Coming Home for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  Keith studied her for a moment before turning away and going to his car.

  This woman his agent had recommended was definitely a Pollyanna type, he thought disparagingly. Just his luck. The last person he wanted in his life right now was Pollyanna.

  He made an attempt to set her straight, admittedly more for his sake than hers. There was just so much cheerfulness and optimism he could put up with listening to, and he was past his limit.

  “People aren’t nearly as nice as you seem to think they are,” he told her.

  “And,” Kenzie interjected, “they’re not nearly as evil, self-centered and hot-tempered as you seem to think they are.” The look she gave him said they were at a stalemate and for now, she was willing to let it go at that.

  “Better safe than sorry,” he pointed out.

  She pressed her lips together, aware that since he was the client and she was in essence working for him, she should just drop this.

  And she did.

  For about five seconds.

  “Being safe is highly overrated,” she told him.

  Kenzie paused for a moment, back to debating whether or not to reveal who she was. Initially, she’d decided not to mention it, but as things began to progress, she’d gotten more and more tempted to let him in on the truth.

  She decided to begin slowly and see where this went. “You know, it’s okay for you to grieve. People will understand.”

  “What they won’t understand is not grieving,” he pointed out, then shrugged as he added, “But, well, you can’t show what you don’t feel, right?”

  “I don’t believe that,” she told him quietly. His comment didn’t jibe with what she knew about him, or had once known, at any rate.

  Keith was about to tell her that he didn’t care what she believed or didn’t believe. But he never got the chance, because she went on to say with more conviction than he felt she should exhibit, “Your mother was a very special lady.”

  Keith sorely disliked people preaching on things they couldn’t possibly have any idea about. “And you came to this conclusion how?” he demanded. “By standing and looking at her for a total of, oh, about sixty seconds?”

  “No, it was a lot longer than that.”

  There was contempt in his eyes. “Maybe you’d better learn how to tell time.”

  Okay, now she had to tell him the rest of it, Kenzie decided. The moment she’d recognized him and realized who he was, she’d wavered on whether or not to tell him right off the bat. But he’d been so removed, so distant, she’d decided there was no point in saying anything. He might even be suspicious why she’d bring this into their dealings. But now she didn’t see how she could avoid it.

  “I don’t have any trouble telling time,” she informed him.

  Keith ushered her impatiently over to the far edge of the sidewalk, away from the funeral home’s entrance. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  She took a breath before beginning, then plunged in. She began with the most obvious line. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Remember you?” Keith repeated, confused. Okay, something familiar about her had been nagging at him, but she had no way of knowing that. “You came to my door this afternoon, saying that my agent sent you. I admit I’m out of my depth here, but my memory’s not exactly Swiss cheese. I remember you from this afternoon.”

  She made no comment on his response. Instead, she went straight to the part he needed to hear. “We went to school together.”

  His eyes narrowed as he focused on her face. “‘We’ as in you and I?” he questioned suspiciously.

  She nodded, then added, “And Amy.”

  Kenzie watched as her client’s face darkened. She could tell that he thought she was making this up. That for some perverse reason, she was using his sister to get him to trust her or open up to her.

  Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  “I don’t remember you,” he told her in a low, somber and dismissive voice. He meant for it to terminate the conversation before it went any further.

  But it didn’t.

  “I was in Amy’s homeroom and a few of her classes. We were friendly.” She could see that he still didn’t believe her—most likely because he still didn’t recognize her. In an odd way, she took that as a compliment. It had taken her a long while to learn how to play up her assets, how to style her hair and perform all the other small tricks that it took to make a silk purse out of what had been, in her opinion, a sow’s ear.

  Taking out her phone, Kenzie began to flip through something on the bottom of her screen.

  “Are you planning on calling someone to back you up?” Keith asked.

  “No, I thought this might jar your memory a little—not that we exchanged more than about five or six words in high school.” It had been the classic scenario. “You were the sophisticated senior at the time, and I was the klutzy sophomore.”

  What she was flipping through were the photographs on her phone. Most of that space was devoted to the merchandise she had acquired and was attempting to sell in her store.

  But in addition to those photographs, she also had a good many photographs of her family. And she had made it a point to have one photograph of herself in that collection. The photograph captured the way she looked back in high school. She kept it to remind her never to allow herself just to coast along. Appearance, success and everything in between required constant work.

  Settling for a status quo eventually led to failure.

  “This was me in high school.” Turning her phone around, she held it up for his perusal. “Now do you remember me?”

  He’d only meant to glance at it and dismiss what she was saying. But the second he looked down at the screen on her phone, a memory began to stir within the recesses of his mind.

  The distant memory that been elusively playing hide-and-seek with his brain was back again. He stared at the photo for a handful of minutes—and then the light bulb went off in his head. Stunned, he looked at her in disbelief.

