A Cunningham Christmas by Ember Casey Read Free Book Online

he’s looking for, he’ll never find it now. And he’s not even wearing gloves.
    He doesn’t notice me until I’m a few feet away from him. By then, he’s searched through most of the snow in front of him. There are piles of snow on either side of him, and he stands and kicks one pile with his booted foot.
    “Ward,” I say, grabbing his arm. “What’s going on?”
    He shakes his head, but it does nothing to dislodge the snow in his hair. It’s so cold that the thick flakes are already freezing to the strands. In the floodlights, I can see that his nose and cheeks are red with cold.
    “Go back inside,” he tells me. “I’ll be in in a bit.”
    He can’t get rid of me that easily. “That doesn’t answer my question. What the heck do you think you’re doing? You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll freeze to death!”
    “I don’t care,” he says. He takes me by the shoulders, and his distress is plain on his face. “Look, I’ll explain everything later. You’ll understand then. But right now you can just go back inside.”
    I cross my arms. “I’m not going anywhere until you give me a real answer.”
    “That is a real answer, Lou.”
    “No, it isn’t. What are you looking for?”
    He looks away and drops my shoulders. “I can’t tell you that right now.”
    “Why not?”
    “I just… can’t. Please, just go inside.”
    “Ward—”
    But before I can say another word, he turns and runs away from me. Runs. And then I’m not just confused and worried. I’m pissed.
    “Ward!” I call after him, but the word is carried off by the wind.
    Part of me wants to turn around and march back into the house and leave him to his stupidity. But I can’t. I won’t.
    I take after him through the snow. The icy wind brings tears to my eyes, but I flick them away and keep running. My jeans are soaked through to the knee. My gloves haven’t stopped my fingers from growing numb with cold. But I keep going, following his footprints across the grounds.
    The depth of the snow keeps him from going too fast, at least. Through the haze of swirling white flakes coming down around us, I see him disappear into the hedge maze.
    Why is he going in there on a night like this?
    I curse him under my breath as I follow. I didn’t think it was possible, but it’s even colder inside the maze. Rather than offering protection against the wind, the hedge walls have created a sort of wind tunnel effect, and I gasp as the first blast hits me. I tug my scarf up higher and keep my head down as I follow his footprints into the labyrinth. It’s harder to see them here than it is outside of the maze. The hedges block out most of the glow of the floodlights, and the wind blows snow almost immediately into the impressions left by his boots.
    I’ve been walking for a full five minutes before I realize I can’t see the footprints at all anymore.
    “Ward!” I call. “Ward! Where are you?”
    But if he hears me, if he calls back in return, I don’t know. The wind carries all sound away. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering as I search the ground for any indication of which way he’s gone. I’ve reached a point where the path splits, and if I make the wrong choice, I might be hunting for him all night.
    What the hell was he doing, running out here? Does he have some sort of death wish? If I am shaking with cold, wrapped up as I am, he must be a block of ice right now. If he’s not dead when I find him, then I’m going to throttle him myself.
    Assuming, of course, that I do eventually find him. My eyes shift from one path to the other. Both look exactly the same. The one to the left, I know, leads around to the back exit of the maze. The one on the right leads to the courtyard at the center. I can’t imagine why Ward would just run through the maze—in one way and out the other—so it only makes sense to take the path to the center of the maze.
    For a while, I still see no footprints. He’s had plenty of time to get ahead of me