Read Online An Angel for Christmas by Heather Graham - Free Book Online Page A

snow and the wretchedness of the night, of course.
    But he couldn’t stay.
    He hadn’t killed Gabe.
    He left the door to the cottage swinging andstarted out, feeling the bitter cold again. He could take it.
    He was going to find Gabe, and end the game between them.

Chapter 4
    â€œI’m going to head out and help Shayne,” Bobby told his mother. He’d come from the kitchen, having insisted he clean up the hot-cocoa cups. Stacy had been straightening out the apron around the Christmas tree to ready it for Shayne’s packages.
    â€œYou don’t need to help, Bobby—Gabe went out behind him, and Morwenna went running out after him.” She was staring at the tree as she spoke, but turned to smile at him. “You did a beautiful job with the ornaments, Bobby.”
    â€œIt was easy. Dad did the lights. That’s the pain in the ass, Mom.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Butt, Bobby. Pain in the butt. It’s a nicer word.” She stepped closer to the tree, studying one of the ornaments. It was the little angel or cherub he had pondered himself earlier.
    He walked over to his mother, setting a hand on her shoulder. “That’s pretty,” he told her.
    She smiled. “I think I told you the story that goes with this ornament, years ago.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œIt belonged to my great-great-grandmother.”
    â€œMom, the house is almost two hundred years old. And half the stuff in it belonged to your great-great-grandmother.”
    â€œAh, but this one was special! During the winter of 1864, a wounded Union soldier found himself running through the mountains, terrified, of course, about what might happen to him if he was captured by a Confederate guerrilla band. The commanders of the armies, both sides, were fairly honorable men, but sometimes the militiamen andthe guerrillas combing the mountains were fanatics—not so much on the eastern front, but in the west the men were often little more than common murderers. Anyway, my great-great-grandmother found him trying to seek shelter in the barn—the garage now. And she couldn’t let any wounded man suffer, and took him in to nurse him. When the menfolk in the family wanted to turn him in, she said she just didn’t give a damn about the war, she cared about people. He got a fever, and he was delirious, and when he woke up, he said that she was his angel. His angel of mercy. He had this little ornament to bring home as a gift for his mother, but when he left, he said that his mother would want the angel who had saved his life to have the figure. He said that he prayed the angel would look after her all her days. She lived to be ninety-nine, so I guess the angel was looking after her.”
    â€œGreat story, Mom,” Bobby said. She smiled. And for that minute, Stacy looked almost like a young girl again. She was his mother, but it seemed that he could take a step back for a moment and take a look at her as a human being. He smiled inwardly, thinking she must have really been something at one time. He’d always known that his big sister was beautiful. And now he could recognize the fact that Morwenna had gotten her looks from their mother.
    Kids seldom saw such things, but it was nice to realize—Stacy was still a pretty woman.
    â€œThe story gets better,” she told him. “The Union soldier she saved went on to become a congressman from Massachusetts—and he helped fight to stop the punitive measures toward the postwar South.” She touched the ornament tenderly. “When I was little, her daughter, my great-grandmother, used to tell me that angels did influence our lives, and that they helped us sometimes, when we didn’t even know they were there. I like to believe that, Bobby.”
    â€œSure, Mom.” He gave her a hug. He marveled at his mother, and he had to wonder if people did come together for a reason. His mom was the ray of hope and light. His father