Wish Upon a Christmas Star Read Online Free Page A

black-haired woman with her back to the
door—who had to be Maria—rushed to his side.
    “Hey, Annalise.” Logan leaned down to kiss her cheek. He’d
barely connected when she grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the side of the
hostess stand, nearer the exit and the coat rack.
    “Hey, Logan,” she said conversationally, as though she hadn’t
just hijacked him. “Thanks for coming.”
    Annalise had the dark hair and light eyes common to the
DiMarcos, except her hair was brown and her eyes green. The oldest sibling, she
was also the only one with children. With Logan’s help, she and her husband had
invested wisely enough that they should be able to fulfill their goal of paying
for their two sons’ college educations.
    “For a minute there I thought you were going to push me out the
door.” He would have gone through it eagerly if Annalise had changed her mind
about what she’d asked of him.
    “Nothing like that,” she said. “I was getting you out of
Maria’s field of vision. You know, in case she turns around to see if I really
went to the restroom.”
    He groaned. “I thought Maria knew that I was meeting both of
you here.”
    Annalise shook her head. “Not exactly. You know how I called
and asked if you needed directions to the restaurant?”
    “Yeah.” He’d thought that was odd considering Donatelli’s had
occupied the same location for twenty years.
    “I was supposed to tell you not to come. Maria practically
ordered me.”
    “Ordered you? That doesn’t sound good.”
    “It’s not good,” she confessed. “Her exact words were something
like, ‘No way in hell am I talking to him.’”
    Logan winced. He should have anticipated that. The days were
long gone when Maria would jump into his arms and kiss him whenever more than
twenty-four hours went by without them seeing each other.
    “Don’t let it bother you,” Annalise said. “Maria doesn’t want
to talk to me about this, either. She hasn’t changed, you know. She’s still
hardheaded when she makes up her mind about something.”
    Logan cleared his throat, preparing to ask the question that
had been uppermost in his mind since Annalise had phoned him. “Does she really
believe Mike’s alive?”
    His voice broke on Mike’s name. Logan hadn’t spoken the
youngest DiMarco’s name aloud in years. He’d thought about him, though,
especially when the anniversary of 9/11 rolled around. On those dates, Logan was
consumed by memories of Mike DiMarco.
    A teenage couple entered the restaurant hand in hand, their
eyes locked on each other, the corners of their mouths lifted in smiles. It
wasn’t only the girl’s long, straight black hair that reminded Logan of Maria.
It was the way she looked at her boyfriend.
    “She’s a private investigator,” Annalise said. “She has to know
there could be another explanation. And the way she was talking, it sounds like
she’s leaning that way.”
    He nodded once, fully understanding why Annalise had phoned
him. Mike DiMarco was dead. Period. Nothing but pain lay ahead for Maria if she
let herself believe otherwise.
    “Okay. I’ll do my best to convince her she’s on the wrong
track.” He swept a hand to indicate Annalise should precede him into the dining
room, where the young couple was following a hostess to a table. “Let’s get on
with it.”
    “Oh, I’m not going back in there.” Annalise walked past him to
the coat rack and rummaged through a number of winter garments before pulling
out a black leather one. “I left my jacket over here so I could sneak out.”
    Everything inside Logan went still. “Maria won’t like
that.”
    “Maria hasn’t liked anything I’ve said to her for the past
hour,” her sister said. “She wouldn’t have come to dinner if she hadn’t promised
to treat me. If I stay, it’ll seem like we’re ganging up on her.”
    “If you go,” Logan said slowly, “I won’t like it, either.”
    “Thanks for coming to help out,” Annalise said,