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Amazingly, he had no more trouble with his throat. Maybe he wasn’t really speaking aloud. Maybe he was having this bizarre conversation with his own imagination. That theory was confirmed when a girl’s shapely calves stepped into his field of vision. She wore red silk stockings the exact color of holly berries. She wore nothing else on her feet, which had a very familiar shape.
Lizzie.
His gaze traveled upward, along the swell of her calves. The stockings stopped just above her knees, where they were fastened by a red velvet bow. “Christmas stockings,” he murmured.
“I told you.”
“All right. I was wrong. Maybe it’s heaven after all. Come here.” He wanted to hold her close. His heart wanted to burst with joy that she was here with him, that he wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t going to die without seeing Lizzie again.
“I can’t. There’s a tree on top of you,” she said in a teasing voice. “Either that, or you’re very happy to see me.”
“Oh, you noticed that? You can move it, can’t you? Either you’re an angel and have magical powers, or you’re real and you can push it off me.”
She laughed. A real Lizzie laugh, starting as a giggle and swooping up the register until it became a whoop. “Do you really think an angel would dress like this?”
“Hmm, good point. What are you wearing besides those stockings? I can’t even see. At least step closer so I can see.”
“Fine.” A blur of holly red, and then she perched on the pile of beams and concrete that blocked the east end of his world. In addition to the red stockings, she wore a red velvet teddy and a green peaked hat, which sat at an angle on her flowing dark hair. Talk about a “hot elf” look.
“Whoa. How’d you do that?”
“You did it.”
“I did it?” How could he do it? He was incapacitated. Couldn’t even move a finger. Well, maybe he could move a finger. He gave it a shot, wiggling the fingers on both hands. At least he wasn’t paralyzed.
But he did seem to be mentally unstable. “I’m hallucinating, aren’t I?”
“Bingo.”
An Excerpt from
ONCE UPON A HIGHLAND CHRISTMAS
by Lecia Cornwall
Lady Alanna McNabb is bound by duty to her family, who insist she must marry a gentleman of wealth and title. When she meets the man of her dreams, she knows it’s much too late, but her heart is no longer hers.
Laird Iain MacGillivray is on his way to propose to another woman when he discovers Alanna half-­frozen in the snow and barely alive. She isn’t his to love, yet she’s everything he’s ever wanted.
As Christmas comes closer, the snow thickens, and the magic grows stronger. Alanna and Iain must choose between desire and duty, love and obligation.
ALANNA MCNABB WOKE with a terrible headache. In fact, every inch of her body ached. She could smell peat smoke, and dampness, and hear wind. She remembered the storm and opened her eyes. She was in a small dark room, a hut, she realized, a shieling, perhaps, or was it one of the crofter’s cottages at Glenlorne? Was she home, among the ­people who knew her, loved her? She looked around, trying to decide where exactly she was, whose home she was in. The roof beams above her head were blackened with age and soot, and a thick stoneware jug dangled from a nail hammered into the beam as a hook. But that offered no clues at all—­it was the same in every Highland cott. She turned her head a little, knowing there would be a hearth, and—­
A few feet from her, a man crouched by the fire.
A very big, very naked man.
She stared at his back, which was broad and smooth. She took note of well-­muscled arms as he poked the fire. She followed the bumps of his spine down to a pair of dimples just above his round white buttocks.
Her throat dried. She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her body, and the room wavered before her eyes. Her leg was on fire, pure agony. She let out a soft cry.
He half turned at the sound and glanced over his shoulder, and she had a quick impression of a high cheekbone lit by the firelight, and a gleaming eye that instantly widened with surprise. He dropped the poker and fell on his backside with a grunt.
“You’re awake!” he cried. She stared at him sprawled on the hearthstones, and he gasped again and cupped his hands over his—­ She shut her eyes tight, as he grabbed the nearest thing at hand to cover himself—­a corner of the plaid—­but she yanked it back, holding tight. He instantly let go and reached for the closest garment dangling from the line above him, which turned out to be her red cloak. He wrapped it awkwardly around his waist, trying to rise to his feet at the same time. He stood above her in his makeshift kilt, holding it in place with a white knuckled grip, his face almost as red as the wool. She kept her eyes on his face and pulled her own blanket tight around her throat.
“I see you’re awake,” he said, staring at her, his voice an octave lower now. “How do you feel?”
How did she feel? She assessed her injuries, tried to remember the details of how she came to be here, wherever here might be. She recalled being lost in a storm, and falling. There’d been blood on her glove. She frowned. After that she didn’t remember anything at all.