  “You’re Clumsy Mac.”

  The wince was automatic. She hadn’t heard that name in years and would have thought she had risen above reacting to it.

  Obviously not.

  “Not the most flattering nickname, but yes,” Kenzie admitted, “I was called that.”

  Taking the phone from her, Keith stared at the screen, then looked back at her before looking down at the photograph again.

  There was only one word that was applicable here. “Wow.”

  Kenzie’s generous mouth curved. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He hardly heard what she said. He was having a great deal of trouble believing that Clumsy Mac and the woman standing before him were one and the same person. He asked the obvious.

  “Did you have surgery done?”

  She tried not to pay attention to the fact that his question could be taken as an insult. She sensed he hadn’t meant it that way, which was all that counted.

  “Actually, no. This is the result of a good hair stylist and learning how to use makeup.”

  “Learning?” he echoed. “I think you graduated,” he murmured, looking back at the person captured on her mobile phone.

  The difference between that teenager and the woman standing in front of him was like night and day—and, in his opinion, nothing short of a miracle.

  Chapter Five

  Keith wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea that he knew the person handling the so-called “estate” sale of the furnishings and other items within his mother’s house.

  In recent years he’d come to feel that there was something to be said for anonymity. Since he and Kenzie had, in a manner of speaking, a vague sort of history together, he had an uneasy feeling that he was leaving himself open to an
invasion of privacy somewhere down the road. He had little doubt that Kenzie would believe their having attended the same high school entitled her to ask questions and be on a familiar footing with him, whereas if they were actually strangers, he would be able to keep her at a distance more easily.

  He was overthinking this, he told himself. After all, MacKenzie Bradshaw was a professional, and he sincerely doubted that his agent would have suggested her for the job if Kenzie wasn’t up to getting the job done—and more than just adequately.

  Besides, he wouldn’t have to put up with any of this for long. He was flying back to San Francisco the second the funeral was over. His presence here certainly wasn’t necessary for the sale of either the house or the things that were in it. That was why he’d come to Maizie Sommers to begin with.

  Sanctuary would be his very shortly, Keith promised himself—provided, of course, that he survived the next few days. There were times that he wasn’t sure of the inevitability of that outcome.

  In a bid for simplicity and moving things along at an acceptable pace, Keith had reconsidered checking into a hotel as he’d planned after the first night. He’d grown up in this house, he reasoned, so he could endure staying here for a few more days rather than commuting back and forth from the hotel, braving traffic and steep hotel rates.

  Ever practical, he saw no reason to complicate matters and have to pay premium prices just for a place to sleep, which was all that his stay at a hotel would have amounted to. The rest of his time while he was in Bedford would be spent either fielding Kenzie’s free-flowing questions or being involved in myriad details connected to his mother’s funeral.

  He discovered that he didn’t have to tackle them alone if he didn’t want to. Kenzie proved to be good at not just her job but also a whole host of other things. Like deciphering what amounted to illegible handwriting in his opinion.

  When she found him in the living room less than an hour after they returned to the house, he was frowning over the unreadable entries in his mother’s worn little red address book. Kenzie was not shy about asking him what was wrong.

  Kenzie was not shy about anything.

  He didn’t bother hiding that he was less than happy about whatever needed doing next. “I’m going to have to call my mother’s friends to let them know where and when the funeral service will be held.”

  Kenzie apparently picked up on his reluctance. “Would you like me to call them for you?”

  For just a moment, he allowed himself to savor the wave of relief that washed over him. He was more than willing to have her take over this tedious, not to mention uncomfortable, chore.

  But the next moment, reality set in, as it always did. “And say what?” he asked. “That you’re my administrative assistant and you’re making these calls about Dorothy O’Connell’s passing on the behalf of the only family she has left?”

  Kenzie inclined her head, indicating her basic agreement with his assessment. “That would be the gist of it, although not exactly in those words.” In her opinion, he’d sounded not just detached but also a tad sarcastic, neither of which would work in this situation once he started calling and talking to his mother’s friends. “I thought all lawyers knew how to charm juries.”

  Keith frowned again as he looked down at the page he’d opened the book to. “The people in this book aren’t a jury,” he pointed out.

  Okay, so her choice of words left something to be desired. “Maybe not, but the charm thing can still work. Besides, juries are comprised of people, and these are people you’ll be calling,” Kenzie said, indicating the address book.

  Keith sighed, frustrated. “Illegible people.” He shook his head. “My mother had the world’s worst handwriting. A chicken with its beak dipped in ink could write more legibly than my mother did.” And that was being charitable. “For all I know, this could be an annotated list of a herd of ponies,” he grumbled, waving the address book.

  “May I?” Kenzie held out her hand toward him, her indication clear. She wanted him to surrender the book to her so she could see firsthand what she would be up against.

