The Last Noel Read Online Free

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.”
    â€œI could have yelled myself,” Skyler said.
    â€œBut you’d never have used such poetic language,” Kat said, and even David laughed.
    Â 
    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.
    â€œAsshole!” Quintin shouted from the front seat.
    â€œYou’re the asshole,” Scooter returned savagely. “You try driving in this shit.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter now. We’re stuck. We’ll have to get out and walk.”
    â€œWe’re in the middle of nowhere!” Scooter protested.
    â€œNo, we’re not. There’s a house right up there,” Quintin snapped, pointing. “I can see the lights in the windows.”
    â€œWhat? We’re going to drop in for Christmas dinner?” Scooter demanded angrily.
    â€œIt’s still Christmas Eve,” Quintin said. “The season of peace and goodwill toward men.”
    â€œFine. We’re going to crash somebody’s Christmas Eve dinner?” Scooter asked, sounding doubtful, even disbelieving, and thoroughly uneasy.
    â€œThat’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.
    â€œWe’ve got to get away from here. Far away,” Scooter argued.
    Good thought, Craig approved silently.
    â€œFar 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.”
    â€œDon’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.
    He prayed in