Read Online Plundered Christmas by Susan Lyttek - Free Book Online

everyone else? For at least an hour, it had only been the Talbott-Jensen clan inside the great house, unless the rest were huddled in their rooms.
    I saw Aimee in the great room, looking at the tree, but holding her phone in front of her as I raced out. Was she going to take a picture? When she made no move to follow me, I assumed that she thought her aunt would neither want her nor need her.
    I couldn’t get over how un-Christmas it all was as I raced out with the absorbent pads to see to our injured hostess.
     
    ****
     
    Outside, the wind was whipping up. It didn’t feel like snow, of course, but it definitely wasn’t as warm as it had been this morning. With the sun down, the temperature had to be in the lower sixties or upper fifties. After the sun and eighties earlier in the day, it felt really cold. I ran, not just because of the emergency, but because I hoped I would warm up.
    When I reached the dock, the winds were so high that they threw the surf over the boards. I couldn’t even see Margo at first; so many people were huddled around her.
    James was not right up with the crowd, but he had Josie and Justin off to the side.
    “I could help, Neenie, with my training, but I didn’t want them to see this.”
    I handed him the pads. “Go forth and do good, my hero.” I had no medical training beyond motherhood. I didn’t figure it would do anything for massive quantities of blood. In fact, with my weak stomach, I knew it wouldn’t. At the doctor’s, a technician only needed to get a needle close to one of my veins for me to feel woozy.
    “Why don’t we pray for Miss Margo?” I said to the kids. I wanted to keep them busy and keep their imaginations off of what might have happened to the woman and what it might look like.
    “Can we kneel?” asked Josie. “I’ve seen people do that. It seems like it makes it more serious.”
    She was such a darling girl. I felt overwhelmingly grateful and blessed to have her. “Of course we can, sweetie.”
    So we knelt down on the sandy grass above the beach. Much to Justin’s dismay, his sister wanted to hold hands, too. As we prayed, our eyes were closed, but I could hear the activity bustling behind us.
    All those tending to her were frightened, I could tell. She must have lost a lot of blood.
    I started, and then Josie, and Justin last of all summed it up. “Lord God, help Miss Margo get better. And not just from this, God. Something is hard in her heart. I’m not even sure if she knows you, God. So help her work it all out and get better in every way. Amen.”
    As he said ‘Amen’ and we joined him, I could hear people moving behind us. I looked, as we stood, and saw James and Frank carrying a still form quickly to the house while Dad held onto her hand and Charlie walked on the other side.
    Mary was crying as she stood and looked out to sea.
    I went to her. No one should lose a mother around Christmas. It was bad enough to lose a mother at all. “I’m sorry about Miss Margo,” I said to her.
    “Why, thank you,” she said in gulps.
    “We just prayed for her. I thought you should know.”
    “You and your kids prayed for my mother?”
    I nodded.
    “I don’t think my mom had any clue what she was getting into when she decided to find a good Christian man,” she said. “You might just change us all.” She didn’t say anything more. She followed the crowd to the house.
    But what she said turned over and over inside me. “ You might just change us all .” Was this why we were here? God, did you want us here so that we might change the Banet family? Here, I had been looking at this whole week as a time away from real Christmas. A time to get to know a potential stepmother and enjoy some time in the sun, but did God have a higher purpose? I felt ashamed of myself. I kept thinking about my own enjoyment, my Christmas, and our traditions. I hadn’t thought anything about these people around us, or about their souls.
    When we got back to the house, as if