Christmas Present Part 1

FAYRENE PRESTON.

Christmas Present.

The boards of the floor creaked beneath Bria Delaney's feet. She was in the oldest part of Killara's attic, the part that stretched over the original homestead section of the sprawling house. She had never been in this section of the attic before, never had a reason to come, and, strictly speaking, she didn't now. The Christmas decorations her mother, Cara, had sent her up to find wouldn't be way back here, but it didn't occur to her to leave.

Since graduating from college five years before, she had lived in Tucson, working for her father and Delaney Enterprises. She had learned a great deal, but these had been the hardest years of her life. When for the fifth year running her mother had asked her to take some of her acc.u.mulated vacation time and come home early for Christmas, she had finally decided to agree. Her mother needed help in preparing the house for the upcoming festivities, and she needed some down time. That much was clear to her. But she didn't know why, today, she felt compelled to go farther back into the attic than she had ever gone before-except that she was intrigued and drawn.

As she turned another corner, darkness and a musty smell greeted her. Automatically she began to search for a light switch; she felt the faint tickle of cobwebs against her hand and brushed them away. She wiped her hands down the side of her Liz Claiborne jeans, then remembered that the oldest section of the attic had never been wired for electricity.

Carefully she picked her way through looming shapes, ghosts of a bygone era. Whatever was in this section had rested undisturbed for years.

In an odd way she felt like an intruder, but in another way she felt a strong sense of belonging.

Reaching the window, she flung open the inner shutters. Sunlight poured in, revealing an a.s.sortment of trunks and boxes stacked in piles or sitting alone on the floor. A dressmaker's form stood in the corner. Dust motes danced in the air and a thick coat of dust clung to every surface.

She wrapped her arms around herself as a defense against the chill and continued to study the room. How long had it been since anyone had been here? Some of the things around her might have been placed here well over a hundred years ago.

"Amazing," she whispered. She felt as if she had entered a place that time had forgotten.

Excitement made the back of her neck tingle. This room held a part of Delaney history, and she was a Delaney through and through.

She knelt in front of a camelback trunk covered in a finely grained leather and fastened with straps. The bra.s.s hinges creaked in protest as she raised its lid. She reached in and pulled out a bundle of yellowed tissue paper that almost shredded as she removed it. Inside was a very old, very simply cut violet-colored dress. Any remaining thoughts of the misplaced Christmas ornaments fled from her mind.

Outside, the sun rose higher in the sky, and the sunlight crept across the dusty floor. But Bria was only vaguely aware of time pa.s.sing. She discovered a Miss Beetle's book on home management and, to her delight, she saw Malvina Delaney's name inscribed on its inside front cover and notes written in the margins. Digging further, she found a silver-backed brush.

One of the most amazing items she uncovered was a picture made out of red hair. She had read about people of the Victorian era using hair to make pictures, and here was one before her. She turned it over and glanced at its back. Someone had written Made from Brianne's hair.

She gave a cry of delight. The hair was Brianne Delaney La.s.siter's, the ancestor for whom she had been named.

Sometime later, a distant sound of a helicopter lifting off brought her back to the present. A glance at her watch told her several hours had pa.s.sed since she had come up to the attic.

Carefully, reluctantly, she closed the trunk she had been delving through and rose to go, but when she got to her feet, her stiff muscles protested. She took a step backward for balance and b.u.mped into something.

Curious, she studied the shawl-covered object about three feet high that rested against the wall. From its oval shape she guessed it was a picture frame. Her pulse quickened at the thought that she might have found a long-forgotten portrait of one of her ancestors. She knelt quickly, pulled the shawl away, and chopped it to the floor. The picture's face was to the wall.

Lifting and turning it, she found it was heavier than she had expected. She also discovered that it wasn't a portrait after all, but a mirror. And there was something very familiar about its frame.

