Holiday Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page A

workaholic?”
    â€œYeah. I’ve always had to stay wherever I was living. First it was because I was in college and I’d stay to get extra hours at whatever part-time job I had. I needed the money, and Mom understood that. But then it was med school and I needed to study. I was an intern and then a resident and there was no way I could get time off. I worked holidays.”
    â€œAnd now you’re a doctor with your own practice. You make your own hours, right?”
    â€œI wish.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m in control of my schedule more than I have been. But I’m low man on the totem pole. I’m in a practice with some of the top orthopedic surgeons in the Southwest, and they pull rank. Plus, it’s that student-loan thing again.”
    â€œThe one the size of a house?”
    â€œExactly. Sometimes on Saturdays when I’ve got paperwork piled as high as my computer monitor, I get this urge to run off and windsurf the day away on Lake Powell.”
    â€œYou windsurf?”
    â€œI used to. Then I did something really inane. I decided to get engaged.”
    â€œYou’re getting married?”
    â€œI’m not the type, I know. It took me about three months to figure that out after being dragged to a wedding planner to see about seven thousand different kinds of napkins we could get monogrammed, and my life flashed before my eyes. A life with no windsurfing. It didn’t work out.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him a bit. “It was for the best.”
    Kristin didn’t miss the shadows in his eyes. His tone might be light, but there was pain there. She could feel it as tangibly as the cold seeping in from outside. Whatever happened had been complicated and deeply painful.
    She tried to think of something comforting to say, but drew a blank. No simple words of comfort or empathy could begin to ease the hurt from wounds in a person’s heart. She knew.
    â€œWell, we better get a move on.” Ryan cleared his throat as if dismissing his loss or wiping away his sorrow. He crinkled up the paper wrappers, and the sound was as jarring and abrupt as his movements.
    Kristin took the last bite of her taco as Ryan switched on the wipers. A few swipes of the blades and the accumulated snow was gone. The twin beams of the headlights reflected back to them in the whiteout conditions.
    â€œDon’t worry. I’ll keep us safe.” He tossed her a roguishly charming wink, before putting the Jeep into gear.
    â€œI wasn’t worried.” Kristin balled up the wrapper, pretending to be busy and unaffected by the man beside her.
    He’s unhappy, she realized. Lonely. She knew what that was like. It was like the storm blocking out the glow from the town’s lights until there was only the cold darkness and the howl of the worsening storm. As if there could be no light to warm the long drive ahead.

Chapter Three
    R yan swore it felt as if they’d been driving for an eternity, but when he glanced at the clock in the dash, the green numbers showed less than two hours had passed. For one hundred and twenty long minutes they’d been creeping in a vast darkness, closed off from the world, the tenacious storm allowing him to see only a few feet in front of him.
    Twice, he’d spotted the faint sudden pinpoint of on-coming headlights. Each vehicle had been traveling as slowly as he was, fighting to stay on the road. He hadn’t seen another driver in the past fifty-three minutes in front of him, behind him or on the other side of the double yellow.
    Exhaustion made every nerve ending burn. Three times they’d stopped in the small towns off the highway to look for vacancies. No luck. Every other traveler had the same idea. They had no other option than to keep driving.
    â€œHow are you doing?” Kristin’s soothing alto brokethe long silence between them. “Want to trade off driving?”
    â€œMaybe. I figured