A Highlander for Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jeans were her fashion staple, since she could never find anything off the rack to suit her gangly frame.
    “First we eat.” Chessa dropped a monstrous leather satchel onto the room’s only chair, then turned imperiously. In seconds she had Maggie’s worktable covered with boxes of obscure vegetables and handmade sauces with exotic, smoky smells.
    “But my silver—”
    “Forget your silver. Eat .”
    Chessa shoved a pair of chopsticks into her hand, and Maggie knew better than to argue. Her cousin was a virago with the face of a Botticelli angel. Besides, the food smelled wonderful.
    She sniffed, trying to identify the mix of spices. “Hunanese?”
    Chessa sighed. “Thai. If you’d pay the slightest attention, you’d know I gave up Hunanese food months ago. Too many additives. Have some tea.”
    Maggie sniffed suspiciously at the dusky brew. “I hope this isn’t more of that milk thistle poison you brought last time.”
    “That poison, as you term it, clears out your liver like nothing else on this planet.”
    “I think I’ll stay toxic,” Maggie muttered.
    “Not if I can help it. Try some of this.”
    Maggie sipped carefully. “What’s in it?”
    “Gingko leaves, ginseng, and roasted barley. Great for mental acuity.” Chessa’s lips curved. “Even better for your love life.”
    What love life? Maggie thought. These days she was running on energy and blind obsession. All she had was her teaching, her design work, and an unending stream of visions that pulled her from sleep with dreams of inlaid amber and platinum-wrapped jade.
    But without professional backing there would be no more stones and no more sheets of precious metal. What Maggie needed was a patron with deep pockets and permanent gallery space to showcase her line, first in New York, and then across the country. After that, she hoped to set up a small craft school where rigorous classical techniques would be combined with cutting-edge design concepts
    More dreams.
    Chessa’s eyes were dark with concern. “How long since you ate a complete meal?”
    Maggie frowned. “Yesterday morning. Or maybe last night. I don’t remember.”
    “You’re a disgrace to the Kincade name. People will think that we starve you.”
    Maggie started to protest, caught between humor and exasperation. Then she saw the look on her cousin’s face.
    Chessa was standing very still, staring at her in the single pool of light from the work lamp. “Oh, Mag, I forgot. It’s his anniversary, isn’t it? October 12, seven months to the day that your father disappeared.”
    Maggie felt something press at her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone, and I’m an idiot to keep hoping otherwise.” She swallowed, wondering why the cold, hard facts made no difference. If only she’d had a chance to say good-bye, the way she had during her mother’s lingering bout with cancer, it might feel different. Maybe if Maggie had told her father how much he’d mattered to her, the pain wouldn’t be so sharp now.
    Chessa slid her arms around Maggie’s stiff shoulders. “It’s not stupid. He was your father. It’s perfectly right that you should remember him and grieve in your way. Forget what I said, Mag. I’m being a complete idiot, as usual.”
    Maggie’s hands clenched and unclenched. She didn’t want to remember, but she did. “It’s the uncertainty, I think. I was too late to talk to him at the gate, and there was only time to see him wave. I never dreamed that he wouldn’t come back. Even now when I hear a sound in the hall, I expect him to bang open the door, unannounced, the way he always liked to arrive.” She tried to swallow the low whimper, the long ache of loneliness and loss.
    “He shouldn’t have rushed off,” Chessa said fiercely. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but he left you in the lurch.” Her hands tightened. “He was always good at that .”
    “ No more arguments, Chessa. Not today.’ ’
    Chessa scanned her face. “There’s