Read We Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus for Free Online

time in ten years just yesterday, and this morning she appeared out of nowhere to ask him for a job. Stranger still, she’d nearly broken down in tears when he told her he didn’t have anything.
    What was going on? She couldn’t need work that badly. The Wentworths were very wealthy. She had to have received a large settlement from the divorce, and there was always child support. She and Terry had three kids together.
    Anyway, she certainly didn’t look like she was hurting. That dress she’d been wearing was obviously expensive, and it fit her to perfection, hinting at feminine curves while revealing much of her long, long legs. Her thick russet hair was wound up into one of those sexy twists in back, and her light green eyes…God, those eyes. They were the prettiest he’d ever seen. He’d thought so in high school. He thought so now.
    “Hello? Are you with me today, Cole?”
    Jackie’s car had disappeared around a corner, and Cole finally tore his attention away from the road. He closed the door. “I’m here.”
    “So what’s up?” His brother indicated Cole’s towel and grinned. “You have a guest last night? She must have been pretty good. You certainly stood in that doorway like alovesick fool long enough. I guess that means things are really over between you and Laura, huh?”
    Cole gave Rick a look designed to warn him away from the subject, but Rick only laughed.
    “That evil-eye thing used to work when we were kids, but in case you’ve forgotten, I’m almost as big as you are now.”
    “Ha! That evil-eye thing never worked on you, ” Cole said. “You forced me to take you to the mat on everything. But you’re twenty-eight now, and not likely to get much bigger. I’ve still got you beat by a couple of inches, so you’d better watch yourself or I’ll whip your ass again.”
    Rick angled himself into a chair and propped his feet on the desk. “Like that time when I was fourteen and I wrecked Dad’s truck?”
    “I didn’t whip you for wrecking it,” Cole said. “I whipped you for stealing it.”
    Rick shook his head and put his feet down. “Creepers, Cole. How’d you keep us all in line? We were somethin’, weren’t we.”
    Cole laughed, because he could—now. The hard part was over. Despite his mother’s illness, their poverty and his father’s long hours in the mine, he’d kept his brothers safe. He’d seen to it that three out of the four of them—all except Rick—received a high-school diploma, that they learned the value of hard work, and that they stayed away from drugs and alcohol. As the oldest, he’d done his best by them, but he’d had to crack a few heads along the way, usually Rick’s.
    “It wasn’t easy,” he admitted, rubbing his neck. “And you were the worst of the bunch.”
    Rick started going through the papers on his desk; Cole took a moment to check the messages on the answering machine before heading back to dress for the day.
    “Yeah, Andrew was the one you liked,” Rick said. “He was always your favorite.”
    Cole shrugged. “He was the baby of the family and not likely to challenge me.”
    “And look at him now. He’s going to college, just the way you told him to, right? Andrew’s still a good little boy.”
    Cole noted the subtle change in Rick’s voice, but wasn’t exactly sure what to attribute it to. Was he jealous of Andrew’s opportunity? Cole couldn’t have afforded to put Rick through college seven years ago. He didn’t have a high-school diploma, anyway. Chad had also missed out on any higher learning, but the younger Perrinis were now at the University of Nevada in Las Vaegs. “You could go back and finish high school, if you want,” he said. “Then go on to college. Brian and Andrew would even let you room with them, if you hurry.”
    Rick didn’t answer right away. He slammed one of the drawers in his desk and took a calculator out of another. “Maybe someday I’ll overcome my wild past and do just that.”
    Cole