Second Chance Christmas (The Colorado Cades) Read Online Free PDF Page B

engagement?” Her tone was heavy with skepticism.
    “That, and to give us a chance to talk.”
    “What are we doing now?”
    Hell if I know . But before he could come up with a better answer than “please meet me, or I’ll need a restraining order against your sister,” she inexplicably agreed.
    “Actually,” Elisabeth said, “I do have something I want to speak with you about.”
    “Really?” He couldn’t imagine what. Despite Lina’s crazy predictions, he doubted his opinions would carry any weight with Elisabeth. Not anymore.
    “If you don’t mind an early lunch,” she said, “I can make a little time in my schedule. Eleven-thirty? At the lodge?”
    “Your family’s lodge?” He’d managed to avoid setting foot inside since they’d stopped dating.
    “Is that a problem?”
    “No.” But it gave her a whopping home-field advantage. “Meet you at the front desk.” The words rolled off his tongue from force of habit. How many times had he said that exact phrase during the months when they’d worked together? Some of his most unforgettable romantic encounters had started with her smiling from the other side of that reception desk. An avalanche of memories threatened to bury him.
    “R-right, front desk.” For the first time since answering her phone, she sounded hesitant. “See you then.”
    * * *
    I T WAS DIFFICULT for Justin to fall asleep Wednesday night—his head was too full of female voices. Lina’s, dripping accusation; Arden’s, predicting that love was lying in wait for him around some dark corner; Elisabeth’s, vibrating with the hint of unshed tears when he’d told her they should stop seeing each other. And in the background of his cluttered thoughts, his mom’s voice lingered, singing off-key Christmas carols.
    After a restless night of fragmented dreams, he gave up and climbed out of bed Thursday morning an hour before his alarm clock would have blared. With the extra time, maybe he could stop at the Cielo Café bakery counter, pick up a few dozen bagels and muffins for the patrol team. But once he got behind the wheel of his SUV, he found himself driving in the wrong direction. Ten minutes later, he parked at the cemetery, not quite sure what he was doing there.
    It had been a long time since he’d visited. Colin refused to come here, and Arden had been so busy with the pregnancy and the new baby.
    Jamming his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat, Justin crunched across the layer of snow frosting the walkway. There was a stark beauty in how the rising sun illuminated the headstones. Parts of the cemetery were still in shadow, but other patches, beginning to catch the dawn, shone brilliantly. He tried to appreciate the sight rather than think about how row after row symbolized people who had once been loved and were now gone.
    A grandfather he’d never known had purchased family plots here, but Justin had no intention of being buried. He’d told Arden that when the time came, he wanted to be cremated, his ashes scattered on the wind. She’d made morbid jokes. “So even after you die, you refuse to settle down? Sounds about right.”
    As he reached his parents’ joint marker, he suddenly felt sheepish, as if he’d tracked mud into his mother’s clean kitchen. “I should have brought flowers.” Something seasonal, like poinsettias. “I know you loved Christmas, Mom, but it hasn’t been the same since you died.”
    That first year, his father had been too devastated to remember the holiday. If it weren’t for the gentle interference of their aunts, the Cade children wouldn’t have had anything to unwrap Christmas morning. Then they lost their dad, too. Throughout Justin’s adolescence, they’d occasionally accepted invitations to join well-meaning families in the community, but it was awkward, being the gloomy thundercloud that hung over someone else’s festivities. They got in the habit of staying home, where Colin microwaved dinner and the two brothers taught