had passed since she’d fallen asleep in her chair. This time the appointments noted there were numerous, and in someone else’s very messy handwriting.
The reluctant perusal continued. Instead of a sensible and businesslike outfit, Jess found that she was wearing a green-and-gold Christmas sweater and a short green skirt.
There was nothing she could do but steel herself for the worst and see this vision through to the end. “What’s changed this time?” Jess muttered.
“Everything,” Mrs. Courtney whispered.
There was a brief knock at the door, and it swung in to reveal a hugely pregnant Lorraine, dressed in the same billowing red-and-gold maternity blouse she’d been wearing the last time Jess had awakened in this office.
“Okay, you can come out now,” Lorraine said brightly.
“I can?”
“Jimmy says it’s time.”
Jimmy
. Jess almost knocked Lorraine down as she fled from the office.
Nothing could have prepared her for the sight she found waiting for her. Jimmy was perfectly healthy, gorgeous, smiling... and dressed in a white Elvis jumpsuit identical to Dean’s. The two of them stood atop the usual stage—Lorraine’s desk—ready to sing.
Instead of karaoke, this year there was only Jimmy’s guitar.
They began to sing, “Blue Christmas,” of course, and Jess started to cry. She couldn’t stop the quiet tears, and didn’t care to, at the moment.
Some things never changed. The crowd’s eyes and grins were turned up to the makeshift stage, and every now and then a female employee sighed loudly, as was expected. Dean still couldn’t sing, but for once it didn’t matter.
Jimmy was alive and well and staring down at her as he sang. His easy grin faded when he saw her silent tears, and so to reassure him she smiled as widely as she could. She would do whatever she could—whatever she had to do—to protect him from Erica. To protect him from everything.
When the song was finished, Jimmy left the “stage,” and someone plugged in the karaoke machine for Dean to continue the show. Jimmy handed the guitar off to a waiting Lorraine, and walked straight to Jess.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she satisfied herself with laying a hand against his chest. “You just look so... so...”
“Ridiculous,” he said.
“Wonderful.”
Jimmy held out his arms and studied the red and green spangles on his sleeve. “Dean gave it to me for Christmas, and I thought you might get a kick out of it.”
Jess couldn’t speak. Her heart was in her throat, and besides, what could she say?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jimmy whispered as he reached out and wiped a single fresh tear from her cheek.
Jess nodded her head, and Jimmy leaned forward to kiss her quickly, a familiar and comfortable kiss. “People are watching,” she whispered as he pulled away.
Jimmy grinned and kissed her again. “I’ll kiss my wife wherever and whenever I want.”
Her heart skipped a beat, and then her entire body shivered. Married? To Jimmy? She glanced down at her left hand, and sure enough there it was. A diamond solitaire engagement ring and a plain gold band. There was a matching gold band on Jimmy’s finger.
“Come on.” He slipped an arm around her waist and guided her to her office. “You left your coat in Lorraine’s office, didn’t you?”
Lorraine’s office? Mrs. Courtney said that everything had changed, but this was too much, too fast. Jimmy led Jess into her office, and grabbed her coat from the rack by the window.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again when they were alone in her office. He helped her slip her arms into the coat, and with his mouth near her ear he whispered, “Come on, Jess, you’re pale as a ghost. Are you sick? Dizzy? Tired?”
He sounded nearly frantic.
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
“Good,” he breathed, and he sounded truly relieved. “I don’t mean to be a pest, but you’re going to have to get used to me being overprotective for the next seven and a half months.” He reached around her and settled a large hand, fingers spread, over her belly.
She was married to Jimmy, Lorraine had her office and apparently her job. And she was pregnant.
Mrs. Courtney was right.
Everything
had changed.
Dean was well into “Viva Las Vegas” as Jess and Jimmy walked, hand in hand, from Lorraine’s office to the door. There were a few soft good-byes and holiday greetings, but most of the attention was on Elvis.
Lorraine saw Jess and Jimmy trying to make a quick getaway, and waylaid them at the door. She sure was quick for a cumbersomely pregnant woman.
“Not so fast, you two,” Lorraine said, throwing her arms around Jess’s shoulders for a quick hug. Lorraine’s huge stomach pressed against Jess’s flat one, and she had a sudden and startling image of their children, so close and so new.
They would grow up together, these children. Birthday parties, sleepovers, summer camp—they would be the best of friends just as their mothers were best of friends.
She wanted to cry all over again.
“Merry Christmas,” Lorraine said brightly. Her smile faded when she saw the tears in Jess’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Jess shook her head. “Nothing.”
“She’s been like this since she saw me in this getup.” Jimmy put his arm around Jess’s shoulder and leaned toward Lorraine. “I never should have let Dean talk me into this. I thought it would be funny, but instead of laughing...”
“In my first three months I cried all the time,” Lorraine revealed in a whisper. “When I was sad, when I was happy, even at beer commercials. I imagine the prospect of facing both sets of parents, brothers, sisters...”
“What?” All Jess’s sentimental thoughts for her child’s future were whisked away. “
Both
sets of parents?”
