Home in Time for Christmas Read Free Page A

beasts.
    Christmas. How she had once loved it. How she dreaded it now. And this feeling of dread was wrong, so wrong! Because no matter how uncomfortable the festivities proved to be for her, she had to remember that it was Christmas.
    She frowned suddenly, slowing the car. The day had been bright and beautiful, despite the ice on the ground and roads. But out of the blue, there was suddenly darkness, as if a cloud had passed the sun. The darkest cloud ever known to man.
    And in the midst of it…
    Good God, there was a figure in the middle of the road, a dark form….
    Melody slammed hard on the brakes, even though she knew better. There was just so much ice on the road. Before the car fishtailed, she saw the figure more fully in the glare of her headlights.
    It was a man.
    A man dressed as if he were a refugee from the past. He was hatless in the snow, and wearing a white muslin shirt and tight-fitting pants. Tall black boots. He wasn’t in a wig, but his long dark hair was queued back. He was staring at her with pure amazement.
    As if the idiot had never seen a car before.
    Then, the car started to spin. She had hit black ice. She knew better than to try to stop the way she had. But hell, it had been that, or…
    She felt a bump; she’d hit the figure.
    Hopefully not as badly as she would have, had she not tried so hard to stop!
    She came to a halt against a snowbank. Incredibly, her air bag did not go off. Her lights streamed against the gray color the day had become and the snow, coming down now in a fresh swirling round of flurries. Stunned, she sat still for long seconds, thanking God that she was alive.
    Then she remembered the soft thumping sound against the car. She tried to open her door, but she was against the snow bank. She maneuvered across the car to the passenger side and managed to get out.
    He was there, lying in the snow. He was clad only in eighteenth-century attire, often enough seen aroundSalem, 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.
    â€œOh,” 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