Read Their First Noel for Free Online Page B

including a section just for the Snowy Eaves Inn. People have donated photos, scrapbooks, souvenirs. Those along with the town archives of newspapers, yearbooks and what have you, who knows? You might get a lead on finding your father.”
    She shrugged into her coat and glanced back at him, with her eyes narrowed. “You don’t fool me, Andy McFarland. This is all part of your attempt to get me to formulate a plan.”
    He smiled slightly, wrapped her scarf around her neck then turned to retrieve his vest. “You can thank me later.”
    â€œI will. Maybe at the park lighting…you know the one you hadn’t planned on attending,” she teased as she opened the door and stepped back out into the brisk New England morning, leaving him speechless.

Chapter Five
    T he rest of the day went swiftly by. Or at least Corrie realized it had gone by when she found herself sitting alone at a library table in the silent fourth floor museum squinting to make out the faces in a faded instant photograph pasted into a scrapbook. “Mom?”
    She skimmed her finger over the photo of a group of young people standing with gardening tools in front of what looked like a quaint little log cabin, then inched in close to try to make out the features. The light through the blinds on the row of large windows that looked out over the front of the building had already begun to fade. She looked up to the row of metal file cabinets on one side, then behind her to discover the dusty displays cloaked in long shadows. A quick check of her cell phone told her it was almost four o’clock.
    She set her glasses aside to rub her eyes as she pressed her spine straight against the rigid back of the chair. After hours of sitting hunched over any piece of information she could find about the Snowy Eaves Inn or anyone in the area with the last name Wallace,the movement sent a warmth circulating through her muscles. She rolled her head to ease the ache in her neck.
    If only she could dispel the ache in her heart with such a small effort.
    How could she have worked so hard and literally come so far and still have nothing? She had no solution for the gingerbread inn, no lead on her father and no chance of snow in the forecast. “At least I have Andy.”
    A door creaked on the floor below.
    â€œTo help me, that is. At least I have Andy to help me, um, with the gingerbread contest and…all,” she hurried to qualify, even though there was no one around to have heard her. She was alone. All alone.
    She sighed. Probably just feeling a touch of homesickness, right? Her mother had probably felt the same way the summer she came to the Snowy Eaves Inn. She turned her attention to the photo, then to her cell phone.
    Corrie pressed the first number on her speed dial, took a deep breath, then held the phone up to her ear. There wasn’t anyone else around to overhear the conversation but putting it on speakerphone seemed too impersonal, too distant. She wanted to hear her mom’s voice in her ear, to hold the object connecting them across all these miles, even if it was, at best a tenuous connection.
    â€œBennington’s Bakery, Barbara speaking.”
    â€œHi, Mom. You busy?”
    â€œNot too busy for you, honey. Is anything wrong?”
    â€œNo. Not…wrong.” Just hearing her mom’s voice brightened Corrie’s outlook. They had spoken during thedrive up and last night when Corrie finally got settled in her room at Maple Leaf Manor but that had been dutiful daughter stuff, checking in, making sure her mother knew how to find her, that kind of thing. This call? “I just…I think I’m looking at a picture of you.”
    â€œYou think? You don’t know?”
    Other mothers might have been curious or confused by a remark like that. Corrie’s mom wanted clarity. She wanted to hear that Corrie was in control. “I’m at the town museum in Hadleyville, looking for