A Cozy Country Christmas Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped
to slip an envelope into my hand. “A Christmas angel left this at
the church office for you folks.”
    He winked and began shepherding his charges,
who were making snow angels with Jeff and Lars on our front lawn,
toward the SUV and the van.
    I counted the bills inside the envelope. I
would be able to pay the utility bills and there was enough left
over for groceries.
    The vehicles pulled out of the yard in a
flurry of snow, snatches of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” drifting
back to my ears.
    The falling flakes melted and mixed with the
warm tears on my cheeks as I whispered, “Let nothing you
dismay—remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.”
    I looked up into a haze of white, and
although I couldn’t see it, I knew the Star of Bethlehem shone over
our house that night.
     
    THE END
     

 
    In For A
Penny
     
    When he first mentioned the weekend visit,
Rob talked of going alone. Slipping into his role of a surgeon
preparing a patient for the upcoming ordeal, his words flowed.
    Like a distracted patient, however, Dorothy’s
hearing turned selective with only fragmented phrases washing over
her: “Back before you know it”...“Only gone two days”...“We’ll both
feel better when it’s over...”
    “I’m going with you, Rob.” Her firm tone
silenced his unspoken protest.
    After a moment of staring, eyes narrowed, he
scowled, turned, and stalked out of the condo. Biting her lip,
Dorothy accepted this retreat, although she still struggled every
moment with the knowledge that he’d walked out on her emotionally
months ago.
    So she’d laid down an ultimatum and now they
were trapped together in the car, with unspoken awkwardness
separating them from their destination.
    As the sun glinted without mercy off the
windshields of oncoming cars, stabbing through the protection of
her sunglasses, Dorothy wondered whether, when Rob said, “we’ll
both feel better when it’s over,” he’d been referring to this
weekend, their marriage or the birth of the new life stirring
within her.
    “Tell me about your grandfather,” she said,
the words spilling out and sending ripples to disturb the
silence.
    Rob hesitated. With her intimate knowledge of
his thought processes, Dorothy could almost see him marshalling his
words into orderly statements as though setting a row of delicate
stitches. She waited with outward patience, the sharp edges of her
fingernails gouging the palms of her hands.
    As her husband swung the wheel in a left
turn, Dorothy’s gaze snagged on his left wrist. Tanned, softly
curling golden hairs, strong, but marred by the clinical precision
of his TAG Heuer wristwatch. Her nails dug deeper—she’d been hoping
he would leave it behind. The ever present symbol that time served
as the master of their relationship stirred a faint nausea within
her. She’d asked, no, begged, Rob to leave his watch behind on this
trip.
    “My grandfather isn’t a guy you can peg into
a hole. He’s not someone comfortable in society and he’s never had
much money.” The sting of the unspoken “unlike your family” echoed
in Dorothy’s head.
    Another pause as Rob kept his gaze locked on
the traffic ahead. “Ham’s over eighty now and a widower.”
    The marriage counselor’s admonition, “Pretend
you’re on a first date this weekend,” jabbed at Dorothy. But
communication between them had become a nightmarish blind date of
walking on eggshells, fumbling for words and tense silences. She
shared the blame equally but didn’t know how to break the
cycle.
    Again, the sunlight highlighted her husband’s
capable hands as he maneuvered the Mercedes through heavy traffic
spewing out of the city and heading north. A weekly exodus to
wide-open spaces, one they’d never made. She continued to stare at
Rob’s hands. The hands of a healer, yet he refused to mend their
marriage.
    Dorothy yanked her thoughts off that gloomy
track and launched another conversational probe. “What did Ham do
for a