by Nora Roberts
Contents
Also by Nora Roberts
Title Page
Copyright
Holiday Recipes
Home For Christmas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
All I Want for Christmas
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Special Excerpt from Calculated in Death
About the Author
Nora Roberts
Hot Ice
Sacred Sins
Brazen Virtue
Sweet Revenge
Public Secrets
Genuine Lies
Carnal Innocence
Divine Evil
Honest Illusions
Private Scandals
Hidden Riches
True Betrayals
Montana Sky
Sanctuary
Homeport
The Reef
River’s End
Carolina Moon
The Villa
Midnight Bayou
Three Fates
Birthright
Northern Lights
Blue Smoke
Angels Fall
High Noon
Tribute
Black Hills
The Search
Chasing Fire
The Witness
Series
Irish Born Trilogy
Born in Fire
Born in Ice
Born in Shame
Dream Trilogy
Daring to Dream
Holding the Dream
Finding the Dream
Chesapeake Bay Saga
Sea Swept
Rising Tides
Inner Harbor
Chesapeake Blue
Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy
Jewels of the Sun
Tears of the Moon
Heart of the Sea
Three Sisters Island Trilogy
Dance Upon the Air
Heaven and Earth
Face the Fire
Key Trilogy
Key of Light
Key of Knowledge
Key of Valor
In the Garden Trilogy
Blue Dahlia
Black Rose
Red Lily
Circle Trilogy
Morrigan’s Cross
Dance of the Gods
Valley of Silence
Sign of Seven Trilogy
Blood Brothers
The Hollow
The Pagan Stone
Bride Quartet
Vision in White
Bed of Roses
Savor the Moment
Happy Ever After
The Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy
The Next Always
The Last Boyfriend
eBooks
The O’Hurleys
The Last Honest Woman
Dance to the Piper
Skin Deep
Without a Trace
The Donovan Legacy
Captivated
Entranced
Charmed
Enchanted
Cordina’s Royal Family
Affaire Royale
Command Performance
The Playboy Prince
Cordina’s Crown Jewel
The MacGregors
Playing the Odds
Tempting Fate
All the Possibilities
One Man’s Art
For Now, Forever
The MacGregor Brides
The Winning Hand
The MacGregor Grooms
The Perfect Neighbor
Rebellion & In from the Cold
Night Tales
Night Shift
Night Shadow
Nightshade
Night Smoke
Night Shield
The Calhouns
Courting Catherine
A Man for Amanda
For the Love of Lilah
Suzanna’s Surrender
Megan’s Mate
Irish Legacy Trilogy
Irish Thoroughbred
Irish Rose
Irish Rebel
Best Laid Plans
Loving Jack
Lawless
Summer Love
Boundary Lines
Dual Image
First Impressions
The Law Is a Lady
Local Hero
This Magic Moment
The Name of the Game
Partners
Temptation
The Welcoming
Opposites Attract
Time Was
Times Change
Gabriel’s Angel
Holiday Wishes
The Heart’s Victory
The Right Path
Rules of the Game
Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb
Remember When
J. D. Robb
Naked in Death
Glory in Death
Immortal in Death
Rapture in Death
Ceremony in Death
Vengeance in Death
Holiday in Death
Conspiracy in Death
Loyalty in Death
Witness in Death
Judgment in Death
Betrayal in Death
Seduction in Death
Reunion in Death
Purity in Death
Portrait in Death
Imitation in Death
Divided in Death
Visions in Death
Survivor in Death
Origin in Death
Memory in Death
Born in Death
Innocent in Death
Creation in Death
Strangers in Death
Salvation in Death
Promises in Death
Kindred in Death
Fantasy in Death
Indulgence in Death
Treachery in Death
New York to Dallas
Celebrity in Death
Anthologies
From the Heart
A Little Magic
A Little Fate
Moon Shadows
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
The Once Upon Series
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
Once Upon a Castle
Once Upon a Rose
Once Upon a Star
Once Upon a Kiss
Once Upon a Dream
Once Upon a Midnight
Silent Night
(with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)
Out of This World
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)
Bump in the Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Dead of Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Three in Death
Suite 606
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
In Death
The Lost
(with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)
The Other Side
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
The Unquiet
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Also available . . .
The Official Nora Roberts Companion
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
HOLIDAY WISHES
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Harlequin Books edition / October 2004
InterMix eBook edition / December 2012
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
Harlequin Books edition / October 2004
InterMix eBook edition / December 2012
Home for Christmas copyright © 1986 by Nora Roberts.
All I Want for Christmas copyright © 1994 by Nora Roberts.
Excerpt from Calculated in Death copyright © 2013 by Nora Roberts.
Cover landscape © Nikolai Tsvetkov/shutterstock.
