Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) Read Online Free PDF

alone every Christmas Eve.” A fact that made her heart heavier with each new year. “I won’t stay long.”
    Leon hesitated, obviously torn. “Well, all right. But
don’t
stay too long. I’ll call on you when I get back. I may be gone a week or more.”
    â€œI’m sure your parents will miss you at Christmas dinner, and I’ll miss you at the New Year’s Ball.”
    â€œI’ll do my best to be back by then.”
    He leaned down and brushed his lips over her cheek. His mouth, warm against the winter chill of her skin, was pleasant enough. Yet she felt . . . nothing.
    No spark, no inner heat, no desire to pull him closer and allow him to kiss her for the first time as a man should kiss a woman. All Ruth felt was the wind in her hair and that same old ache in her heart.
    â€œPerhaps we can announce our engagement that night.”
    Ruth looked out over the dark, flat empty landscape. “Perhaps,” she allowed. “Godspeed.”
    He hesitated another instant, then, with a sigh that revealed an impatience he rarely allowed to escape into his manner, he left.
    Leon was a good man. Why couldn’t she give him what he wanted? Why couldn’t she be what he needed?
    Because she wanted someone else. Someone who obviously didn’t want or need her.
    Why
did
she come here every year? This was the tenth Christmas Eve Ruth had sat on this bench. Well, not
this
bench. This bench was new. Even the original bench had not outlived her silly vow.
    She could do worse than marry Leon Harker. Still, she had never felt the complete and utter safety in his presence that she’d felt in the presence of . . .
    â€œStop it!” She stood and began to pace the platform. “If he hasn’t shown up by now, he won’t be showing up anytime soon.”
    As if to prove that point, the winter wind howled out of the west like a ravenous coyote, shooting straight up Ruth’s skirt one second, then down the collar of her coat the next. She shivered.
    What if Noah
did
show up? What would she say? What would she do?
    She had known Noah Walker for a matter of days and waited for him ten years. She was a fool!
    Her love was that of a child for the first person who had paid her any mind.
Understandable.
What wasn’t understandable was to continue to hope for the impossible, to continue to dream of a man who had never truly existed except in the eyes of a little girl.
    â€œBut he was always such a beautiful dream,” she murmured.
    Ruth peered around the station one last time. She wouldn’t come here again—on Christmas Eve, at any rate. For a moment, the line between what had once been and what was now blurred, and she saw the milling throng of orphans and parents, saw Noah striding away, disappearing forever, saw herself searching for him, always searching.
    Snow filtered down. Huge, lacy flakes drifted across her cheek and caught in her eyelashes. Ruth blinked, then laughed.
    It
was
snowing. How odd. The sky had been clear only a moment ago. Christmas miracles happened in the tiniest of ways.
    She started toward the station, planning to go through the building and exit onto the street, where her wagon waited. But a shuffle, like a footstep on a plank, made her freeze, then turn.
    She was still alone on the platform, though she no longer felt that way. Her gaze wandered. No train coming down the tracks, no riders on the horizon, not even the shadow of a rabbit racing through the night. Only the snow cascading down in wider and wider swirls of white.
    She should get home. Instead, Ruth turned her face up to the silent night and stuck out her tongue. She caught a few drops of snow, then closed her eyes and let the pinpoints of ice cool her hot face and burning eyelids.
    Giving up this night would be like losing him all over again.
    Strengthening her resolve, Ruth clenched her hands, lowered her head, and opened her eyes. The station windows had