The Twilight Before Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

did his save the world thing and now he’s come home and he’s working the family business. He could have changed.”
    Kate forced a fleeting smile. “Men like Matthew don’t change, Hannah. I was telling you my tale of woe. We were just at the point where Jonas drove up. You know how he has to make his little ‘Drake sisters’ comments. He implied every time I was around something awful happened. It just made the situation worse.” She sighed again. “I tried to look as though it didn’t bother me, but I think Matthew knew.”
    “Jonas Harrington needs to fall into the ocean and have a nice hungry shark come swimming by.” Hannah dragged the whistling teakettle from the stove and splashed water into the teapot, a fine fury radiating from her at the thought of Jonas Harrington saying anything to upset Kate. The water boiled in the little china teapot, bubbles roiling and bursting with a steady fury. Steam rose.
    Kate covered the top of the teapot with her palm, settling the water back down. “You were out on the captain’s walk.”
    Hannah nodded, unrepentant. “The earthquake bothered me. I felt something rising beneath the earth. I can’t explain it, Kate, but it frightened me. I was sitting here listening to Joley’s Christmas music, you know how much I love Christmas, then I felt the quake. Almost on the heels of it, something else disturbed the earth. I felt it as a darkness rising upward. I knew you were out riding, so I went out to the walk to make certain you weren’t in trouble.”
    “And you felt the wind come in off the sea,” Kate said. She leaned her hip against the counter. “I felt it too.” She frowned and drummed her fingers on the tiled counter. “I smelled something, Hannah, something old and bitter in the wind.”
    “Evil?” Hannah ventured.
    Kate shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t that exactly. Well,” she hedged, “maybe. I don’t know. What did you think?”
    Hannah leaned against the brightly tiled sink, her body so graceful the casual movement seemed balletic. “I honestly don’t know, Kate, but it isn’t good. I’ve felt disturbed ever since the earthquake and when I looked at the mosaic, there was a black shadow beneath the ground. I could barely make it out because it seemed to move and not stay in one place.”
    Kate glanced at the floor in the house’s entryway. Her grandmother, along with her grandmother’s six sisters, had made the mosaic, women of power and magic, seven sisters creating a timeless floor of infinite beauty. To most people it was simply a unique floor, but the Drake sisters could read many things in the ever-changing shadows that ran within it. “How very strange that neither of us knows precisely whether the disturbance is evil.” She shrugged her shoulders and drew in a deep breath filled with cinnamon and pine. “I love the fragrances of Christmas.” She tapped her foot, a small smile hovering on her face.
    “You’re holding back on me,” Hannah guessed, her voice suddenly teasing. “Something else happened, didn’t it?”
    “When the earthquake started, Matthew put his arm around me to steady me, and we just stood there, even after it was over.” She grinned at Hannah. “He is so strong. You have no idea. That man is all muscle. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up in a puddle at his feet! But I managed to look cool and serene.”
    Hannah pretended to swoon. “I wish I could have seen it. Matthew is definitely hot, even if he is a Neanderthal. I must have come up on the captain’s walk just after that, just in time to see the slimy toad of the world arrive in his little sheriff’s car.” She smirked. “Too bad the wind came up, and his precious little hat went sailing out to sea.”
    “Shame on you, Hannah,” Kate scolded halfheartedly. “Jonas means well. He’s just so used to everyone doing everything he says, and we always seem to be in the middle of any kind of trouble in Sea Haven. You’re beginning to enjoy