Tropical Christmas Stag Read online

  “I... wanted you to have fun,” Conall said, abashed.

  Dark eyes met his, solemn and sorrowed. “I can have fun losing,” she assured him.

  “Give me another chance,” Conall challenged, stung with guilt. “I won’t let you win again.”

  Gizelle’s face brightened with a slow smile. “You may not have a choice,” she taunted him, laying out the pieces again.

  This game was far more even, and both of them spent many frustrating rolls trying to get their checkers off the center bar. Conall won by just a few pieces, and they were both laughing and alternating curses and praise at their dice at the end.

  Gizelle showed Conall where Tex kept the nut mix when his stomach growled in hunger, and they snacked and played a third game, which she took handily despite Conall’s best efforts.

  It would have been even more fun if Conall hadn’t been fighting his urge to kiss her. Several times, reaching for dice, their hands almost touched, and Conall found himself watching her mouth when she concentrated, longing for its taste.

  Was her glance up through her eyelashes an innocent look, or an invitation? Did she lick her lips thoughtfully just a little more slowly than she needed to? The sarong she was wearing showed more leg than her previous dresses; was it on purpose?

  He wanted her to laugh like this forever, and was unwilling to risk the brief easy companionship they had at the moment to test their boundaries, but he wanted her so badly.

  “Gizelle,” he started, as she put the pieces back into the box, and he put out his hand to her, palm up. “Good game,” he said as lightly as he could.

  She froze momentarily, checkers still in one hand, and then looked between his face and his hand.

  Triumph started to bloom in Conall’s chest as she slowly reached for the offered hand with her own empty hand.

  Then she startled, snatching her hand back. All of her attention riveted to Tex, who had just appeared around the corner of the bar and clearly said something.

  Conall could cheerfully have thrown the board at the bartender, and was able to follow none of the conversation that then occurred; it was too fast, not facing him, and his elk was groaning and stomping in frustration.

  Then Gizelle was scampering away as if she’d forgotten him entirely and he was sitting alone with a backgammon board missing a third of its checkers, hiding behind the bar like a boy playing hooky from school.

  He swept the remaining pieces carelessly into the board and snapped it shut, rising to find Tex watching him. The bartender looked amused, and worse, pitying.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” the cowboy said. “Scarlet asked me to see if Gizelle wanted to do some reading.”

  Conall found the games shelf that the backgammon board had clearly come from and returned it to the empty space.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Tex offered when Conall turned briefly back.

  “It’s a little early for that,” Conall declined crossly. His elk firmly reminded him of his manners. “Thanks anyway.”

  Tex shrugged. “We’re on island time. No one will judge.”

  “I’m paying a fairly astronomical amount of money for meals I keep missing,” Conall said with a stiff smile. “I think I’ll go try to catch one of them.”

  Tex tipped his hat to Conall. “Good call. Chef’s food is not to be squandered.” He paused and then added, “You shouldn’t feel discouraged. She’s already easier with you than with people she’s known for months. We’re all actually really impressed.”

  Without tone to telegraph unspoken things, Conall’s sense for truth had dampened into something unreliable.

  But something uncoiled in his chest anyway.

  Something suspiciously like hope.

  Chapter 27

  Gizelle’s reading lesson with Scarlet was a disaster. She arrived to realize that she was still holding the checkers from the backgammon game in one hand, and couldn’t concentrate on anything that Scarlet said or read.

  She wished that she’d taken Conall’s hand when she had the chance—two chances! She wished she was someone different. Someone smarter about people. Someone... else. She thought about how Laura and Tex liked to hold hands across the bar, how Travis and Jenny kissed each other every chance they got. Even Wrench, who didn’t like to be touched, got all soft around the edges and reached for Lydia whenever they were together.

  “Gizelle?”

  Scarlet put the book down and Gizelle realized that at some point she had fallen back onto the grass so she could look up at the sky that was blue like Conall’s eyes.

