The Naughty List (17 page)

“So, there was this guy—wait, a hot guy?”

“What does that matter?” Seriously, the whole thing was freaky. Hannah stabbed her straw into her vanilla shake. Why on earth had she gotten a milkshake when it was a million degrees below zero outside?

“It matters.”

“Yeah, he was hot. He had this carnally intense thing going for him, and he looked like you’d expect him to fight vampires. He was dressed in a black trench coat over all black clothes. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Really tall. A scary sort of hot.”

“I like that sort of hot. Did he have stakes for killing vampires?”

Hannah stopped jabbing her milkshake to give her friend a flat glare of death.

“Okay, fine… joking. But he was staring at you when you found yourself in a different spot?”

“He wasn’t there a second before, and I wasn’t there. I was near the curb, and there was this woman carrying a tiny dog, coming straight at me. And then I was next to the window with my scarf back around my neck and him there. He winked at me before walking off. And that’s not the first time he’s been around lately with my… episodes.” Outside of the doctors, Jeanie was the only one who knew about how bad this was getting.

Jeanie tilted her head and sipped the steaming hot chocolate she’d bought. Hot chocolate was so much smarter. Plus, it was the day before Christmas and so the last day you were
allowed
to have candy cane hot chocolate. What had she been thinking? Ugh. Her life was a series of bad choices lately.

“So, at least he returned your scarf,” Jeanie said finally.

Hannah groaned and dropped her head onto the wrought iron table in the mall food court. The food court décor was meant to convince them they were outside, somewhere tropical, not in Idaho in December. Lush greenery hung all around, spruced up with an occasional red ribbon or white twinkling lights. Too-small café tables were wedged tightly together so all of Boise could be in the mall today doing last minute shopping, or supporting their best friends who were doing last minute shopping.

A toddler wearing a plush velvet dress screamed her way by them, carried by a mother who looked on the verge of running as if the child was a live grenade. The little girl screeched at the mall stand-in Santa like he was Satan.

People around shifted and looked away.

Even Jeanie said, “Tough break, kid. At least you got a candy cane.”

Not Hannah. Hannah sighed… pathetically. Her heart twinged a bit to go with it. Kids. Families. Jeanie, her last remaining unmarried friend, was getting married on Valentine’s Day. “Sometimes I feel like time is getting away from me. Like the clock is ticking too fast.”

Jeanie reached out and ruffled Hannah’s hair. “Uh oh. I just got vanilla shake in your hair or hair in your shake, depending on how you want to look at it.”

Hannah groaned again as Jeanie wiped the milkshake off the tips of her hair with a napkin. This was par for her life. A few days ago, her heel had broken off, and she’d nearly catapulted down an open manhole, but then she’d come to her senses on the other side of the manhole with her heel in her hand—and she’d seen a black trench coat walking away. “I swear this is not my year. First, these weird absence seizures, and then—”

“That’s what they’ve decided?” her friend interrupted. “The doctors decided they’re seizures?”

“Well, I think everyone is on the fence as to whether it’s something medical like that… or I’m genuinely off my rocker. They said it’s rare to have an onset of seizures in adulthood and that walking really far is unlikely, but I’ll have more testing after the holidays are over. Another EEG. Another MRI.
Something
is making me forget bits of time, but everything keeps coming back clean. I’ve never been so irritated to have medical science proving I’m fine. The neurologist brought up absence seizures and to watch for a consistent trigger. Though, sometimes these have been so bizarre it’s hard to believe there’s anything consistent. That time when we went to visit Hoover Dam was freaking odd. Even you have to admit that.”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure why or how or what happened there. I went to the bathroom—and I wasn’t in there
that
long, but fifteen minutes later, you’re calling me from a couple miles away like you’d hitched a ride the second I’d gone inside. Will seizures make you do crazy things like that? Maybe you’re insane, and there’s
also
something else wrong with you.”

Well, that made her feel better. Being both crazy and having a medical condition would fit the pattern of her life this year. She wanted to bang her head against the table, but she settled for closing her eyes and pretending it was after Christmas.

Christmas was a heinous time of year. It was a time for families.

