Home In Time For Christmas

He was there, lying in the snow. He was clad only in eighteenth-century attire, often enough seen around Salem, but ridiculous in this weather. His shirt and pants were simple cotton, no barrier against the bitter cold, though, at the least, his knee-high boots would keep his feet warm. He must have been freezing.

Her initial reaction was panic. She had just struck down a man in the snow.

She flew to his side, saw his chest rise and fall.

Oh, thank God, he was alive!

He was young…her age, maybe a year or two older, but he was under thirty, she was certain. His hair, somewhat frayed from what had been a neat queue.

At a loss in those first few seconds, her own heart thundering, she felt her second reaction kick in.

Anger!

What the hell had the idiot been doing standing in the middle of the road in a snowstorm?

Concern quickly replaced the anger. He was breathing, and she didn’t see blood spewing from any part of his body, but had she…broken him?

She needed to dial 911. Fast. Get help.

She fled from the man back to the car, found her purse and cell phone on the front seat, and dialed. Nothing happened.

The No Signal information screen flashed on.

Swearing, she called her phone service a zillion names in a single breath, and tossed the phone back on the seat. She scrambled back to the man on the ground. Should she move him? She suddenly wished she’d taken some kind of first-aid class. If she moved him and he did have a broken limb, she could make it worse. What if his neck was broken? Moving him, she could finish him off!

As she knelt by him, the snow on the ground seeping through her leggings, the flurries coming fast and furious, he suddenly groaned.

“Oh,” she breathed, looking down at him. “Hey, please. Sir, can you hear me, sir? What hurts? Oh, Lord, speak to me, please!”

The snow fell on the contours of his face and turned his hair white.

She might hurt him if she moved him, but if she didn’t, he was going to freeze to death. Second problem. If she did move him, could she get him to the car? Was she capable? He was tall, she was certain—despite the fact that he was prone, he seemed awfully long. Also, it looked as if he was composed of pure muscle. That meant he’d be heavy. She’d never been that thrilled with her own figure, because, basically, there wasn’t enough of it. She wasn’t exactly a weakling, but she was a probably-too-slim hundred and ten pounds stretched out on a five-seven frame.

“All right, if I’m hurting you, I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to try to get you into the car.”

She stood, trying to figure it out. She’d have to grab him by the feet.

As she did so, she noted his boots were like nothing she had ever seen before. They were reproductions, she was sure, but they must have cost a mint—they had been singularly crafted and were sewn, sole to body, with leather strips meticulously threaded by hand.

Quit with worrying about his state of dress! she warned herself in a puffing silence. He was heavy. She was barely managing to drag him a quarter incha second. She could hear herself grunting and puffing in the cold air, and yet she was straining so hard that it seemed her muscles and lungs were on fire.

Then, suddenly, words in a deep, masculine and explosive tone sounded loudly against the stark landscape.

“Good woman! What on God’s own earth are you doing to me? ”

She dropped his ankles and stared at him, speechless. He was still stretched out, but sitting up, legs out in the snow, staring at her as if she had lost her mind.

“Oh, you’re alive!” she gasped.

To her dismay, he appeared both surprised and puzzled. “Yes, yes, I am. I believe. It is cold, so I must assume this feeling means alive.” He offered her a rueful and very puzzled grimace. “Excuse me, but… who are you, and where are we?”

She frowned. She didn’t much mind the who are you part of the question, but the where are we was more than a bit disturbing.

“My name is Melody Tarleton. We’re in the middle of the road, heading toward Gloucester. You ran out in front of me. I struck you with my car.”

“Your car?” he said, truly puzzled.

She pointed. He tried to rise, staring at the car—gaping at the car, actually. Inwardly, she groaned. What? Was he taking this reenactor thing far too seriously?

“Yeah, yeah, my car. I hit you. I’m responsible, I’m so sorry, except you did run right out into the road. And that’s insane, you know. Totally insane. What, are you crazy? There’s black ice all over, with the temperature going up and down all the time.”