Downstairs in the drawing room, a clock sat in the exact center of the chawing room's white marble mantel. Her ancestors, Shamus and his wife, Malvina, had brought the clock all the way from Ireland, then overland in their covered wagon to Arizona. Although the ornate carving of holly on the mirror differed from that of the clock, they were both made from the very same dark wood. Bogwood.

Thoughtfully she stared at the mirror, its surface dulled by a heavy layer of dust. Shamus and Malvina must have also brought the mirror with them, but something didn't make sense. For generations the clock had sat in a place of honor. Why had the mirror been left in the attic for so many years, its face to the wall?

She raised her forearm and nibbed the sleeve of her blue and white sweater over its dust-covered surface. Her image appeared. Green eyes, rich red hair, dirt-smudged cheek. She absently swiped a hand across her cheek.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a flash of flame-hued color in the mirror. Then she saw a silver-haired girl riding a magnificent Arabian bareback across a meadow carpeted with wildflowers. As the girl rode, the crimson, tangerine, and gold skirts of her dress undulated like a flame in the wind.

The image vanished.

Bria nibbed her eyes and looked again, but only her own face with its utterly bewildered expression stared back at her.

The girl had been her mother, she realized, stunned. She recognized the dress. Shortly after her parents had married, her father had commissioned a portrait of her mother wearing that very dress. It had been the dress her mother had been wearing the first time her father had seen her as a young woman. And of

course she recognized the scene because she had heard it described many times. Her father had flown over Killara and seen her mother beneath him, riding Shalimar across the meadow.

But why had the scene been in the mirror? Her head spun with confusion and astonishment.

She fit her fingertips into the hollows formed by the carving, lifted the mirror against her, and went

downstairs.

Bria walked slowly into the drawing room. Her mother stood atop one of the two tall ladders placed on

either side of a fifteen-foot-tall Christmas tree.

Cara, stringing lights, glanced down at her daughter and smiled. "Where have you been? I thought I was going to have to send a search party for you." "I've been up in the attic," she said, carefully placing the mirror in a nearby chair. "I hope you found that box of ornaments." "I couldn't find it. I'm sorry." "Dam. The tree won't be complete without the red-haired angel Kevin made and the ornaments the original Patrick forged from gold they brought back from Kantalan." "I'll look again later on this afternoon." She was stalling, reluctant to tell her mother about the scene she had witnessed in the mirror. Quite simply, seeing what she had seen was an impossibility. Mirrors weren't VCRs that could run tapes of events that had happened in the past. Still, she had seen it. Hadn't she? "Don't worry about it, honey. I put that box in one of my safe places. I just have to remember where." She gazed consideringly up at her mother. Cara's silver hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her face was free of makeup, and in Bria's opinion, she looked as if she could be her sister. Cara was, and had always been, an exceptionally loving and extremely supportive mother to both her and her twin brother, Patrick. That's why Bria couldn't understand why she felt an instinctive urge to keep to herself what she had seen in the mirror. She chalked the urge up to shock.

"I couldn't find the ornaments, but I found something else. Something rather remarkable."

Cara frowned at the colored lights she was weaving in and around the boughs at the top of the immense

tree. "A string of lights that's not tangled?"

"No," she said slowly, "it's a mirror. And I saw you in it. Come down and look."

Cara came to the end of the string and reached for the next string that she had draped over the top rung

of the ladder. "It's a picture of me? I wonder what it was doing in the attic."

"No, it's a mirror that I found, not a picture."

Standing on her tiptoes, she reached as far around the tree as she could, then flung the strand so that it fell on a bough at the back. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said you saw me."

Bria shrugged. How could she explain what she didn't understand herself? "Yes, well, that's the tricky part. Just come down and see for yourself. Please."

Cara cast a last glance at the lights, then abandoned them and descended the ladder. As she crossed to her daughter, she gave her a motherly once-over. "Are you all right? You sound funny. You're not getting sick, are you?"

Bria forced a smile. "No, Mom. Just look in the mirror and tell me what you see."

