One Enchanted Season Read online

  One Enchanted Season

  A Collection of Magical Holiday Romance

  C.L. WILSON

  ERICA RIDLEY

  ELISSA WILDS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or personal, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ONE ENCHANTED SEASON

  “Upon a Midnight” by C.L. Wilson Copyright 2013 by Cheryl Wilson

  “Let it Snow” by Erica Ridley Copyright 2013 by Erica Ridley

  “Snowman” by Elissa Wilds Copyright 2013 by Elissa Wilds

  Excerpt from THE WINTER KING Copyright 2013 by Cheryl Wilson (Avon Publishing)

  Excerpt from CHARMED Copyright 2012 by Erica Ridley

  Excerpt from DISTANT THUNDER Copyright 2013 by Elissa Wilds

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover design by Michael Babb

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author(s). Please do not support piracy. Obtain an electronic version of this book through an approved vendor.

  Upon a Midnight

  C.L. WILSON

  For Kevin, my one and only.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He was there again.

  Blond, beautiful—shockingly so—with eyes so piercing Katrina Bentsen could feel them burning into her like lasers. She’d seen him several times over the last few days. In the park Friday afternoon. On the MARTA train Saturday morning. A few blocks from her apartment last night. Currently, he was sitting in the coffee shop across from the forty-story Buckhead office building that housed the headquarters of Stanford Systems, the software company where Kat worked.

  Men who knew of her affiliation with Haven House, the domestic violence shelter where she worked nights and weekends, had tried to follow her in the past. Often enough that she’d gotten pretty good at evasive maneuvers. But Mr. Golden & Gorgeous was proving more difficult to shake than most.

  She tried not to look at him. But his presence pulled her gaze like a lodestone. She couldn’t not look, though she did manage to restrict herself to quick, sideways glances. That was worse, in some ways, because in her peripheral vision, the golden, beautiful man appeared to…well…glow.

  Just a trick of the light, Kat assured herself. The winter sun was setting, casting bright golden beams that reflected off glass and steel. Even so, she felt her heart thump a little faster, for reasons that had nothing to do with the certainty that she was being followed.

  She turned around, pushed back through the revolving glass doors of Stanford Systems, and approached the lobby security desk.

  “Gloria, I need a favor.” Kat leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Do you see that blond man sitting in the coffee shop across the street?”

  Gloria glanced around Kat’s body, scanned, then said. “What blond man?”

  “The one sitting right there by the…” Kat’s voice trailed off as she turned towards coffee shop. A well-dressed black man was sitting in the chair where she’d seen the blond man barely a minute or two ago. Her accelerated heart pumped a little faster.

  Plastering an abashed smile on her face, Kat turned back to Gloria. “Never mind. He must already have left.”

  Gloria frowned. “Is some man bothering you, Miss Bentsen?”

  “No, nothing like that—”

  “Because you shouldn’t just blow things off. Not with all the craziness going on around here lately.” Gloria leaned forward, her expression grim. “There’s been a twenty percent increase in violent crime in the last two weeks alone. Dan says he’s never seen anything like it.” Dan Avery, Gloria’s husband, was a fifteen year veteran of the Atlanta police force. “If your instincts are telling you something’s off, you should trust them.”

  Kat forced a smile. “It was probably just my imagination, but I’ll take extra precautions all the same. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Quickly, before Gloria could launch into a full scale safety lecture, Kat spun around and headed for the door, colliding with her boss, Harry Stanford, in her rush. Harry reached out instinctively to steady her, and she flinched, practically leaping back to avoid his touch.

  Harry froze then snatched his hand back. “Kat, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  Kat drew a shallow breath, trying not to shudder. “No, it was my fault.” Her heart was pounding frantically in her chest, but even in her distress she noted the way Harry put himself between Kat and the stream of people heading out the door. Harry was kind that way, a truly compassionate soul. She hadn’t flinched from him. She just didn’t like to be touched. By anyone. Was practically autistic on that score.

  Agoraphobics were afraid of leaving their apartment. Ornithophobics were afraid of birds. Haphephobics were afraid of human touch.

  And Katrina Bentsen was most decidedly haphephobic.

  “Are you all right?” Harry was still looking deeply concerned. He’d seen her have a total meltdown once before. It wasn’t the sort of thing you ever forgot. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’m fine, Harry.” She forced a smile, smoothed an unnecessary hand over the stick-straight white blond hair pulled back in its tight, perfect bun. The gesture revealed nerves. Her hair was never out of place. She glanced at her watch and exclaimed, “Oh, goodness, look at the time. I’ve got to go.”

  She practically ran out the door, taking care this time to wait for an opening in the flow of people to avoid inadvertent touches.

  Outside, Kat hugged the side of the building, keeping her large leather bag facing outward like a shield to protect against the inevitable bumps and jostles. She kept head down, eyes fixed on the concrete sidewalk beneath her flashing low-heeled pumps, making her way to the parking lot across the street more from memory than sight.

