The Last Noel

Kat smiled at her mother.

Skyler couldn’t have asked for a better daughter, she thought as she made her way back to the kitchen. They shared clothes and confidences, and she had learned not to worry every time her daughter drove away.

With her daughter here…

Skyler felt as if there were a chance for a Norman Rockwell Christmas after all.

Frazier came running down the stairs, followed by Brenda. They were an attractive couple, she had to admit. He was so tall, muscled without being bulky, with hair a deeper shade of red than his sister’s. And he, too, had his father’s eyes. Next to him, Brenda was tiny, delicate. And blond.

“Way too perfect,” Kat had told her mother teasingly, since she’d met Brenda first.

“You might want to turn on the TV and check the weather update,” Frazier said.

“That storm is getting worse,” Brenda added shyly.

“Really?” Skyler said, offering Brenda what she hoped was a welcoming smile. Not only was Brenda tiny and blond, her brilliant blue eyes made her look like a true little snow princess. Skyler had been relieved to learn that she was twenty-one. When she’d first met the young woman, she’d been terrified that Frazier had fallen for a teenager, but Brenda simply looked young because she was so petite. She tended to be shy, but she certainly seemed very sweet.

Okay, it would be nice if she talked a bit more to someone in the house other than Frazier, but really, what wasn’t to like about her?

David was too entangled in the lights to find the remote. Skyler saw it on a chair and flicked the TV on. A serious-looking anchorman was delivering a warning.

“We’re looking at major power outages, and despite the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, because the weather is already turning vicious, we suggest that anyone who may have medical or other difficulties in the event of a power loss get to a hospital or a shelter now. And everyone should be prepared, with candles and flashlights within reach.”

“Ah-ha!” David cried, and they all turned to stare at him.

He shrugged weakly. “Sorry. I untangled the lights.”

“Let’s get ’em up, and then let’s eat,” Skyler suggested cheerfully. “With luck we can finish before the power blows, and if it does, we can play Scrabble by candlelight or something.”

“Wretched weather,” Kat muttered, her attention turning back to the television. “Mom, Dad, why didn’t we buy a house on a Caribbean island?”

“We couldn’t afford a house on a Caribbean island,” David said, but he sounded a lot more cheerful than he had earlier. He hesitated, then said, “Frazier, will you grab that end?”

Frazier hesitated, as well, before saying, “Sure, Dad.”

“Good. You two deal with the lights, and I’ll get the food on the table,” Skyler said.

“Let’s get Mister Sixteen and Rebellious down here, too, huh?” Kat said. “He can give us a hand.”

“Good idea, and would you get Uncle Paddy, too?”

There was a short silence after she spoke. Perhaps she’d even imagined it, she thought.

David wasn’t thrilled about her uncle being there, she knew, and she was suddenly thankful that they’d both been born the children of Irish immigrants. He would never expect her to actually turn away a relative, even if he felt that Paddy was a drunk who deserved whatever he was suffering now. Which wasn’t really fair, she thought, but David was entitled to his opinion.

Often enough, Uncle Paddy was the real Irish entertainment at the pub. In his own way, of course.

Kat sprang to life, dispelling whatever 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.”

“I could have yelled myself,” Skyler said.

“But you’d never have used such poetic language,” Kat said, and even David laughed.

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.

“Asshole!” Quintin shouted from the front seat.

“You’re the asshole,” Scooter returned savagely. “You try driving in this shit.”

“Doesn’t matter now. We’re stuck. We’ll have to get out and walk.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Scooter protested.

“No, we’re not. There’s a house right up there,” Quintin snapped, pointing. “I can see the lights in the windows.”

“What? We’re going to drop in for Christmas dinner?” Scooter demanded angrily.

“It’s still Christmas Eve,” Quintin said. “The season of peace and goodwill toward men.”

“Fine. We’re going to crash somebody’s Christmas Eve dinner?” Scooter asked, sounding doubtful, even disbelieving, and thoroughly uneasy.

“That’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.

“We’ve got to get away from here. Far away,” Scooter argued.

Good thought, Craig approved silently.

“Far 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.”

“Don’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 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?

“Ah, 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.

“A few drops of whiskey would be makin’ ’em a whole lot better, me fine lass.”

“Maybe later.”

“I’ve got to be getting down the stairs,” he said.

“Uncle 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 sheriff’s deputy had just come to the house and commented on how easily calls could be traced these days.

“You’re behaving, right?” she said to him now.