Cara bent down, gazed briefly at her face in the mirror, smoothed a stray hair back into place, then turned her attention to the frame. "Why, this is dogwood." She gazed over her shoulder at the clock on the mantel, then back at the frame. "This is wonderful, darling. It's the same wood as the clock." She straightened. "Do you realize what this means? Shamus and Malvina probably brought this from Ireland with them."

"That's what I thought too." She hesitated. "What did you see?"

"See?" Cara frowned, uncertain what Bria was referring to. "You mean the frame?"

"No, in the mirror." She took a deep breath. "When I was up in the attic and looked into it, I saw you on Shalimar, riding across the meadow in your red chiffon dress."

Cara's frown deepened. "That's impossible, Bria. How could that be? It's only a mirror."

"You're right, but I'm telling you I saw you riding Shalimar in your red dress." She gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment. "At least that's what I thought I saw. It happened so quickly."

Cara stared at her daughter, concerned. Bria had never been given to fantasy. From the time she could talk, she had been strong-willed and self-a.s.sured, with both feet firmly on the ground. But now she seemed very confused and upset. Suddenly Cara snapped her fingers, and her expression lightened. "I know what must have happened. You fell asleep up there and had a dream."

"No-"

"Darling, it's the only explanation. Ever since you were a little girl, you've heard the story about when I came back to visit Killara and met your father again. And you've seen the portrait of me wearing that dress every day of your life until you left home to go to school. Your father refuses to take it down..." Her voice trailed off. "I wonder if Burke knows about the mirror. He's never mentioned it."

Bria slowly shook her head. "I don't know. It didn't seem like a dream. I looked in the mirror, saw myself, then you"

Cara responded to the distress in her daughter's eyes by reaching out and gently clasping her arms. "Oh, honey, I'm not doubting you. Sometimes dreams are so clear and vivid, they can seem almost real."

Bria sighed. Maybe her mother was right. After all, it was the only thing that made any sense. But she had felt too wide awake even to daydream.

Cara smiled at her. "Your dad is going to be thrilled about the mirror. If he ever knew of its existence, I bet he's forgotten about it. Otherwise, it would be hanging in a very prominent place. As soon as I have a minute, I'll clean it up."

Bria gazed broodingly at the mirror. For some unknown reason, she didn't want to relinquish possession of it just yet. "I'll do it. I'll help you finish the tree, then I'll take it up to my room and clean it."

"Okay. Get some lemon oil and gla.s.s cleaner from Mrs. Copeland. By the way," she said, returning to the ladder, "you do remember, don't you, that your dad is bringing Kells Braxton home with him this afternoon? He left a little while ago to pick him up at the airport."

"Sure," she murmured, her mind and her gaze on the mirror.

"Rather than having him stay in Tucson until the lawyers finish drawing up the agreement, we invited him here. We wanted to pay him back for his hospitality to Patrick in Brisbane. Hand me that next string of lights, will you, darling?"

Bria quickly pulled the brush through her long red hair, then stole a glance at her watch. Dam, if she didn't hurry, she was going to be late for dinner. It had taken all afternoon for her and her mother to finish the tree, and she had spent a long time oiling and polis.h.i.+ng the old wood of the mirror's frame. Too much time, if she were honest. But it had seemed important.

Though she didn't have a clue why, the mirror was proving an irresistible draw to her. While she had worked on it, she had peered into its center more times than she could count and had seen nothing but her own reflection. But even now, knowing that she was running late, she paused before the mirror that she had propped against a chair's cus.h.i.+on. Her own face, flushed from hurrying, looked back at her. She felt an aberrant twinge of disappointment.

Then in a twinkling she was looking at a man's back. The width of his broad shoulders stretched against a black split-leather jacket his long, muscular legs were gloved in faded jeans. He had brown hair with a hint of red that gleamed in the suns.h.i.+ne. And his attention was focused on the valley below him-and Killara.

