Coming Home for Christmas Read Online Free Page A

idea, but it can’t be pleasant.”
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    It wasn’t. Father Hilario gave him a full report that afternoon while Ralph dozed. According to the Franciscan, all of the Ortizes’ possessions were to be auctioned off that very evening. “Yes, there were gambling debts. Not only did he siphon off money from the presidio ’s coffers, but he also cheated a number of local residents.” He shook his head. “He cried and carried on and vowed to pay it all back, but there was no sympathy in that room! Talk is that he will be on the king’s highway in chains tomorrow, heading for a trial in Mexico City.”
    â€œSo soon?”
    The priest shrugged. “If he stays one moment longer, I fear the San Diegans will garrote him.” He made a twisting gesture with his hands and Thomas winced.
    The priest bustled off; mid-afternoon prayers were approaching. Thomas assumed his favorite position in the broad window. It was a good time to resume the pity he had been showering on himself since the Almost Splendid had sailed, except that he had a more nagging thought: What would happen to her High and Mighty Doña Laura Maria Ortiz de la Garza?
    He knew it wasn’t his business. Either she would go with her father to Mexico City or perhaps stay with friends in San Diego.
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    His mind on Laura, Thomas sat with Ralph Gooding while his patient ate his gruel and soft-boiled eggs a few hours later. Apparently the carpenter had similar thoughts, because he folded his arms across his stomach and looked the surgeon in the eye.
    â€œSir, what will happen to that pretty lass?”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    There was a long pause. Thomas glanced at Ralph, wondering what it was the man wanted to say, but appeared uncertain how to say it. “Look, Ralph,” he said finally, “call me Thomas, please. We’re both a long way from home and I’m not inclined to continue any protocol. What’s on your mind?”
    â€œLaura is,” Ralph said promptly. “You need to find out what will happen to her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Even to Thomas’s own ears, it sounded so bald, almost as though he was still sulking about being left behind. He felt his face go red with the shame of his own meanness.
    Bless him, Ralph was too kind a man and too charitable to think ill of his doctor. There was no reproach in his reply, only a certain reasonable quality that forced Thomas to admit he was in the presence of a better man than himself.
    â€œBecause she’s pretty and you like her a little, I think. Unlike you, I doubt she has any friends at all in San Diego right now.”
    â€œSurely you are wrong,” Thomas replied.
    â€œI wish I were, sir…Thomas. Speaking as one who has a lived a bit more on the edge than you have, people don’t look kindly on anyone—the perpetrator or hisrelatives—who cheats them. I think the milk of human kindness in San Diego is turning sour right now.”
    You could be right, Thomas thought later as he made his way to the pueblo outside the presidio, wondering if there really was going to be an auction of all the Ortizes’ possessions. There was. For people who enjoyed a lengthy siesta each afternoon and considerable lassitude, they seem to have made an exception today.
    Spread out in the plaza were what looked like everything the disgraced accountant and his daughter must have owned. This isn’t right, Thomas thought to himself, looking around for Laura. She was nowhere in sight, which didn’t surprise him. He felt his face grow red from such humiliation visited on someone who, as far as he knew, barely tolerated him.
    The women of the presidio pawed through a mound of intimate clothing. They held up Laura’s delicate chemises to their own ample fronts, laughing among themselves. Thomas turned away, embarrassed. And there was Father Hilario, watching from the portico in the late afternoon’s shadows. Thomas walked