The Last Noel Read Online Free Page A

silence, trying desperately to think of a way out and cursing fate for his present situation.
    How the hell had he ended up here? And tonight of all nights?
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    â€œAh, me poor bones,” Uncle Paddy moaned when Kat went up to repeat the news that dinner was ready, although he looked quite comfortable, reclining against a stack of pillows on the very nice daybed that sat near the radiator in the guest room. He had been happily watching television, and he’d apparently gotten her mother to bring him up some tea and cookies earlier. She suspected he hadn’t been in a speck of pain until she’d knocked briefly and opened the door to his room.
    She stared at him, then set her hands on her hips and slipped into an echo of his accent. “Your old bones are just fine, Uncle Patrick. It’s no sympathy you’ll be getting tonight.”
    Her uncle looked at her indignantly—a look he’d mastered, she thought.
    â€œA few drops of whiskey would be makin’ ’em a whole lot better, me fine lass.”
    â€œMaybe later.”
    â€œI’ve got to be getting down the stairs,” he said.
    â€œUncle Paddy, even I know it’s easier to get down a flight of stairs before taking a shot of whiskey,” Jamie said from behind Kat, making her start in surprise. So her little brother had finally left the haven of his room, she thought. He was only sixteen, but already a good three inches taller than she was. He even had an inch on Frazier these days. He was thin, with a lean, intelligent face. He worried that he didn’t look tough enough, but he wasn’t exactly planning to be a boxer. He was a musician, something that came easily enough in their family. He loved his guitar, and when he played a violin, grown men had been known to weep.
    It occurred to her that she hadn’t spent a lot of time with him in the last year, and this was a time in his life when he could use some sane guidance from his older siblings. She remembered being sixteen all too well.
    The opposite sex. Peer pressure. Drugs. Cigarettes.
    Once, she’d thought of him almost as her own baby. Even though there were only six years between them, she’d been old enough to help out when he’d been born. Then again, they hadn’t grown up in the usual household. Their home was by Boston Common, the pub closer to the wharf, and they’d all spent plenty of time in that pub. When she’d been a teenager, her friends had enjoyed the mistaken belief that she could supply liquor for whatever party they were planning.
    She could still remember the pressure, and the pain of finding out that some of her so-called friends lost all interest in her when she wouldn’t go along with their illegal plans. It wasn’t until she’d had her heart seriously broken her first year of college that she’d learned to depend on herself for her own happiness. That she could be depressed and work in her parents’ pub all her life or she could create her own dreams.
    Age and experience. She had both, she decided, at the grand age of twenty-two.
    She smiled at how self-righteous she sounded in her own mind. Well, maybe she was, but she knew she was never going to make the mistakes her parents had made. She wasn’t going to live her life entirely for others. Oh, she meant to have children. And it looked as if Uncle Paddy was around to stay. But she was never going to torture herself over her husband’s temper or the bickering that went on around her.
    To hell with them all; that would be her motto. God could sort them out later.
    But, for the moment, she realized, she was concerned about Jamie—and the fact he had been so quick to lock himself away. What had he been up to?
    She knew, despite her mother’s determination to keep certain situations private between herself and a particular child, that Jamie had gotten himself into some minor trouble up here last year. Luckily for him, a