The Twilight Before Christmas (4 page)

The snowglobe they hold has a secret inside

Where the mists roll in place of the snow that’s outside

Inhaling the mingled scents of cinnamon and pine, Kate wandered into the kitchen of the cliff house. The sound of Christmas music filled the air and blended with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies and the fragrance of richly scented candles. “Is that Joley’s voice?” Kate asked, leaning her hip comfortably against the heavily carved wood cabinet. “When did she make a Christmas collection?”

Hannah Drake spun around, teakettle in her hands. Her abundance of blond hair shimmered for a moment in the last rays of sunshine pouring through the bay window. “Kate, I didn’t hear you get out of the shower. I think I was in my own little world. Joley sent the CD as a surprise, although she made a point of saying it was not to go out of the family.”

They both laughed affectionately. “Joley and that band of hers. She can sing just about anything from gospel to blues, from rock to rap, but she’s so careful not to let anyone know. I think she likes her bad girl image. Did she mention whether she’s coming home for Christmas? I know she was touring.”

Hannah’s face lit up, her smile brilliant. “She’s going to try. I can’t wait to see her. We keep missing each other in our travels.”

“I hope she gets here soon. Talking on the phone just isn’t the same as all of us being together.” Kate swept a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “What about Mom and Dad? Has anyone heard from them? Are they coming here for Christmas?”

Hannah shook her head. “Last I heard they sent kisses and hugs and were snuggling together in their little chalet in the Swiss Alps. Libby got in a quick visit with them before she headed out to the Congo. She said she was coming home for Christmas. Mom and Dad promised next year they’d be here with us.”

Kate laughed softly as she leaned over to sniff the canister of loose tea. “Mom and Dad are still such love-birds. What are you making?”

“I was in the mood for a little lavender, but anything is fine.” Hannah scrutinized Kate closely. “But let’s go with chamomile. Something soothing.”

Kate smiled. “You think I need a little soothing?”

Hannah nodded as she measured the tea into a small pot. “Tell me.”

“I ran into Matthew Granite and his brother Danny.” Kate tried to sound casual, when her entire body was trembling. Only Matt could do that to her. Only Matt moved her. She’d never understood why.

“Matthew Granite? I thought that might be him.” Hannah’s huge blue eyes settled on her sister with compassion and interest. “How did he seem?”

Kate shrugged her slender shoulders. “Wonderful. Helpful. He offered to look at the old mill for me and help with the renovations.” She always enjoyed looking at her younger sister. Hannah wasn’t just beautiful, she was strikingly so, exotically so, with her bone structure, abundance of pale, almost platinum hair, her enormous, heavily lashed eyes, and sultry lips. Beauty radiated from her. Kate had always thought Hannah’s extraordinary beauty came from the inside out. She watched the graceful movements of Hannah’s hands as she went about making tea. “Matt’s always so helpful.” She sighed.

Hannah reached out to her, clasping Kate’s hands in a gesture of solidarity. “Was it the same?”

“You mean with his brothers laughing all the time? Well, only one was with him, Danny.” Color crept up under Kate’s skin. “Yes, of course. Every time I get anywhere near the Granites they all laugh. I have no idea why. It isn’t the same way Jonas is with you. Matthew never needles me. He’s always perfectly polite, but I seem to have some humorous effect on his family. I try as hard as I can just to be polite and calm, but the brothers laugh until I want to go check a mirror to see if I have spinach in my teeth. Matthew just glares at them, but it really draws attention to all the silly things I do in front of him.” She squeezed Hannah’s fingers before letting her hand go. “I’ve showered and changed, but I came home with my clothes covered with dirt. Poor Matthew just came from work, was dusting himself off, and I had to be two steps behind him. When he tried to open his truck door, of course I managed to get too close.”

“Oh, Katie, honey, I’m so sorry. What happened?” Hannah’s face mirrored her sister’s distress.

Kate shrugged. “The door nearly knocked me over, and he had to apologize yet again. The poor man spends every minute apologizing to me. I’ll bet he wishes he never had to see me again.”

“No he doesn’t,” Hannah said firmly. “I think he’s always been sweet on you.”

