Deck The Halls by Arlene James

Author:Arlene James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2005-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Jolie set down the iron and sighed, wiping her brow. She was beginning to hate ironing with a passion. Iron, iron, iron, that was all she seemed to do. That and laundry and planning designs in her head and shopping and arranging and…daydreaming about Vince Cutler.

In the beginning she hadn’t wanted anything more than simple friendship from him, if that. Truth be told, she’d have settled quite happily for a cordial working relationship, but somehow one thing had led to another and before she’d known it, they were friends. From there, one short step had brought her to the possibility that they might be more to each other, which was ludicrous.

For one thing, she didn’t want anyone in her life. Caring for people just got you hurt. She’d learned that all too well. For another, she was not the sort for Vincent Cutler. Vince came from a nice, normal family. He would definitely want a nice, normal girl, and that sure wasn’t her, not with her background and her baggage.

Disgusted with herself for even briefly entertaining the idea that she might be more to Vince than a charity case, she turned her back on the ironing board and went to the sink for a cool drink of water. The outside temperatures were in the low forties, but in this tiny apartment standing over a hot iron, the air felt downright sultry.

So why did she feel cold inside?

She didn’t have to look far for a convenient answer.

It was all Marcus’s and Connie’s fault. They’d used her and then betrayed her. They’d let her take care of Russell and then taken him away from her.

How could Vince even think that she’d accept an invitation to spend the holiday with them?

Wandering over to the counter, she picked up an envelope. Twice now she’d started to peel back the flap, and twice she’d stopped, telling herself that she didn’t care what was inside. She’d recognized the handwriting on the front immediately. God knew that she and Connie had corresponded often enough in the past two years for her to know her sister’s handwriting at a glance. She should have dropped the envelope in the trash the moment she’d realized who had sent it. Instead, she ripped the back flap off completely.

The card inside slipped out easily into her hand. The front was embellished with a cross and a white dove bearing an olive branch, symbols of peace and forgiveness. As if she had anything to be forgiven for, she thought resentfully, flipping the card open.

The verse printed inside was a quotation from Genesis 31:49. “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from another.”

Jolie thought of her little sister’s big green eyes and elfin face, and a lump rose in her throat. Willfully, she pictured Russell’s bright coppery head and beaming smile, and the lump turned bitter. Quickly, dismissively, she scanned the short message that her sister had written.

It was all about how Connie missed her and wished they could have a “real family Thanksgiving.

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.