A Magical Christmas by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

was certainly no help whatsoever.
    Sometimes, he was desperate to talk.
    She was never willing to listen.
    If she wanted a divorce so damned badly, he should just give it to her. She was making his life a living hell as it was. If she didn’t understand anything about him anymore, it was probably time that they did move on. Why the hell didn’t he just give it up?
    Because he loved his home. He loved Ashley throwing her arms around his neck when he came in the door. He was continually aggravated by the teenage Jordan and Christie, but sometimes they’djust walk across the room and he’d be proud. Christie was almost all grown up and beautiful, a carbon copy of Julie twenty years ago. Jordan was going to be tall. He wasn’t a great athlete, but he loved sports, liked people, and was a great-looking kid with a pleasant manner to match. He had no interest in the law at all, but he loved biology, and if his mind could just maintain a semblance of direction…
    He might be headed for med school.
    Right. He loved his kids. His wife was torturing him, but he loved his kids.
    He took a deep breath. He loved his wife as well. They had lost something, and what they had lost might have been his fault. Was his fault—in her eyes. But she wouldn’t take an apology for what he had done, much less a suggestion that she just might have driven him to his actions. And still…
    He did love Julie.
    Even if right now she was…
    “The worst bitch this side of heaven or hell!” he muttered, sliding out of his car at last, his briefcase in hand.
    He had barely stepped out of his car when Sam, their neighbors’ Saint Bernard, came loping around to the front of the house.
    “No, Sam!” he shouted.
    Too late. Sam came rocketing toward the car,jumping up to slam Jon against it. With his massive, sticky tongue, he licked Jon’s face from chin to forehead.
    “Get down, you lunk!” Jon demanded, pushing at Sam’s gigantic barrel chest. Sam had enough dog spit to drown a human with a single lick. “Sam!”
    His voice was firm and hard and Sam fell to all fours, wagging his lethal tail a mile a minute.
    “Sam, Sam!” Mari Twigs, the skinny little twelve-year-old from next door who considered herself Sam’s master, came running into the yard. “Oh, Mr. Radcliff, I am so, so sorry!” she gasped.
    He wanted to yell. He wanted to tell her to keep her moose-dog creature in her own yard, but somehow, he counted to ten. “Mari, get him home, huh?”
    Mari nodded gravely. She clutched Sam’s collar. The dog started to drag her home, but she was still looking at Jon, giggling.
    “Um, there’s just a bit of mud on your shirt, Mr. Radcliff,” Mari said. “Sam’s sorry though, really sorry.”
    “Yeah, Sam’s sorry,” Jon muttered, heading into the house.
    He banged on the front door, but no one answered. He could hear an old Doors number blaring from his daughter’s stereo system. He fumbled in hispockets for his keys, then realized the door wasn’t locked. Swearing, he entered his front hallway.
    He tripped over his son’s Rollerblades, nearly falling himself, sending the Rollerblades sliding so that they knocked against the foyer table. The vase upon it crashed to the floor.
    Still, no one appeared.
    “Hello, I’m home!” he called out.
    Right. As Christie would say,
Like anyone cared!
    Skirting the smashed vase, he made his way through the handsome sunken living room, the dining room, through the pantry, and into the kitchen. Julie was leaning against the refrigerator, sipping a glass of champagne. Millie Garcia—dragon woman—was seated at the kitchen table, and old Jack Taylor was at the sink, working at the cork of another champagne bottle. Ashley was cutting the napkins into tiny pieces with her new plastic scissors, and Jordan had his gerbils running around on the kitchen counter. No one seemed to notice Jon as of yet—the strains of “Light My Fire” weren’t quite as loud here, but they were still more audible than