Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) by Lori Austin Read Free Book Online

doorway and fought the urge to stay with him all through the night.
    She might want hers to be the first face Noah saw when he awoke, but to keep him safe, she must leave him alone.
    And pray that when she returned he would still be alive.
    ***
    â€œWhere have you been?”
    Ruth hadn’t even closed the front door before her father walked out of the parlor. As if to emphasize the lateness of the hour, the hall clock struck ten.
    â€œI’m sorry, Father. I stayed at the train station thinking awhile.”
    His frown of disapproval was nothing new. No matter how she tried, Ruth could not be his little lost Susan. Susan was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel-baby who had died far too young to make any mistakes. Ruth was a red-haired, green-eyed stranger who couldn’t seem to get through a day without doing something wrong.
    â€œI sent Tildy to bed. She’s exhausted from all the Christmas preparations.”
    Although Christmas would involve only Ruth and her father, their housekeeper, Tildy, refused to give up any of the traditions that had begun with Ruth’s mother. Even now a tree stood in the corner, candles ready to be lit after breakfast on Christmas morn. The house smelled of ginger cookies, and tomorrow there would be taffy to pull.
    Though most folks would hang long red stockings near the chimney to be filled in the dark of night with dried fruit and store-bought candy, the Kelly household had never done anything so common, even when Susan was alive. By the age of ten, Ruth had been divested of any belief in St. Nick, so presents were placed beneath the tree.
    When Susan was little, her mother would read the poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” which most folks had taken to calling “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” each night before Christmas.
    She’d read the poem once to Ruth before becoming too ill. The next year, Ruth had read it to her. The poem was the one thing they’d shared before she died.
    The year following her mother’s death, Ruth had begun to read the poem to her father. He’d thrown the volume of poetry into the flames, forbidding her to say those words ever again. Since then, Christmas had always been kept, though never very merrily.
    â€œI hardly thought it fair to make someone of Tildy’s age wait up to serve your dinner,” her father continued. “You missed a lovely beef roast, rare as you like it.”
    The thought of rare roast after what she’d just done turned Ruth’s stomach. “I’m not hungry.”
    He looked her over from the tip of her head to the toe of her boot, as he’d done many times since the first time at the train station. The perusal did not take any longer now than it had then. “You’ll waste away one day, Ruth, and then where will I be?”
    Commenting on Ruth’s frail, petite frame was as close to concern or affection that her father ever came. Another thing Susan had been was pleasantly plump. Of course, that hadn’t stopped
her
from wasting away.
    Ruth’s eyes widened. What a horrible thing to think! What was the matter with her? She turned about to hang up her coat and give herself time to get the odd sense of annoyance and restlessness under control.
    â€œCome into the parlor and have some tea. It
is
Christmas Eve even if you choose to traipse into town and sit there alone instead of spending the holiday at the only home you’ve ever known with the only family you have left.”
    Despite her father’s complaint, Ruth did not possess a rebellious nature. If she had, life would not have gone smoothly for her in the Kelly household or in Kelly Creek. Because Robert Kelly’s word was law in the town he’d given his name to and in the house he called his home.
    The misfortune of war had made Robert Kelly, son of Irish immigrants, his first fortune. Kelly had devoted his youth to working his way out of poverty. By the time he was