Heather Graham - The Last Noel

Take control, Skyler ordered herself. And finally spoke up. “Uncle Paddy, you have a drinking problem, and you know it. Jamie, you may have a beer. One.” She stared at her husband. “I’d rather he drink with us than away from us, if he’s going to drink. And he is going to drink. So…sit down. Kat, Frazier, Brenda, what would you like to drink?”

“Just water for me,” Brenda said hurriedly.

Of course someone so slim and tiny wouldn’t consume a liquid with calories, Skyler thought. Then again, at least the girl had answered on her own. She had been so quiet since her arrival.

She was shy. Not like this group.

“Frazier, what will you have?”

“I’ll have a beer—if Dad doesn’t think it will turn me into an alcoholic.”

David stared at his older son, still irritated.

“Don’t be silly. Your father knows that you don’t abuse alcohol.”

“Yeah. Not like some of those old boozehounds at the pub,” Frazier said.

“Boozehounds? Those fine fellows put food on your plate,” Paddy said.

“Including the ones who fall off their bar stools?” Frazier asked.

“We don’t serve drunks,” David snapped.

“Dad’s right,” Kat said, grinning, “We reserve the right not to serve people who are falling off the bar stools.”

“Even when they’re our relatives,” Jamie chimed in.

“Jamie…” Skyler cautioned with a sigh. So much for taking control. David was clearly taking every word seriously, which did not bode well for a pleasant meal.

“Mom, what would you like to drink?” Kat asked.

Skyler hesitated, shaking her head. “Hell. Just give me the whole bottle of whiskey.”

To her amazement, there was silence.

Then laughter.

Even David’s lips twitched.

“Come on, guys, let’s all behave,” Kat said. “We’re driving Mom to drink.”

“Let’s eat,” Skyler said with forced cheer. “Sit down already.”

“You want us anywhere in particular?” Kat asked, walking up behind her mother and hugging her.

“In a chair at the table, that’s all,” she said, and gave her daughter a little squeeze in return.

“We’re short a place setting,” Kat noted.

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are. Count,” Kat said.

“There are six place settings, and five of us and…Brenda and Paddy,” Skyler said. “I’m sorry. I’ll get another plate.”

“I’ll go find a chair,” Kat said. “I think there’s an extra in the den.”

“I’m so sorry, guys,” Skyler said as Kat hurried out.

“That’s okay, Mom. You can’t count, but we love you anyway,” Frazier teased, smiling at her.

She smiled back. “And Dad?”

His smiled wavered for a moment. “We love Dad, too, of course. Although I think he can count.”

“Cute,” Skyler said. “Brenda, please sit down and just ignore my family.”

Uncle Paddy was staring at her questioningly, and Brenda looked acutely uncomfortable. How the hell had she miscounted? She just hadn’t been thinking clearly. She’d been too busy listening in on other people’s conversations. Worrying.

She didn’t want arguing. She wanted peace and the whole Norman Rockwell picture.

“I’m sorry for intruding on your family Christmas—” Brenda began.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not intruding in the least, and we’re delighted to have you. I’m just getting absentminded in my old age,” Skyler said.

“It’s all those years in a bar,” Frazier teased.

“Pub,” David said.

“Beer fumes,” Jamie put in.

David groaned exaggeratedly. “All right, enough with the pub and the beer. Brenda, you are entirely welcome here. Please sit down.”

“Please,” Skyler echoed. “Jamie likes to say that I have adult attention deficiency disorder. Personally, I think it comes from my children,” she explained, staring firmly from one of her sons to the other. “Let’s all sit and enjoy our dinner.”

Suddenly the doorbell rang.

Skyler looked at her husband, who looked back at her, his eyebrows arching questioningly. “You have more company coming?” he asked. His tone, at least, was light. “Someone’s long-lost relative? Stray friend?”

She glared at him fiercely. “No.”

“Why would anyone be traveling in this weather?” Brenda mused.

So she did speak without being spoken to, Skyler thought, then wanted to kick herself for the unkind thought. But the girl was so quiet most of the time. Probably, her family didn’t fight all the time, and she just felt uncomfortable, intimidated.

“Someone might have had an accident, Dad,” Frazier suggested.

“If someone is hurt or stranded, of course they can come in,” Skyler said quickly.

“What idiot would be out in this weather?” David asked.

The bell sounded again.

“We could just answer the blasted thing and find out what’s going on,” Paddy said.

“I’ll get it,” Jamie said.

“No. I’ll get it,” David said firmly. “You all just sit.”

But no one sat.

David led, Skyler close behind him, everyone else behind her. The swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room, which sat to the one side of the entry, thumped as one person after another pushed it on the way through.

The bell rang again.

“Hurry, someone might be freezing out there,” Skyler said.

And yet, even as she spoke, she felt a strange sense of unease.

Somehow Norman Rockwell seemed to be slipping away.

And she—who took in any stray puppy, who always helped the down and out, animal or human—didn’t want David to open the door.

The chair in the den lost a leg the minute Kat picked it up. She let out a groan of frustration and tried to put it back on.

It would go back on, but it wouldn’t stay, because a crucial screw seemed to be missing. She looked around, getting down on hands and knees to see if it had rolled into a corner somewhere. No luck.

No problem. There was a chair at the desk up in her room, and she knew it was fine, because she had been sitting in it earlier while she was online.

She was upstairs when she heard the doorbell ring. Curious, she walked to the window and looked out. She saw a car stuck nose-first in a snowdrift, barely off the road, down where the slope of their yard began.

The bell rang again, and two men backed out from beneath the porch roof and stared up at the house. Strangers. She could barely see them; the wind was really blowing the snow around, and they were bundled up in coats, scarves and hats, but something about their movement made her think that they were in their thirties—late twenties to forty, tops, at any rate.

She frowned, watching as they moved back out of sight and the bell rang for a third time.

Not at all sure why, she didn’t grab the chair and run down the stairs. Instead, she found herself walking quietly out to the landing, where she stood in the shadows, looking and listening.

“We know it’s Christmas Eve,” one man was saying.

“And we’re so sorry,” said the second.

“But we ran off the road and we need help,” said the first.

“A dog shouldn’t be out on a night like this,” said the second.

“We were just about to sit down to dinner.” Her father’s voice, and he sounded suspicious. Good.

“Dinner,” the first man repeated.

Peering carefully over the banister, still strangely unwilling to give herself away, Kat tried to get a look at the men. One was bulky and well-dressed, and shorter than her father and Frazier by a few inches; since they were about six-one to Jamie’s six-two, that made the stranger about six feet even.

The other man, the one who had spoken first, was leaner. He had the look of…a sidekick? Odd thought, but that was exactly the word that occurred to her. He needed a haircut, and his coat was missing several buttons. Even his knit cap looked as if it had seen better days.