Holiday in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online

generous of him to build the shelter. We need one, and we're lucky he's willing to help out."
    Ashley relaxed a little and offered a tentative smile.Looked around at her kitchen, which would have made a great set for some show on the Food Channel. "He bought this house for me, you know," she said as the cider began to simmer in its shiny pot on the stove.
    Olivia nodded. "And it looks fabulous," she replied. "Like always."
    "You are planning to show up for Thanksgiving dinner out at the ranch, aren't you?"
    "Why wouldn't I?" Olivia asked, even as her stomach knotted. Who had invented holidays, anyway? Everything came to a screeching stop whenever there was a red-letter day on the calendar--everything except the need and sorrow that seemed to fill the world.
    "I know you don't like family holidays," Ashley said, pouring steaming cider into a copper serving pot and then into translucent china teacups waiting in the center of the round antique table. Olivia would have dumped it straight from the kettle, and probably spilled it all over the table and floor in the process.
    She just wasn't domestic. All those genes had gone to Ashley.
    Her sister's eyes went big and round and serious. "Last year you made some excuse about a cow needing an appendectomy and ducked out before I could serve the pumpkin pie."
    Olivia sighed. Ashley had worked hard to prepare the previous year's Thanksgiving dinner, gathering recipes for weeks ahead of time, experimenting like a chemist in search of a cure, and looked forward to hosting a houseful of congenial relatives.
    "Do cows even have appendixes?" Ashley asked.
    Olivia laughed, drew back a chair at the table and sat down. "That cider smells fabulous," she said, in orderto change the subject. "And the cookies are works of art, almost too pretty to eat. Martha Stewart would be so proud."
    Ashley joined her at the table, but she still looked troubled. "Why do you hate holidays, Olivia?" she persisted.
    "I don't hate holidays," Olivia said. "It's just that all that sentimentality--"
    "You miss Big John and Mom," Ashley broke in quietly. "Why don't you just admit it?"
    "We all miss Big John," Olivia admitted. "As for Mom--well, she's been gone a long time, Ash. A really long time. It's not a matter of missing her, exactly."
    "Don't you ever wonder where she went after she left Stone Creek, if she's happy and healthy--if she remarried and had more children?"
    "I try not to," Olivia said honestly.
    "You have abandonment issues," Ashley accused.
    Olivia sighed and sipped from her cup of cider. The stuff was delicious, like everything her sister cooked up.
    Ashley's Botticelli face brightened; she'd made another of her mercurial shifts from pensive to hopeful. "Suppose we found her?" she asked on a breath. "Mom, I mean--"
    "Found her?" Olivia echoed, oddly alarmed.
    "There are all these search engines online," Ashley enthused. "I was over at the library yesterday afternoon, and I searched Google for Mom's name."
    Oh. My. God, Olivia thought, feeling the color drain out of her face.
    " You used a computer?"
    Ashley nodded. "I'm thinking of getting one. Setting up a website to bring in more business for the B and B."
    Things were changing, Olivia realized. And she hated it when things changed. Why couldn't people leave well enough alone?
    "There are more Delia O'Ballivans out there than you would ever guess," Ashley rushed on. "One of them must be Mom."
    "Ash, Mom could be dead by now. Or going by a different name..."
    Ashley looked offended. "You sound like Brad and Melissa. Brad just clams up whenever I ask him about Mom--he remembers her better, since he's older. 'Leave it alone' is all he ever says. And Melissa thinks she's probably a crack addict or a hooker or something." She let out a long, shaky breath. "I thought you missed Mom as much as I do. I really did."
    Although Brad had never admitted it, Olivia suspected he knew more about their mother than he was telling. If he wanted Ashley and the rest of