“I have no idea what caused that. I nearly checked myself into a psych ward after that. I’m
never
going back to Hoover Dam.” Hannah cleared her throat as she lifted her head, opening her eyes. “Actually, seizures are the least scary things they mentioned. They brought up a few really freaky things, but they want a family history.”

Jeanie winced as she reached across and smoothed Hannah’s hair down. “I didn’t get all the shake out. Did you tell them good luck with that?”

Hannah bit her lip. “I don’t know. If this doesn’t stop, and all the new tests show up clean too, I might hunt down my mom. She was in a commune in New Mexico, last time I knew, trying to find herself. If she can’t even find herself, I don’t know how she’d track down the guy she slept with when she was stoned over two dozen years ago.”

It was aggravating—she might have a father out there who would have liked being a father if he’d known a random hook-up had created her.

Hannah stabbed her straw into her shake some more. It wasn’t nearly as appetizing now that her hair had been in it. “And my grandparents disowned her, so she won’t talk about them.”

“I can’t imagine not being smothered by a monstrous-sized family. My mom insisted I go to some second cousin’s baby shower last week—and I’m not entirely sure I
am
related to that person. Mom might’ve just wanted me to start thinking about having kids, and she found a random person to reinforce it.” Jeanie shuddered. “I’m soooo not ready to have kids. What are you doing for Christmas?”

Hannah wrinkled up her nose. Even the word annoyed her. “I’m doing the same thing as last year… though, really, my trouble all started when that guy dropped dead beside me at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

“You’re going back to that same lodge? Why? You don’t even ski.”

Hannah shrugged. It was hard to put into words, but the place was like being in a family, without having to participate and with none of the drama.

“Maybe your mysterious vampire hunter will follow you up there, and you can give him a place to hammer his… wait, never mind, there are kids around. Pretend I didn’t say that.” They both glanced around at the people who were practically sitting on their laps—it was so crowded.

“It’s weird that I keep seeing him. He’s not there before I lose time and then he is… and he’s always walking away. The doctors mentioned that some people get like auras or something. Maybe he’s my brain’s gift to make up for dropping the ball.”
Here you go, Hannah, have this hot stud of a hallucination.

“Even if you’re crazy, maybe he’s the sexy version of the white rabbit,” Jeanie said, getting up. “Next time, you can say, ‘Hey, baby, why don’t you show me your Wonderland?’”

All around them, conversation stopped, and several parents looked appalled. Hannah cheeks heated-up—the first time they’d been warm all day.

“Merry Christmas!” Jeanie said with a grin. Then, she turned back to Hannah. “One more store and then I’m off to drag Ken to my parents’ house, and you’re off to play ski bunny with a black jackrabbit.”

Or just sit in front of a warm fire and read a book until January first… when the world went back to normal.

Chapter Two

It felt… mortal… to be checking into the lodge like a guest. Though it was in line with the abnormal way he’d spent the last year in the same place, the same city. Boise—cultural mecca of the world.

His father was indulging him in “slumming it.”

All Zeit’s brothers had joked Zeit was having a mid-life crisis. They’d all sacrificed their chosen lifetimes to the Fates last year and spent the days which followed bouncing from city to city as their whim took them. An inordinate amount were currently in Vegas, awaiting New Year’s Eve, and this year’s mortal sacrifices’ identities.

They were all
doing
their job, fulfilling their role among mortals.

One life cut short—chosen by the Fate sisters in exchange for changing the fate of others the rest of the year. That was all. He’d done it year after year. Then, last year, Zeit couldn’t do it. He’d stopped time at one mortal minute and switched to drawing the life from the man who’d started clutching his chest beside Hannah.

The Fates were not mollified. He’d paid for it with diminished powers this year. Normally, he was drawn to people in a city who deserved a few extra seconds and a hand to change their fate. Either most of Boise deserved just what the Fates handed them, or the Fates were venting their wrath by only tipping him off infrequently and by constantly plotting to kill Hannah. Fates could be cruel.

So he’d been Hannah’s “guardian angel” all year.

Thankfully, Father Time had more of a sense of humor than the Fates and was relaying their latest plots against her life.

“Zeit Geist?” the older woman at the front desk asked as he signed in, butchering his first name.

