The Edge of Heaven Read Free

maybe Sam McRae wasn't so rich, just lucky enough to have a wife who inherited a house like this and lucky enough to know what to do with it. Maybe he and Sam would have something in common after all. He'd have loved to get his hands on an old place like this. Not that he ever expected anyone to drop a house like this into his hands.
    Emma led him into the front room. He ran a hand over the big, intricately carved, mahogany mantelpiece over the roaring fire, let himself glance at those photographs, trying not to be too obvious.
    "That's your mother?" he asked, pointing to one of a pretty blonde woman with a baby in her arms. They looked sweet, both of them.
    "Yes. And my sister, Grace. She'll be eight in a couple of weeks." Emma pointed to another picture of a boy, dark haired and mischievous looking. "That's Zach. He's twelve and almost as tall as Rachel and me. And, of course, that's Sam."
    It was a casual shot, outdoors in front of a huge Christmas tree. They were all bundled up in coats and gloves, the kids in hats and scarves. Five people huddled together and grinning like crazy. The pretty blonde woman holding a much younger Zach, Emma leaning in close to her side, and the baby, a bundle of pink fluff, looking quite content in Sam's arms.
    He studied the man, looking for something familiar in the shape of his face or the color of his eyes. He'd only had a glimpse so many years ago, when the man had been nothing but a stranger to him, maybe a hazy memory from so long ago when he was a little boy. He wasn't sure if he remembered Sam or if he'd conjured up an image in his mind, simply because he wanted so badly to remember.
    This picture on the mantel screamed normal, happy family. His family had looked like that once upon a time. But it had all been an illusion, now faded away. Emma came to stand beside him, waiting quietly and letting him look.
    "You have a lovely family," he said finally, and then had to turn away. Searching for anything to latch on to, his gaze caught on the intricate swirling pewter that made the base of a snow globe. "That's unusual."
    "Recognize the house inside it?" Emma asked.
    "Should I?"
    He hadn't even looked, to be honest, but he did now. It was a Victorian, the same dove gray with light blue trim, lovingly rendered in such detail. He'd never seen such a beautifully made piece inside a ball of fake snow. Emma handed it to him.
    "It's this house?" he guessed.
    "Yes."
    He flipped the heavy glass globe over in his hands, then flipped it back, making it snow, as it was outside right now.
    "I had one of these when I was a kid. Used to love it."
    "Me, too," she said. "I had a cheap version of this one, actually."
    "This one?"
    "Yes. That's a family heirloom, but copies are made here in town. You must not have come in from the east or you would have seen the factory. Rachel's grandfather was Richard Landon."
    "The guy whose name's on all the signs?"
    "Yes. This was his house. He used it as a model for this snow globe, which became his first well-known piece. He used a lot of the buildings in town as models."
    "The Christmas town?" He'd seen all the signs, but had been too distracted by his mission to even try to figure out what they were talking about. Christmas town. Christmas festival. He wasn't big on Christmas.
    But looking at the house inside the snow globe, he realized he did know it. He'd had a version of The Night Before Christmas illustrated with, among other things, pictures of this house. If he was a man who still believed in anything like magic or signs or things that were somehow meant to be, he'd have said that was significant. But he didn't believe in any of those things anymore, and that book was all over the place. Practically every kid had a copy.
    "Yes, it's the Christmas town," Emma said. "If you're going to be here for the next week or so, you'll see. The festival's starting on Thursday."
    He wasn't in the mood for any kind of festival, and he hadn't truly celebrated Christmas