Coming Home for Christmas Read online

  “We made love last night, but today is a new day, with new problems, new hurdles to leap over. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the first day the house is going to be open to the public in hopes of enchanting them. So unless you’re game to bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘unwrapped presents under the Christmas tree,’ I suggest we get up from under the tree, get dressed and clean the family room.”

  He blinked, trying to absorb her words. The woman talked faster than anyone he had ever known, and that included lawyers. “Then last night didn’t mean anything to you?”

  How could he possibly say that? she couldn’t help wondering.

  Maybe it was breaking some kind of unspoken law about admitting far too much, but she told him, “It meant everything to me. But it wasn’t a proposal and I’m not about to demand one. So, like I said, let’s get cracking and whip this house back into shape.”

  Gratitude overwhelmed him. Before he could think to stop himself, he went with instinct. Keith spun her around to face him and kissed her.

  Kissed her long and hard with mounting feeling.

  When she finally got herself to pull back, Kenzie drew in a deep, deep breath and shook her head. The man definitely didn’t understand the concept of a temporary retreat for the sake of getting things that needed doing done.

  “You do that again and I’m not going to be responsible for what happens next. There’s just so much self-control a woman should be expected to exercise, especially when confronted with a lover who’s so incredibly hot,” she told him with a wink.

  And with that, Kenzie quickly put distance between them before all her good intentions went flying out the window and she threw herself into his arms.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The tree is a very nice touch,” Maizie said with warm approval later that morning. The words were addressed to Keith. True to her word, the lively agent had arrived early to make sure there were no last-minute hiccups she needed to smooth out before the open house got underway at one. “Glad to see you decided to take my advice. It really creates a family-friendly atmosphere.”

  Keith never believed in taking credit that didn’t belong to him. Working in a law firm had taught him that doing so could bite him later. Besides, he wanted Kenzie to have her due.

  “Actually, it was Kenzie who insisted on it,” he said, nodding in Kenzie’s direction.

  Maizie looked toward the younger woman. If anything, the agent’s smile just grew deeper.

  “Well, she was right. This really makes it feel less like just another house on the market and more like a home. Unless they’re looking strictly for investment purposes, prospective buyers react very positively to that sort of thing. They like knowing the house they’re considering buying lends itself well to a family scenario.” Maizie made her way from the family room to the kitchen. “Have you been staying here?” she asked him.

  His first impulse was to deny it. But something told him the savvy little woman would somehow know he was lying. So he told her the truth.

  “I wasn’t going to, but—”

  Keith abruptly stopped himself from explaining any further. There was no need for any confessions. This woman was his agent, and while she was an exceptionally nice, warm, intelligent woman, she was definitely not his priest.

  Less than a month ago, he wouldn’t have felt the need to say anything at all. Just what was going on with him? Keith silently demanded.

  “Yes, I am,” he finally admitted. “Why?”

  “No reason,” Maizie told him with a careless shrug that could have been interpreted in so many ways. “It’s just that the house appears to be exceptionally neat.” She turned a warm smile on him. “Someone raised you well.”

  He bit his tongue, swallowing the first answer that rose to his lips. The answer rejecting the idea that he’d been raised well at all. But if he were being totally honest, he would admit that he had been raised well. It was only in the aftermath of those years that everything fell to pieces.

  “Yes, well, I thought the house wouldn’t exactly show very well and attract buyers if it was a mess.”

  Maizie inclined her head, her eyes shining with humor. “Very true.”

  Finished looking around, Maizie set down the flyers she’d had run off on the coffee table in plain view of the entrance. The handouts enumerated the home’s best features as well as its upgrades.

  She turned to Keith. “Well, I hope you have somewhere to go today between one and five.” Then, in case the reason for that was eluding him—this was, as far as she knew, his first time as a seller—Maizie told him, “It’s customary not to have the home owner around during an open house. Makes it less awkward for everyone.”

  He hadn’t actually thought about that since, initially, he hadn’t planned even to be in town at this point. “Um, sure, I...”

  “I’m taking him to my store so he can see where some of his family’s items will be going until someone snaps them up and gives them a good home,” Kenzie informed the agent cheerfully.

