Free An Angel for Christmas by Heather Graham

as he had when they’d been in high school. “Sense of duty, right, sis? Her lover boy is off in Cancún, and she must be dying to know what he’s up to.”
    â€œShayne, please, it’s a mature relationship,” Morwenna said.
    â€œAh,” Gabe said knowingly. “Like an open relationship?”
    â€œNo! Oh, for God’s sake, please. It’s possible to have a relationship in which people remain monogamous when they’re apart,” Morwenna said.
    â€œSure,” Shayne said, turning away.
    â€œIt is!” Morwenna insisted.
    â€œI was agreeing with you, Morwenna. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just teasing, really,” Shayne said.
    â€œYou didn’t hurt me,” she protested. A lie! She worried; if it had been a really good relationship, wouldn’t he have told the others just to be adults and have a good time on their own because he wanted to be with the woman he loved at Christmas?
    Or were their values simply different? she wondered. It was hard to admit; she had come because of a sense of duty. But she had also wanted to come—Christmas to her had always been this house on top of the mountain. New Year’s might be right for a wild jaunt, but Christmas meant being with the ones she loved. That didn’t negateother values, she assured herself. It was just what it meant to her.
    â€œI’m not a family member, but I’m glad that you’re here,” Gabe told her. “It’s been nice to meet you.”
    She gave him a weak smile. Really? I’d have thought about leaving you in the snow; I’m my father’s daughter, braving the trenches of Manhattan in a state of continual suspicion.
    She wasn’t sure what to reply.
    â€œWell, you made a great Christmas elf,” she told him.
    â€œI’m going to haul in the first bag of stuff,” Shayne said. He grimaced. “We were talking about putting the bicycle together out here…keep all the packing and stuff out of the house,” he said.
    â€œWe were just about to start, and I’m afraid the reality may be as hard as the imagery we were playing with before,” Gabe said.
    â€œI’m good with directions. I’ll help,” Morwenna said.
    â€œOkay, you two get started. I’ll be right back. Or as soon as the wind will let me,” Shayne told them.
    Gabe got the door so Shayne could head out with a large canvas bag. She saw that the box with the bike parts was already on the floor, opened. “Where are the directions?” she asked Gabe.
    â€œRight here,” he said, handing her a sheet from the top of the box.
    â€œEasy. A1 goes to A2, as soon as you have B1 connected to C1, and then, somehow, D2 has been thrown into the lot. Ah, there’s E3!”
    Gabe groaned, and started pulling all the pieces out of the box. They knelt down together to study the diagram.
    Morwenna couldn’t help but be aware of him as a man, and she found herself wondering how she would have felt about him if they’d met under different circumstances. But, of course, this was a strange circumstance, and she was committed.
    She had never been able to date casually. Of course, she’d dated Alex before they’d become a couple, and she’d found it awkward and difficult. Her friends in Manhattan had tried hard to teach her that every dinner didn’t have to lead to sex, and that she wasn’t obligated to have sex, but thenagain, didn’t she want it now and then? In college, she’d had one relationship, and they had both been honest and committed, and then, at graduation, they had realized the bond wasn’t strong enough for either of them to change their goals in life, and they had parted as friends. And eventually, of course, their calls had grown infrequent, and time had gone by.
    Then, Alex had come into the firm, and the first time they’d gone out, she’d been smitten. She’d