When she reached the upstairs landing, she saw four doors. Three were open. Feeling like Goldilocks, she tiptoed around the landing and peeked in the open doors. The rooms were unoccupied. She moved to the fourth door.
Turning the handle quietly, she pushed, inch by silent inch. In the dim light filtering in from the landing, she could make out a king-size bed, with a puffy plaid duvet. Under the duvet she saw the sprawled shape of a man, whose black hair formed a dark shadow against a white pillow.
‘Mr. McAllister—’ she addressed him in a hiss, from just inside the door ‘—are you awake?’
There was no answer.
Biting her lip, she took six tentative steps forward, and heard a rhythmic snoring, half-muffled by the pillow. She took another six steps, and was now close enough to touch him. Which she did. A light pressure, with the tips of her fingers, on what looked to be his rump. ‘Mr. McAll—’
The figure jerked spasmodically, erupted in a groan and croaked, ‘Go away!’ and burrowed deeper under the duvet.
‘I have to stay the night.’ Stephanie said the words clearly, but the hammering of her heart made them vibrate. ‘I just thought I ought to let you know. Is it all right?’
She thought he hadn’t heard her. She waited for a long moment. Then, as she was about to turn away uncertainly, his right arm came flailing out. The thumb, she saw in the glimpse she got before his arm dropped limply over the edge of the bed, was turned up.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and crept away, closing the door softly behind her.
Going into the nearest bedroom, she dragged the duvet off the bed, and along with a pillow, took it downstairs to the living area.
A quick reconnaissance of the main floor in search of a bathroom revealed a modern kitchen; a dining room adjacent to the living area; an invitingly cosy TV room; and—she was just about to give up hope when she found it—a powder room.
It took her only a few minutes to get washed and ready to turn in. Then, clad in her red T-shirt nightie, with her hair in a ponytail, she turned off all the lights save the one on the table by the sofa she’d chosen for her bed.
Before she cuddled down under the duvet, she reached out to switch off the lamp—and paused nervously as she noticed how the lone light cast eerie shadows around the room... over the Oriental rugs, over the tall bookcases, over the plump cushions on the low-slung seating...and over a massive oil painting whose spooky atmosphere gave her the creeps. Gothic, she thought with a shiver, very Gothic!
And as she fell into a fitful sleep, her last conscious thought...more of an apprehensive prayer, actually, than a thought...was that if the man upstairs was not McAllister but an ax murderer, his weapon would be sharp and her end mercifully quick.
What a helluva night it had been!
Damian McAllister rolled over onto his back, and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling. Hallucinations were one thing—he’d had them a few times before when a bad flu had driven his temperature to abnormally high levels—but hallucinations like those he’d experienced over the past few hours were something else. They’d seemed as real to him as the mattress under his back.
Of course he was used to having nightmares around Christmas time—he’d been tormented by them since he was a kid...though they had, of course, become much worse during the past five years, since—
He swiped a shaky hand over his eyes.
Don’t think about that.
With an effort, he dragged his thoughts from the past.
Sweeping the duvet aside, he swung himself off the bed, and on legs that threatened with every step to give way under him, made his way across to the ensuite bathroom.
Once there, he planted his palms on the counter and stared starkly at his reflection in the mirror.
‘Ye gods!’ The man staring back at him looked like a criminal from an America’s Most Wanted poster. Black hair sticking up every which way, jaw scruffily bearded, eyes shot with blood—the red striations on the whites forming a lurid contrast to the steel blue irises.
He needed a shower and a shave...desperately needed a shower and a shave...but he was pretty sure he’d keel over if he tried to stand upright in the shower stall. First he had to get something in his stomach. And a cup of coffee would hit the spot.
He closed his eyes. Coffee. He wanted it so damned badly he could swear he smelled the fragrance in the air, aromatic and devilishly tantalizing...
‘...and the storm that hit northeastern Vermont late yesterday, shows no signs of letting up...’
Damn! Stephanie frowned as she snapped off the Sony ghetto blaster she’d clicked on when she’d come through to the kitchen ten minutes earlier. Pouring herself a mug of coffee from the six-cup pot, she crossed to the patio doors facing what was possibly the back of the house. She stared out, though she might as well have saved herself the bother, she thought bleakly. There was nothing to be seen but white. And Grantham Towing, she surmised as she took the first sip of her coffee, would be as likely to send someone down the treacherously steep Tarlity side road in this blizzard as they would send one of their trucks to the moon.
So here she was, stuck in a remote lodge with a—
‘Well, hello and good morning.’
Stephanie swiveled, convulsively swallowing the coffee she’d been swirling around her tongue, and stared wide-eyed at the man standing in the doorway.
McAllister.
If indeed he was McAllister...
He was tilted forward, and he had a hand pressed flat on either jamb, at shoulder level. He was wearing what seemed to be the same pair of jeans he’d had on the night before; certainly he was wearing the same scowl. And he looked for all the world like one of America’s Most Wanted...but at least he wasn’t carrying an ax. Not that he would have needed a weapon to overpower her, Stephanie reflected as her gaze skimmed over the sleek muscles cording his arms, his dark-haired chest, his powerful thighs—
She flicked her gaze up and noticed with dismay that his eyes—slightly bloodshot but keen—were fixed with interest on her own thighs, revealed beneath the hem of her short nightie. She’d awakened so early she’d decided she’d be safe enough to have a mug of coffee before showering and getting her clothes on. A mistake.
‘I hate to be a nuisance,’ she said, ‘but you did indicate last night that I could stay over.’
‘You’re real.’ His mouth quirked up at the edges.
‘Real?’
‘I thought you were Mrs. Claus.’
She raised an incredulous eyebrow.
He dropped his arms and slumped sideways against the doorjamb, the brown of his tanned skin accentuated by the crisp white of the door’s painted trim. ‘The red coat, the red-and-white hat...the sack of toys...’
‘Oh.’ Stephanie chuckled. ‘My duffel bag. No, it’s just got a few clothes and my toilet things... not toys. The teddy bear—well, I stuffed him on top at the last minute.’
Her host scratched a hand over his chest, and yawned, showing a glimpse of perfect white teeth. ‘I thought, this morning, that I’d been hallucinating last night, but I wasn’t. Your reindeer—’ he corrected himself ‘—your van...it’s in a snowbank?’
‘I lost control coming down the hill, ending