“Zeit… rhymes with night.”

Typically when he was correcting a pronunciation it was with a much younger mortal female, and he wanted it pronounced right during the brief but extremely pleasurable time they’d be together. It’d been quite a while since he’d done that. “Huh.” He dropped the pen on the front desk and stared at his name. It’d been a
long
time. Maybe that’s what was happening with Hannah.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, I just…” He shook his head. Something had to explain this aversion to completing his task. One life taken, and he’d be back to normal next year.

His sweet brunette torment was digging in her purse as she walked back to the front desk. “That is so odd. I checked in my car, too. I have no idea where my license went. I’ve had the worst…” She looked up, saw him, and finished saying the rest slowly, “…luck this year.” Her mouth stayed slightly parted as she blinked at him in this cute befuddled way.

The lodge’s owner, a Mrs. Cowper, said, “It’s fine, Hannah. We know who you are. This is another guest who is spending the holiday alone with us. Mr. Zeit Geist.”

Hannah snapped her mouth closed and tilted her head. “Time Ghost?”

Uh oh. He raised his eyebrows. “You know German?”

“Some.” Now, she looked wary. “We’ve met before. I saw you earlier in Boise.”

“Anything is possible.”

“You winked at me.”

“That sounds like me.” He reached out and grabbed the metal key Mrs. Cowper had set on the desk and nodded at Hannah. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Lyons.” And he walked off toward his room.

He was only a few steps away when Hannah asked, “How did you know my last name?”

Glancing over his shoulder, he winked at her before continuing down the long hallway to a king-size bed and, hopefully, a fireplace—since Hannah was attempting to turn him to ice with that glare.

* * *

“You
are
signed in right above him,” Mrs. Cowper said, pointing at the book. She looked like everyone’s grandmother should. Somewhere, Hannah might have a living grandmother or two. “I’m sure that’s it.”

She was very sure of the opposite. Time ghost? All the possibilities jumped up and down in her head, making her hands shake as she finished filling out forms. Her thoughts were really… ludicrous. They had to be. No one could control time.

After Mrs. Cowper passed along the room key, Hannah was off, dragging her suitcase behind her.

Oh, fate just hated her! She’d seen what room the mysterious Mr. Geist had gone into, and hers was not only the next one over, but they had a doorway connecting them. Well, not only was her door going to be locked the entire week, she was going to prop a chair under the knob, too.

As she entered her cozy room, the stress of the year melted off her. The log cabin feel of the room soothed those harried emotions leftover from week after unlucky week. How could anything go wrong in a place as charming as this?

Maybe she’d crank up the gas fireplace in the corner and tuck herself into the window seat to read or stare out at the snow.

Nothing strange could happen to her if she did nothing.

Then again,
nothing
happened when she did
nothing
. Nothing. And she’d complained to Jeanie that time was slipping away.

Hannah wandered to the window seat, shedding baggage and winter wear along the way like a breadcrumb trail. Dropping down onto the padded seat, she touched her hand against the window.

The snow had been falling lightly all day, but it didn’t look pretty until she was done driving through it. Now that she was here, it could snow all it wanted. Her breath fogged up the glass, and she drew a happy face in the fog—something she’d always done as a kid.

A paper slid under the hallway door, swishing along the hardwood floor. Curiosity got the better of her, and she went to retrieve it: a list of all the planned events.

Tonight, they were singing carols around the giant tree in the lodge’s great room. After the singing, they’d put the antique metal star on top of the tree. Then, for the last events of the night, pajamas—if appropriate for wearing around younger attendees—were encouraged. Santa himself was coming to read
The Night Before Christmas
and then handing out gifts to all those “who’d been good.” There was milk and cookies and a chance to sit on Santa’s lap.

In the morning, breakfast would be delivered to everyone’s room, but guests were welcome to open gifts around the lodge’s tree. Last year, Hannah had gone to watch that and seen big Santa sacks with individual families’ names on them. Tomorrow, there’d be a Christmas brunch buffet in the dining hall. Mr. Cowper would be taking those interested out on sleigh rides. Christmas night, there’d be dancing in the lodge’s great room.