Free Home for Christmas: New Adult Holiday Dark Suspense Romance by Emme Rollins Page A

Christmas, safe and happy, before she left. Once her sister was established, once she started working, Brody would find her. Brody would come looking for Ginny, come looking for the evidence she had in her bag, and Ginny would have to be gone. There was no way around that. But until then, she thought they would be safe enough.
    Relatively safe. That’s what she had to live with until she could get on a bus and go somewhere safer. Nick knowing her, knowing Maggie, was a problem, but she really believed, if he was going to say something, it would have happened already. Besides, Brody had seen her in the coffee shop, he likely was looking all over Millsberg for Ginny. He didn’t suspect she was here in a neighboring town two hours away. He knew Tim and Maggie had split, of course, but he didn’t know where Maggie was. At least, she hoped not. And Tim... well, he had disappeared with all Maggie’s cash, including whatever had been in the safe deposit box, and Ginny didn’t think he would ever come back.
    “Gin...” Maggie stopped her as they headed toward the hill, tugging on her sleeve.
    “What?” She was carrying the boxes as she turned to face her sister. Maggie looked more relaxed than she’d seen her in weeks.
    “I’m sorry about the other day.” Maggie’s eyes started well up with tears. “I’m just so stressed. You have no idea. It’s so hard, telling the boys their dad isn’t coming back... and trying to reassure them that it’s all going to be okay...”
    “I know.” Ginny felt her own chin start to tremble, tears threatening too. She knew about stress. She knew about trying to make it all look okay. She knew but she couldn’t say anything to her sister. She wouldn’t. It was Maggie and the boys she wanted to protect, and even if it killed her, she was going to do that. “I know, Mags, I know.”
    Maggie reached out and hugged her, knocking the boxes out of Ginny’s arms into the snow. Ginny hugged her back, feeling hot tears falling, trying to wish them away. It was almost over. She would stay through Christmas, and then she would head to California, somewhere Brody would never find her. He might talk to Maggie, he might even threaten her, if he found her, but only to try to find out where Ginny was. He didn’t want to have anything to do with Maggie anymore, not since Sean was born, really. She was damaged goods.
    Ginny was the one he wanted now.
    “I love you, Gin,” her sister whispered in her ear.
    “I know,” Ginny whispered back, taking what comfort she could in her sister’s arms, like she used to when she skinned her knee falling off her bike. “I love you too, Mags.”
    It had been hard on both of them, not having a mother, Ginny realized as they parted, Maggie helped her with the boxes, grabbing one and handing her the other as they marched toward the hill. They’d lost their mother and had lost the stepfather lottery big time, but they’d made the best of it. It made them closer, really, in the end. But she thought Maggie had gotten the worst of it, because while Maggie was playing the mother role, she had no one around to mother her.
    Now, she was a real mother, with two very real little boys she loved very much, and Ginny thought they were the luckiest little kids in the world. Her sister had always been a good mother to Ginny, and now she was a good mother to them. Ginny was glad the boys had her.
    “You guys ready to go sledding?” Ginny called to her nephews. They were rolling around in the snow, giggling together.
    “We don’t have sleds,” Sean reminded her, looking askance at the boxed.
    “Aunt Ginny is going to make you each a sled,” Maggie told them with a smile as she handed her sister the other box. Ginny was already tearing and folding the cardboard, assessing the size of each of them as she did. “She’s very resourceful.”
    You don’t know the half of it, Ginny thought, feeling her sister’s hand on her shoulder.
    And, if Ginny had anything to do