A Gift to Last by Debbie Macomber Read Free Book Online Page B

agreement. This damned waiting had gone on long enough. The minute he had a definite answer, he’d call Amy again. Even if he didn’t have an answer, he was phoning Amy. He needed to hear the sound of her voice, needed to know this nightmare would soon be over and they’d be together—if not for Christmas, then soon.
    Len returned to his seat and Matt followed him. “This isn’t exactly my idea of Christmas Eve,” the older man muttered, more to himself than his companion.
    “I don’t think any of us could have anticipated this.”
    It didn’t take Kemper long to connect with someone, Len noticed. The stationmaster was on the phone five minutes. He nodded once in a while, then scowled and wrote something down on a piece of paper. When he’d finished, he walked toward the potbellied stove.
    Every eye in the room followed him. “Well,” he said, with a deep expressive sigh, “there really isn’t any news I can give you.”
    “No news is good news?” Cathy suggested hopefully.
    “No news is no news,” Matt McHugh returned tartly.
    “You were talking to someone,” Len said. “They must’ve had something to say….”
    “Only what I found out earlier, that the break in the line is more serious than was originally determined.”
    “Isn’t there anything you can suggest? How long should we expect to wait? Give us your best estimate. Surely you’ve seen breakdowns like this before.” Len’s voice thinned with frustration. He noticed a number of people nodding as he spoke.
    “Well,” Kemper said thoughtfully, “you’re right, I have seen plenty of breakdowns over the years. Each one’s different. But we’ve got a full crew working on this one, despite the fact that it’s Christmas Eve.”
    “That’s encouraging, anyway,” Elise Jones said. “It isn’t like any of us planned to spend the holidays here, you know.”
    “I know, I know.” Kemper looked out over the group and seemed to recognize that he wouldn’t be off the hook until he gave these people some kind of answer. “My best guess is sometime after midnight.”
    “Midnight!” Matt shouted.
    He wasn’t the only one who reacted with anger. But Len barely reacted at all; he felt as though the wind had been knocked clear out of him. Slowly he sank onto the bench and closed his eyes. He no longer knew if the airline could even get him a seat. Because of the snowstorm he’d missed his original flight. Because of the train’s delay, he hadn’t made the standby flight, either. Nor could he book another. Not until he could give the airline a time.
    This felt like the worst day of his life.
     
    Nick knew he was a fool, snapping at his wife in front of a room full of strangers and then stalking out of the train depot like a two-year-old having a tantrum. He’d caught the shocked look in Kelly’s eyes. It was uncharacteristic behavior for him, but he’d just been feeling so…on edge. Then he’d lost control because someone had shouted at Kelly to keep Brittany quiet.
    What upset him was that he’d been thinking the same thing himself. He wanted her to do something, anything, to stop Brittany’s crying. The baby had been contentedly asleep for a few hours, and he supposed he’d been lulled into a false sense of peace. Then she’d awakened, and it seemed that every ounce of composure he’d managed to scrape together had vanished.
    He’d say one thing for his daughter. She had an incredible sense of timing. Why she’d pick that precise moment to start wailing, he’d never know. She was a fragile little thing, but obviously had the lungs of a tuba player.
    It had felt as though everyone in the room was glaring at him and Kelly with malice, although in retrospect, he thought his own frustrations had probably made him misread their reactions. Everything in life had come hard for Nick; why should fatherhood be any different? He’d been raised in a series of foster homes and the only reason he’d been able to go on with his schooling