He’d been in his room since they’d gotten there. Of course, he’d made no secret of the fact that he thought she and Frazier should deal with their father on holidays, seeing as the two of them got to escape back to college after a few days, while he had to deal with his parents on a daily basis.

Jamie just grinned and nodded toward Uncle Paddy, who had taken offense at Jamie’s last comment and was staring at his youngest nephew with his head held high in indignation.

“At my age, a bit of whiskey is medicinal,” he announced.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jamie said irreverently. “But the whiskey is downstairs. So grab your cane, and we’ll be your escort.”

Kat grinned. Maybe this Christmas would be okay after all, despite its somewhat rocky start.

“Come on, Uncle Paddy. You’re not that old, so move it,” Jamie said.

“There is simply no respect for seniors in this house,” Paddy said. “The abuse your poor wee mother takes…” He shook his head.

“My mother is neither poor nor wee,” Kat retorted. “Now come on. It’s Christmas, and we’re going to have fun and be happy.”

“Yes, dammit. Whether we like it or not,” Jamie agreed.

Kat reached for Paddy’s arm. With a groan, he rose. “Ah, me old bones.”

“Your old palate can have a wee dram the minute we get you down the stairs,” Jamie assured him.

Paddy arched a brow. “Are ye joinin’ me then, lad?”

“Sure, it’s Christmas.”

“Ye’re not of an age.”

“Like you were?” Jamie said, rolling his eyes.

“This is America.”

“So?” Jamie said. “My parents run a bar. It’s not like I haven’t had a shot now and then.”

Paddy let out an oath. Kat knew what it was because she’d been told as a child never to learn Gaelic from Uncle Paddy. Luckily, not many people spoke Gaelic, so they seldom knew what he was saying when he was out and about and swearing at the world.

Now he waved a hand at them and headed for the stairs under his own power. “The young. No respect,” he muttered, then raised his cane and shook it at them.

They both laughed and followed him downstairs.

Skyler had all but the last of the food on the table when Uncle Paddy entered the kitchen and headed straight for the liquor cabinet.

“Your beer’s on the table,” she said, her tone slightly sharp. She realized that she was looking over her shoulder, hoping that David hadn’t seen Paddy heading straight for the whiskey.

“I’ll take a beer, too,” Jamie said cheerfully, coming in behind Paddy.

“Jamie…” she said warningly.

“It’s better than the hard stuff, right?” Jamie asked.

“Actually, I think a beer and a shot have about the same alcohol content,” Kat said, following her brother into the kitchen.

“What, now our son is heading straight for the liquor, too?” David demanded harshly from behind Kat.

His words tightened the knot of tension already forming between Skyler’s shoulder blades as she remembered the “incident” with Jamie.

“Jeez, Dad, would you lighten up?” Jamie demanded.

“Great. I knew we should have gone to your family,” Frazier murmured to Brenda, as they walked into the middle of the argument.

Take control, Skyler told herself angrily. All your life, you let things go, trying to maintain the peace. Now for once in your life, do something. “David, Jamie, please,” she said. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“We own a bar,” Jamie said. “What’s the big deal?”

“Stop it, Jamie. Stop it now,” she said firmly, wondering why family gatherings had to be such a nightmare.

“Pub,” David corrected irritably. “And that’s no reason for my kids to be drunks, too.”

“Ye’d be referring to me, eh?” Paddy demanded.

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.

TWO

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.

When the heavier man took off his hat, he was bald—clean-shaven bald. He had thick dark brows, and eyes that were set too close together.

Beady eyes, Kat thought, then chided herself for watching too much C.S.I.

“Good heavens, come in and get out of the cold,” her mother told the pair.

Her mother would have taken in Genghis Khan, Kat thought, although she didn’t sound entirely happy about extra guests at the moment. Maybe because it was Christmas Eve, she decided. But really, what choice was there? The two men could hardly go anywhere else.

But what the hell were they doing out to begin with? Maybe they didn’t live here near the mountains, but anyone who lived anywhere in New England knew how treacherous the weather could become in a matter of hours, and the TV and radio stations had been talking nonstop about this storm for two days before it even got here. It had been touch and go whether the family even made it up here in time.

“Thank you, ma’am, and bless you,” the tall man said, holding out his hand. “I’m William Blane, but folks call me Scooter. And this is my associate, Mr. Quintin Lark.”

“How do you do, and I, too, thank you,” the stocky man said.