He stared at her, still frowning, blinking furiously. He looked her up and down, noting her sleek wool coat with its fur-lined hood—now completely soaked and covered in melting flurries. He looked at her face, and then around him. Of course, other than her car against the snowbank, there was nothing to see but snow-covered trees.

“Please,” he said with quiet dignity, “I don’t understand. I swear to you that I have never seen such a conveyance. Or anyone that looks quite like you.”

Anyone that looks like me? He had to be kidding. She studied him in return. His face was lean, well sculpted, and yet, in a way, he actually resembled Mark.

But he wasn’t Mark, and she knew Mark had no family. He was just a very strange stranger she had just hit on the road.

“Look, did I break any of your bones?” she demanded.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

So what the hell was she supposed to do now? He had to be bruised and in pain. She couldn’t leave him on the snow-laden, icy road.

Mark would have told her to get in the car as quickly as possible. He might have picked the guy up, but only to drop him at the nearest police station. If he’d been with her, he’d never let her try to help the man. He’d be instantly convinced the guy was a serial killer.

Mark wasn’t with her.

And she made her own choices. And that, to her, was important. She wasn’t against accepting advice, but as far as her life went, she had to make her own choices.

So here, she had a choice.

What to do?

He didn’t look like a serial killer. Then again, was there an actual look? Was there a stereotype, were they blond like Swedes, dark and romantic like Italians or Spaniards. Did they dress up in colonial costume?

“Let’s get out of the snow,” she said. She started walking. He followed her.

“You have no horses,” he said.

“It’s a car,” she said. “It has an engine, a battery… pistons. I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic, I have the oil checked and leave it with the Ford people.”

“The Ford people?” he asked.

She gritted her teeth. “Stop it! Enough. You look great. I don’t own or manage any of the historical museums around here. You don’t need to keep up the act.”

He stopped short, looking at her with indignation again. He stood very straight, and he was handsome and imposing, like a hero out of an adventure book. “My dear young woman, I assure you, I am not performing in any manner. I don’t know where I am, nor do I understand this fascinating mode of transportation you refer to as a car. I…” His voice trailed off. He staggered forward, his knees buckling. She caught him, and he regained some of his strength, coming back to a full stand, but still leaning upon her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

If he was acting, his work was worthy of an Academy Award. Melody was afraid she had managed to give him a good clip to the head with the front bumper, and that he was suffering some kind of dementia because of it.

“Let’s get to the car, and hope that I can get us out of this snowbank. My cell phone isn’t working.”

“Your cell phone?“ he said.

“Oh, God!” she groaned. “Never mind. Let me just get you home.”

She managed to get him to the car, she climbed in across the passenger seat.

He jumped as she revved the engine.

“It’s all right, that’s the engine,” she said. “Please, just get in, and fasten your seat belt.” Before he could ask, she added, “The harness, right here. It saves lives, trust me.”

He got in and, with her assistance, put on the seat belt.

She forced herself to move slowly, patiently, and she managed to back out of the snowbank. Cautiously, she began to drive on the road again.

“Unbelievable!” he murmured.

She shook her head. “Okay, you don’t know where you are. But where were you before I hit you?”

He stared at her. His handsome features knit in thought, and then confusion.

“New York,” he told her. “I was standing on the gallows, a rope around my neck.”

Great! He was crazy. He was a homeless lunatic.

Either that, or he’d somehow hit his head really hard when she’d struck him.

She narrowed her eyes, staring very carefully at the road, wondering if she hadn’t completely lost her mind. She had picked up a madman.

“I don’t want to know what part you were playing,” she said, trying to keep her tone even. “I need to know who you really are, and what you really do.”

“Well, in actuality, I write,” he said.

“Great. Very good. Who do you write for? Were you involved in a publicity stunt?” she inquired. Talking to him was like pulling teeth.

“A publicity stunt?” he inquired, confused. He had been staring out the window, perplexed. He turned and stared at her instead, handsome features furrowed.

