The Last Noel (3 page)

Frazier hesitated, as well, before saying, “Sure, Dad.”

“Good. You two deal with the lights, and I'll get the food on the table,” Skyler said.

“Let's get Mister Sixteen and Rebellious down here, too, huh?” Kat said. “He can give us a hand.”

“Good idea, and would you get Uncle Paddy, too?”

There was a short silence after she spoke. Perhaps she'd even imagined it, she thought.

David wasn't thrilled about her uncle being there, she knew, and she was suddenly thankful that they'd both been born the children of Irish immigrants. He would never expect her to actually turn away a relative, even if he felt that Paddy was a drunk who deserved whatever he was suffering now. Which wasn't really fair, she thought, but David was entitled to his opinion.

Often enough, Uncle Paddy was the real Irish entertainment at the pub. In his own way, of course.

Kat sprang to life, dispelling whatever awkwardness there might have been. She grinned and ran halfway up the stairs, then called, “Jamie! Jamie O'Boyle! Get your delinquent ass down here on the double. Uncle Paddy…dinner.”

“I could have yelled myself,” Skyler said.

“But you'd never have used such poetic language,” Kat said, and even David laughed.

 

The first thing Craig realized when he came to was that his head was killing him.

Quintin packed one hell of a wallop.

He didn't know how long he'd been out, didn't know how far they had come. All he knew was that even from where he lay, tossed into the backseat of their stolen vehicle, when he first cracked his eyes open it looked like the whole world had turned white.

Impossible.

He closed his eyes again, waited a long moment, then reopened them. The world was still white. It was snow, and not just snow, but fiercely blowing snow. Hell. It was a nor'easter and a mean one. A blizzard.

He ached all over and wondered if anything in his body was broken.

And what about the old man they had robbed?

His stomach tightened painfully when he caught sight of a familiar stand of trees and realized he knew exactly where they were. For a moment, memories filled his mind and drove away the pain, and then every muscle in his body tensed in an effort at self-preservation, as the car suddenly spun and came to a violent halt in a snowdrift.

“Asshole!” Quintin shouted from the front seat.

“You're the asshole,” Scooter returned savagely. “You try driving in this shit.”

“Doesn't matter now. We're stuck. We'll have to get out and walk.”

“We're in the middle of nowhere!” Scooter protested.

“No, we're not. There's a house right up there,” Quintin snapped, pointing. “I can see the lights in the windows.”

“What? We're going to drop in for Christmas dinner?” Scooter demanded angrily.

“It's still Christmas Eve,” Quintin said. “The season of peace and goodwill toward men.”

“Fine. We're going to crash somebody's Christmas
Eve
dinner?” Scooter asked, sounding doubtful, even disbelieving, and thoroughly uneasy.

“That's exactly what we're going to do,” Quintin said.

Craig's head was still in agony. Despite that, he felt a terrible sense of dread. Inwardly, he cringed, his mind screaming.

He knew that house. He had dropped by often in a different time.

In a different life.

He remembered it so well: set on a little hill, a beautiful house, comfortable and warm, a place where a family—a real family—gathered and cooked and celebrated the holidays.

How could they have settled on that house? How could the fates be that unfair? It wasn't even right on the road, for God's sake; they should never even have known it was there as they drove past in the storm.

“We've got to get away from here. Far away,” Scooter argued.

Good thought,
Craig approved silently.

“Far away?” Quintin mocked. “You're out of your mind. Just how far do you think we can get in this weather, without a car—seeing as someone drove ours into a snowdrift? We need a place to stay. Are you insane? Can't you see? We're not going to get anywhere tonight.”

Scooter was silent for a moment, then said, “We shouldn't see people tonight.”

“Don't you mean people shouldn't see us?” Quintin asked. He laughed. “Like it will make a difference. Whatever we have to do, we'll do.”

In the back, eyes shut again as he pretended he was still unconscious, Craig shuddered inwardly and considered his options. Depending on how he looked at things, they went from few to nonexistent.

Sorrow ripped through him at the thought of the old man they had left behind, followed by a fresh onslaught of dread.

He prayed in silence, trying desperately to think of a way out and cursing fate for his present situation.

How the hell had he ended up here? And tonight of all nights?

 

“Ah, me poor bones,” Uncle Paddy moaned when Kat went up to repeat the news that dinner was ready, although he looked quite comfortable, reclining against a stack of pillows on the very nice daybed that sat near the radiator in the guest room. He had been happily watching television, and he'd apparently gotten her mother to bring him up some tea and cookies earlier. She suspected he hadn't been in a speck of pain until she'd knocked briefly and opened the door to his room.

She stared at him, then set her hands on her hips and slipped into an echo of his accent. “Your old bones are just fine, Uncle Patrick. It's no sympathy you'll be getting tonight.”

Her uncle looked at her indignantly—a look he'd mastered, she thought.

“A few drops of whiskey would be makin' 'em a whole lot better, me fine lass.”

“Maybe later.”

“I've got to be getting down the stairs,” he said.

“Uncle Paddy, even I know it's easier to get down a flight of stairs
before
taking a shot of whiskey,” Jamie said from behind Kat, making her start in surprise. So her little brother had finally left the haven of his room, she thought. He was only sixteen, but already a good three inches taller than she was. He even had an inch on Frazier these days. He was thin, with a lean, intelligent face. He worried that he didn't look tough enough, but he wasn't exactly planning to be a boxer. He was a musician, something that came easily enough in their family. He loved his guitar, and when he played a violin, grown men had been known to weep.

