Love Came Just in Time

  “I think,” he said, reaching out and relieving Megan of the fire extinguisher, “that a holiday is just the thing for me.”

  She blinked. “You do?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “I hear they’re quite therapeutic. Perhaps you’d care to show me how they’re done?”

  He watched her look at him, and then her eyes narrowed. “Why?” she demanded. “So you can sneak in some fixing?”

  Gideon shook his head. “I was wrong to even bring it up. I apologize.”

  “Well,” she said, looking quite off balance. Gideon suspected she’d been bracing herself to really let him have it.

  “Well,” she repeated, “I just don’t need to be fixed.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the deal with your new angle here?”

  “No angle. No agenda. I’ve just come to realize rather suddenly that I’m the one who needs some fixing. I work too much.”

  She reached up and felt his forehead. “You’re a little warm. Maybe you caught a bug from being out in the rain.”

  Gideon took her hand and pulled her back into the house. He’d caught a malady and it had red hair and green eyes. He set the fire extinguisher down and shut the front door.

  “I’m officially on holiday. What should we do first? Decorate the place?” He looked about the entryway. “We could investigate the nooks and crannies of the inn, or learn how to cook. Sing a carol or two in front of the fire.” The more he thought about it, the more appealing it sounded. Perhaps he would stretch his holiday into three days instead of two. After all, Christmas was in three days and he certainly wouldn’t get any work done then. “Read Dickens before the fire,” he said, his head filling with ideas. “That Ghost of Christmas Past is one of my all time favorite characters. Why, I’m starting to think this will be brilliant,” he said, beaming down at her.

  “Can’t.”

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

  She smiled up at him. “I have to work. See ya.”

  And she turned and walked back to the stairs.

  “Work?” he asked, aghast. “Now?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “I’m here to work, Gideon. Remember? My brother’s castle? I have to go take a look at it.”

  “But, surely that can wait . . .”

  “Nope, I’ve got to get right on it.”

  “But—”

  She waved at him over her shoulder as she mounted the steps. Gideon stared after her in shock.

  “But it’s Christmas!” he called after her.

  She didn’t stop.

  Well, this just wouldn’t do. Gideon watched her disappear upstairs and frowned. He tapped his foot impatiently, which generally provided him with stunning solutions. All it did now was make him dizzy. He shook his head. How could she be so consumed with work this close to Christmas?

  “Work can wait,” he said, trying the words out on his tongue. They felt, surprisingly enough, quite good.

  “It isn’t everything,” he added.

  That felt even better.

  “Why, holidays are a good thing,” he said, with enthusiasm.

  It occurred to him, suddenly, that he was possibly responsible for Megan’s desire to work through the holidays. Good heavens, had he been the one to drive her to this madness?

  Well, he would rectify that. He had just recently seen the light and burned with the enthusiasm of the freshly converted. Holidays were good for a body. Too much work was hazardous to one’s health.

  And he would know.

  Chapter Six

  MEGAN TUGGED ON her leather jacket and shoved her feet back into her still-damp boots. It was raining outside anyway and she would get soaked within minutes, but it didn’t matter. She had work to do. A little rain wasn’t going to stop her because she’d be damned before she would fail at this job. She would show them all that she could follow through, do what she said she would, make things happen. Her family would finally think she was a success.

  As would Gideon.

  Not that she cared what he thought. No sir.

  She stepped out into the hallway and shut the door firmly. No time like the present to start down the road to success. She put her shoulders back and marched smartly down the hallway.

  “Damn the gel if she hasn’t ruined him for decent labor.”

  Megan froze. Then she put her fingers in her ears and gave them a good wiggling. Surely there was no one else in the hallway. She was just hearing things.

  “She may as well have gelded the poor lad!”

  Megan whirled around. She would have squeaked, but she had no breath for it.

  There, standing not fifteen feet from her was a man. A big man. A man wearing a sword. In fact, he looked to be wearing chain mail too, what she could see of it under his folded arms and knightly overcoat-like tunic. He might have looked like something out of an historical wax museum collection if it hadn’t been for the disapproving look he was giving her.

  Megan gulped. “Help,” she whispered.

  “Doin’ a full day’s work’s no sin,” the man grumbled.

  “Help,” Megan squeaked. “Help, help!”

  “You’re fillin’ me boy’s head with womanly notions!” the man exclaimed. He unfolded his arms and shook his finger at her. “I’d take it more kindly if you’d stop with it!”

  “Gideon, help!” Megan screamed, backing up rapidly.

  “Megan, good heavens!” Gideon called from a distance.

  Megan heard him thumping up the stairs behind her, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the knight to look at him. She backed up into him and pointed down the hallway.

  “Look,” she whispered.

  “Look at what?”

  “There’s someone in the hallway. Look, down there!”

  “I can’t see a thing,” Gideon said.

  “He’s standing right there!”

  “Who?”

  Megan spun around, grabbed him by the tunic front and shook him. “There’s a man at the end of the hallway wearing chain mail and a sword, you idiot!” she said. “Open your eyes and look!”

