A Holiday to Remember

Jayne smiled. “But we’re safe and sound inside, so we don’t have anything to worry about. We’re warm and dry and there’s lots of food. Lots of firewood, too—I asked Mr. Humphries to leave us a good supply within easy reach.” She glanced at the fireplace, where the blaze had gotten low. “Maybe we ought to bring some wood in before—”

“Did you hear that?” Sarah had turned her face toward the garden outside. “It sounded like banging.”

“Probably a loose tree branch in the wind.” Jayne waited, listening, but didn’t hear anything. “I guess—”

The girl held up a hand. “There it is again.” This time, in the quiet, Jayne heard the sound, too—a slow, hard pounding.

It stopped, and they both took a deep breath. Then the noise started again.

“That’s the front entrance.” Jayne crossed toward the door to the hallway. “You stay here with the girls. I’ll return in a few minutes.”

But as she turned into the hallway, Sarah was right behind her. “I don’t think you should go by yourself.”

When Jayne looked back, she saw the six other students had joined them.

“What’s happening?”

“Is it time to eat?”

“Where’re you going, Ms. Thomas?”

Jayne accepted the unlikely possibility of convincing them to stay behind. “Someone is knocking on the front door. Let’s see who’s there.”

As they proceeded toward the main section of the manor, some of the girls jogged, danced and skipped ahead. But Jayne came to a halt before they could reach the double doors into the foyer. “I want you all behind me once I go through those doors. I’m glad to have your company, but I don’t know who is out there, so stay back and out of the way. Understood?”

Seven apprehensive gazes stayed fixed on her face as the girls nodded.

“Good.” Jayne pulled open one of the paneled mahogany doors. “Let’s go.”

She swallowed hard as she crossed the black-and-white marble floor of the huge entrance hall. Past closed doors on the left leading into the dining hall, past the foot of the curved staircase on her right, and the entrance into the administrative office suite just beyond. Finally she stood with her hand on the brass knobs of the double front doors. Taking a deep breath, Jayne squared her shoulders, just as whoever stood outside started pounding again.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Using both hands now, she turned the right knob and jerked the panel back.

She noticed the snow first, whirling and slashing in the light from inside and the lamps on the porch. Then she caught a glimpse of blue eyes in a pale face smeared with red. Paint?

Blood. “Sorry,” the man confronting her muttered. “Can you…” he swayed from side to side “…help?”

Before the word ended, he pitched forward, right into Jayne’s arms.

At her back, several of the girls screamed. Jayne staggered under the man’s weight, reaching out by instinct to hold him. Though she struggled to stay upright, he bore her down to the floor, collapsing with most of her body underneath his. He was sopping wet. And freezing.

“My God, he’s heavy.” As Sarah moved to shut the door, Jayne pulled her arms free and braced herself against the hard floor with her hands behind her. She could hardly budge, pinned as she was with the man’s head on her chest and the rest of him draped over her.

She struggled to organize her thoughts. “Sarah, take Taryn and Yolanda up to the infirmary and bring back the stretcher. You may use the elevator coming down,” she called as they went running up the stairs. “Just hurry!”

A glance at the agitated faces of the other girls told her she had to get them out of the way and occupied. “You four are the dinner crew.”

When the moans died down, she continued. “Let’s keep it simple, since we’ve got an emergency to deal with. Haley and Monique, make grilled cheese sandwiches. At least twelve of them. Selena and Beth, heat up soup in a big pot on the stove. We’ll need some hot tea, too, for Mr. Two Tons, here.”

She tried to shift, and groaned at her lack of success. The girls gave nervous laughs. “Just make something we can eat when we get this guy settled. That’s all I ask.”

They returned the way they’d come, and Jayne let her head fall back, trying to ease the tension in her neck and shoulders. “Hurry,” she murmured to Sarah, Taryn and Yolanda. “Or I may never walk again.”

As if in answer, wheels squeaked somewhere beyond the top of the grand curved staircase. “We’re on our way,” Sarah called. “Had some trouble figuring out how to operate the stretcher. Be there in a minute.”

“Whew.” Jayne sighed in relief, then gasped as the body lying on top of her moved.

“What the hell…?” His words were slurred, his voice hoarse. “Where am I?” He jerked to the side, off of her, then propped himself on one elbow and stared at Jayne. Comprehension dawned in those sky-blue eyes. “Did I pass out on top of you? Are you okay?”

Before she could answer, he tried to lift his other hand to his head. Swearing, he fell backward instead, and lay flat on the floor, his face twisted in pain.

Jayne shifted to her knees beside him. “What’s wrong? Is your arm broken?”

“Dislocated,” he growled between bared teeth. “Shoulder.”

The squeak of wheels announced the arrival of the stretcher.

“What can we do?” Sarah asked, breathing hard.

Jayne considered the white-faced man on the floor. “Yolanda and Taryn, you two go down to the staff kitchen and see if the girls there need help with supper. Sarah and I can manage here.”

“But—” Yolanda started.

Looking up, Jayne lifted an eyebrow. “Surely you’re not going to argue. I believe I made the rules clear at our meeting this afternoon.” She used her quietest, most intimidating headmistress voice.

“Yes, ma’am.” Haley Farrish, a ninth-grader, elbowed the other girl in the side. “Come on. We can get some chips. I’m starving.”

Yolanda Warner hesitated, her lower lip stuck out in a pout. As a junior, she probably thought she should be allowed to help. But when the man on the floor groaned and struggled to sit up, panic chased away her self-importance. In the next moment, she and Haley disappeared through the office doorway.

Jayne scrambled to her feet and motioned for Sarah to come to the man’s uninjured side. “Let us help you up,” she told him. “We’ll lift under your arms—”

“God, no.” Holding his injured left arm against his side with his other hand, he had somehow managed to maneuver himself to his knees. “Just give me a second.” He stayed there for much longer than a second, head bowed, his harsh breaths the only sound in the immense space of the entry hall.

Then his right knee jerked up, he planted his foot against the marble floor and drove himself to stand. He swayed, and Jayne stepped closer, arms out. Sarah, on his other side, did the same.

But this time he didn’t collapse. Blowing out a deep breath, the man turned slowly to face Jayne.

His eyes were bloodshot, his hair hanging in wet tangles, his face frozen in lines of agony. For the first time, though, she recognized her stalker from the previous day in town.

“Remember me? I’m Chris Hammond,” he said, his voice still ragged. “I came here to find out where you’ve been the last twelve years.

“And why the hell you’re lying about who you are.”

THE HEADMISTRESS DROPPED her jaw till Chris could practically see her tonsils. Her dark, straight brows drew together over eyes the exact hazel color he remembered. He would swear he knew the shape of every freckle on her nose. Oh, yeah, she was lying, all right.

“Well?” He dragged in a breath against the agony searing his shoulder. “What’s with the fake name?”

She gave her head a quick shake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”