It occurred to her that she hadn't spent a lot of time with him in the last year, and this was a time in his life when he could use some sane guidance from his older siblings. She remembered being sixteen all too well.

The opposite sex. Peer pressure. Drugs. Cigarettes.

Once, she'd thought of him almost as her own baby. Even though there were only six years between them, she'd been old enough to help out when he'd been born. Then again, they hadn't grown up in the usual household. Their home was by Boston Common, the pub closer to the wharf, and they'd all spent plenty of time in that pub. When she'd been a teenager, her friends had enjoyed the mistaken belief that she could supply liquor for whatever party they were planning.

She could still remember the pressure, and the pain of finding out that some of her so-called friends lost all interest in her when she wouldn't go along with their illegal plans. It wasn't until she'd had her heart seriously broken her first year of college that she'd learned to depend on herself for her own happiness. That she could be depressed and work in her parents' pub all her life or she could create her own dreams.

Age and experience. She had both, she decided, at the grand age of twenty-two.

She smiled at how self-righteous she sounded in her own mind. Well, maybe she was, but she knew she was never going to make the mistakes her parents had made. She wasn't going to live her life entirely for others. Oh, she meant to have children. And it looked as if Uncle Paddy was around to stay. But she was never going to torture herself over her husband's temper or the bickering that went on around her.

To hell with them all; that would be her motto. God could sort them out later.

But, for the moment, she realized, she was concerned about Jamie—and the fact he had been so quick to lock himself away. What had he been up to?

She knew, despite her mother's determination to keep certain situations private between herself and a particular child, that Jamie had gotten himself into some minor trouble up here last year. Luckily for him, a sheriff's deputy had just come to the house and commented on how easily calls could be traced these days.

“You're behaving, right?” she said to him now.

He'd been in his room since they'd gotten there. Of course, he'd made no secret of the fact that he thought she and Frazier should deal with their father on holidays, seeing as the two of them got to escape back to college after a few days, while he had to deal with his parents on a daily basis.

Jamie just grinned and nodded toward Uncle Paddy, who had taken offense at Jamie's last comment and was staring at his youngest nephew with his head held high in indignation.

“At my age, a bit of whiskey is medicinal,” he announced.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jamie said irreverently. “But the whiskey is downstairs. So grab your cane, and we'll be your escort.”

Kat grinned. Maybe this Christmas would be okay after all, despite its somewhat rocky start.

“Come on, Uncle Paddy. You're not that old, so move it,” Jamie said.

“There is simply no respect for seniors in this house,” Paddy said. “The abuse your poor wee mother takes…” He shook his head.

“My mother is neither poor nor wee,” Kat retorted. “Now come on. It's Christmas, and we're going to have fun and be happy.”

“Yes, dammit. Whether we like it or not,” Jamie agreed.

Kat reached for Paddy's arm. With a groan, he rose. “Ah, me old bones.”

“Your old palate can have a wee dram the minute we get you down the stairs,” Jamie assured him.

Paddy arched a brow. “Are ye joinin' me then, lad?”

“Sure, it's Christmas.”

“Ye're not of an age.”

“Like you were?” Jamie said, rolling his eyes.

“This is America.”

“So?” Jamie said. “My parents run a bar. It's not like I haven't had a shot now and then.”

Paddy let out an oath. Kat knew what it was because she'd been told as a child never to learn Gaelic from Uncle Paddy. Luckily, not many people spoke Gaelic, so they seldom knew what he was saying when he was out and about and swearing at the world.

Now he waved a hand at them and headed for the stairs under his own power. “The young. No respect,” he muttered, then raised his cane and shook it at them.

They both laughed and followed him downstairs.

 

Skyler had all but the last of the food on the table when Uncle Paddy entered the kitchen and headed straight for the liquor cabinet.

“Your beer's on the table,” she said, her tone slightly sharp. She realized that she was looking over her shoulder, hoping that David hadn't seen Paddy heading straight for the whiskey.

“I'll take a beer, too,” Jamie said cheerfully, coming in behind Paddy.

“Jamie…” she said warningly.

“It's better than the hard stuff, right?” Jamie asked.

“Actually, I think a beer and a shot have about the same alcohol content,” Kat said, following her brother into the kitchen.

“What, now our son is heading straight for the liquor, too?” David demanded harshly from behind Kat.

His words tightened the knot of tension already forming between Skyler's shoulder blades as she remembered the “incident” with Jamie.

“Jeez, Dad, would you lighten up?” Jamie demanded.

“Great. I knew we should have gone to your family,” Frazier murmured to Brenda, as they walked into the middle of the argument.

Take control, Skyler told herself angrily. All your life, you let things go, trying to maintain the peace. Now for once in your life, do something. “David, Jamie, please,” she said. “It's Christmas Eve.”

“We own a bar,” Jamie said. “What's the big deal?”

“Stop it, Jamie. Stop it now,” she said firmly, wondering why family gatherings had to be such a nightmare.

“Pub,” David corrected irritably. “And that's no reason for my kids to be drunks, too.”

“Ye'd be referring to me, eh?” Paddy demanded.

Take control, Skyler ordered herself. And finally spoke up. “Uncle Paddy, you have a drinking problem, and you know it. Jamie, you may have a beer. One.” She stared at her husband. “I'd rather he drink with us than away from us, if he's going to drink. And he
is
going to drink. So…sit down. Kat, Frazier, Brenda, what would
you
like to drink?”