  Maizie looked from Kenzie to her client. “Judging from his bewildered expression, I think you forgot to tell him about that, dear.”

  That was because she’d just thought of it, Kenzie silently answered. Ever the subtle saleswoman, she proceeded to sell Keith on the idea.

  “It’ll be interesting,” she assured him. “And maybe you’ll see something there you might want to buy to give someone as a Christmas present.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  His answer made it sound as if...

  “Wait, you don’t give Christmas presents?” Kenzie stared at him, stunned. “To anyone?” she asked incredulously. “Not even to those senior law partners you work for?”

  He looked at her with surprise. “That would just be a form of bribery. They wouldn’t stand for it.”

  Kenzie blew out a breath. She had no idea that the situation was this bad. Keith’s soul really needed rescuing.

  Apparently of like mind with Kenzie, the look on Maizie’s face was nothing if not sympathetic.

  “I’d say you had your work cut out for you, dear,” the older woman said before she left the room, saying she was retrieving her business cards from the trunk of her car.

  Kenzie, meanwhile, was still frozen in place. “You were kidding, weren’t you? About not giving any Christmas presents?” There was more than a hint of a hopeful note in her voice.

  Keith shrugged off her question, telling himself that her obvious disappointment shouldn’t have bothered him.

  Why was it bothering him? he silently demanded.

  “Don’t have anyone to give them to.”

  It was, in a nutshell, his go-to excuse for not participating in the holidays. With Amy gone and his mother heretofore inaccessible, Christmas and the trappings that went with it ceased to have any meaning to him.

  This, Kenzie decided, would require drastic measures.

  And then a possible solution occurred to her.

  “I have a better place to take you than my shop,” she announced suddenly. “Just give me a few minutes to make a call.”

  It was getting so that he could almost read her mind. At least he could this time around. “I don’t know what you think you need to do for me, but I assure you I do not need any—”

  “Yeah, you do,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t worry,” she added, “It’ll be painless.”

  And then she stopped talking because whoever she had just dialed on her cell phone had obviously picked up. Rather than continue her dialogue with Keith, Kenzie held up her finger in a silent instruction to stop his words midflow.

  Kenzie turned away so he wouldn’t overhear her. The move was done out of habit, but he had to admit that his curiosity had been piqued—and his impatience was fueled. He didn’t need whatever holiday sleight
-of-hand Kenzie thought she was going to perform.

  With that in mind, since she wasn’t facing him, he decided he’d leave the house while she was talking. Slipping out the front door—the agent had already gone back inside and was doing something in one of the rooms—Keith came within a foot of making good his getaway.

  Kenzie caught up to him just as he was about to get into his car. He’d opened the door and was going to slide in behind the steering wheel when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re coming with me,” she announced as if she didn’t realize she had foiled his getaway.

  He turned around to face her, impatience swaddling each word. “Kenzie, I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Good,” she countered, “because no one’s offering to babysit you.” The significance of the words he’d chosen suddenly hit her. “If anything, you will be the one doing the sitting.”

  She’d totally lost him with that. “Come again?”

  But Kenzie didn’t go into any more detailed explanations. All she said was a very pregnant, “You’ll see.”

  Keith could only think of one logical scenario as she commandeered the keys from him and told him to get into the passenger’s seat. “Are you kidnapping me to a motel room?” The situation as he painted it was not without its rather large merits.

  Starting the car, she pulled out of the driveway. “Well, you’re half right.”

  “Which half?”

  Kenzie spared him a glance as she took a right turn at the next through street. “I’m kidnapping you.”

  “Not to a motel room?” To anyone listening, it sounded as if Keith was kidding. He wasn’t, at least not entirely.

  Kenzie pretended to roll the thought over in her mind. “Maybe later. As a reward,” she added.

  “For me?” he questioned.

  Even with her facing forward, he could see how deep her smile went. “For both of us.”

  Keith laughed, shaking his head. The woman was nothing if not unique. “Now you really have me curious.”

  “Good,” she declared. To his frustration and surprise, she made no effort to explain anything further.

