Heather Graham - The Last Noel

Skyler shook her head. “Actually, I’m fine. Everything is more or less ready. We’re going traditional Irish tonight—corned beef, bacon, cabbage and potatoes, and it’s all in one pot. We can eat soon. Tomorrow we’ll have turkey.”

“Want me to set the table while Dad argues with the lights?” Kat asked.

Skyler grinned. “See if you can help him argue with the lights, and I’ll set the table. We’ll just eat in the kitchen, where it’s warm and cozy.”

Kat smiled at her mother.

Skyler couldn’t have asked for a better daughter, she thought as she made her way back to the kitchen. They shared clothes and confidences, and she had learned not to worry every time her daughter drove away.

With her daughter here…

Skyler felt as if there were a chance for a Norman Rockwell Christmas after all.

Frazier came running down the stairs, followed by Brenda. They were an attractive couple, she had to admit. He was so tall, muscled without being bulky, with hair a deeper shade of red than his sister’s. And he, too, had his father’s eyes. Next to him, Brenda was tiny, delicate. And blond.

“Way too perfect,” Kat had told her mother teasingly, since she’d met Brenda first.

“You might want to turn on the TV and check the weather update,” Frazier said.

“That storm is getting worse,” Brenda added shyly.

“Really?” Skyler said, offering Brenda what she hoped was a welcoming smile. Not only was Brenda tiny and blond, her brilliant blue eyes made her look like a true little snow princess. Skyler had been relieved to learn that she was twenty-one. When she’d first met the young woman, she’d been terrified that Frazier had fallen for a teenager, but Brenda simply looked young because she was so petite. She tended to be shy, but she certainly seemed very sweet.

Okay, it would be nice if she talked a bit more to someone in the house other than Frazier, but really, what wasn’t to like about her?

David was too entangled in the lights to find the remote. Skyler saw it on a chair and flicked the TV on. A serious-looking anchorman was delivering a warning.

“We’re looking at major power outages, and despite the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, because the weather is already turning vicious, we suggest that anyone who may have medical or other difficulties in the event of a power loss get to a hospital or a shelter now. And everyone should be prepared, with candles and flashlights within reach.”

“Ah-ha!” David cried, and they all turned to stare at him.

He shrugged weakly. “Sorry. I untangled the lights.”

“Let’s get ’em up, and then let’s eat,” Skyler suggested cheerfully. “With luck we can finish before the power blows, and if it does, we can play Scrabble by candlelight or something.”

“Wretched weather,” Kat muttered, her attention turning back to the television. “Mom, Dad, why didn’t we buy a house on a Caribbean island?”

“We couldn’t afford a house on a Caribbean island,” David said, but he sounded a lot more cheerful than he had earlier. He hesitated, then said, “Frazier, will you grab that end?”

Frazier hesitated, as well, before saying, “Sure, Dad.”

“Good. You two deal with the lights, and I’ll get the food on the table,” Skyler said.

“Let’s get Mister Sixteen and Rebellious down here, too, huh?” Kat said. “He can give us a hand.”

“Good idea, and would you get Uncle Paddy, too?”

There was a short silence after she spoke. Perhaps she’d even imagined it, she thought.

David wasn’t thrilled about her uncle being there, she knew, and she was suddenly thankful that they’d both been born the children of Irish immigrants. He would never expect her to actually turn away a relative, even if he felt that Paddy was a drunk who deserved whatever he was suffering now. Which wasn’t really fair, she thought, but David was entitled to his opinion.

Often enough, Uncle Paddy was the real Irish entertainment at the pub. In his own way, of course.

Kat sprang to life, dispelling whatever awkwardness there might have been. She grinned and ran halfway up the stairs, then called, “Jamie! Jamie O’Boyle! Get your delinquent ass down here on the double. Uncle Paddy…dinner.”

“I could have yelled myself,” Skyler said.

“But you’d never have used such poetic language,” Kat said, and even David laughed.

The first thing Craig realized when he came to was that his head was killing him.

Quintin packed one hell of a wallop.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out, didn’t know how far they had come. All he knew was that even from where he lay, tossed into the backseat of their stolen vehicle, when he first cracked his eyes open it looked like the whole world had turned white.

Impossible.

He closed his eyes again, waited a long moment, then reopened them. The world was still white. It was snow, and not just snow, but fiercely blowing snow. Hell. It was a nor’easter and a mean one. A blizzard.

He ached all over and wondered if anything in his body was broken.

And what about the old man they had robbed?

His stomach tightened painfully when he caught sight of a familiar stand of trees and realized he knew exactly where they were. For a moment, memories filled his mind and drove away the pain, and then every muscle in his body tensed in an effort at self-preservation, as the car suddenly spun and came to a violent halt in a snowdrift.

“Asshole!” Quintin shouted from the front seat.

“You’re the asshole,” Scooter returned savagely. “You try driving in this shit.”

“Doesn’t matter now. We’re stuck. We’ll have to get out and walk.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Scooter protested.

“No, we’re not. There’s a house right up there,” Quintin snapped, pointing. “I can see the lights in the windows.”

“What? We’re going to drop in for Christmas dinner?” Scooter demanded angrily.

“It’s still Christmas Eve,” Quintin said. “The season of peace and goodwill toward men.”

“Fine. We’re going to crash somebody’s Christmas Eve dinner?” Scooter asked, sounding doubtful, even disbelieving, and thoroughly uneasy.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Quintin said.

Craig’s head was still in agony. Despite that, he felt a terrible sense of dread. Inwardly, he cringed, his mind screaming.

He knew that house. He had dropped by often in a different time.

In a different life.

He remembered it so well: set on a little hill, a beautiful house, comfortable and warm, a place where a family—a real family—gathered and cooked and celebrated the holidays.

How could they have settled on that house? How could the fates be that unfair? It wasn’t even right on the road, for God’s sake; they should never even have known it was there as they drove past in the storm.

“We’ve got to get away from here. Far away,” Scooter argued.

Good thought, Craig approved silently.

“Far away?” Quintin mocked. “You’re out of your mind. Just how far do you think we can get in this weather, without a car—seeing as someone drove ours into a snowdrift? We need a place to stay. Are you insane? Can’t you see? We’re not going to get anywhere tonight.”

Scooter was silent for a moment, then said, “We shouldn’t see people tonight.”

“Don’t you mean people shouldn’t see us?” Quintin asked. He laughed. “Like it will make a difference. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do.”

In the back, eyes shut again as he pretended he was still unconscious, Craig shuddered inwardly and considered his options. Depending on how he looked at things, they went from few to nonexistent.

Sorrow ripped through him at the thought of the old man they had left behind, followed by a fresh onslaught of dread.