  Once she reached the security of her car, she started the engine, turned on her favorite meditation CD, and reached into her glove box to pull out an acrylic-framed picture of a tropical ocean. She fixed her gaze on that warm, bright, serene turquoise sea and did deep breathing exercises to the soothing sounds of ocean surf until her heartbeat slowed and she stopped shaking.

  Crisis averted. For now.

  After a final deep, restorative breath, she turned off the CD, returned the picture to the glove box, and put her car in gear. Time to go. Maya was expecting her.

  ###

  Instead of her usual direct route to the shelter, Kat took the back roads, checking the rear-view mirror continually for signs of potential tails. Half an hour later, confident she wasn’t being followed, Kat navigated through a maze of downtown Atlanta side streets, past several blocks of abandoned and boarded up buildings, then turned down the unpaved drive of an old warehouse that had been renovated into a thirty-four-bed emergency shelter for the victims of domestic violence. Gravel crunched beneath her tires as she pulled around to the parking lot behind the warehouse and let herself in the locked back door.

  Maya Simon, the gorgeous, giving woman who ran the shelter, met Kat at the door. “Got a new family in.”

  “How bad is it?” Of course it was bad. Maya wouldn’t have been waiting for her at the door if it wasn’t.

  “Worst I’ve seen in a while.” Maya kept her voice low. “Mom beat to hell. The kids haven’t said a word since they got here.” Maya shook her head. She wore her long hair in a ponytail made up of dozens of thin, tight black braids pulled to the back of her head and bound by thick t
ie. Curling lashes framed big, expressive, coffee-colored eyes. Maya, like Harry, was one of those special people whose goodness radiated from them like an inner light. She’d witnessed so much of the evil this world had to offer, and it hadn’t tainted her.

  Kat wished she could say the same about herself.

  “Are they local?” Katrina made her way into Maya’s office and hung her coat on the rack inside. The small cramped space was a mess, paper everywhere, files stacked high. Kat forced herself to look away, not to touch. Maya had a system. It drove Kat crazy, but for Maya, it worked.

  “They came in from the Jonesboro shelter. This was their third move this week.”

  Women in the Haven House program were often shuffled from shelter to shelter—a highly secretive process used to protect them from their abusive spouses. Especially when the woman came with kids. Getting them as far away from danger as quickly as possible was the Haven House’s first priority.

  “We should probably move them to a private home tonight,” Kat murmured. “I think someone has been following me. I lost him before coming here, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  Maya took the news in stride. Shelter locations had been blown before. “I’ll start making calls. Pete can shadow you for the next couple of days.”

  Kat hesitated, thinking about the security guard Gloria’s warning, then shook her head. “Not necessary. If there is someone following me, Pete would just be another person to track back here.”

  “Kat…” Maya gave her a stern look.

  “I’ll be fine.” When Maya’s expression didn’t change, Kat rolled her eyes. “You know how much I hate having anyone following me around. I promise to call if there’s even a hint of trouble.”

  “Fine. Have it your way.” Maya caved only because she knew she wouldn’t win. “Please go say hi to the others before heading down.” New Haven House cases were always lodged in private basement rooms for the first several days to give them time to acclimate and de-stress.

  Leaving Maya to make her calls, Kat headed for the front of the building. The above-ground levels of the old warehouse and the part of the basement accessible from the main stairs had been converted into small single and family apartments, with a central common room on the ground floor. The common room was decked out for the holidays. A large, decorated tree and a menorah had been placed against one wall, near one of the narrow, curtained windows. Katrina didn’t celebrate Christmas. A decade in her grandparents’ care had cured her of any religious leanings. But it was important to Maya, so the shelter celebrated the holidays every year.

  There were packages beneath the tinseled branches of the tree. Every child who came through this month would receive at least one toy, every woman a care package, including emergency cash, a three-hundred dollar gift card to Wal-Mart, and bus tickets to whatever destination she chose. The seeds of a new life. Some of the women would return to their abusers, Kat knew. But many would grasp the proffered lifeline.

  Katrina would have grasped that lifeline, had anyone ever offered it to her. Instead she’d bided her time in Hell until she was old enough to escape.

  But Hell had a way of sticking with you.

  There was a piano in the gathering room. One of the women had taken a seat on the hard bench and put her hands on the black and white keys. Music blossomed forth. Bright notes, some happy and joyful, others solemn and serene. Christmas Carols. Someone started to sing.

  “It came upon a Midnight Clear, that glorious song of old…”

  Several of the other women joined in, their voices quiet at first, but growing in strength and confidence. Despite bruises and broken bones, they still found enough joy, enough hope, to sing.

  “From angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold.”

  Now the little ones, the somber-eyed children who’d seen more ugliness than any child ever should, crept closer, small hands slipping into their mothers’ as their own sweet, childish voices raised in song.

  “Peace on the earth, goodwill to men, from heaven’s all-gracious King.”

  Kat gripped the door frame, memories swamping her. Before her parents died, she’d known what joy was. She’d sung with innocence, happiness, and love, though always quietly, even then. She’d never been able to help herself. The joy had been like a fountain welling up inside her, impossible to contain.

