SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS: Sweet Historical Romance Novella--Short Read by Bobby Hutchinson Page A

train when she was just a baby and never been seen again. Maria had worked as a cook in lumber camps and cleaned houses in Vancouver to support them. She’d made certain Anna went to school, and she’d taught her how to cook and sew. She’d tried with the knitting, but Anna hated knitting.
    From now on, though, it would be up to Anna to try and make the warm garments her family needed in winter in this icy, snow filled valley. She sighed and glanced over at her sewing machine and the small stack of orders that must be ready for New Years, two dresses and a few aprons, not much because only the doctor’s wife and the wives of the mine bosses had money for new things. Still, even a few dollars helped.
    In desperation, she’d started taking in sewing four months ago, when the mines went slack, and William only had work underground two or maybe three times a week. Each night they stood together, outside in the cold, listening for the mine whistle. If it blew twice, there was no work the next day. And more and more often, it blew twice.
    William was a good man, but being out of work most of the time and worrying about money had made him short tempered. He and Anna had quarreled that morning, and he’d stormed off, walking to town to see if he could pick up a day’s work shoveling snow or washing dishes at the hotel.
    Sophie tugged at her arm. “Mommy, Mommy, come. Papa Mazuruk’s at the door with the milk.”
    Anna had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even heard Teddy the dog barking. She hurried to the kitchen door. Steve Mazuruk was on the porch, his cheerful face red from the cold, his round eyeglasses steamed over and pushed down to the end of his knobby nose. The milk had a frozen hat of cream, and big soft flakes of snow blew in the door.
    “Good afternoon, Anna. Happy Christmas, my Zaichiks.” He beamed at the children.
    “Come in, Steve.” He stepped into the kitchen, stamping his boots on the rug and holding out the glass bottle of milk, and also a smaller bottle filled with rich yellow cream.
    Anna began to shake her head and hand back the cream. She already owed Steve for the past week’s milk, they couldn’t afford the cream.
    “Take, take,” he insisted. “For the top of the porridge, for the Zaichiks, for Christmas morning.” When she accepted the bottles, he used his fingers to clear the frost from his glasses, settled them on his nose and then reached down and lifted Thomas up, tossing him into the air.
    “Happy, happy Christmas,” he bellowed, and Anna had to smile at his good nature. She’d asked what Zaichik meant, and Steve had said it was a small rabbit in the Russian language. So he was calling the children bunnies, and Anna loved it. She herself now called them her little Zaichiks now and again.
    Steve and Lilya Mazuruk were their closest neighbors. They lived a half-mile away, down a hill on a farm by the Elk River. Although they were no real relation, they insisted the children call them Mama and Papa. The Mazuruk’s were the best neighbors anyone could hope for.
    Sophie and Thomas were convinced the Mazuruk’s were rich, because they had running water in their house, a bathroom and a sauna in a separate small building off the back porch, and once when they visited, Mama Mazuruk gave them bananas, which Sophie and Thomas had never tasted before. It was true they were better off than most. Steve owned the local dairy, and also the only bakery in Michel.
    But money didn’t buy happiness, as Anna’s mother had often reminded her. The Mazaruk’s only daughter, Mary, had died of spinal meningitis two years before. She was only eighteen. All they had left was their older son, Peter. He was an engineer on the CPR Railroad. Thomas adored Peter. He’d named his teddy bear after him, and the big man doted on Thomas whenever he saw him, but Peter didn’t come home often. William said he was a lady’s man, drinking and gambling when he wasn’t working.
    “You will come for