Read Online Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5) by Noelle Adams - Free Book Online

All
of the women in the book club were already here. No one else should be at her
door.
    Everyone stopped talking as she got to her feet and walked
to the door. When she looked out through the peephole, she gasped and swung
open the door.
    Mark stood on her welcome mat, dressed in jeans and a black
coat, with water dripping from his hair.
    “Is it raining?” she asked, quite foolishly.
    “Yeah.” He gave her a half-smile.
    She was so shocked she was frozen with it, joy, excitement,
and nerves all rushing through her veins with her blood. “I thought you were
coming on Saturday.”
    “I came early.” He looked past her shoulder, into the
apartment. “Is that all right?”
    “Of course!” She threw herself at him in a tight hug. “Why
didn’t you tell me? I’m so happy to see you.”
    He hugged her back, evidently convinced by the sincerity of
her response. “So this is your place?”
    “It’s our place now—at least for the time being.” Then she
remembered the other women seated in the living room. “I have some friends over
for book club,” she explained, looking over her shoulder, although she couldn’t
see the living area from where they were standing. “I didn’t know you were
coming.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    He didn’t sound terribly excited about the prospect of
company, but who could blame him? He’d come all this way, just to be surrounded
by a bunch of strange women.
    Sophie tried to think of how to politely get rid of her guests
as she took Mark’s hand and led him into the apartment.
    Jessica had been starting to say something to the others,
but she broke off the words abruptly when Sophie and Mark came into view.
    “This is Mark,” Sophie said, rather sheepishly. “He arrived
earlier than I thought.” There was not much chance he could keep the names
straight, but in the interest of being polite, she gestured around the room and
added, “This is Jessica, Alice, Abigail, and Lydia.”
    “It’s nice to meet you all,” Mark said politely, standing
very still beside Sophie.
    Alice and Jessica immediately rose to their feet. “Oh, we’re
so glad to meet you,” Jessica said, reaching over to help the very pregnant
Abigail stand up too. “We were just finishing up, so we won’t be around for
much longer.”
    “Oh,” Sophie said, relieved that she didn’t need to hint.
“You don’t have to—”
    “Of course, we do,” Abigail said with a little hug. “I’m
sure the last thing Mark wants is to be chatted at by all of us. You spend time
with your husband.”
    Mark was just watching the activity. He didn’t look upset or
annoyed, but he did look a little blank, like the situation was too much for
him to fully process right away.
    “It’s really nice to meet you,” Lydia said, walking over to
stretch a hand out toward Mark. “We’ve all been praying for you.”
    Lydia was always like that—direct, completely guileless.
    “Thank you,” Mark murmured, shaking Lydia’s hand.
    Jessica took Lydia’s arm and encouraged her toward the door.
“We’d all love to get to know you—at a better time.” She grabbed her platter of
mostly eaten cookies on the way out.
    The women all hugged and thanked Sophie as they left, and
they were gone within two minutes.
    “I didn’t mean to scare them all away,” Mark said, looking
around at the used napkins and mostly empty glasses.
    “You didn’t. I think they were just trying to be nice and
give us some space.” Sophie didn’t want him to be uncomfortable about anything.
She reached up to hug him again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
    “I wasn’t sure myself. But I just couldn’t put up with being
there anymore, so I decided to take off. This sure is a little town.”
    “I know.” She was suddenly worried he wouldn’t like it. “The
people have been really great to me here, but I know it’s not really what we’re
used to. We don’t have to stay here long. There just wasn’t really anywhere
else for us to