  Gideon put his hands on her shoulders to steady himself. “Megan, you’re thinking too much about work—”

  “See?” the man behind her complained. “Look at what you’ve done to him, gel!”

  Megan pointed back behind her. “He’s talking to me. There at the end of the hall.”

  Gideon put his arms around her. “Now, Megan—”

  “Don’t you ‘Now, Megan’ me,” she warned. “Mrs. Pruitt said there were ghosts and I’m telling you there’s one standing at the end of the hallway!”

  Gideon gave her a squeeze. “If it will make you feel any better, I’ll go have a look.”

  Megan looked over her shoulder and squeaked at the new addition to the troops.

  “Damn ye, Fulbert, dinnae scare me wee granddaughter like that!” a red-haired man in a kilt exclaimed in tones of thunder.

  “I was only tellin’ her—”

  “I heard what ye said—”

  “Wait,” Megan said frantically as Gideon tried to move past her. “Now there are two of them!”

  Gideon frowned at her. “I think you’ve been working too hard.” He sidestepped her and started down the hallway.

  Megan watched in horror as the kilted one drew a sword and waved it menacingly at the first.

  “They’re going to kill each other!” She leaped toward Gideon. “Duck,” she said, jerking on his arm. “You’re going to get your head chopped off!”

  Gideon pushed her gently back into the doorway of his bedroom. “Megan,” he said calmly, “there’s nothing in the hallway. I’m going to go have a look in your room. You stay here until I get back.”

  Megan watched him turn and walk straight into the path of a swinging sword.

  “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands over her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch him be decapitated.

  “Megan?”

>   Megan paused, then peeked at him from between her fingers.

  Gideon was standing in the middle of the hallway, unhurt. But the two swordsmen were going at each other with murder in their eyes, neatly fighting right around him.

  “Don’t you see them?” Megan asked incredulously.

  “See who?”

  “Those two men fighting? Right in front of your nose, Gideon!”

  Gideon put out his hand, waved it up and down, side to side, then shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “I can hear them calling each other names.” She paused. “And not very nice names, either.”

  “Enough !” a voice roared from her left.

  Megan fell back against the door with a gasp. A man strode angrily up the stairs. He was wearing a kilt as well, along with a very long broadsword. His cap was tilted at a jaunty angle; the feather flapped madly as he leaped up the remaining steps. He advanced on the two fighters.

  “By the saints, you lads are trying the limits of my patience today! You, Fulbert, leave young Megan be. She has enough to think on without you tormenting her.”

  “But look what she’s done to me nevvy—”

  “She’s done nothing that didn’t need doing. Now, be off with you!”

  The first man shoved his sword back into its scabbard, threw Megan a disgruntled look, then vanished.

  “And you, Hugh,” the one seemingly in charge scolded. “I’m ashamed of you! Brawling in the passageway thusly!”

  The red-haired one ducked his head. “I was just defendin’ me wee one’s honor.”

  “Well, I can’t say as how I blame you,” the other said, with a nod, “but it isn’t seemly to hack at the blighter in front of her.”

  “Aye, Ambrose. Ye’re right, of course.”

  “Then off with you, Hugh.”

  The other put away his sword, then vanished.

  Then Megan watched in astonishment as the commanding one turned and made her a deep bow.

  “My deepest apologies for the disturbance, granddaughter. Please carry on with your day.”

  And then he walked through Gideon and disappeared into the closet at the end of the hallway.

  Megan bolted after him and jerked open the closet door, fully expecting to see someone hiding inside. Instead she came face-to-face with stacks of bed linens. She clutched the door frame and came to a quick conclusion.

  “I’m losing it,” she announced.

  “I think I agree,” Gideon said, coming up behind her. “You need a holiday.”

  “What I need is some fresh air.” She turned, pushed past him, and walked down the passageway. “Maybe I should go get some work done. That would probably snap me right back into reality.”

  “I’ve been a bad influence on you,” Gideon said, trailing after her.

  “No, I think you’ve been just the opposite,” Megan said, thumping down the stairs. She reached the entryway well ahead of him and strode to the front door purposefully. A nice walk to the castle would be just the thing to clear her head of the surreal experience she had just had.

  She opened the door and peeked out—into a hurricane.

  “It’s just a little rain,” she said. She turned the collar up on her coat and steeled herself for the worst.

  A large hand caught the door before she could open it any further.

  “Megan, it’s raining too hard to go out.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, putting her shoulders back. “I have work to do.”

  Gideon eased her back from the door and shut it. He turned her around and looked down at her gravely.

  “There’s more to life than work,” he said.

  “But,” she said, gesturing toward the door, “I need to look at the castle—”

  “It’s been there for centuries. It will be there for another day or two.”

  She looked up at him with a scowl. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve come to realize quite suddenly that there is more to life than work.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’ve been distracted by freckles.”

  “Freckles?”

  “Yours.”

  “Oh,” she said. Then she froze and felt a blush creep up her cheeks. “Mine?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, with a nod. “Enough to make a man rethink his priorities.”

  “Oh, really,” she squeaked. She cleared her throat and dredged up the most uninterested expression she could. “Well,” she said, her nose in the air, “there is more to me than my freckles. Attractive though they might be.”

