A Merry Little Christmas by Catherine Palmer

Author:Catherine Palmer [Palmer, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2006-10-27T20:00:00+00:00

CHRISTMAS, DON’T BE LATE

Jillian Hart

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

—Jeremiah 31:3

Chapter One

Amanda Richards had learned that hope was like a credit card. If you used it too much, you went over the limit and, voilà, no more charging. No more hope.

Yep, that’s me, she thought. Totally maxed out on hope and in need of a bucketload.

What was she going to do now? She swiped the snowflakes from her lashes and tried not to let the freezing winds trouble her. She studied the long steeply rising hill above the broken-down car—the road home. The veiled Montana Rockies and silent snow-covered forests surrounded her, but no help of any kind. No driveways, no houses. Nothing.

She thought of her two little ones in the backseat, growing colder as each second passed. She bit her bottom lip to keep the frustration inside. Apparently luck was like hope, and she’d used up her limit on both.

Don’t die on me now, car. She gave a helpless look at her car’s engine compartment. The raised hood blocked some of the snowfall as she bent over the radiator cap. The Trusty Rusty, as she called the four-door thirty-year-old sedan, had seen her Aunt Vi through twenty years, two cousins through lean college years, and now it was hers.

The price had been right—free. But then, she’d had to pay to have it towed to the nearest mechanic. Not the best deal on the planet, but since Todd had taken off for parts unknown with their five-year-old minivan, leaving behind a divorce decree and more medical debts than she knew what to do with, she’d take whatever gifts the angels sent her way. And, until this moment, this gift had been the utmost in dependability.

Okay, Trusty Rusty, let’s get you running. If that’s possible. Amanda gripped the sizzling hot radiator cap one more time.

Please, angels, let it be possible. She thought of her little girl bundled up in the backseat, so desperately ill. This cold would not be good for her.

The scorching burn of metal went right through her insulated gloves while she twisted the stubborn little cap. Hot, hot, hot, her brain told her, but she ignored it. Come on, just a little more. She could feel the cap give, but it was like grabbing a fistful of fire. Pain overwhelmed her and she let go.

The cap now sat in cockeyed defiance, firmly stuck on the radiator. Amanda didn’t even mutter in frustration, as she heard the telltale sound of a car’s side window, loose in its frame, being unrolled. She ripped off her glove and, dropping to her knees, plunged her hand into the snow berm made by the last snowplow to have braved the windy and narrow country road.

She might be out of hope, but she was not out of fortitude. She would let both her blistered fingers and the stubborn radiator cap cool a bit more and she’d try it again.

“Jessie’s gettin’ cold, Mom.

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