The Last Noel by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

realized she was real.
    â€œCraig?” she murmured incredulously. “Craig Devon?”
    â€œKat?” He couldn’t see clearly, couldn’t think clearly, but he knew he had to shake it off.
    â€œOh my God! What are you doing here? Did they kidnap you or—”
    She broke off, staring at him. He steeled himself, feeling his heart freeze and then shatter into little pieces.
    â€œI heard you were in jail,” she said. Her voice had gone as cold as the snow around them.
    Jail? He felt like laughing. She didn’t know the half of what had happened.
    His choice, of course. The turns his life had taken weren’t the kind a man longed to share with the woman he loved. The woman he longed to have love him in return.
    Kat.
    So impossible.
    Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world…
    Damn, his head hurt and his tongue was thick, but he needed to speak and speak fast. “What are you doing out here?” he asked her. “Those bastards in your house—”
    â€œI know,” she said coldly.
    â€œSo how did you get out—”
    â€œThey don’t know about me,” she said.
    The world seemed to steady around him. He could see her in the moonlight that glowed softly through the snow. The red fire of her hair was like a silk frame around her face, and though there wasn’t enough illumination for him to really see her eyes, he knew them well. Technically speaking, they were hazel, but the word wasn’t enough to describe the reality. They were green, and they were gold. Sometimes they were the sun, sometimes like emeralds. But tonight they were filled with disappointment, even revulsion.
    â€œThey didn’t kidnap you, did they?” she asked.
    He struggled to sit. “No. But, Kat—”
    He broke off when he heard a sound, and turned to look as the door to the house opened. Scooter was there with two men. Craig squinted. Kat’s older brother and her father, he had to assume. “Kat.” He found the strength to grip her shoulders. “Someone’s coming—one of them. So if they really don’t know about you, you need to get the hell out of here. Do you understand me? Disappear.”
    â€œYou’re one of them.”
    â€œNo…not exactly. One of them hit me and—”
    â€œOne of them hit you?” she interrupted skeptically.
    â€œYes, and left me out here. Now get the hell out of here!”
    The men were coming down the walk. She could see them now, Scooter, her father and Frazier.
    â€œCraig, if you’re with them…”
    â€œPlease, Kat, I don’t know what they’ll do. Go for help.”
    â€œGo for help?” she inquired. “I barely made it to the car in this wind. See the way they’re all hunched over against it? Where am I going to go, Craig? How the hell am I going to get help?”
    Snowdrifts were everywhere. They were going to see her footprints, he thought, as the wind picked up, howling. Maybe the snow was blowing around enough to hide her footprints.
    He roused and took hold of her shoulders again. He could see her eyes. Gold and emerald. His stomach lurched. She’d been the first really good thing in his life, and he had screwed it up. “I’m begging you to get out of here and find help before Scooter sees you.”
    â€œThere is no help, Craig.”
    â€œThen hide somewhere.”
    â€œHide?” she asked indignantly. “They have my family. I can’t just run away and hide. Do you have a gun? If you have one, give it to me, damn it.”
    â€œKat, I don’t have a gun.”
    â€œBut you were with them.”
    â€œKat, I’m begging you, go!”
    â€œAre you with them or not?”
    â€œKat, I…”
    His head throbbed with pain and humiliation at the look in her eyes. If they caught her…Lord, if they caught her…He opened his eyes and looked up.
    She was gone, vanished into the