There's Something About Christmas Read Free Page A

tires. Well, she’d face that if the need arose. In all likelihood it wouldn’t. The interstate was kept as hazard-free as possible; the roads were salted and plowed at frequent intervals.
    “I wouldn’t want to see you in that kind of situation,” Walt agreed with Oliver. “In addition to the risk of traveling alone, there’s the added expense of putting you up in hotel rooms for a couple of nights, plus meals and mileage. This works out better.”
    “What works out?” Emma turned from one man to the other. It was as if she’d missed part of the conversation.
    “We’re giving advertising space to Hamilton Air Service and in return, he’ll fly you out to interview these three women.”
    For one crazy moment Emma couldn’t talk at all. “You…want me to fly in that…little plane…with him?” she finally stammered. The last two words were more breath than sound. If she started to think about being stuck in a small plane, she might hyperventilate right then and there.
    Walt nodded. He seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable idea.
    “I—”
    “I’ve got a flight scheduled for Yakima first thing tomorrow morning,” Oliver told her matter-of-factly. “That won’t be a problem, will it?” His smile seemed to taunt her. “Ah…”
    “You have been saying you wanted to write something other than obituaries, haven’t you?” This was from Walt.
    “Y-yes.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    “No problem,” she said, her throat tightening and nearly choking off the words. “No problem whatsoever.”
    “Good.”
    Oliver stood. “Be down at the airstrip tomorrow morning at seven.”
    “I’ll be there.” Her legs had apparently turned to pudding, but she managed to stand, too. Smiling shakily, she left the office. As she headed down to her desk, Emma looked over her shoulder to see Walt and Oliver shaking hands.
    Phoebe was waiting for her in The Dungeon. “What happened?” she asked eagerly.
    Emma ignored the question and walked directly over to her chair, where she collapsed. Life had taken on a sense of unreality. She felt as if she were watching a silent movie flicker across a screen, the actors’ movements jerky and abrupt.
    “Aren’t you going to tell me?” Phoebe stared at Emma and gasped. “You quit, didn’t you?”
    Emma shook her head. “I got an assignment.”
    Phoebe hesitated. “That’s great. Isn’t it?”
    “I…think so. Only…”
    “Only what?”
    “Only it looks like you’re going to be writing the obituaries on your own for a while.”
    Phoebe gave her a puzzled smile. “That’s all right. I already told you I don’t mind.”
    “Maybe not, but I have a feeling that the next one you write just might be mine.”

Chapter Two
    T he first thing Emma did when she got home from the newspaper office that evening was check her medicine cabinet. Her relief knew no bounds when she found six tablets rattling around in the dark-brown prescription bottle. A few months earlier, she’d twisted her knee playing volleyball. Phoebe had conned her into joining a league, but that was another story entirely. The attending physician in the urgent-care facility had given her a powerful muscle relaxant. Her knee had continued to hurt, as Emma vividly recalled, but thirty minutes after she’d swallowed the capsule, she couldn’t have cared less. All was right with the world—for a couple of hours, anyway.
    Knowing how potent those pills were, she’d hoarded them for a situation such as the one she now faced with Oliver Hamilton. For the sake of her career she’d accompany him in his scary little plane, but it went without saying that Emma would need help of the medicinal variety. If she was going to be flying with Oliver Hamilton she had to have something to numb her overwhelming fear at the prospect of getting into that plane. She clutched the bottle and took a deep breath. For the sake of her craft and her career, she’d do it.
    Emma simply couldn’t survive the trip