  “The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.”

  She hadn’t sung in a long, long time. That source—that bubbling font of bright, effervescent, innocent happiness—was still and silent now, empty. Had been for years.

  Katrina turned and walked to her immaculate office at the rear of the building. Maya had left the file for the new family on Kat’s desk. After glancing swiftly through copies of police reports and pictures that curdled her stomach, Kat locked the file away in her desk, grabbed two small bags from the storage room that joined her office to Maya’s, then headed downstairs.

  There was a family waiting. Children in pain. She could still help them, at least. Save their joy as she could not save her own.

  ###

  The woman in the basement room was named Viveca. Her two children were Maria and Elizabeta, aged five and three. From the picture on her driver’s license, it was clear Viveca was an exceptional beauty, but no one would know it now. Both her eyes were blackened, burst blood vessels making scarlet puddles across the whites of her eyes. The fingers on her left hand were smashed. She’d suffered a concussion, three broken ribs, and there was a ring of bruises around her neck where her husband, Robert, had nearly strangled her to death.

  It wasn’t the first time Viveca had been beaten. According to her file, Viveca had been hospitalized several times, but she’d kept going back to her husband because he’d used their children as leverage. This time, however, she’d attacked him when she found him molesting their daughters, and instead of calling 911, Viveca had dialed the number on the back of a Haven House card she’d received from a nurse the last time she’d been in the hospital. That number had put her in touch with Maya’s network and thus had begun Viveca and her daughters’ journey out of Hell.

  “I’m Katrina.” Kat pulled up a chair and sat down next to the hollow-eyed, little girls curled up against their mother. They eyed her warily.

  The children wore soft, flannel pajamas printed with Hello Kitties. Their hair was washed, combed and curling in silky ringlets around their faces. They smelled of baby powder and shampoo. Fresh, clean, sweet. Except for their too-solemn eyes and their fearful, white-knuckled grip on their mother, you’d never know what they’d suffered.

  Katrina forced her curled fist to relax.

  “You can call me Kat. Like a kitty cat. In fact, speaking of kitty cats, look what I found on my way here.” She opened the bags she’d brought with her and pulled out two tiny stuffed kittens, one grey and white, with bright blue eyes and a pink bow tied around its neck, the other orange with green eyes and a yellow bow.

  The girls looked at the stuffed kittens, but neither reached out to touch them. That didn’t surprise her. She could see the pain and fear that lay over them both like a dark cloak.

  “I brought them for you. They need a home and someone to love them, someone to look after them. Do you think you could do that?” She pitched her voice low and soft, unthreatening, undemanding. The voice of a friend. Someone they could trust. Someone who would keep them and their mother safe from harm. “You both look wonderfully strong and very brave. Just what these two little kittens need. And, my goodness, their fur is so soft!” She stroked the kittens’ fur. It was exquisitely soft. The softest fur she’d been able to find. The kind of thick, plush softness that made you want to keep petting and never stop. “Would you like to pet them?”

  Still no response, but Kat just kept talking in a low, calm, unhurried voice. She talked about snow, about Santa, about Christmas carols and presents under the tree. She talked about rainbows and days at the beach. Anything but fathers or pain or the horro
r they’d been through. And she talked about the beautiful lives they were going to lead, the happiness and wonderful adventure just waiting for them. The songs they would sing. The marvels they would see. The boundless love laid out before them, theirs for the taking.

  With every word, she willed them to be strong, to heal, to let the innocent joy that should have been their birthright fill them like liquid sunlight, blotting out the horrors they should never have known. She visualized the light blossoming in their small chests, imagined it spreading out across their bodies, a soft, warm radiance, golden, healing, pure. Her own skin felt warm, too,

  Never once did she stretch a hand out to the girls except to place the stuffed kittens on the cot beside them. But she noticed the instant the little one, Elizabeta, reached out to claim the grey-and-white kitten. A few moments after that, Maria claimed the orange one. Little fingers stroked through the fur, tentative little brushes that turned into a subconscious rhythm that kept time with the almost hypnotic tempo of Kat’s voice.

  The shadowy blanket that still cloaked the two girls lightened, growing more translucent as they pulled the kittens close. The first connection offered and accepted. Kat continued to speak, her voice low and unhurried, rising and falling in a subtle, almost musical rhythm. No child should ever know the sort of evil these two had seen—had lived.

  Kat wanted to rage against it, but that was useless. She knew from past experience that if she let the anger consume her while she was talking to a wounded child, she only made things worse. Children were sensitive. The wounded ones especially. They felt emotions very clearly and very deeply. So she kept her eyes on them, but in her mind she was standing shoulder-deep in a warm, turquoise sea. She let the sea take her anger and her pain and give her back the steadfast, unwavering sense of love and peace she needed. She shared that love and peace with the girls, willing it to spill out in her voice as she spoke to them. Willing the heavy shadow of pain and fear that lay over the children to continue growing lighter, more translucent. She spoke until her throat was dry and slightly hoarse, until the dark shadow of their pain was an ephemeral mist so light she could blow it away with one good breath.