She shook her head. “A publicity stunt. Something to draw the attention of the media. Something to get your name in the papers.”

“My name is in the papers,” he said.

“Okay. Good start. What is your name?”

“Jake Mallory,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of you.”

“No?” He looked resigned and a little saddened. “I’ve written for the Boston papers and the New York City papers.”

“And I read the papers. I’ve never heard of you. So, what do you write?”

“Treason—according to the British. Well, actually, I haven’t written in quite some time. I wound up being a soldier. I went to war, but I was being hanged for treason.”

“What war?” she asked sharply.

“You should have read a few of my pieces. Some were considered brilliant. Rousing. I’m not a warmonger, not at all. But the colonies couldn’t be used like a Royal Exchequer forever. If we’re to pay taxes, then representation must be absolutely fair. I tried to explain what was happening to us, and why it’s so important that we part ways with Great Britain. I wrote about a central government, and about the rights of each colony. Even General George Washington read what I was writing.”

Lunatic.

“Okay,” she said calmly. “So—you were a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Right before I found you on the road?”

“Right before you struck me down,” he reminded her.

So that was it. In a sneaking and conniving way, he was going to bleed her for what she had done to him.

“Right before I struck you down, yes. You were a soldier. In the Revolutionary War? ”

His eyes hadn’t wavered from her face. She was making a point of keeping them on the road now, but her peripheral vision allowed her to be keenly aware of his steady assessment.

“Yes. Where am I?”

“Gloucester, Massachusetts,” she snapped. “Almost at my house. But I can take a detour to the police station or the mental hospital.”

“I’m very sorry. Truly. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

“Fine. We’ll start over. What were you doing in the twenty-first century?” she demanded.

“The twenty-first?” he asked her.

She let out a long sigh. “Yes, the twenty-first.”

“Who won?” he asked.

She was startled by the sudden intensity in him; she didn’t just hear it in his voice, but felt it in the constriction of his body as he leaned closer to her.

“Who won?” he demanded again. He was even closer. Practically breathing down her neck.

Lunatic. Serial killer. A madman–serial killer. She needed to humor him.

“The United States of America. And the federal forces won the Civil War, too.”

He hunched back into the passenger’s seat. “Thank God. Civil War?”

“The American Civil War, or the War Between the States, or, as it was referred to in the South, the War of Northern Aggression. We are one country.”

He stared out the window at the white world beyond the car. “How sad, how excruciatingly sad. We won the Revolution, and fought a civil war.”

“All war is sad.”

“And there is a war now?” he asked sharply.

She hazarded a glance at him. “The War on Terror,” she said. “Oh, there have been lots of wars. Before the Civil War, the War of 1812—those pesky Brits again, though we’re just like this now.” She crossed her fingers for him with her right hand, keeping the left firmly on the wheel. “Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and all kinds of actions. Actually, I don’t think there has been a time when some part of the world hasn’t been involved in an action of some kind.”

“Amazing,” he said.

“Right. War is amazing.”

“Man’s inability to refrain from it is amazing,” he said softly.

She couldn’t hate him. Okay, so he was seriously more than just daft. There was a dignity to the tone of his voice, and a certain sincerity in too many of his words. Maybe she had hit him on the head, and he believed everything that he was saying to her.

“And it’s…Christmastide?” he asked.

“Nearly. At the end of the week.”

He nodded. “Rose petals.”

“What?”

He half smiled, glancing over at her. “Do you believe in magic? ”

“No.”

“Neither did I.”

“Look, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. But… I don’t want to have to take you to the police. You may be hurt. But my mom was a nurse. She retired recently but she can take a look at you. I mean, seriously, if I have injured you, I’d want to pay the bills. But…wow, I don’t know. You should really go to a hospital—”

“Please, no. I’m not injured.”

She should dump him by the side of the road then.

It occurred to her that while Mark would order her to do that kind of thing, her brother would never consider such an action.

Where did she stand herself?