Kate sighed. “You and I both know Matthew Granite would never look at me twice. He’s wild and rough and an adrenaline junkie. He played every sport in high school and college. He joined the Rangers. I researched what they do. Even their creed is a bit frightening. They arrive at the ‘cutting edge of battle’ and they never fail their comrades and give more than one hundred percent. The creed says things like fight on even if you’re the lone survivor, and
surrender
is not a Ranger word.” She shuddered delicately. “He’s a wild man, and he does very scary wild things. He’s going to look at women who climb mountains and scoff in the face of danger. Can you see me doing that?”

“Kate,” Hannah said softly, “maybe he’s more settled now. He went out and did his save the world thing and now he’s come home and he’s working the family business. He could have changed.”

Kate forced a fleeting smile. “Men like Matthew don’t change, Hannah. I was telling you my tale of woe. We were just at the point where Jonas drove up. You know how he has to make his little ‘Drake sisters’ comments. He implied every time I was around something awful happened. It just made the situation worse.” She sighed again. “I tried to look as though it didn’t bother me, but I think Matthew knew.”

“Jonas Harrington needs to fall into the ocean and have a nice hungry shark come swimming by.” Hannah dragged the whistling teakettle from the stove and splashed water into the teapot, a fine fury radiating from her at the thought of Jonas Harrington saying anything to upset Kate. The water boiled in the little china teapot, bubbles roiling and bursting with a steady fury. Steam rose.

Kate covered the top of the teapot with her palm, settling the water back down. “You were out on the captain’s walk.”

Hannah nodded, unrepentant. “The earthquake bothered me. I felt something rising beneath the earth. I can’t explain it, Kate, but it frightened me. I was sitting here listening to Joley’s Christmas music, you know how much I love Christmas, then I felt the quake. Almost on the heels of it, something else disturbed the earth. I felt it as a darkness rising upward. I knew you were out riding, so I went out to the walk to make certain you weren’t in trouble.”

“And you felt the wind come in off the sea,” Kate said. She leaned her hip against the counter. “I felt it too.” She frowned and drummed her fingers on the tiled counter. “I smelled something, Hannah, something old and bitter in the wind.”

“Evil?” Hannah ventured.

Kate shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t that exactly. Well,” she hedged, “maybe. I don’t know. What did you think?”

Hannah leaned against the brightly tiled sink, her body so graceful the casual movement seemed balletic. “I honestly don’t know, Kate, but it isn’t good. I’ve felt disturbed ever since the earthquake and when I looked at the mosaic, there was a black shadow beneath the ground. I could barely make it out because it seemed to move and not stay in one place.”

Kate glanced at the floor in the house’s entryway. Her grandmother, along with her grandmother’s six sisters, had made the mosaic, women of power and magic, seven sisters creating a timeless floor of infinite beauty. To most people it was simply a unique floor, but the Drake sisters could read many things in the ever-changing shadows that ran within it. “How very strange that neither of us knows precisely whether the disturbance is evil.” She shrugged her shoulders and drew in a deep breath filled with cinnamon and pine. “I love the fragrances of Christmas.” She tapped her foot, a small smile hovering on her face.

“You’re holding back on me,” Hannah guessed, her voice suddenly teasing. “Something else happened, didn’t it?”

“When the earthquake started, Matthew put his arm around me to steady me, and we just stood there, even after it was over.” She grinned at Hannah. “He is so strong. You have no idea. That man is all muscle. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up in a puddle at his feet! But I managed to look cool and serene.”

Hannah pretended to swoon. “I wish I could have seen it. Matthew is definitely hot, even if he is a Neanderthal. I must have come up on the captain’s walk just after that, just in time to see the slimy toad of the world arrive in his little sheriff’s car.” She smirked. “Too bad the wind came up, and his precious little hat went sailing out to sea.”

“Shame on you, Hannah,” Kate scolded halfheartedly. “Jonas means well. He’s just so used to everyone doing everything he says, and we always seem to be in the middle of any kind of trouble in Sea Haven. You’re beginning to enjoy tormenting him.”

“Why shouldn’t I? He’s tormented me for years.”

