Three Nights before Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Pretty much. And deal with the customers who come up to cut their own, but this part of the forest’s remote so the ones who do that will be pretty intrepid and able to fend for themselves. I’ll have a couple of guys up here with you to do the cutting and hauling for anything we sell down on the lot. Don’t worry, though—I’ve known Joel and Tony for years. They’re good guys. Won’t hassle you.”
    She fought against her instinctive eye roll. Once a big brother… “I promise not to hassle them either.”
    He shot her a glance, that one look managing to communicate thirty-one years of thinking he knew her better than she knew herself. Once upon a time, that was probably true. After all, he’d warned her…
    But no, she’d spent too long with nothing to do but recriminate herself for her stupidity. Today, she was outside, and that was all that mattered.
    His long strides ate up the ground and crunched through the snow. She didn’t have to struggle to keep up. She’d spent most of her career going a hundred miles an hour, and for the past three years the only time she’d felt a breeze in her face was when a fellow prisoner or a guard got right up in her grill, shouting about something or other so hard their breath chapped her cheeks. Forward motion felt good. It felt like progress. Like she had a goal and a purpose—even if that feeling was a sham. Oh, she did have a goal all right. To keep her head down and her nose clean so she could spend the next seven years on parole instead of back inside, serving out the rest of her sentence. Was that the same as having a purpose?
    Right now, she couldn’t give less of a shit. The only things blocking her view of the horizon were mountains—not bars and high walls topped with barbed wire. Last night, she slept in her own bed, her own room, instead of the lumpy, squeaky bottom bunk of a sixteen-bed dorm. There were walls and a door protecting her privacy when she went to the bathroom. And her tummy was full of turkey that came from a local farm and potatoes that had never seen the inside of a box. And coffee—three cups of it—made from freshly ground beans and real cream.
    A woman could sacrifice a hell of a lot more than purpose for such a paradise.
    “That lawyer of yours…she must be what? Twenty-five?”
    Lacey blinked at the change of mental direction. “Jenna? I don’t know. I haven’t asked her.” She cast her mind back to her earliest conversations with Jenna, who’d been visiting one of Lacey’s friends in the prison. “I know she’s been practicing for a few years, so I’d guess more like late twenties. Why? Are you worried about her lack of experience? I mean, she can’t be any worse than my crappy public defender.”
    Sawyer stiffened. “I offered to hire you a better lawyer.”
    “Yeah, and it would’ve required remortgaging the house at a time when half the country was having their homes foreclosed on.” She didn’t want to dent his pride by pointing out he would’ve struggled to repay the loan, but the implication sat heavily between them.
    “I would’ve made it work, Lacey. I would’ve happily made it work. Please don’t blame me now for your crappy public defender.”
    Her hand flew to her chest, as if she could snatch back the air that burst from her lungs. “ Blame you? Who’s blaming you? I’m blaming Arnold Jones, Esquire. And if anyone else is to blame, it’s me. I made the decision to keep him.”
    His jaw tightened, trapping whatever response she knew he was dying to make. That was a first, at least. He never used to hold back.
    “So what do you know about her?”
    Head pounding, Lacey rubbed her temple. “About who?”
    “Your lawyer. Jenna Whatshername.”
    “Macintosh. I know she has an amazing record of defending women charged with drug offenses. I know she works her ass off. I know she believes in me. I know she’s pointed out several things she would’ve done differently than my first lawyer. And I know