  “I’m not all here inside today,” she said regretfully as she sat up. Clutching the checkers was making her hand sweaty.

  “We can try tomorrow,” Scarlet said patiently.

  “Tomorrow...” There was something Gizelle was supposed to remember about tomorrow. “Chef is making figgy pudding tomorrow!”

  “Yes, but...”

  Gizelle was already gone, flying to tell Conall about the pudding.

  Conall, unfortunately, was at the restaurant. Gizelle fidgeted a while at the back entrance, then decided she was not feeling brave enough to join him after a particularly loud laugh from one of the other guests.

  Instead, she returned the checkers to the game board on the deck below with a sigh of relief, frowning over the red marks in her sweaty palm from holding them too tightly and too long.

  Then she went to graze as a gazelle, because it was easiest, and the sun was warm on her tawny coat and the grass was sweet and the insects made a lovely, restful droning sound that drowned out all the rest of the noise in her head.

  By the time she was aware of time again, the sun was starting to set.

  She still hadn’t told Conall about the figgy pudding, so she went to find him. Her sarong was where she had left it, so she tied it back around herself in one of the clever ways that Lydia had shown her.

  Conall wasn’t at his cottage, so she went to look for him.

  He wasn’t on the bar deck, but Magnolia was.

  Magnolia was restful to be around. She was the biggest and most beautiful thing that Gizelle knew, as a human or as a polar bear.

  When Gizelle approached her, Magnolia tipped her sunglasses down her nose. “Darling, you’re looking almost tanned, you’ve been out in the sun in your human skin so much.”

  Gizelle envied how comfortable Magnolia was in her own skin.

  Not even her gazelle’s skin was that comfortable.

  “It’s just the sunset,” Gizelle assured her, putting both pale arms out in front of her. “I’m still more moonlight than melanin.”

  Magnolia’s laugh was like caramel. “I love how unexpected you always are,” she said warmly.

  “I love that you don’t think I’m weird. Unexpected is better than weird,” Gizelle said gratefully. She thought that she should sit in one of the tall chairs, but when she did, she was too restless, so she stood again almost at once.

  “Want some water?” Magnolia offered, preparing one of her ringed hands to signal Tex from the bar.

  Gizelle shook her head. “I had a drink from one of the rain buckets earlier,” she explained offhandedly.

  “So, tell me about Conall,” Magnolia said, with no trace of the discomfort that other people got on the topic. “Because he looks like a dish, and you don’t look as happy as you should.”

  Gizelle decided that sitting would make her more likely to stay through the whole conversation and perched up on the tall chair with her legs crossed. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “Having a mate?” Magnolia prodded.

  “Any of it,” Gizelle said mournfully. She tried to square the napkin in front of her to the circular table, with futile results.

  “Do you like him?” Magnolia asked.

  “I do,” Gizelle said at once. “He’s beautiful and kind and never shouts.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Gizelle stared across the table. “I am,” she said finally.

  Magnolia
laughed at her. “You are not a problem.”

  It was hard not to believe her when she spoke so confidently.

  “I’m problematic, then,” Gizelle countered.

  She sighed. “I’ve tried all the things that everyone is supposed to do. Dinner at the restaurant. I showed him my hoard. We had a picnic on the beach. Even though I hate the beach.”

  “And?”

  “It’s all awful and I say stupid things and remind him of music and it hurts him but when he laughs it’s amazing and he’s trying so hard and I want him so badly.” By this point, she had pulled her knees up against her chest and was clinging to them tightly.

  Magnolia offered her hands across the table in that way that she had that wasn’t really a request.

  Gizelle reluctantly unwound her arms and lowered her legs so she could put her hands cautiously on top of Magnolia’s lovely large fingers.

  “It can all seem very complicated,” Magnolia said gently. She cradled Gizelle’s hands, but didn’t hold them tight, perhaps knowing that would make Gizelle feel trapped. “A new mate is overwhelming, for anyone, and it can feel like you don’t have choices.”

