The Last Noel Read online

  “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?”

  “Just water for me,” Brenda said hurriedly.

  Of course someone so slim and tiny wouldn’t consume a liquid with calories, Skyler thought. Then again, at least the girl had answered on her own. She had been so quiet since her arrival.

  She was shy. Not like this group.

  “Frazier, what will you have?”

  “I’ll have a beer—if Dad doesn’t think it will turn me into an alcoholic.”

  David stared at his older son, still irritated.

  “Don’t be silly. Your father knows that you don’t abuse alcohol.”

  “Yeah. Not like some of those old boozehounds at the pub,” Frazier said.

  “Boozehounds? Those fine fellows put food on your plate,” Paddy said.

  “Including the ones who fall off their bar stools?” Frazier asked.

  “We don’t serve drunks,” David snapped.

  “Dad’s right,” Kat said, grinning, “We reserve the right not to serve people who are falling off the bar stools.”

  “Even when they’re our relatives,” Jamie chimed in.

  “Jamie…” Skyler cautioned with a sigh. So much for taking control. David was clearly taking every word seriously, which did not bode well for a pleasant meal.

  “Mom, what would you like to drink?” Kat asked.

  Skyler hesitated, shaking her head. “Hell. Just give me the whole bottle of whiskey.”

  To her amazement, there was silence.

  Then laughter.

  Even David’s lips twitched.

  “Come on, guys, let’s all behave,” Kat said. “We’re driving Mom to drink.”

  “Let’s eat,” Skyler said with forced cheer. “Sit down already.”

  “You want us anywhere in particular?” Kat asked, walking up behind her mother and hugging her.

  “In a chair at the table, that’s all,” she said, and gave her daughter a little squeeze in return.

  “We’re short a place setting,” Kat noted.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Yes, we are. Count,” Kat said.

  “There are six place settings, and five of us and…Brenda and Paddy,” Skyler said. “I’m sorry. I’ll get another plate.”

  “I’ll go find a chair,” Kat said. “I think there’s an extra in the den.”

  “I’m so sorry, guys,” Skyler said as Kat hurried out.

  “That’s okay, Mom. You can’t count, but we love you anyway,” Frazier teased, smiling at her.

  She smiled back. “And Dad?”

  His smiled wavered for a moment. “We love Dad, too, of course. Although I think he can count.”

  “Cute,” Skyler said. “Brenda, please sit down and just ignore my family.”

  Uncle Paddy was staring at her questioningly, and Brenda looked acutely uncomfortable. How the hell had she miscounted? She just hadn’t been thinking clearly. She’d been too busy listening in on other people’s conversations. Worrying.

  She didn’t want arguing. She wanted peace and the whole Norman Rockwell picture.

  “I’m sorry for intruding on your family Christmas—” Brenda began.

  “Don’t be silly, you’re not intruding in the least, and we’re delighted to have you. I’m just getting absentminded in my old age,” Skyler said.

  “It’s all those years in a bar,” Frazier teased.

  “Pub,” David said.

  “Beer fumes,” Jamie put in.

  David groaned exaggeratedly. “All right, enough with the pub and the beer. Brenda, you are entirely welcome here. Please sit down.”

  “Please,” Skyler echoed. “Jamie likes to say that I have adult attention deficiency disorder. Personally, I think it comes from my children,” she explained, staring firmly from one of her sons to the other. “Let’s all sit and enjoy our dinner.”

  Suddenly the doorbell rang.

  Skyler looked at her husband, who looked back at her, his eyebrows arching questioningly. “You have more company coming?” he asked. His tone, at least, was light. “Someone’s long-lost relative? Stray friend?”

  She glared at him fiercely. “No.”

  “Why would anyone be traveling in this weather?” Brenda mused.

  So she did speak without being spoken to, Skyler thought, then wanted to kick herself for the unkind thought. But the girl was s
o quiet most of the time. Probably, her family didn’t fight all the time, and she just felt uncomfortable, intimidated.

  “Someone might have had an accident, Dad,” Frazier suggested.

  “If someone is hurt or stranded, of course they can come in,” Skyler said quickly.

  “What idiot would be out in this weather?” David asked.

  The bell sounded again.

  “We could just answer the blasted thing and find out what’s going on,” Paddy said.

  “I’ll get it,” Jamie said.

