“Sometimes I wonder where I would be without you in my life,” he whispered, “and it scares me.”
Jess kissed him again, lightly and possessively. She didn’t want to think about where Jimmy would be without her. She knew; she had seen what would happen if she remained stubborn... if Jimmy gave up on her the way she had given up on him... and it scared her, too.
Her wandering hand fell across a boot, and Jess pulled it closer. She turned her head, and on examining the short white patent-leather boot and the discarded jumpsuit beside it, she smiled. A moment later she giggled. As Jimmy towered over her with a mock scowl on his face, she crumpled into a fit of hysterical laughter.
Chapter Seven
A fire was blazing in the stone fireplace, adding a warm radiance to the great room. Standing so close to the blaze, she could practically hear her freshly washed hair drying, pulling into waves and curls that had never obeyed her or the rules of fashion. Jess grabbed the lapels of the terry robe she wore and listened to the crackle of the fire and the distant roar of the shower.
How could it be that the two possible futures she saw in this dream or mystical gift or whatever it was were so different? Without Jimmy, her life and his were wretched. With Jimmy, together, their life was charmed.
She’d been so afraid of falling in love with him.
There had been a moment on that date that was not a date when she’d realized what was happening. What had it been? His hand so easy and natural at the small of her back. A look, a laugh. The whisper of her name...
Rudy padded into the room and settled himself at her feet, curling up on the oval rug before the fireplace. Jess dropped to her knees and scratched the dog between his pointed ears.
“Is this your bed?”
Rudy’s answer was to rest his contented head on the rug while Jess continued to stroke the silky coat. There was a satisfied whine from deep in his throat, his eyes closed, and in minutes he was asleep.
How long would she be here? An hour? A day? Five more minutes? A part of her, the super-organized Jess, wondered where they’d put seventeen extra people tomorrow, if their guests were all staying here or if they were staying in a hotel, but she made herself set that worry aside. She’d handle that concern three years from now... or not at all. She left Rudy guarding the great room and explored the ground floor of the house while Jimmy showered.
Just off the great room was a large kitchen. Had she learned to cook in three years? Unlikely. The kitchen sported an oak-island, a breakfast nook, and the latest in appliances, including a restaurant-size refrigerator. She peeked inside, and sure enough, there was a turkey still in the wrapping on the bottom shelf. Casseroles, indistinguishable since they were all covered with bread crumbs or cracker crumbs or crunchy canned onion rings, filled the next shelf up. There was a huge pan of cornbread dressing, ready for the oven, and the fruit and congealed salads, four different kinds. Something for everyone, she supposed.
Jimmy was right. Piece of cake.
There were four pumpkin pies on the kitchen counter, homemade and tempting. “Florence,” Jess whispered as she leaned forward to take a deep sniff of the fragrant pies, “I don’t know you yet, but already I adore you.”
There was a mud room, where the washer and dryer were located, and that was where the doggy door was located. A quick peek through a small window high in the door revealed that the door opened onto a large and wooded fenced-in backyard. The privacy fence was a good six feet tall.
She took a quick tour through the rest of the house. There were six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a large dining room, and an office that was probably hers. She paused in the doorway for a moment, recognizing her favorite chair, her books, her collection of ceramic cats—old, familiar ones and a few new additions to the collection. The old desk was hers, but there was a new computer sitting on it.
Back in the great room, she found herself thumbing through the CDs beside the stereo. Jimmy’s were together, there at the front. Legs, Blue Christmas, and then the ones she’d never heard of: Heart 2 Heart, Pickup, and Promises. No Over the Edge, she noticed with a sigh of relief.
It didn’t seem quite fair to check out the new CDs, so she slipped Blue Christmas from the rack and put it in the CD player.
Jimmy had such a great voice, and the first song on the CD filled the room that was magically lit with only firelight and the glow of the Christmas tree. After a few bars Rudy joined in, lifting his head and howling softly from his bed by the fireplace.
“I never should have tried to teach him to sing,” Jimmy said as he stepped into the room. His hair was still damp, and instead of a robe he’d slipped into a pair of old jeans. And nothing else. Jess’s heart skipped a beat. He was so beautiful.
“Come on, sugar,” he said as he stepped toward her. “You know I hate to listen to myself.”
