Abby's Christmas. Lynnette Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ there. ’Night.” If she responded, he didn’t hear her.

      Standing outside the chain-link fence, he stopped to take a deep breath of cold, dry air. He hadn’t remembered the house being so small, so…so tight. On the other hand, he must have had some reason for running away, right? Besides knowing that if he stayed, his life would be over before it began.

      With the Harley rumbling underneath him, Noah admitted to himself that he didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Most of the guys he’d hung with in high school were probably in jail. Even if they weren’t in the joint right now, they surely had been, and seeing them could constitute a violation of his parole. Not a smart move for his first week of freedom.

      The nightly rituals in the neighborhoods south of Boundary Street hadn’t changed in fifteen years, either. And they differed not at all from the usual agenda on the “bad” side of most towns he’d ever been in. The bars did a booming business. Working girls lingered on street corners and beside alleys. He fielded a couple of waves as he waited at a stoplight, remembered how long it had been since the last time, and gave the possibility a second’s consideration—until Abby’s sweet face appeared in his mind’s eye.

      Suddenly, a hooker in black leather and chains didn’t seem to be what he needed. With a shake of his head and a lift of his hand, Noah rolled on down the hill, to another light and through an intersection, then into the gravel parking lot of the Carolina Diner.

      The lights were still on and half a dozen cars sat in the parking lot. He’d be safe enough going in for a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of pie. He remembered liking Charlie Brannon’s chocolate pie.

      As the door shut behind him, he realized he’d made a mistake. Every table in the room was empty except for a few square ones pushed together in the center, where people sat with papers spread out in front of them, working.

      Working, that is, until they all stopped and turned to stare at him. Noah felt his cheeks heat up at the same time as he started to recognize the faces. The names popped into his head a second or two later.

      Abby got out of her chair and came toward him, one hand extended. “Noah! It’s good to see you again.” Before he could back out, she caught his wrist in her cool fingertips. “I’m sure you’ll remember almost everybody here.”

      “I didn’t mean to interrupt….”

      “You’re not.” The tall, brown-haired guy at the end of the table got to his feet, offering a handshake and a grin. “Welcome back, Noah.”

      “Dixon.” Noah gripped Dixon Bell’s hand. “Thanks.”

      Dixon turned to the woman in the chair next to him, who was standing as well. “You remember Kate Bowdrey? She’s now Kate Bell.”

      “I remember she was the smartest person in the class.” He smiled at the slender and beautiful Mrs. Bell. “How are you?”

      “Glad to see you again.” To his surprise, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been gone too long.”

      All of a sudden, he was surrounded by people he’d gone to high school with, returning handshakes and hugs, trying to catch up with a lot of changes very fast. Kate’s sister Mary Rose, as blond as her sister was dark, had married Pete Mitchell. Adam DeVries, who didn’t seem to stutter anymore, was the mayor of New Skye and married to a woman named Phoebe. Jacquie Lennon was now Jacquie Lewellyn and shoeing horses for a living, which meant she must still be horse crazy.

      And Abby was still Abby. “What can I get you to drink?” With her hands on his shoulders, she leaned forward as he sat in the chair she’d just left. “More hot chocolate? Iced tea? Coffee?”

      “I came for coffee. And—” He glanced around the table to see that most of the others had enjoyed some kind of dessert. “And some chocolate pie?”

      “You got it.” Her hands tightened for a second before she let go. Noah noted a sudden hollow in his chest where his breath used to be. He turned to Adam, on his right. “Looks like there’s some serious planning going on tonight.”

      “We’re the committee for the big Christmas Dance. Or maybe it’s called the Reunion Dance.”

      “Holiday Reunion Dance,” Jacquie put in from across the table. “Our fifteen-year high school class reunion is gonna be a holiday bash.”

      “Fifteen years?” Noah said. “Hard to believe it’s been so long.”

      “Or that we’re so old.” Abby set a mug down by his left hand. “I still feel eighteen.”

      “I usually feel like I’m eighteen when I get up in the morning,” Pete said with a grin. “But by the time I get home, it’s a lot closer to thirty-three.”

      After more than two years in prison, Noah felt as if he was closer to fifty. “Uh…sounds like a good time. Do you expect a big crowd?”

      The question did what he’d hoped, which was to get all of them talking, explaining the plans for the dance, the guest list, the decorations and music. All he had to do was nod and listen and try to make sense of this unfamiliar world he’d stumbled into.

      Abby brought him his pie and then sat in an empty chair across the table. Between bites—the pie was every bit as good as he remembered—Noah took the opportunity to watch her with her friends. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, so he could see the long column of her throat and her delicate pink ears, dusted with the same freckles that sprinkled her face. Her hazel eyes glowed as she talked, and a smile always hovered around her sweet, full lips. She was the most alive woman he’d ever seen. And the most desirable.

      Not in this life. He gave himself a mental punch and refocused his attention on the discussion.

      “What we need to decide is how to decorate the gym,” Jacquie said. “People will feel like they’re supposed to play basketball if we don’t do something.”

      “We can hang mistletoe from the hoops.” Dixon winked at his wife, who blushed.

      “It’s drafty in there, too.” Mary Rose pretended to shiver. “My dress has short sleeves and a low back.”

      Pete put an arm around his wife and gave her a squeeze. “That’s why we’re going to do lots of dancing. Slow dancing.” Noah noticed for the first time that Pete’s left arm was in a sling, under which he wore a cast from shoulder to fingertips.

      Abby rolled her eyes. “After two years, you two still act like newlyweds. Consider the rest of us who aren’t so besotted, why don’t you? Noah, what do you think?”

      He put his hands up in defense. “I don’t have a clue about stuff like this.”

      She frowned at him. “You’re not helping.”

      That was supposed to bother him? He started to shrug, then realized he didn’t like disappointing Abby. “Well, you could make a smaller space within the gym, if you used dividers of some kind.”

      “Dividers? Like screens?”

      Noah nodded. “Yeah, or curtains. I think there are curtains on stands you can rent for that kind of thing.”

      “Or we could build something easily СКАЧАТЬ