Read Online Jenny Lopez Saves Christmas by Lindsey Kelk - Free Book Online Page B

let me give you a ride, it’ll be quicker.’
    â€˜I’m totally okay,’ I said again. ‘I’m not going far.’
    â€˜Oh, you’re staying with Erin?’ the man asked. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I got a better look at him and he didn’t look so bad. Sandy hair, blue eyes, light stubble. Just generic enough to make things hard for the FBI sketch artist. ‘I live right next door.’
    â€˜You do?’ I was suspicious. There was no next door. And yet I was so freaking cold, I would probably slit my throat for him if he kept me hanging around out here much longer. And if he knew Erin, how bad could he really be? Unless this was all part of his plan. Unless he’d been posing as a perfectly nice and normal neighbour for, like, ten years, just waiting to find a friend hanging out in the snow on Christmas Eve dressed like a complete tool and carrying poultry.
    â€˜Well, next door is kind of a stretch. We’re hardly the nearest of neighbours, but we’re the next house along on the lake. I’m Keith Cawston. Jump in,’ he offered again. ‘Or at least let me take the turkey home. If you’re planning on eating that bird, I really think you ought to get it out of the snow − all kinds of critters out here.’
    Critters? I had seen that movie as a kid and hadn’t been able to sit on the toilet without my mom standing outside the bathroom door for a month. Without another thought to my personal safety, I grabbed my bird and jumped into the passenger seat. Holy shit, he had heated seats. What a way to die.
    â€˜Thank you,’ I said as he powered on the engine. No need to forget your manners despite your impending death. I would hate for him to end up on the stand and say I hadn’t been polite before he cut off my head. My mom would be mortified, but she’d also be really pissed if she had to organize a funeral over the holidays. God, I had to deal with so much internal conflict.
    â€˜I’m having the worst day.’
    â€˜He’s having a worse one,’ Keith Cawston laughed, gesturing towards the turkey as we crawled down the snowy road. ‘You all up here for the holidays?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said as the house came into view. I really had been very close. If he did kill me now, I was going to look really stupid. Stupid and lazy and dead. ‘There’s going to be a bunch of us. Lots of big, strong, strapping guys. They love shooting actually.’
    â€˜Aren’t the holidays great?’ Keith asked without raising an eyebrow. ‘I love to hunt. You should give me a call when you’re going out − I can show your friends all the best spots up here.’
    As we pulled up right in front of my front door, I was forced to accept he probably wasn’t interested in hunting me. Which was a relief.
    â€˜It’s so hard to get everyone together,’ he went on. ‘I haven’t seen my brother in months. It’s crazy − we’re twins, and I haven’t seen him since the summer. He lives down in the city. I’m guessing you too?’
    â€˜I do,’ I said, relaxing a little as he clambered out of the car and raced round to open my door for me. ‘Thank you so much.’
    â€˜You want to get that inside and then we’ll go see if we can’t get that car of yours started up again,’ he offered. ‘You know what’s wrong with it?’
    â€˜Uh, yeah?’ I said, more than a little sheepishly. ‘It’s out of gas.’
    Keith laughed out loud, rubbing his hands over his red ears. ‘At least that’s an easy fix,’ he said before his face flexed into a frown. ‘Say, you always have a ten-foot fir tree on your porch?’
    â€˜Do I always have a what?’ I asked, spinning on my hiking boot heel.
    Holy Mary, mother of God.
    Leaning casually against the side of the house was the biggest damn Christmas tree I had ever seen