  “You have my full attention.”

  “Hmmm, well,” she said, quite at a loss for words. This about-face by a dyed-in-the-wool CEO was very hard to believe. “I would elaborate on my other desirable qualities if I had the time,” she said finally.

  “You have the time. It’s too wet to go out right now.”

  She wanted to argue, but couldn’t. It was just as nasty outside today as it had been when she’d walked to the inn and she had very vivid memories of that soggy trip. “I suppose it is a little on the rainy side,” she said reluctantly.

  “You can go after Christmas. The castle will keep until then.”

  He had a point. “All right,” she conceded. “I’ll wait until then.”

  “Good,” he said. “Interested in breakfast?”

  “If you stir.”

  “Done.”

  And then Megan watched as he took her by his comfortable, companionable hand and led her toward the kitchen. And she went with him, partly because it was too wet to go to the castle and partly because she had to see more of the Gideon-on-vacation side he seemed to be showing. And, lastly, she went with him because there was something about a man with bouncing purple curly cues on his toes that was just too much to resist.

  Gideon stopped at the entrance to the kitchen and looked around, seemingly perplexed.

  “I must admit, I haven’t the vaguest idea where to start,” he said, scanning the area.

  “Clean-up first, then cooking,” Megan said. “Here, I’ll show you what to do.”

  Organizing was definitely one of her strong points and she used it to its best advantage. Once the kitchen was tidied, she turned to Mrs. Pruitt’s notes. She flipped through until she found something she thought they might manage.

  “Ever had bannocks?” she asked.

  “They’re tasty enough. I think we could manage.”

  “All right, here goes.”

  Megan did her best to decipher Mrs. Pruitt’s scrawl while Gideon sifted and stirred to her specifications. Megan looked into the bowl.

  “I think they’re supposed to look like pancakes,” she said, tipping the bowl this way and that. “This is too runny.”

  Gideon looked at her helplessly. “Should I stir more?”

  “It says not to stir them too much.” She looked at the bowl and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I think maybe we should add . . . um . . .”

  “A wee bit more flour.”

  Megan squeaked and whirled around. The red-haired, kilted ghost from upstairs was standing directly behind her. He took off his bonnet with the feather stuck under the badge and clutched it in his hands. He made her a small bow and then straightened and smiled shyly.

  “Hugh McKinnon, at yer service,” he said, with another bow.

  Megan backed into Gideon, hard.

  “Megan?” he asked, putting his arm around her waist.

  Megan shook her head with a jerk. “I’m okay.”

  Hugh scrunched his cap all the more. “I was quite the cook in me day,” he offered.

  Megan gulped a nodded, then turned and looked at Gideon. “A little more flour,” she said.

  Gideon added more, then stirred. “Well,” he said, looking astonished, “that did the trick.” He looked at her and smiled. “I’d say that time at McDonald’s wasn’t wasted at all.”

  “If you only knew,” Megan said
, under her breath.

  “Well, now all we have to do is cook them,” Gideon said, firing up the stove.

  “Heaven help us,” Megan said. She stole a look at Hugh, who had moved to stand behind Gideon. He leaned up on his toes to peer over Gideon’s shoulder.

  Gideon shivered and brushed off his right shoulder, as if trying to rid himself of an annoying fly. Hugh didn’t seem to notice; he only peered more intently.

  “Och, but he’ll burn ’em with the fire up so high,” Hugh said, casting Megan a look of concern.

  “Maybe you should turn the heat down,” Megan suggested quickly.

  Gideon did so, then poured some of the batter into the pan. He waited, studying it intently. Then he eased his spatula under the flat cake and flipped it. The cooked side was a beautiful, golden brown. Megan peeked over Gideon’s left shoulder. She exchanged a quick look with Hugh, who was leaning over Gideon’s right shoulder, and received a nod of encouragement.

  “I think it’s done,” she announced.

  Gideon flipped it onto a plate.

  “Perfect,” Hugh said, beaming his approval on her. “I always ate them with a wee bit o’ butter and a smackerel o’ jam.” He smiled crookedly. “Always had a sweet tooth, did I—”

  “HUGH!”

  Hugh gulped, plopped his cap on his head, made her a very quick bow and then turned and fled through the pantry door. Megan didn’t even bother to go after him to see if he was lurking inside with the tins of vegetables. She had the feeling he wasn’t.

  She took a deep breath and smiled up at Gideon.

  “I hear butter and jam are good with these.”

  “Sounds delightful,” Gideon said, holding out the plate. “Shall we share the first fruits of our labors?”

  The bannock was very tasty and Megan put her newfound kitchen skill to good use by overseeing Gideon while he cooked more. Megan stole looks around the kitchen as she did so, but saw nothing else out of the ordinary. Hugh must have been able to escape the watchful eye of that distinguished ghost for only a few minutes.

  “Megan, what are you looking at?”

  She looked at Gideon and put on her most innocent smile. “Nothing.”

  “You’re supposed to say,” he said, plopping another bannock on her plate, “that you can’t tear your eyes from me. You aren’t thinking business thoughts, are you?” He looked at her closely.