A Home for Christmas Read Free

something about her. She had a melancholy, faraway expression that made her seem so . . . sad. She must really miss her grandparents. Still, with them being gone so long, he wondered what had brought her back to their home after so many years.
    “But the yard was always immaculate.” She touched the boxwoods near where she sat with the tips of her fingers. “Grandmother loved planting flowers and trimming the bushes.” She looked up, “And those trees, they seemed perfectly round. I think they must have had men come every spring to prune so they'd stay that way.”
    “Did you come here often?” He righted the hook he'd been trying to reach earlier.
    “Not as often as I would have liked.”
    She had spoken so softy, he barely heard the words before she bent to the task before her.
    “You know, I think they make plastic things to wrap lights around so that they don't get in this kind of mess.”
    “Yeah, but that sucks the fun right out of it, don't you think?”
    She smiled up at him. “I don't know. I've never helped put up Christmas lights.”
    “Come on. You mean your folks didn't decorate for Christmas?”
    She shook her head. “Not with outdoor lights. My mother thought it was tasteless.”
    “But you helped decorate the tree, right?”
    She shook her head again. “Mother had a decorator do the tree. That is, when we spent Christmas at home. Otherwise, she wouldn't even bother with one.”
    “Where'd you grow up?” he asked, trying hard to keep disbelief from lacing his words.
    “My parents had a home in Connecticut, but I didn't spend much time there.”
    Blake scratched his head, trying to follow. “Why not?”
    “I lived at boarding schools.”
    Why would anyone want to send their child off to live in boarding schools? “But you came home for the holidays, right?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “I see.” A picture formed in his mind of her as a little girl. A princess locked away in an ivory tower who wasn't allowed to play or do any of the fun, traditional things that made holidays special.
    “What about here? Didn't you ever come here for Christmas?”
    “I did once. Mother had planned a trip to Switzerland, but I got sick and couldn't go. So, she sent me here to stay with Grandmother and Grandfather because I begged her to let me come. Since she couldn't find a nurse to take care of me on such short notice with it being the holidays, she agreed.” She laughed. “Getting sick that year turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
    “What was it like?”
    Her face lit up, and he was glad to see that she had at least one happy Christmas stored in her memory. “There were lights everywhere. All around the house, in the bushes, along the walk. Inside,” she pointed, “a Christmas tree stood in that bay window. Grandfather cut it himself and brought it in from the woods at the edge of town. The tall pines, I think he called it. Anyway, some of the branches had fallen off from where he'd dragged it through town and the shape wasn't perfect, not like the trees Mother had. But I thought it was beautiful.
    “Grandmother made popcorn and taught me how to make a garland out of it. She let me help her bake shaped cookies and decorate them. And after I went to bed on Christmas Eve, she wrapped the presents herself and put them under the tree.”
    Sounded like typical things families did at Christmas. He got the feeling nothing about her upbringing had been typical.
    Blake studied her more closely then. The wistful look on her face went straight to his heart, creating an irrational yearning to give her fifty or so Christmases like that one she'd had with her grandparents. The thought should have scared him senseless. After all, he knew nothing about her. But instead, for some reason, it just felt . . . right.
    “She knitted me a green scarf. I thought it was the most wonderful gift I'd ever received.”
    The softness playing about her mouth vanished, replaced by an affected look