“So, I’m going to take you home with me. I don’t know who you are, if you’re crazy, or whether you sustained a blow to the head. I’m going to have faith that you’re not a dangerous maniac.”

“I’m not a dangerous maniac, I swear.”

“God help me, I’m going to believe you. But there are a couple of things you’re going to have to get straight first,” she said firmly.

“Honestly, I’m just trying to get home,” he assured her.

“So where is home?”

“Gloucester,” he said.

“Fine. I can just drop you off.”

“I have to find out where,” he told her. “And I’m not so sure I can get there by…car.”

“Great. You can walk, skip or jump, once you’ve gotten it figured out,” she said. “But until then, you’re a friend of mine. We met at college.”

“You went to college?” he asked her, fascinated.

“Yes, I went to college,” she said flatly. “So—”

“Where?”

“Boston College. That’s where we met.”

“Boston College,” he repeated.

“Will you listen, please? This is important.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Whatever you wish.”

“We’ll make you a…an English lit major. And your tremendous interest in local history and lore made you go to work for one of the tour companies. That’s why you’re still dressed up à la General George.”

“Dressed up?”

This was ridiculously difficult. “You are wearing old-fashioned clothing. It’s no matter, I can rummage through my brother’s things, and my brother is the type who would literally give anyone the shirt off his back, so we’re fine on that. The traffic was horrendous, I was desperate to get headed north, so I wouldn’t let you go back for your things.”

He was staring straight ahead. She realized that she had come around the curve that led to her house. She was about to take the turn onto the driveway.

“Jake, are you listening to me?” she demanded, trying to slow the car without doing any more skidding.

“My God,” he breathed.

“What?”

The lights.

Of course, it had to be the lights.

Her mother definitely got carried away with lights. The house looked like a giant birthday cake with candles in a multitude of colors. There were reindeer on the lawn—fashioned in wire and covered in lights as well—that burned brilliantly, as well.

Even the old oaks laden in their snow blankets seemed to be glistening. Ablaze.

It was a warm house, a welcoming house. It….

“It’s my home,” Jake said. “It’s my house. Where I live.”

Chapter Two

Okay, that was all she needed.

The mental-man thought that her house was his.

She inhaled deeply. “Okay, okay, I hit you on the head really hard. But you can’t go in there telling my folks that this is your house.”

He was staring at the lights. It was as if he had never seen such a vision.

Well, to be truthful, not many people had. Her folks did get carried away.

“Jake.”

“Um, yes! Sorry.”

He looked at her again. His eyes gave the impression that he was entirely sane, completely honest, and giving her his steadfast attention. She felt a little start. Something that tightened and trembled within her.

Why did he have to be a madman?

They were striking eyes. They made him something other than just a handsome man. They made him real. Deep and hazel, and seeing her, really seeing her.

“Jake, whatever happened before in your fantasy world, trust me. My folks own this home. They paid off the mortgage several years ago. They worked hard, they love it—and they own it.”

“Of course.”

“You’re not ready for this,” she said worriedly.

He had turned to stare at all the lights again in pure wonder. “How do the lights work?” he marveled.

“Electricity. Your buddy, Ben Franklin, laid all the foundations. Hundreds of years later, I think Thomas Edison got it all really going, and hey, now we’re in the age of real technology—you cannot stare at everything like a kid in a candy store!“

He looked at her. “I’m sorry. But it’s just wonderful. The colors, the brilliance! So very, very beautiful. Ben always was a genius.”

“Yes, of course. There have been a few improvements,” she said dryly. Oh, this was going to be a disaster. She leaned her head on the steering wheel and groaned. “What am I going to do?”

He waited. “My dear young woman, it will be all right.” He smiled.

She gave him a fierce stare. “Listen, we can’t tell my family the truth or they will take you to the nearest hospital. Let’s say we know each other for now—until I can figure out what to do. Soo… We met at college. You’re an historian, okay? You dress up and give people tours.”

“All right. Tours of what?” he inquired.

“Um—Boston. You work for Boston Tours, Incorporated. All right?”

