The Christmas Thief Read Free

husband.
    “Don’t get kidnapped,” she said only half-jokingly. “We want to leave for Vermont no later than two o’clock.”
    “Getting kidnapped once in a lifetime is about average,” Regan volunteered. “I looked up the statistics last week.”
    “And don’t forget,” Luke reminded Nora for the hundredth time, “if it wasn’t for my pain and suffering in that little predicament, Regan would never have met Jack and you wouldn’t be planning a wedding.”
    Jack Reilly, head of the Major Case Squad of the New York Police Department and now Regan’s fiancé, had worked on the case when Luke and his young driver vanished. He not only caught the kidnappers and retrieved the ransom, but in the process had captured Regan’s heart.
    “I can’t believe I haven’t seen Jack in two weeks,” Regan said with a sigh as she buttered a roll. “He wanted to pick me up at Newark Airport this morning, but I told him I’d take a cab. He had to go into the office to wrap up a few things but he’ll be here by two.” Regan started to yawn. “Those overnight flights make me a little spacey.”
    “On second thought, I would suggest that your mother is right,” Luke said. “You do look as if a couple of hours of sleep would be useful.” He returned Nora’s kiss, rumpled Regan’s hair, and was gone.
    Regan laughed. “I swear he still thinks I’m six years old.”
    “It’s because you’re getting married soon. He’s starting to talk about how he’s looking forward to grandchildren.”
    “Oh, my God. That thought makes me even more tired. I think I will go upstairs and lie down.”
    Left alone at the table, Nora refilled her own cup and opened The New York Times. The car was already packed for the trip. This morning she intended to work at her desk because she wanted to make notes on the new book she was starting. She hadn’t quite decided whether Celia, her protagonist, would be an interior designer or a lawyer. Two different kinds of people, she acknowledged, but as an interior designer it was feasible that Celia would have met her first husband in the process of decorating his Manhattan apartment. On the other hand, if she was a lawyer, it gave a different dynamic to the story.
    Read the paper, she told herself. First lesson of writing: Put the subconscious on power-save until you start staring at the computer. She glanced out the window. The breakfast room looked out onto the now snow-covered lawn and the garden that led to the pool and tennis court. I love it here, she thought. I get so mad at the people who knock New Jersey. Oh, well, as Dad used to say, “When they know better, they’ll do better.”
    Wrapped in her quilted satin bathrobe, Nora felt warm and content. Instead of chasing crooks in Los Angeles, Regan was home and going away with them. She had gotten engaged in a hot air balloon, of all places, just a few weeks ago. Over Las Vegas. Nora didn’t care where or how it happened, she was just thrilled to finally be planning Regan’s wedding. And there couldn’t be a more perfect man for her than wonderful Jack Reilly.
    In a few hours they would be leaving for the beautiful Trapp Family Lodge and would be joined there by their dear friends Alvirah and Willy Meehan. What’s not to like? Nora thought as she flipped to the Metro section of the newspaper.
    Her eye immediately went to the front-page picture of a handsome woman dressed in a long skirt, blouse, and vest and standing in a forest. The caption was “Rockefeller Center Selects Tree.”
    The woman in that picture looks familiar, Nora thought as she skimmed the story.
    An 80-foot blue spruce in Stowe, Vermont, is about to take its place as the world’s most famous Christmas tree this year. It was chosen for its majestic beauty, but as it turned out, it was planted nearly fifty years ago in a forest adjacent to the property owned by the legendary Von Trapp family. Maria von Trapp happened to be walking through the forest when the sapling