There was so much pain in Hannah’s voice that Kate slipped her arm around her sister’s waist to comfort her. Jonas had known them all since they were children, and he’d never understood Hannah. She’d been an extraordinarily beautiful, very intelligent child, but she’d been so painfully shy outside of her own home, the sisters had had to work their magic just to get her to school every day. Jonas had been certain she was haughty, when in fact, she’d rarely been able to speak in public. “Well, all in all, it was a good day. You managed to lose another hat for Jonas, and I got to be up close and personal with the hottest man in Sea Haven.” Kate hugged Hannah before pouring herself a cup of tea and walking into the living room with it.

Hannah followed her. “Did you get your manuscript mailed off?”

Kate nodded. “Murder and mayhem will prevail in a small coastal town. I forgot to put the tea cozy back on the pot, will you do it?”

Hannah glanced into the kitchen and lifted her arms.

When Kate looked back, the cozy was safely on the teapot. “Thanks, Hannah. I do have to say, Jonas was invaluable to me with the research.”

“I know he was, but don’t credit him with doing it to be nice or anything.” Hannah’s large blue eyes reflected her laughter. “He was trying to get on your good side so you’d persuade me to stop messing around with his precious hats.”

They both swung around as the front door burst open. Abigail Drake rushed in, a small woman with dark eyes and a wealth of red-gold hair spilling down her back in a thick ponytail. Her face was flushed and her eyes over-bright. The moment she glimpsed her sisters, she burst into tears.

“Abbey!” Hannah set her teacup down on the highly polished coffee table. “What is it? You never cry.”

“I humiliated myself in front of the entire Christmas pageant committee,” Abigail said miserably. She threw herself into the overstuffed armchair, curled her feet under her, and covered her face with her hands. “I can never face any of them again.”

Hannah and Kate rushed to her side, both putting their arms around her. “Don’t cry, Abbey. What happened? Maybe we can fix it. It can’t be that bad.”

“It was bad,” Abigail muttered from between her fingers. “I accidentally used
the voice.
I wasn’t paying attention. There was the earthquake, and I was so distracted because I felt something under us, something moving just below the surface seeking a way out. I
felt
it.” Of all the talents gifted to the sisters, Abigail felt hers was the worst. Her voice could be used to extract the truth from people around her. As a child, before she’d learn to control the tone and the wording of her sentences, she’d been very unpopular with her classmates. They would often blurt out the truth of some escapade to their parents or a teacher whenever they were in her presence. Abigail pulled her hands down and stared at them with her sad eyes. “It isn’t an excuse. I’m not a teenager. I know I have to be alert all the time.”

Hannah and Kate exchanged a long, fearful look. “We felt the shadow too, Abbey. It was very disconcerting to both of us. What happened at the meeting?”

Abbey drew her legs up tighter into her body. “We were all discussing the Christmas pageant.” She rubbed her chin on the top of her knees. “I felt the rift in the earth, a blackness welling up, and the next thing I knew I was asking for the truth.” She clapped her hands over her ears. “I got the truth too. Everyone did. Bruce Harper is having an affair with Mason Fredrickson’s wife. They were all in the room. Bruce and Mason got in a terrible fistfight, and Letty Harper burst into tears and ran out. She’s six months pregnant. Sylvia Fredrickson slapped me across the face and walked out, leaving me standing there with everyone looking at me.” She burst into tears all over again.

Kate frowned as she rubbed her sister’s shoulders. She could feel the waves of distress pouring off of Abigail. “It’s all right now, honey. You’re home, and you’re safe.” At once a soothing tranquillity swept into the room, a sense of peace. The wicks on the unlit candles on the mantel leapt to life with bright orange-red flames. Joley’s voice poured into the room, uplifting and melodic, bringing with it a sense of home and Christmas cheer. Kate leaned into her sister. “Abigail, your talent is a tremendous gift, and you have always used it for good. This was a distortion of your talent, not something any of us could have foreseen. Let it go. Just breathe and let it go.”

Abbey managed a small smile, the sobs fading at the sound of her sister’s voice. Kate the peacemaker. Most thought she prevented fights and solved problems, but in truth, she had a magic about her, a tranquillity and inner peace she shared with others just by the way she spoke. “I wish I had your gift, Kate,” Abbey said. She pressed her hand to her cheek. “I didn’t mind everyone’s finding out about Sylvia—she likes to think she can get any man—but poor little Letty, pregnant and loving her stupid unfaithful husband so much. That was heartbreaking. And at Christmas too. What possessed me to be so careless? I’m so ashamed of myself.”