An Island Christmas: A Novel by Thayer Nancy

Author:Thayer, Nancy [Thayer, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.so
ISBN: 9780553393880
Amazon: B00KAFX88Q
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2014-10-28T04:00:00+00:00

14

Jilly greeted the tiny, shivering woman and brought her to a chair close to the fire. Of course she was cold, the woman was all skin and bones and muscles. Not an ounce of fat on her. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut sensibly, rather like Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael. Her skin was as tanned as one of Jilly’s favorite Coach bags; no doubt Pat came from Florida. That also explained her choice of clothing, Jilly assumed. While everyone else wore turtlenecks and wool sweaters, Pat wore tartan golf slacks, a long-sleeved rugby shirt, and the ridiculously inadequate windbreaker. Instead of winter boots, she wore high-topped sneakers. Those at least would be practical on Nantucket’s uneven brick sidewalks.

Jilly was so busy gawking at her daughter’s future mother-in-law that she failed to notice how her husband was struggling to stand up to meet Pat. George gripped one of his crutches, leaned on it, and rose shakily. He bent to grasp the other crutch with his bandaged hand, teetered, tottered, and fell back onto the sofa, his crutch hitting the brass bowl of chestnuts, walnuts, and pecans still in their shells on the coffee table. Everything flew. The nuts barreled across the floor like large marbles.

“George!” Jilly ran to help him wobble back into his chair.

“Sorry.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Jilly asked.

“No,” said George, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’m all right.”

All the others were gathered around Pat, everyone talking at once.

“Stay there, please, George, and don’t move. I’ve got to pick up all these nuts before everyone else trips over them and we’re all on crutches.”

Jilly quickly sank to her knees—not as easy a movement as it used to be—and began to gather up the nuts and return them to the bowl. She had collected most of them when she heard Felicia say, “Mom, what are you doing on the floor?”

“Gathering the nuts,” Jilly answered factually, realizing as she spoke that this made her sound slightly demented. A childish part of her wanted to make sure everyone knew the scattered nuts were George’s fault, especially because as she looked up she met the sensible green eyes of Archie’s mother.

“Hello up there,” said Jilly, trying to make a joke out of it. “The bowl of nuts got knocked over and I wanted to pick them up before anyone tripped on them.” There, she thought, she hadn’t mentioned George’s clumsiness.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said Pat. “I apologize for showing up at your house like this, but no one met my plane and I couldn’t wait to see everyone.”

“We’re so glad you came,” Jilly told Pat. She set the bowl of nuts on the table and rose. “We’ve had a rather disorganized day because the men went off on mopeds and George had an accident.”

Pat turned her vibrant green eyes toward George. “An accident!” Pat said the word as Jilly would say “chocolate.” “How exciting. How did it happen? Were you on a dirt road? Was it hilly?”

George shrugged carelessly. “I hit some grit and wiped out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.