Free Holiday Wishes by Nora Roberts Page A

Did you lie to him, too? Did you make him think she was his so you could have your cozy house and lace curtains?”
    “Jason, please—”
    “I had a right.” He thrust her away before he could give in to the violence that pushed him on. “I had a right to her. Ten years. You stole that from me.”
    “No! No, it wasn’t like that. Jason, please! You have to listen!”
    “The hell with you.” He said it calmly, so calmly she stepped back as though she’d been slapped. The anger she could argue with, even reason with. Quiet rage left her helpless.
    “Please, let me try to explain.”
    “There’s nothing you can say that could make up for it. Nothing.” He yanked his coat from the wall and stormed out.
    “You’re a damn fool, Jason Law.” The Widow Marchant sat in her kitchen rocker and scowled.
    “She lied to me. She’s been lying for years.”
    “Hogwash.” She fiddled with the tinsel on the little tree on the stand by the window. Cheerful strains from the Nutcracker floated in from the living room. “She did what she had to do, nothing more, nothing less.”
    He prowled around the room. He still wasn’t sure why he’d come there instead of heading for Clancy’s Bar. He’d walked in the snow for an hour, maybe more, then found himself standing on the widow’s doorstep. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew I was Clara’s father.”
    “I had my ideas.” The rocker squeaked gently as she moved. “She had the look of you.”
    That brought a peculiar thrill, one he didn’t know what to do with. “She’s the image of Faith.”
    “True enough if you don’t look hard. The eyebrows are you, and the mouth. The sweet Lord knows the temperament is. Jason, if you’d known you were to be a father ten years back, what would you have done?”
    “I’d have come back for her.” He turned, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’d have panicked,” he said more calmly. “But I’d have come back.”
    “I always thought so. But it—well, it’s Faith’s story to tell. You’d best go on back and hear it.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “Can’t stand a martyr,” she muttered.
    He started to snap, then sighed instead. “It hurts. It really hurts.”
    “That’s life for you,” she said, not unsympathetically. “Want to lose them both again?”
    “No. God, no. But I don’t know how much I can forgive.”
    The old woman raised both brows. “Fair enough. Give Faith the same courtesy.”
    Before he could speak again, the kitchen door burst open. In the doorway stood Faith, covered with snow, face washed with tears. Ignoring the wet she brought in with her, she ran to Jason. “Clara,” she managed to stammer.
    When he took her arms he felt the shudders. Terror flowed from her into him. “What’s happened?”
    “She’s missing.”

Chapter 9
    “They’re going to find her.” Jason held her arm as they both stumbled through the snow to her car. “They probably have already.”
    “One of the kids said he thought she and Marcie went behind this farmhouse to look at the horses in the barn. But when they went back, they weren’t there. It’s dark.” Faith fumbled with her keys.
    “Let me drive.”
    She gave him no argument as she climbed in the passenger side. “Lorna and Bill called the sheriff from the farmhouse. Half the town’s out there looking for them. But there’s so much snow, and they’re just little girls. Jason—”
    He took her face in his hands, firmly. “We’re going to find them.”
    “Yes.” She wiped away tears with the heels of her hands. “Let’s hurry.”
    He couldn’t risk more than thirty miles an hour. They crept down the snow-covered road, searching the landscape for any sign. The hills and fields lay pristine and undisturbed. To Faith they looked unrelenting. But while fear still overwhelmed her, she’d conquered the tears.
    Ten miles out of town the fields were lit up like noonday. Groups of cars crisscrossed the road and men and women tramped through