  “No. I’ll get it,” David said firmly. “You all just sit.”

  But no one sat.

  David led, Skyler close behind him, everyone else behind her. The swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room, which sat to the one side of the entry, thumped as one person after another pushed it on the way through.

  The bell rang again.

  “Hurry, someone might be freezing out there,” Skyler said.

  And yet, even as she spoke, she felt a strange sense of unease.

  Somehow Norman Rockwell seemed to be slipping away.

  And she—who took in any stray puppy, who always helped the down and out, animal or human—didn’t want David to open the door.

  TWO

  The chair in the den lost a leg the minute Kat picked it up. She let out a groan of frustration and tried to put it back on.

  It would go back on, but it wouldn’t stay, because a crucial screw seemed to be missing. She looked around, getting down on hands and knees to see if it had rolled into a corner somewhere. No luck.

  No problem. There was a chair at the desk up in her room, and she knew it was fine, because she had been sitting in it earlier while she was online.

  She was upstairs when she heard the doorbell ring. Curious, she walked to the window and looked out. She saw a car stuck nose-first in a snowdrift, barely off the road, down where the slope of their yard began.

  The bell rang again, and two men backed out from beneath the porch roof and stared up at the house. Strangers. She could barely see them; the wind was really blowing the snow around, and they were bundled up in coats, scarves and hats, but something about their movement made her think that they were in their thirties—late twenties to forty, tops, at any rate.

  She frowned, watching as they moved back out of sight and the bell rang for a third time.

  Not at all sure why, she didn’t grab the chair and run down the stairs. Instead, she found herself walking quietly out to the landing, where she stood in the shadows, looking and listening.

  “We know it’s Christmas Eve,” one man was saying.

  “And we’re so sorry,” said the second.

  “But we ran off the road and we need help,” said the first.

  “A dog shouldn’t be out on a night like this,” said the second.

  “We were just about to sit down to dinner.” Her father’s voice, and he sounded suspicious. Good.

  “Dinner,” the first man repeated.

  Peering carefully over the banister, still strangely unwilling to give herself away, Kat tried to get a look at the men. One was bulky and well-dressed, and shorter than her father and Frazier by a few inches; since they were about six-one to Jamie’s six-two, that made the stranger about six feet even.

  The other man, the one who had spoken first, was leaner. He had the look of…a sidekick? Odd thought, but that was exactly the word that occurred to her. He needed a haircut, and his coat was missing several buttons. Even his knit cap looked as if it had seen better days.

  When the heavier man took off his hat, he was bald—clean-shaven bald. He had thick dark brows, and eyes that were set too close together.

  Beady eyes, Kat thought, then chided herself for watching too much C.S.I.

  “Good heavens, come in and get out of the cold,” her mother told the pair.

  Her mother would have taken in Genghis Khan, Kat thought, although she didn’t sound entirely happy about extra guests at the moment. Maybe because it was Christmas Eve, she decided. But really, what choice was there? The two men could hardly go anywhere else.

  But what the hell were they doing out to begin with? Maybe they didn’t live here near the mountains, but anyone who lived anywhere in New England knew how treacherous the weather could become in a matter of hours, and the TV and radio stations had been talking nonstop about this storm for two days before it even got here. It had been touch and go whether the family even made it up here in time.

  “Thank you, ma’am, and bless you,” the tall man said, holding out his hand. “I’m William Blane, but folks call me Scooter. And this is my associate, Mr. Quintin Lark.”

  “How do you do, and I, too, thank you,” the stocky man said.

  Her father looked at her mother and smiled in solidarity. At that moment, despite the bickering that never seemed to stop, she was reminded of how much she loved her parents. And that she was proud of them. Her father worked hard, doing everything around the pub. He lugged boxes and kept the books, but he could pick up a fiddle or a keyboard and sit in with a band, and he was always willing to pitch in and wash glasses. He managed the kitchen, the bar and the inventory.

  And her mother…Her mother had raised three children, working all the while. Like Kat’s dad, her mom could sit in with the band. She had a clear soprano and a gift for the piano. She served drinks and meals, tended bar and always picked up a broom and a dust rag when needed.