Then he turned and looked at her-at someone-and she felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs.

He had amazingly direct eyes that were the color of the blue sky behind him, and his face was strong with a wide, clean jawline and a scar that angled over his left brow.

He appeared hard, dangerous, and very angry.

Her heart thudded against the wall of her chest. A roaring filled her ears. He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak. But then before her eyes he vanished, and once again she was left staring at her own image.

She exhaled roughly, painfully. This morning she had viewed her mother as she had ridden Shalimar across a meadow on Killara, something she knew had already happened. But this scene was different. She had no past references to tell her who the man in the mirror could be, or why he was looking down on Killara. Or why he seemed so angry.

But she did know one thing: She wasn't dreaming.

Kells Braxton propped his arm on the gleaming white marble mantel, sipped at the scotch he'd just poured for himself, and surveyed the drawing room from beneath half-closed eyes. Fabulous works of ait and one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture, collected from around the world, had been arranged into an elegant, graceful, and surprisingly comfortable room. From what little he had seen so far, Killara was everything he had expected and more.

Grimacing, he turned his attention to the Christmas tree. It was huge and chipped with ornaments, some of them obviously very expensive, some of them homemade, a great many of them very old. He wasn't surprised.

By all accounts the Delaneys were mired in tradition and family-two things he was in short supply of, two things he'd never felt a need for.

He took another sip of scotch and reflected. He'd thought long and hard before deciding to accept Burke Delaney's money. He had gone his way alone too long to be beholden in any way to anyone. But with the agreement he and Burke Delaney would sign at the end of his stay here, they both would get something they wanted. Burke would receive certain rights to use his patent for a next generation of microchip, and he would receive a much-welcomed infusion of money into his company.

He was giving as good as he was getting. h.e.l.l, maybe even better. It made it easier for him to accept what he was doing.

It was a nice, clean agreement, free of entanglements or complications-just the way he liked it. He took another sip of scotch.

The door to the drawing room opened, and a young woman wearing a wine velvet dinner suit rushed in, her long red hair swinging and s.h.i.+ning beguilingly. "Dad, are you in here?"

She came to an abrupt halt. Her green eyes widened in shock, and the color chained from her face.

It was Mm, the man in the mirror, Bria realized. The floor went soft beneath her feet; her legs lost their strength. She reached out for support but found nothing she could hang on to. Her surroundings receded, and the room darkened until finally she couldn't see anything but the man.

He was the same man, yet he didn't look the same. Instead of jeans and leather jacket, he wore a double-breasted midnight-blue suit. His eyes-they were still piercingly direct, but there was something different in their expression, something that had not been there in the mirror. And there was one other thing: He wasn't angry. His expression was curious and coolly a.s.sessing.

What was he doing here? Why had she seen him in the mirror?

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice a mere whisper.

He set his gla.s.s of scotch on the mantel. "I'm Kells Braxton."

"Kells Braxton." She repeated the name, trying to match it with a piece of information in her head, but she couldn't.

"Obviously I've startled you," he murmured. "I'm sorry." She had startled him too, he reflected, intrigued because he couldn't ever remember being startled by a woman. But she had an unusual beauty about her, the kind of beauty that wasn't conventional, in fact, was almost irregular. The kind of beauty that would never bore.

She looked very sleek, very sophisticated, very expensive, but beneath it all he thought he detected a hint of something untamed. Maybe it was her mouth, which was almost too wide, too full, or her jawline, which was sharply angular. Or maybe it was the dark auburn brows that feathered above her expressive green eyes. Then there was her body. Tall, slender, she had impossibly long legs and high b.r.e.a.s.t.s that pushed against the velvet jacket.

Whatever it was about her, the parts or the whole, she was unexpected and a definite shock to his system, making his mouth go dry. Instant attraction was foreign to him, but then, so was turning his back on something he wanted. Still, an unexpected, complexly fundamental, vastly annoying gut instinct told him to be cautious.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.