Christmas Excerpt: The Sentence

Hello readers, Marley Matthews here.  I'm Elaine's heroine in her Christmas novella The Table in the Window.  Last Saturday I shared a Christmas excerpt from The Table in the Window, so today how about a Christmas excerpt from The Sentence?  In this excerpt Elaine's hero, Clint Hayes experiences his first real family Christmas.  First a blurb, then the excerpt.  You can buy the book in most retail outlets and from the publisher at http://www.astraeapress.com/#!/~/product/category=662255&id=10046831

Blurb:
How could he do it! How could her father bring the guy who burned the church into their home for six months? Yeah, it was an accident and her dad’s a minister, but if he wanted to help this man, why didn’t he go to the prison to do it? And no matter what anyone says, she doesn't watch him all the time.

Excerpt:

“Your turn, Rachel,” Cynthia said with a smile.

To Clint’s surprise, Rachel picked his gift first. She held the box to her ear and shook it. “Hmm. It doesn’t weigh too much. And it’s too small to be a tee shirt.”She smiled at Clint. “He was looking

at tee shirts with rebel flags on them at the grocery store.  ”Everyone laughed so Clint knew the shirt wouldn’t have made a good gift. He watched on pins and needles as Rachel unwrapped her package and pulled the lid off the box.

“Why, Clint!”She held the twinkling chain with the little music note up to the light to see it better. “It’s…It’s really beautiful.”

 

He wondered why she suddenly looked so guilty but guessed it might be because she had treated him like dirt ever since he arrived.

She scrambled across the paper in the floor and sat down beside him. “Will you put it on for me?”

 

She smiled at him, a sweet, open, sunny smile that made his knees go as weak as water. He fumbled around with the tiny catch and finally got it fastened.

Rachel turned around to face him. “Well, how does it look?”

“Pretty, Rachel. It looks real pretty.”