  Keith gladly surrendered the cause of his eyestrain and blossoming headache. “Be my guest. And if you can read any of those names and numbers, I’ll buy you a filet mignon dinner.”

  The grin Kenzie gave him told Keith how game she was even before she said, “You’re on.”

  Kenzie skimmed down the first couple of pages quickly before she raised her eyes to his again. She fixed Keith with a mesmerizing look he found almost too hypnotic. Drawing his eyes away proved to be a real problem—which in turn annoyed him. He didn’t need extraneous thoughts right now.

  “What restaurant?” she asked him, the grin still playing along her lips.

  He looked at her sharply. She had to be bluffing. “You’re kidding.”

  “Frequently,” Kenzie allowed. “Going along with the popular belief, laughter really is the best medicine. However,” she went on, “I’m not kidding this time. Would you like me to type these names and numbers up for you?” she offered.

  “You can read them?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Absolutely,” she told him without hesitation.

  For a moment, he was going to accuse her of lying, but why would she lie? She had to know he’d call her on it, and she obviously was ready to back up her claim by recreating the entries.

  Getting up, he circled around her until he was looking over her shoulder at the same page she was.

  Incredible, he thought.

  “Do you want me to write them down?” she offered again, prodding him for an answer.

  He wouldn’t have use for any of those names once the people listed in it were notified.

  “No need,” he told her. “As long as they know the date, time and location of the funeral—”

  “And the reception,” she added. Didn’t he realize that there was always some sort of a reception held after a funeral?

  Obviously not, she thought, judging by the blank expression on Keith’s face when he looked at her. “What reception?”

  Kenzie gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the man had never been to a funeral before. “The one you’re going to be holding for everyone after your mother’s funeral.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not holding anything. I’m flying back to San Francisco right after the funeral,” he told her firmly.

  “Are you expecting some sort of an emergency?” Kenzie questioned innocently.

  He saw right through her and it irritated him, but there was no point in letting her see that. After all, she was just trying to help here. But he could be honest with her.

  “The emergency is that I can’t take being here for any length of time.”

  Kenzie very politely shot down his plans for an early escape. “Hold a reception,” she told him. “Trust me, you’ll regret it if you don’t. It doesn’t take all that much to throw a reception together if you know the right people to ask.” That she knew such people went without saying. “Your mother’s friends will expect it.”

  “I’m never going to see any of these people again. Why should it matter to me what they think?”

  She refrained from pointing out the obvious—he would be doing it to honor his mother, and that sort of thing was expected. Instead, she tried to appeal to his practical side.

  “Call it tying up loose ends. You’ll feel better about it when you look back.”

  For a relative stranger—despite their common background—Kenzie Bradshaw seemed awfully confident that she knew how he’d react to something when he would have occasion to look back on it someday in the future. He almost called her on it, then decided there was no point.

  Besides, he needed all the help he could get, and for whatever reason, this woman seemed perfectly content to handle all this for him.

  “Okay, we�
�ll have the reception.” Then he tapped the edge of the tattered address book. “Now see what you can do with this.”

  She flipped over to a few more pages in the same worn condition. “Do you want everyone in the address book notified about your mother’s funeral and reception?”

  He shrugged. On his own, he wouldn’t have known who to call and who to leave out. “Might as well.” And then he thought of one restriction. “Just the people who are located in the States.”

  He was not about to postpone the entire funeral service just because someone couldn’t make immediate travel arrangements. This was already getting too drawn out.

  Kenzie nodded. “Understood.”

  Holding on to the tattered address book, Kenzie sat down and made herself comfortable on the sofa. She took out her cell phone.

  “You can use the house phone,” Keith told her. He had no idea who her carrier was or what data plan she had. She was essentially doing him a favor, and he didn’t want it costing her anything on top of that.

  “This is fine,” Kenzie assured him. “Besides, the house phone won’t reach over here.” She pointed to the landline, which was located on the kitchen wall, and smiled as she said, “Your mother didn’t appear to be a supporter of cordless phones.”

  He hadn’t taken any notice of that. Now that he did, Keith laughed shortly. “I guess some things never change,” he commented. The phone in the kitchen looked as if it was the same one that had been there when he still lived at home.

  Just for a glimmer of a moment, she thought she saw nostalgia flash in Keith’s eyes. She wanted to ask him about it, but she instinctively knew where that would lead. Keith wasn’t ready to talk. She could see that. Whether this involved unresolved issues between Keith and his mother or something else, he’d have to approach it slowly, in stages, not all at once like a firestorm. And right now, he had trusted her enough to ask for help.

  That was step one.

  “I’d better get started,” Kenzie told him as she opened the address book and turned to the first page, her cell phone ready in her other hand.