  Gizelle felt her chest squeeze in recognition as Magnolia continued.

  “You haven’t been making your own choices for very long, darling,” Magnolia reminded her. “You never had the chance before. And now, it probably feels like that was taken away from you again, and that must be pretty terrifying.”

  Terrifying didn’t begin to describe the wave that threatened Gizelle as Magnolia’s words clarified her discomfort.

  “But you like him,” Magnolia reminded her. “And your gazelle likes him. You both want him.” She withdrew her hands and sat back in satisfaction. “So, choose him.”

  It was like the sun coming through clouds.

  “You make it sound so easy,” Gizelle breathed.

  Her gazelle was nuzzling the back of her mind in amused agreement, and she looked up to see Conall across the bar, coming in the back entrance.

  He paused there, searching... for her, Gizelle realized, and all the lines in his body changed when he spotted her. He brightened, some of the sadness lifting from his shoulders as he strode forward.

  She could choose him.

  The idea was amazing.

  “Coming through!” Just inside the bar, out of view of the entrance, Laura was rushing across his path with a tray of empty drink glasses. Her tray, Gizelle had time to note, was stacked high with glassware.

  Then Gizelle froze, realizing that Conall hadn’t been able to hear Laura’s warning, that he was walking forward with eyes only for her.

  “Look out!” Magnolia called urgently, but Conall couldn’t hear that either and Laura was moving too fast to stop herself, and even as Gizelle thought about finding a way to warn him, they collided, the tray flying from Laura’s hands.

  Conall swore, Laura gave a little shriek, and glass dashed against tile all around them as they just managed to both stay upright.

  The crash was too much sound. Gizelle’s hands at her ears couldn’t stop it, and her will shattered with the glass.

  Before she could stop herself, she was bounding away on four hooves.

  Chapter 28

  Conall sank onto the barstool in defeat as Laura waved him away from helping to clean up the broken glass.

  Gizelle had fled again, and who wouldn’t.

  She needed someone whole. Someone undamaged. Someone who could hear her speak and actually help her heal.

  Someone who could avoid a simple collision by hearing the warning.

  He didn’t look to see what Tex would say, but was not surprised to find a gin and tonic in front of him within a few moments.

  A strong gin and tonic, with no umbrella.

  A second followed it in short order and Conall loosened his hateful tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

  It was the third drink before he was drunk enough to look at Tex. “You got an electric tuner?” he asked in challenge.

  Tex, surprised, glanced at the guitar that had been taunting Conall from the corner. “No, sir. Always tuned her by... ah... ear.”

  Conall kept his gaze steady. “Can you tune it to an open G?” Did he sound as desperate as he felt? It was impossible to know.

  Tex after a perplexed moment, nodded, and reached up to turn down the radio that must be playing.

  Conall watched him sit and bend over the strings with a hunger that only rivaled what he felt when he’d seen Gizelle standing at the edge of the restaurant in the red dress. He didn’t comment on Tex’s questionable technique, only watched him strum out the chords and adjust the pins until it obviously satisfied him.

  Conall understood the reluctance in the bartender’s motions when he finally passed the instrument over the bar, and took the guitar with the reverence the favor deserved. It was a worn instrument, mass-produced and of decidedly pedestrian quality, but it had clearly been treated with care.

  Conall cradled it into his lap, ignoring the gaudy country strap, and gave it a test scale that told him nothing.

  His fingers remembered, after ten years of inactivity, and without thinking, he was falling into a Spanish lament, a song that had always brought him comfort, with its aching trills and slow progressions.

  He had learned it as a challenge, for its complicated fingering and changing tempos, but it had become a favored song for informal concerts and for impressing company when his family was entertaining. It rarely failed to draw a tear from the aunts who were visiting, and Conall always took the extra time to linger over the last minor runs, squeezing each last emotion from the music.