“Boston Tours, Incorporated. Yes, I understand.”

He still stared at her.

She shook her head. “Just follow my lead. And don’t gape at anything that’s—that’s not familiar to you in your, um, current state of mind.”

He smiled, but his eyes were grave, as was his tone. “You must understand. I was hanged during the Revolution.”

“Sure.”

He looked at the house with the Christmas lights blazing and then looked back at her, that odd and endearing smile teasing his lips once again. “You need to learn to believe in magic,” he told her. “But, I do understand. We met at Boston College. I studied English literature. Now, I’m working for Boston Tours.”

“You’re a costumed interpreter,” she said, nodding.

“The lights are beautiful,” he said.

She shivered suddenly. Reality. It was getting cold in the car.

“Come on. Let’s go in,” she said.

She leaned over and opened his car door. He grimaced, thanked her and stepped out into the glittering snow. Then he waited.

She got out of the car, questioning her own sanity once again as she walked around and crooked a hand around his arm. They hurried up the walk and onto the porch together. As they neared it, the door burst open.

Her mother had been waiting for her.

Mona wasn’t exactly a hippie. She was a strange combination of old-fashioned lady of the house with a bit of the wild child thrown in. She had tons of thick, curling blond hair that had only a few strands of gray. She loved yoga and Enya and anything that smacked of man’s peaceful coexistence with his fellow man. She had grown her own food years before the word organic had begun to appear in supermarkets.

She’d been at the original Woodstock.

She always wore long, flowing shirts and dresses, like the flower grower’s version of Stevie Nicks.

Her one great drawback was that even though she had passed that mark of having lived on the earth for over half a century, she saw no evil in anyone, and believed that all could always be made right with the world. She had no enemies. Strangers were always friends waiting to happen.

“Melody! Mark. Oh, Melody, I thought you said that Mark couldn’t come with you—oh, goodness, I’m sorry, you’re not Mark!” Mona said, a hand fluttering to her breast.

“No, ma’am, I’m Jake Mallory. How do you do? I’m sorry to be a strange and uninvited guest, but Melody assured me that you would not mind the intrusion.” He spoke naturally, even if his accent was more than strange. More England than New England, Melody thought.

But he was doing well enough. He was natural and courteous. Her mom greatly appreciated common courtesy in anyone. Manners were a main grievance with her—Mona believed they cost nothing and made the world a better place.

Mona smiled, accepting his hand. “Well, of course, you’re welcome here. Everyone is welcome here, young man.” There was warmth in her tone, but confusion in her eyes. She looked at Melody, questioning.

Melody gave her mother a big hug. “Mom, I found out Jake was going to be at odds for Christmas and picked him up last minute in Boston. He was working, and didn’t have time to change, and when we realized we’d forgotten his things, I was already on the road.”

“Oh, and the weather is horrendous!” Mona agreed, hardly listening as she ushered them inside. “And here I am, chatting away on the porch. You young people come in and sit by the fire and I’ll make some hot chocolate.” She turned, heading into the house. Melody and Jake followed. She paused, telling Melody, “Take Jake to Keith’s room, get him something comfortable to wear. Poor dear, working all day, and then that long drive.”

Poor dear! Oh, yeah. Poor lunatic!

The house was old, very old, some parts of it were built sometime in the early 1600s. A small entryway led directly to a massive parlor. A curving staircase led to the second floor where there were five bedrooms. Behind the massive parlor were the kitchen and dining room on one side, and a family room on the other.

Behind the house itself—now covered in snow—was her mother’s summer garden.

And her father’s office. Laboratory, as she and her brother called it. Her father had a fascination with waves. Radio waves, microwaves—sound waves. Any kind of wave.

A happy baying that seemed to fill every inch of sound space came to their ears; Brutus, the basset with wheels for hind legs, came clip-clapping happily into the room, his tail wagging a mile a minute. He was followed by Jimmy, the sheepdog, who was now fat and healthy. Melody knelt down to pat both dogs and they wove around Jake.