Sea of Christmas Miracles Read Online Free PDF

struggled closer, Thomas realized,
impossible or not, it was true.
    Even in the storm-darkness he recognized the
place. He’d been here often enough as a child. First with his
father to visit the ancient Indian, Natee, then later by
himself.
    There was a ramshackle porch that kept most
of the rain off Thomas as he pushed through the door. He knew
there’d be no one there, Natee died nearly ten years ago, passing
on to the Great Unknown as he’d called it.
    Inside things were much as he remembered. One
shuttered window allowed very little light inside, but Thomas knew
the room. It was sparsely furnished, the way Natee liked it. A
table and chairs were off in a corner beside an old wood stove that
Thomas and his father brought down here after the old Indian
complained of the cold the winter Thomas was eleven. Natee had
rebelled against using it until Devon Blackstone, Thomas’s father,
started a fire, demonstrating how much warmer the cabin was.
    The pile of bedding in the corner was
leaf-littered, but Thomas didn’t think Margaret would even notice.
He set her down gently, then looked around for a way to start a
fire. There was kindling stacked by the stove, bone dry as if it
had been there for the decade since the old man’s death. Thomas
imagined it had. He found some matches, then held his hands out
toward the warmth radiating from the dusty iron as the flames
licked up around the wood.
    After shaking out the bedding, freeing it of
as much debris as he could, he arranged a pallet close to the
stove. Even after moving Margaret onto the blankets she continued
to shiver beneath her sodden clothes. Deciding it was for her own well-being, Thomas leaned over and began unfastening
the score of tiny buttons that marched down the front of her coat.
His hands were still numb and fumbling. She hung limp-armed as he
lifted her to remove the soaked garment. Her blouse, with its
mutton-leg sleeves also sported an array of tiny buttons that
challenged Thomas’s near frozen fingers.
    He expected to tackle her corset next, but
there was none, only a woolen undergarment that started at her neck
and covered her arms. With this she wore a pair of woolen
knickerbockers. Thomas had undressed his share of women, but he’d
never uncovered such a strange and decidedly unprovocative
hodgepodge of underclothing.
    Which was just as well, he told himself,
because he wasn’t interested in anything but warming up the
indomitable Miss Lewis. Still, as he stripped her bare, he had to
constantly remind himself of that. Swallowing, forcing himself to
remember they’d just barely escaped with their lives, Thomas
flipped a moth-eaten woolen blanket over her.
    Turning his back he removed his own wet
clothes, hanging everything as best he could over the table and
chairs so they’d dry. Then trying not to recall the way she’d
looked lying naked on the pallet, Thomas slipped in beside her.
    He lay perfectly still listening to the fury
of the storm, the crackle of the fire, the sounds of her chattering
teeth. Or was that his own? Even out of his wet clothes and with
the fire, he was chilled to the bone. And he was sure she was,
too.
    He was doing this for her own good. Thomas
kept telling himself that as he inched toward her. She came
willingly when he reached for her. Wrapping his arms around her
Thomas cuddled her body against his. Heat seemed to blossom between
them. Closing his eyes he tried to sleep, but all he could think of
was the feel of her... and the unexplained voice he’d heard
earlier.

    Thomas woke with the uncomfortable feeling
someone was watching him. It only took a slight twist of his head
to realize someone was. Margaret Howe Lewis stared at him, her soft
gray eyes dream shadowed. It was barely dawn, and he could still
hear the drumming of rain overhead. The cabin was chilly, the fire
burned down, but Thomas did nothing about adding more wood. He
simply stared back, entranced.
    Not entranced, Thomas corrected. Women