That Christmas Feeling Read Online Free PDF Page A

jumped backward as though she herself had been shot. Flossie wobbled for a moment, then toppled to her knees. The .22 clattered onto the icy porch.
    “Get out!” Flossie screeched, her fingers gripping the filthy marble threshold. “Get off my land!”
    “You nearly hit me, you crazy coot!” Claire smacked open the door with her hand. “You could have killed me! Now, get up off that floor, Aunt Flossie. And don’t even think about going for the rifle.”
    As the woman reached out for the gun, Claire kicked it across the porch. It spun on the slick wood, sliding in circles until it dropped off the steps and into the yard. Vaguely aware of an approaching siren, Claire stepped over her aunt and into the reeking foyer of the aging mansion.
    “Get up, Aunt Flossie!” she commanded. “You’re notgoing to shoot me. I am going to round up your cats—and you’re going to help me.”
    Her aunt was still on the floor, crouching on hands and knees. “Get away from me,” she huffed. “Go on. Get outta here.”
    “Aunt Flossie, you have no choice in this.” Claire glanced out across the yard at the squad car pulling to a stop. “Now you’ve brought the police again. Oh, great, it’s Rob West. Well, this is just perfect. He’ll probably throw you out right this minute, and I’ll have to… Aunt Flossie?”
    Needles of alarm shot through Claire as she knelt beside the woman still huddled in the doorway. Unmoving, Flossie breathed heavily, her wispy hair drifting in the chill wind that sucked around the corner of the old house. Claire laid her hand on her aunt’s back. A knobby ridge defined her spine, and her shoulder blades stood out beneath the ragged pink bathrobe.
    “Aunt Flossie, are you all right?” Claire asked softly.
    A gnarled hand shot out and clapped her on the shoulder. “Back off before I have to coldcock ya! Look what you did—busted both my knees. Elbones, too, probably.”
    “I never touched you. You fell when you shot off that—” Claire bit off her retort. “Oh, never mind. Just let me help you up before we both freeze.”
    As she reached around her aunt’s scarecrow frame, a pair of boots thudded toward them across the porch floor. “Good morning, ladies,” Rob said. “Would one of you care to explain—”
    “She fell,” Claire cut in. “What does it look like?”
    “She pushed me,” Flossie spat out, her breath fogging the marble threshold. “Knocked me down and broke both my knees!”
    “I did not —”
    “Just be quiet, both of you.” Muttering in disgust, Rob scooped Flossie into his arms and headed through the front door. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is all I can say.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?” Claire demanded, following him into the foyer and slamming the door shut behind them. Rob made for a room from which came the only evidence of warmth in the mansion. “Because I’ll tell you one thing,” Claire went on. “I am nothing like—”
    “Aw, shut up!” Flossie squawked. “And put me down, you big galoot! Who do you think you are, hauling me around like a sack of potatoes?”
    “Sack of feathers, more like it. What have you been eating anyhow, Miss Ross? Cat food?”
    Rob tromped into what must have been the parlor at one time. Claire gaped at the appalling sight. An ornate marble fireplace belched gray smoke upward to the soot-blackened ceiling twelve feet overhead. Stacks of newspapers, magazines and advertising circulars lay moldering on the faded carpet. Antique settees and chairs that once might have been lovely leaned like old haystacks, covered with papers, clothing and cats. Everywhere—cats. Skinny and yellow eyed, they stared at Claire from atop ornate valances, an old upright piano, curvy-legged tables and mantel shelves. They peered out from under cushions and from behind Oriental pots whose foliage was long gone.
    And the smell! Claire raced for a window as Rob kneed a pile of newspapers from one of the old settees and