“Why?” she asked as he punched the button that brought “Blue Christmas”—and Rudy’s accompaniment—to a sudden halt.
“I hear every mistake, everything I should’ve done... better.” He switched on the radio. “You want Christmas music? Here you go. Nothing but Christmas music for the next twenty-four hours.”
The song playing on the radio was “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” the same version that had been playing on her ride home from work just... a few hours ago? Three years ago? Jess shivered. The song was a stark reminder that no matter how great this was, it wasn’t real. Not yet, anyway.
“Are you okay?” Jimmy wrapped an arm around her and led her to a wide chair, a solid-blue padded chair that was sized somewhere between a regular chair and a love-seat. Jimmy sat down and brought Jess with him.
“I just got a little chill.”
Jimmy wrapped his arms around her to warm her up, and she curled against him.
“I checked out the kitchen,” she said into his chest. “Everything’s set for tomorrow. All we have to do is cook the turkey and heat the casseroles and the dressing and we’re done.”
“I told Florence I didn’t want you doing too much this year.”
“You did?” Jess smiled, a small smile directed toward the low fire.
“I did.”
They cuddled in the wide chair before the fire, listening to Christmas music and saying little or nothing. Everything was touched with perfection, holiday enchantment of a sort that Jess had never known. The fire, the music, the light from the Christmas tree... and Jimmy’s easy touch. It was a wonderful evening. Even Rudy was silent, apparently not inclined to sing along with anyone but Jimmy. He seemed as content and comfortable as Jess was.
She was tempted to close her eyes and go to sleep in Jimmy’s arms... but where—and when—would she wake up?
In her apartment? In another, less wonderful future? Would she wake up again in her office to hear Dean doing his Elvis impersonation?
The news came on, a break in the continuous holiday music. Weather, a traffic report, and a radar update indicating that Santa had been spotted in Knoxville and that all children in the Nashville area should go directly to bed. There followed a bit of local news, and then the newsman calmly announced that the actress Erica Kenyon had been arrested in Denver, Colorado, for shooting her husband, veteran baseball left-fielder Mike Barkley.
“Do you remember her?” Jimmy asked sharply. Obviously he was surprised by the news. “We met her in LA when I did that movie.”
“I remember her,” Jess said coldly.
Jimmy shifted slightly, and with a finger under Jess’s chin forced her to look up at him. “You didn’t like her from the day we got there and she came up to us to say hello, till the day we left for Vegas. I thought she was a real nice girl...”
Jess snorted. “According to what we just heard, you’re a poor judge of character.”
“The woman welcomed us to Hollywood, and you pulled me aside to tell me that she was bad news.”
“And I was right.”
Jimmy smiled. “You were jealous.”
She didn’t want to talk about Erica, didn’t want to remember the dream—the vision—where Jimmy had died in her arms.
When the news was over, Christmas music began again. Starting with Jimmy’s “Blue Christmas.” Rudy began to sing, and Jimmy groaned as he released Jess and left her alone on the chair. He turned off the radio, the music came to an abrupt end, and Rudy silently rested his head on the rug once again.
“Come on.” Jimmy grabbed Jess’s hands and pulled her to her feet. “It’s time for bed, anyway.”
“Coward,” she accused. Her face was mere inches from Jimmy’s bare chest, and suddenly it was too tempting to resist. Jess rocked forward slightly and placed her lips against his flesh, kissing his hard and warm chest lightly. “You have a wonderful voice. There’s not a single note in that particular song that could have been sung better.”
Jimmy clasped his hands behind her back and held her tight. “Well...” he drawled.
“No argument,” Jess insisted as she lifted her face to his. “Not even a little one. Not tonight.”
He lifted her off her feet and carried her away from the fire and the Christmas tree, down the hall to the ground floor master bedroom. This one chamber was almost as big as her apartment, and there were two connected bathrooms, his and hers. A king-size bed with a rich mahogany headboard dominated the room, and that was where Jimmy gently dropped her.
The lamp on the bedside table burned softly, casting deep shadows and illuminating the bed and the green quilt there with a radiance as mystical as the Christmas lights.
