Scrooge and the Single Girl

She got as far as the big maple tree when a particularly hard gust of wind struck. She heard a sharp, explosive sound and glanced up just in time to see the heavy bare branch come crashing down on top of her.

Chapter Three

That cat of Jillian’s got up and stretched. It had started purring again. Loudly. It sat and licked its right front paw for a minute or two, then swiped the paw twice over its tattered ear. And then it just sat there, >looking up at him. Adoringly.

Will found the situation nothing short of unnerving. “Get lost,” he growled.

The cat didn’t move. The purring, if anything, seemed to grow louder. Mentally, Will drew the line. If that animal started rubbing itself against his leg, he was going to kick it. Firmly.

He didn’t like cats. Or dogs. Pets in general left him cold. Strangely, most animals seemed to like him. He didn’t get it. He just wished they would leave him alone.

The cat rose up on all fours and took a step toward him.

“Don’t,” he said loudly.

The cat dropped to its haunches again and went back to staring and purring with low, dreamy eyes. Will stared back for another two or three seconds, a hard stare, a stare meant to impart how unwelcome he found the attention of animals in general and raggedy-eared calico cats in particular. The cat stayed where it was. He began to feel it would be safe to get back to his book.

He had just lowered his gaze to the open volume in his lap when a particularly hard gust of wind wailed outside. Faintly, he heard that popping crack—like a distant pistol shot. He recognized the sound. A nearby tree had lost a good-sized branch.

He glanced up in time to see the cat blink and perk up its one good ear. Reluctantly, he thought of Jillian. Was it possible that she—?

Ridiculous. No way she could have managed to walk under the wrong tree at exactly the wrong moment. He was just edgy because it was Christmastime, and in his experience, at Christmastime, if something bad could happen, it would.

He shook his head and looked down at his book again. These interruptions were damned irritating. As if he didn’t have enough trouble keeping all those Russian names straight even under the most ideal of circumstances.

He read on. One page. Two.

How long had she been out there, anyway? Five minutes? More?

He looked up again. This time he found himself staring at the door, waiting for her to come bursting through it, that mouth of hers going a mile a minute, her arms full of whatever it was she just couldn’t last a whole night without.

But it didn’t happen. The door stayed closed.

So what? he tried to tell himself. She was Jillian, after all. Who knew what went on with a woman like that? She was probably only dithering as usual, fiddling with all those grocery bags, deciding she needed this or that, then changing her mind.

He tried to go back to his book one more time.

But it was no good. She’d been out there too long.

He swore and slammed the book shut.

Jilly blinked. For some strange reason, she was lying down, looking up through the bare branches of a tree at the stormy night sky. The wind was blowing hard and the snow was coming down and it was very cold. Also, she had a doozy of a headache.

She moaned and put a hand to her head, felt something warm and sticky. “Eeuu,” she said. “Ugh.”

Really, it was too cold to be lying around in the snow.

With effort, she turned over and got up on her hands and knees. From that position, though she found she swayed a little, she could see the tree branch that had hit her. It was directly in front of her. The memory of that split second before impact came back to her. She supposed it was a good thing she’d looked up when she did. As a result, it hadn’t landed right on top of her but had only kind of grazed her forehead. She touched the tender, bloody spot again. A goose egg was rising there. Now, that was going to be really attractive.

And wait a minute. Her hair was blowing into her mouth, plastered against her cheeks. Which meant her hat was gone. Now, where could it have—?

“Whoa,” she said as she realized she was listing to the right. She put her hand back down on the freezing snow. It sank in about five inches, all the way to the hard, rocky ground below.

Better, she thought—if, in this situation, there was such a thing. At least on all fours, she could keep her balance.

She turned her head—slowly, since it did ache a lot—to the right. Through the blowing tendrils of her hair, she saw a bag of Cheez Doodles and a tree trunk. She looked the other way, saw her boom box and CD folder and beyond that a ways, an old house.

Ah. She remembered everything now. That was Mad Mavis’s house. She was staying there. Just for the night, as it had turned out. Will Bravo was in there, reading Crime and Punishment, listening to National Public Radio, and, she hoped, beginning to wonder why she hadn’t come back in yet.

But no. Forget Will. He didn’t like her. He didn’t want her here. It would be a big mistake just to lie here, waiting for him to put down his book and come out and rescue her.

And besides, she was an independent, self-reliant woman and that meant she could take care of herself. She’d got herself into this jam and, by golly, she’d get herself out.

Could she stand?

Carefully, she lifted one hand again—and almost pitched sideways. She put the hand down.

“Ho-kay,” she muttered to herself. “Standing up goes in the Doubtful column.”

She glanced with regret at her Cheez Doodles. But there was no hope for getting them—or the boom box or the CDs—inside. Not this trip. She needed both hands in order to crawl.

So she started moving, slowly, with difficulty, more dragging herself, really, than crawling. She was thinking that if she could just make it to the porch, she could pound on the wall and Will would come out and help her the rest of the way. He might be a jerk, but he wasn’t a total monster. Maybe she could even convince him to go get her Cheez Doodles and her tunes—not that she was counting on that. Oh, no. Just hoping.

She was perhaps a quarter of the way to the porch when she started thinking that maybe she could force herself upright, stagger forward for a while and then go ahead and continue crawling when she fell down again. Yes. That would probably work. She really was feeling less dizzy by the second, which was a very good thing, as the less dizzy she was, the faster she could get herself back inside and out of this bone-chilling cold. She levered up onto her knees.

Miracle of miracles, she stayed there. Her teeth were chattering harder than ever, but she didn’t think she was going to fall over just then. She shoved at her unruly, wet hair, pushing it out of her eyes. Next step, bring one foot forward and—

But she didn’t get to that, because right then, she noticed that Will was striding toward her through the snow.

In no time at all, he was looming above her. “Damn it, Jilly.” The wind was making a lot of noise, and he spoke softly, for once. But still, she made out what he said.

Hey, she thought. Jilly. For the first time, he’d called her Jilly. Was this progress—or just a wild hallucination brought on by a blow to the head?

She didn’t much care. “You know, I have to admit it. I’m really glad to see you.”

He didn’t reply to that. She wondered if she’d even managed to say it aloud. And then she forgot to wonder as he knelt down and scooped her up into his strong arms, pulling her close to his hard, warm chest. She hooked an arm around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder with a sigh, all the reasons she disliked him for that moment forgotten.

Her head throbbed as he rose to his feet again, but the pain hardly registered. She was just so grateful he had come out and found her. She snuggled closer as he carried her into the house, stopping to stomp the snow off his boots before he went in, kicking the door closed with great authority once they’d crossed the threshold into the warmth and the light.

He took her to the narrow iron bed that served as a sofa and gently laid her down. He tucked pillows tenderly beneath her head. With care, he smoothed her snow-wet hair away from her face, frowning, looking at the goose egg swelling at her temple.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“I’ve seen worse.” He patted her arm in doctorly fashion. He’d been such a complete crab since she’d knocked on his door that evening, it came as a pleasant surprise to learn that he could drum up a very respectable bedside manner when he had to.

Her booted feet, still encrusted with snow, hung over the side of the couch. He dropped down there and undid the laces and slid them off. She went ahead and straightened herself out on the couch as he stood.

“Right back,” he said, and left her. She watched him set her boots by the door and then, still wearing his jacket, he disappeared behind the half-wall that marked off the living area from the kitchen.