Christmas in Transylvania Read Online Free PDF Page B

folding her arms over the chest of her hoodie. “That tree must be fifty feet tall. The front living room ceiling is thirty feet tall.”
    â€œOh.” At first, Vikar seemed surprised, but then he grinned again. “No problem, sweetling. We will just chop it down to size.”
    Armod, Svein, and Jogeir grinned, too. Apparently, they were having a great time, playing with their axes today. Meanwhile, everyone was being coated with snow.
    Alex stepped up closer to the truck. “How many trees did you get, Vikar?”
    â€œOnly five. The others are small ones. Only about ten or fifteen feet. While we were out in the forest, we figured you might want more than one, and why waste time making an extra trip. Don’t I deserve a kiss or something for all my good work, sweetling?” Vikar waggled his snowy eyebrows at his wife.
    â€œDon’t you sweetling me,” she said, then did in fact lean up and plant a big one on Vikar’s smiling lips.
    â€œI’m beginning to like this Christmas celebrating,” Vikar said, slapping Alex on the butt when she danced away from him to grab Gunnar, who was attempting to climb up the back of the truck.
    Karl figured this was his chance to slip away. As he walked back to his pickup, he heard Gunnora begging her father, “Please, Poppa, make us a snowman. A biiiig one.”
    â€œI wanna go sled riding,” Gunnar said.
    â€œYes, yes, yes!” Gunnora agreed. “But first I hafta pee.”
    Alex groaned.
    Climbing back into his pickup, he saw that Faith had awakened and, thankfully, had known to stay put and not make her presence known. She had the passenger window open and was staring outside. Gaping, actually, which was a ludicrous picture, with her swollen lip and one closed eye.
    â€œOh, my God! It’s a palace!” she said with wonder in her voice. Then, she turned to him as he started the engine and began to back up so he could take the alternate driveway around the back. “You live in a palace?”
    With the snow covering its bleaker parts, the castle didn’t look as run-­down and scary as usual. “It’s a castle, not a palace.”
    â€œBig difference!” she said at his splitting hairs. “Are you a prince or something?”
    He had to laugh at that. “Hardly!”
    â€œBut this is your home?”
    â€œWell, it’s sort of a family residence. I do a lot of traveling.” That sounded like more splitting hairs, even to his own ears. But how else could he explain without really explaining vangeldom?
    â€œAnd all those ­people out there . . . are they your family?”
    â€œUm. In a way.”
    â€œLike a blended family.”
    Help me, Lord! “Sure.”
    â€œAnd they all live here?”
    Them and about thirty others, give or take a hundred or so, on occasion. “Yep.”
    â€œWow! I always wanted to have a big family.”
    â€œYou are an only child?”
    â€œI had a brother who was three years older than me, but we were separated when I was only five years old and put in foster care. Separate families. Last I heard, Zach was in prison.”
    The sadness in her voice told a story he wasn’t prepared to hear right now. Especially since he was in the back courtyard. He turned off the truck. Time to put his plan into effect.
    â€œListen, you stay in the car while I go check on something.” He hopped out before she could protest. Popping into the kitchen, he found the coast clear. Lizzie was the only one about, and when she paid no attention to him but went into the large pantry at the other end, he went back outside, leaving the outside door open.
    When Faith’s sneakers sank ankle deep in the snow, he picked her up, without hesitation, and carried her inside, closing the door with his hip. Lizzie was thankfully still out of sight. Everyone else was probably out front admiring the Christmas trees, or not admiring them but enjoying