Jimmy tugged at her belt and it fell away, allowing the robe to open and reveal that she wore nothing underneath. He smiled, but he wasn’t surprised. His hands studied her, stilled on her belly with a reverence, and rose to her sensitive breasts.
He joined her on the bed and made love to her again, without the urgency of the first time. Gentle and loving, Jimmy claimed her, heart and soul and body, and the long minutes that passed while he became a part of her were perfection.
Exhausted and satisfied, they huddled together beneath the quilt. That quilt formed a cocoon that shielded them from the rest of the world. She liked it.
She could happily stay here forever, with Jimmy and their baby and a big dog named Rudy. If she wished it hard enough, would she be allowed to remain?
“The alarm’s set for seven,” Jimmy said languidly into her ear. “That’ll give us plenty of time to get ready for the horde to arrive.”
His eyes drifted closed.
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Jess whispered, suddenly afraid. What if she woke somewhere else, and Jimmy wasn’t there?
“You need your rest. The baby needs the rest, too.” One hand rubbed warmly and slowly against her back, while the other barely touched her stomach. “Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
Jimmy was tired. He drifted easily into sleep. Jess could feel the exhaustion pulling at her, but she fought it as long as she could, keeping her eyes open so she could watch him. Just watch.
He was sweet and caring and beautiful and talented—the perfect man. She’d fought him for so long, allowing her fears to rob her of precious moments with the man she loved. If she got another chance, she’d do a lot of things differently.
As she drifted off to sleep she wondered if she’d dream. Could you have a dream within a dream?
There were fragmented snatches of dreams—Dean and his karaoke machine, Lorraine and Mrs. Courtney. The real Mrs. Courtney and then the ghostly Mrs. Courtney. Gingerbread cookies everywhere. And Jimmy was always there.
When Jess opened her eyes her legs were tangled with Jimmy’s. She was wonderfully warm and safe. The room was lit, gray with early morning light, and she was still here! Maybe wishing so hard had made a difference.
And then again, maybe there was something else Mrs. Courtney wanted her to see.
Jimmy stirred as she did. His head was on her pillow, his hair was tousled, and his eyes, when they opened, were sleepy. “I didn’t hear the alarm.”
“Must not be seven yet.”
Jimmy rolled away from her and grabbed the alarm clock. It was flashing twelve o’clock. “The electricity must’ve flickered in the night,” he said with a yawn, reaching for his wristwatch on the bedside table.
Jess glanced past Jimmy and out the rain-misted window. It looked to be a cloudy, gray day. She felt a tingle of warning, a tickling of understanding that something wasn’t right. Maybe it wasn’t early morning, after all.
Jimmy brought the watch to his face, and suddenly he wasn’t sluggish anymore. He sat straight up in bed, and turned a wide-awake face to her. “Jess,” he said in a low voice, “it’s 11:30.”
Chapter Eight
“Okay,” Jimmy said calmly as they headed for the kitchen, each of them pulling on clothing as they went. “This is not a problem.”
“Yeah, right,” Jess said. “No problem.”
“We’ll just eat a little bit later than we’d planned,” he said as he slipped his arms into a denim shirt.
“Like eight o’clock tonight?” She was pulling on a sweatshirt, the first piece of clothing she’d grabbed from the first drawer she’d opened. It was huge, and had a Texas Longhorns logo on the front.
Jimmy threw a glance over his shoulder, but didn’t stop. “If we have to.” He actually gave her a small, reassuring smile.
“All right, Mrs. Courtney or whoever you are,” Jess whispered. “Fun’s over. I’m ready to go home now.”
“What?” Jimmy spun around, closing the last buttons on his shirt.
“Nothing.”
He took her hand and pulled her into the kitchen. “You worry too much.”
Jimmy looked for all the world as if nothing were wrong. There was no worry in his eyes; in his easy smile.
“Let’s get busy,” he said as he threw open the refrigerator door. He scooped the turkey off the bottom shelf and deposited it on the counter, where it landed with a resounding thud. Jimmy glanced over his shoulder to Jess, and finally she could see a touch of apprehension in his fading smile.
“Shouldn’t it be thawed out by now?” He rapped a knuckle against the firm and frosty plastic wrapping that covered the bird. “It’s been in the refrigerator for three days.”