GABRIEL'S GIFT: A Lost Hearts Christmas Story Read Free Page B

her. "Good picture of you!"
    "My mom would like —" She clamped her mouth shut.
    He pretended not to notice. "While I was a teenager, and later when I was tracking down my brothers, I spent a lot of holidays alone. That sucked. This week, this house will be overflowing, but that's so much better than empty."
    His confiding of his past seemed to work on her, because she said, "When I was three, we moved to Philly with my father."
    Philadelphia! The kid was from Philadelphia.
    He would get that off to Teague right away. But first … listen to what she had to say. See what other clues she would drop…
    She continued, "Then my father left us for my first stepmother, and Mom had to get a job — she's a bookkeeper — and we've been there ever since. The only time we go home to Denver is if my grandfather sends us plane tickets, and he's cranky and he's not made of money — that's what he says, he's not made of money — so usually we spend the holidays alone."
    "That's hard, being alone for the holidays."
    She shrugged. "It's okay. This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at the truck stop. The food was good, and they gave us lots of leftovers to take home. A trucker bought our dinner and left before we could thank him."
    "There are some nice people in this world."
    "That's what my mom said." Arabella stared at him as if she wanted to hit him for reminding her what her mother had said. Then, in a nasty tone, she asked, "Where's your wife? Where's Hannah?"
    "Hannah had to work. She's a resident in pediatrics and the holidays are always hell on the staff and the patients. That's why I came early, to set up and make it easier for her when she gets here." Then, for no reason he could see, he added, "And I needed to be alone to think."
    "Oh. I see. I'm in your way." Arabella turned toward her backpack. "I'll get my things and leave."
    "Don't be so touchy! You're easy to talk to."
    She kept walking.
    "I know. Boo-hoo. Gabriel Prescott has problems."
    She slung her backpack on her shoulder.
    He followed. "I get that attitude. I do. But I had a rough ride in my early life."
    She stopped, back to him.
    "Believe me, I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better. But it's not everything."
    She turned around. "Don't whine!"
    He shut up. He might have been whining, but he got her to stay.
    "So what's wrong with you?" she asked briskly.
    What was wrong? Lately, everything had seemed … difficult, like he was on the edge of a precipice and had to jump one way or the other, but he was afraid of where he'd land. He was afraid he'd break something … or someone.
    He sighed. "I don't know what I was thinking. You don't want to know."
    "So you think I'm like the people who don't care?"
    "Pretty much." He got a picture hanger and a little hammer out of the kitchen junk drawer. "Where do you want your photo?"
    He could tell she did not like his attitude. She did not want to be uncaring and hateful.
    He wasn't normally the kind of guy who confided his problems to anybody, much less in a runaway kid, but she needed to think about the way she was acting, and how it affected others. And from the frown that puckered her brow, and the little glances she shot at him, he thought he'd made his point.
    She studied the wall, then showed him a blank spot at the end of a long line of the annual family portraits. Hannah would not be happy — she was saving that place for this year's picture. But she would understand the necessity of letting Arabella have her way, and he knew it would never move. Hannah had a thing about leaving the photos in their place.
    So he pounded the nail into the wall and hung the photo. "Let me get a pen." In the pantry, he pulled out his phone, turned off the sound — things were getting intense, and Arabella didn't need to know it — then he texted Teague the brief and telling message, Philadelphia .
    He stepped back into the kitchen.
    His phone vibrated.
    Arabella was lingering outside the pantry. He didn't dare glance at