Jimmy guided Jess into the hallway. “I’m taking you to the doctor, right now.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Jess insisted as Jimmy punched the down button. “It’s just... Lorraine’s right. My emotions are on edge, and if I choose Christmas Eve to get mushy and sentimental because I have you and a good friend like Lorraine, well, I think that should be allowed.”
She didn’t want to waste this time at the doctor’s office, or sitting in the emergency room because Jimmy thought she’d lost her mind.
He guided her into the elevator, a protective arm around her waist. “You didn’t really forget that everyone was coming tomorrow, did you?”
Everyone
. What a nightmare. “Of course not.” She leaned into Jimmy’s side. “I was just kidding.” Would he buy it? She’d never been known for her practical jokes.
But it worked well enough. She felt him relax, the muscles in his arm and his shoulder loosening considerably as his arm closed even more completely around her.
This she could accept, for a while. Dream or impossible reality, it was wonderful. And it felt real. Jimmy’s arm around her, his voice so clear and sweet. But then, the last time had felt real, too.
She slipped her free hand under her coat and over her belly, palm down and fingers spread. A baby. A child who, if she didn’t change her ways, would never be born. Was that what the spirit was trying to tell her?
Jimmy placed his hand over hers, his long fingers spreading past hers and brushing the green sweater.
“Have you decided?” he asked softly. “Do you want to tell everybody about the baby tomorrow, or do you want to wait?”
A part of her wanted to shout the news to the world, but another part of her wanted to hang onto this moment as if the secret were gold. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, your mother and mine will both be royally pissed if they find out you told Lorraine and not them, but I think I’d rather wait. Tomorrow’s going to be hectic enough without breaking the news to seventeen people.” He leaned across and kissed her uplifted lips. It was a natural and impulsive kiss. “To tell the truth, I just want to keep the two of you all to myself for a while.”
The elevator doors opened onto a deserted lobby. “Okay, Jimmy,” she agreed. “We won’t tell anyone else just yet.”
She didn’t know if she would even be here to see tomorrow. At any moment, she could close her eyes and find herself whisked to another future, maybe where Lorraine and Jimmy were married, and Jess herself was dressed in a white bell-bottomed jumpsuit with red and green spangles and singing “Blue Christmas” with Dean.
They ran through the parking lot, trying to reach the truck and escape the cold wind. Jess’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the pickup truck parked in the same spot it had been on her last visit—dream—to this time. There were no other cars around it, and the street lamp shone down brightly, marking the pickup like a spotlight.
Just a few minutes ago—at least it seemed like just a few minutes ago—Erica had shot Jimmy while they sat in that truck. How could she bear this? If she started to panic, if she refused to set foot in the vehicle, Jimmy would surely take her to a doctor, Christmas Eve or not.
He opened the driver’s door and lifted her, hands around her waist, into the truck. She slid across, not all the way but to the middle. Jimmy jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
This was a different time. There was no Erica, no gun. No danger. Jess reached out and trailed her fingers along the dashboard.
“You could afford a new truck,” she said softly.
Jimmy’s hand stilled over the keys he’d already slammed into the ignition. He turned to her, and his face was lit and shadowed by the dull lamplight that shone through the window. She couldn’t see his eyes nearly well enough to suit her, and the shadows accentuated the sharpness of his jaw, the evening stubble there, full, fabulous lips. The collar of the white jumpsuit was turned up, and she smiled brightly. He did look incredibly silly.
“I’ll never sell this truck,” he said seriously. “It’s not my fault that your car decided to blow the transmission today of all days.”
“You love this truck, don’t you?”
Jimmy leaned toward her, kissed her again. It was amazing how often and how naturally he came to her this way. A kiss, a touch, a look, spontaneous and comfortable and real.
“We had our first date in this truck, even though you swore for months that it wasn’t a date at all.” Jimmy slid from behind the steering wheel and wrapped an arm over her shoulder. “We’ve argued in this truck, made up, and made love right here.” He nuzzled her neck, kissed her throat, and Jess could imagine too well falling back and making love to Jimmy now, here.
“‘Pickup’ was my best-selling CD so far,” he continued, and Jess realized that she was falling slowly backward and Jimmy was coming with her. “When this truck dies, it gets a proper burial.”
Jimmy slipped his hand beneath her coat and under her sweater. Fingers swept over her skin, warm hands on a cold night heating her until the interior of the truck wasn’t just warm... it was hot.
His hand rested on her breast as he kissed her again. She was practically lying down, and Jimmy towered over her, wrapped himself around her. Her thighs parted, and Jimmy rested between them.
It seemed as if she’d wanted him forever. She’d denied it, fought it, but she knew now that this was right. More than right, it was meant to be. Jimmy shifted his body so that he touched her from locked lips to spread knees, and she could feel his hardened arousal pressing insistently against her inner thigh.
She slipped her hand between their bodies and found the zipper that started at the neck of his jumpsuit and ended somewhere beneath the waist. With a little tug it slipped downward slowly, to mid-chest, and Jess tucked her hand between the white fabric and Jimmy’s warm chest. Her hand rested over his heart.
The passenger door flew open, and they were hit with an icy blast of cold air. Jimmy flew up, bringing Jess with him with his hand at her back and her hand trapped awkwardly beneath the white polyester. She twisted her head quickly, wondering, dreading what she might see there.