  Her mother was the key element that truly turned the place from a bar into a pub, Kat decided. She listened. She knew their customers. She knew that Mrs. O’Malley’s cat had produced five kittens and that those kittens were as important to Mrs. O’Malley as Mr. Browne’s new grandson was to him. She knew old man Adair had gotten part of a mortar shell in his calf during the war—World War II, that was—and that as stubborn and sturdy as the old fellow might appear, his leg ached on an hourly basis. Her mother cared about people, perhaps too much. And in her pursuit of constant cheer, she had often sacrificed the truth.

  Even now, she was frowning sympathetically. “You say you had an accident? Where? What happened?”

  “We didn’t listen to the weather report, I’m afraid,” Quintin said.

  “We were listening to a CD, instead of the news,” Scooter said. “We ran off the road just at the edge of your property. I wasn’t even sure we’d make it this far.”

  “Not to worry,” Skyler said. “We have plenty of food. Come on into the kitchen.”

  “I’ll just get some more chairs,” David said.

  “Wasn’t—” Jamie began.

  “No,” Skyler said firmly, staring at Jamie. “No…we’ll be fine in the kitchen. We just need more chairs.”

  Kat’s jaw dropped. Her mother—her mother—was suspicious.

  And pretending that she wasn’t in the house.

  “Right,” her father said. “Two more chairs. Jamie, take Quintin and, uh, Scooter into the kitchen. Get them a drink.”

  “A shot of whiskey,” Skyler said. “You both need a good shot of whiskey. Just to warm up.” She sounded nervous, Kat thought, though no one who didn’t know her would notice.

  “Whiskey sounds great,” Scooter said.

  “Let’s all go into the kitchen,” Quintin added, and Kat thought she heard something ominous in his voice.

  “I’ve got to get more chairs,” David said.

  “No,” Scooter said softly.

  It should have been a perfect holiday tableau: a family opening their doors to stranded travelers on a cold and stormy Christmas Eve.

  But something just wasn’t right. It was as if the picture was out of focus.

  Everyone just stood there awkwardly. And then, subtly, Quintin’s face changed.

  Kat could see the way he smiled. It was a slow smile. A scary smile.

  “We need to stay together. All of us,” Quintin told them.

  Kat felt as if she were staring down at a scene in a play, and someone had forgotten a line.

  W
hat in God’s name had tipped everyone off? How had her mother, the soul of trust, figured out—and so quickly—that there was something unsavory about their uninvited guests?

  And how had the creep, Quintin, realized that her parents were suspicious?

  “This is my house,” David said. “We’re happy to keep you from freezing to death, but you’ll behave by my rules in my house.”

  “Can’t, sorry,” Scooter said. He actually looked a little sad.

  “Oh? Come on now, we were just about to have dinner, so let’s all honor the spirit of the holiday and sit down together.”

  Good acting job, Dad, Kat cheered silently, then realized that it hadn’t made any difference.

  Quintin was staring at her mother. “What made you become so mistrustful? Surely you’re not a detective, but…a psychiatrist, perhaps? No matter. Yes, this is your house. But I’m the one with a gun. In fact, my friend Scooter has a gun, too. Neither one of us wants to hurt you, but we’re outnumbered. Thankfully, you seem to be a nice family. A smart family. So I’m sure you’ll see the wisdom of behaving when I tell you that if any one of you gets out of line…Mom here gets it. So the rest of you might be able to take us, but you’d go through the rest of your neat little suburban lives without a mom. So we all stay together,” he said softly. “Can’t take any chances. After all, you might have a gun of your own squirreled away somewhere,” he said, turning to her father.

  “Bullshit!”

  Her father was a big man—in good shape, as well. He lunged at Quintin, and her brothers, bless them, followed his lead. But Quintin was fast. He pulled his gun before her father got to him.

  “Stop now, or Mom is dead!” Quintin roared.

  The sound of a bullet blasting ripped through the night, followed by the shattering of glass exploding into a thousand pieces, as Scooter took out a lamp.

  “Nobody move,” Quintin said.

  Everybody stood still, as ordered. Brenda started to cry.

  “Shut up!” Quinton said.

  Frazier put his arm around Brenda, drawing her close to him.

  Uncle Paddy seemed the least disturbed of all of them. He seemed to be assessing the invaders with remarkably sober eyes.

  “No more heroics,” Quintin said. “We’ve given you one chance. Next time, someone dies. Because I’m not going to prison again, ever. I’d rather die first. And if I’m going to die, I’ll happily take someone with me. Understand?”