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Nora Roberts’s
Holiday Recipes
Pop’s Pancakes
A longtime tradition in my family is Christmas breakfast. My parents’ home was always crowded and noisy, and everyone lent a hand—watching the light on the waffle iron, holding their plates out for more. We were allowed to fry the bacon or flip the pancakes on the griddle. But nobody—nobody—made the pancake batter except my pop. There were two huge bowls of it to feed the horde before we got down to exchanging gifts and ripping colored paper to shreds. Because there were so many of us, we often ate in shifts, crowding around the dining room table and spilling over to the breakfast bar. Wherever I sit, the first bite takes me back to childhood.
6 eggs, beaten
1 can evaporated milk
¼ cup butter or margarine, melted
1½ cups regular milk (1 cup for waffles)
3 cups flour
6 tbsp baking powder
Combine ingredients in the order listed. Mix well. Let stand for 10 minutes to rise. For pancakes, spoon batter onto hot griddle. Be patient—don’t flip until bubbles appear.
Enjoy!
Plain or Painted Holiday Cookies
Baking helps put me in the mood for the holidays. There’s nothing like a little flour on your hands to start “Jingle Bells” ringing in your head. The tradition in my house goes this way: First put on an album of Christmas music. It isn’t possible to work over a hot oven without the proper setting. Gather your ingredients:
¾ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Optional: evaporated milk, food coloring, small paintbrush, colored sugar or sprinkles
If you have kids, this is the time to step back and let them do some of the work. It makes it fun, and the mess is almost worth it. Let one of them mix the shortening and sugar together. Let another one crack the eggs into the bowl. Then you can help by picking out the pieces of eggshell. Add the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. Blend in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill for at least an hour.
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Now comes the time when the kids fight over who rolls out the dough. See that it’s rolled about 1/8” thick on a floured board. If you don’t have cookie cutters in cute little Christmas shapes, you should. We generally stick to the tried-and-true angels, Santas and trees.
When you cut the cookies, make sure to dip the cutter into flour now and then or you’ll end up with a jammed-up Santa. Place cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet. Now you can either sprinkle them with plain or colored sugar and be done with them, or if you’re feeling adventurous you can use that little paintbrush. Divide small amounts of evaporated milk into several cups, along with a little food coloring in each. Then go ahead and paint. Remember, it doesn’t matter if Santa’s blue or the Christmas tree is red. And just add a little water as the mixture thickens.
Bake for six or seven minutes. Break off a couple of times to sing a round of “Deck the Halls.” You’ll feel better. You should have about four dozen cookies, but then, if you have children, forget it. When your husband comes home and asks what’s for dinner, shove a cookie in his mouth!
Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding
I do a lot of complicated baking at this time of year—time-consuming treats that keep me in the kitchen for hours. I really don’t mind, but there’s something to be said for simplicity. One of my men’s favorites is an old family recipe handed down through the Scottish branch of my family, through my father to me. It’s wonderfully simple and old-fashioned, something that can literally be tossed together when you discover unexpect
ed holiday visitors are coming to call. Best of all, since it’s made in one dish, there’s little to clean up. I should warn you, most of the measurements are estimates. Experiment. It’s that kind of dish.
6 to 8 slices bread, torn into pieces
3 to 4 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup margarine, melted
¼ to ⅓ cup sugar
3 to 3½ cups milk
About ¼ cup raisins (it’s up to you)
Cinnamon to taste (I like a lot myself, maybe 3 tbsp or so. I really don’t measure—I go by how it looks.)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix all ingredients, gently but thoroughly, in a casserole dish. Pop it into the oven for one hour. Can be eaten warm or cold.
Home for Christmas
Chapter 1
So much can change in ten years. He was prepared for it. All during the flight from London and the long, winding drive north from Boston to Quiet Valley, New Hampshire, population 326—or it had been ten years before when Jason Law had last been there—he’d thought of how different things would be. A decade, even for a forgotten little town in New England, was bound to bring changes. There would have been deaths and births. Houses and shops would have changed hands. Some of them might not be there at all.
Not for the first time since Jason had decided to visit his hometown did he feel foolish. After all, it was very likely he wouldn’t even be recognized. He’d left a thin, defiant twenty-year-old in a scruffy pair of jeans. He was coming back a man who’d learned how to replace defiance with arrogance and succeed. His frame was still lean, but it fitted nicely into clothes tailored on Savile Row and Seventh Avenue. Ten years had changed him from a desperate boy determined to make his mark, to an outwardly complacent man who had. What ten years hadn’t changed was what was inside. He was still looking for roots, for his place. That was why he was heading back to Quiet Valley.
The road still twisted and turned through the woods, up the mountains and down again, as it had when he’d headed in the opposite direction on a Greyhound. Snow covered the ground, smooth here, bumpy there where it was heaped over rocks. In the sunlight, trees shimmered with it. Had he missed it? He’d spent one winter in snow up to his waist in the Andes. He’d spent another sweltering in Africa. The years ran together, but oddly enough, Jason could remember every place he’d spent Christmas over the last ten years, though he’d never celebrated the holiday. The road narrowed and swept into a wide curve. He could see the mountains, covered with pines and dusted with white. Yes, he’d missed it.