  At the last phrase, he stumbled, and let his fingers stop.

  It was useless.

  The familiar strains brought no peace when he couldn’t hear them, even if his fingers did remember how to coax them from the strings. Probably. He could only judge by his audience, and he had no interest in looking at any of them.

  He put the guitar down on the bar, knowing from the vibration in the neck that it had thumped down too hard, and he shoved it across at a shocked Tex before he noticed that there were glasses between them. He couldn’t hear them shatter as Tex caught the precious guitar and let them fall.

  He muttered what might have been an apology as he shoved back from the bar and took a page from Gizelle’s book, fleeing the scene.

  His feet took him to the beach, away from the hated Christmas lights now strung all along the pool deck. Behind him, the resort was a twinkling cathedral; before him, the dark ocean stretched forever. He could feel the surf rumbling through the sand that threatened to fill his shoes at once.

  Gritty socks were nothing compared to the bleakness inside.

  Motion caught the corner of his eye as he considered wading out into the water, shoes and all.

  Gizelle had followed him, still in her antelope form, and was stepping carefully towards him over the sand she hated. She froze when he glanced her way.

  Conall sighed and looked away, hands limp and empty at his sides. Did she feel like he did? Was she impossibly drawn to him, but sure it was a terrible mistake?

  Then there was a whiskered muzzle tickling his hand, and his world exploded in sounds.

  He crumpled to his knees, hands clasped uselessly over his ears, and howled.

  Chapter 29

  Gizelle had never shifted so quickly in her life.

  “Did I hurt you? What’s wrong? What did I do??” She flung herself at Conall, trying to lift him back to his feet, and he took hold of her bare shoulders as she remembered he wouldn’t be able to understand her in the darkness. “I’m sorry!” she cried anyway.

  “Gizelle,” he said roughly, voice cracking. “Gizelle,” he repeated in wonder. “Say something!”

  Gizelle froze. “I don’t understand,” she squeaked.

  He gathered her into his arms and sobbed into her hair. “Don’t stop talking,” he begged. “Don’t stop.”

  “You can hear me?” Gizelle asked wonderin
gly into his chest. Every time she thought she had figured something out, the rules changed. His chest, however, was a very nice place to be. His shirt was thin enough that she could feel the warmth of his muscles beneath it, and his heart beating, fast and strong.

  “I can hear everything,” he gasped. “Everything. The water, the sky, birds, I... don’t even know what I’m hearing. Voices?” He paused and said achingly, “I hear music.”

  “Saina is singing,” Gizelle told him. She could barely hear the strains from here, Saina’s magic a faint, distant tickle in her mind.

  “What have you given me?” Conall drew back and put his hands at either side of her face. “How did you do this?”

  Gizelle wanted to be close against his chest again, but his hands on her face were nearly as nice. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “I don’t know how I work.”

  Then he bent and kissed her, and all the questions were irrelevant.

  Gizelle had never understood kissing. She’d watched others kiss with fascination, not sure what the appeal of touching lips was when touching people altogether was rather distasteful, or what they did with their tongues when their mouths were open. The sucking looked uncomfortable, even while they seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

  But Conall’s mouth explained it all, without any words whatsoever. It was an intoxicating mix of strong and soft, and when she instinctively opened her mouth in welcome, his tongue set her entire body on fire. She couldn’t be close enough, she couldn’t have enough of him touching her, and she whimpered in overwhelming longing as she kissed him passionately in return. His hands weren’t on her face anymore; one was at the small of her back, pulling her closer, but not close enough, and the other was tangling in the hair at the back of her neck.

  She had her hands on his arms, and when he suddenly drew away, she took handfuls of his shirt, trying to keep him close.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, panting raggedly. “I meant to let you set the pace. I shouldn’t have...”

  “Do that again,” she begged, her breath as unsteady as his was. “Please...”