  Keith tried another approach to unravel what she was up to. “Can I ask who you called?”

  Kenzie inclined her head in a careless fashion. “You can ask.”

  It didn’t take a philosopher to understand what she was saying. “But you won’t tell me.”

  “I won’t tell you,” she confirmed, adding, “I figure it’s more interesting for you if I just keep you guessing.”

  That sounded too much like a game, and he needed to let her know something right off the top. “Look, I’m not into playing games.”

  “Too bad.” She sounded as if she genuinely meant that. “It actually might come in handy. Maybe it’ll come back to you after a while.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Keith demanded, feeling as if he’d somehow gotten all tangled up and was sinking.

  “Christmas, Keith. I’m talking about Christmas.”

  She wasn’t going to tell him anything, he concluded. Since he was here, Keith decided that he might as well just let this all play itself out. Maybe there would finally be answers when she got to wherever it was she was going.

  Sliding back in his seat, Keith pushed it into a resting position. “If you say so.”

  Kenzie laughed then and reached over to pat his arm, keeping her eyes on the road. “Not too far now,” she promised.

  As far as he was concerned, it had already gone way too far.

  “We’re here,” she announced a little more than ten minutes later.

  “Here?” Keith repeated, looking around. “Exactly where’s ‘here’?” he asked.

  As far as he could make out, she had just turned onto a gravel-strewn parking lot. After driving only a few feet more, she came to a stop in front of a long, single-story building that was badly in need of paint not to mention some very crucially missing stucco work.

  There was a sign across the front of the building, but the sun was in his eyes, so he couldn’t make it out.

  But Kenzie wasn’t listening to him as she got out of the car. Instead, she seemed to be looking around for something.

  Or someone, as it turned out.

  The second she spotted who she was looking for, she broke into a wreath of smiles. A moment later, Kenzie’s mystery person had joined them.

  “You made it,” Kenzie cried in relief.

  Almost reluctantly, Keith got out of the car to see who she was talking to.

  The next second, his mouth dropped open.

  “Mrs. Bradshaw, I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said to the slender woman in gray slacks, a pink sweater and a matching hoodie.

  “I have a habit of popping up in odd places,” Kenzie’s mother conceded. “Hello, dear.” Andrea paused to greet him with a quick kiss against his cheek, treating him as if he were her son instead of just her daughter’s...what? Her daughter’s what? Keith silently demanded of himself.

  He really hadn’t figured out what to call their relationship—or if it actually was a relationship.

  Turning toward her daughter, Andrea went on to tell her, “I brought everything, just the way you asked me to.”

  “Everything?” Keith echoed.

  He was beginning to feel like a parrot, repeating words that became no clearer to him the second time around.

  Taking pity on him, Kenzie turned toward him and said, “She means toys.”

  “Toys?” He was no more enlightened now than he had been a moment ago.

  Kenzie pressed her lips together to keep from laughing at him. “All right, you’ll have to learn how to speak in full sentences if you’re going to help me.”

  “Help you with what?” Keith demanded. He was down that rabbit hole again, he thought irritably. And she wasn’t helping. He was beginning to think she was enjoying his confusion.

  “Better,” Kenzie said, nodding her approval. “But still needs a little work.”

  In mounting desperation, he turned toward her mother. “What is she talking about?”

  “I’m never quite sure, Keith,” Andrea admitted, commiserating with him. “But I’ve learned that if you hang in there long enough, it eventually all makes sense after a bit.”

  “No big mystery,” Kenzie told him, sounding, to his way of thinking, just a little too innocent as she added, “I’m playing Santa Claus, and you’re my helper.”

  Keith realized her mother was in on this little scenario, as well, when Andrea said to her, “Really, dear, I don’t want to be stereotypical about this, but since Santa was a man, don’t you think Keith should play Santa Claus and you should be his helper?”

  Kenzie pretended that lightning had suddenly struck, clearing everything up.

  “You know, that might make more sense, after all. You can be Santa Claus,” she told him. And just to make it official, she produced a Santa suit, complete with a red cap from a bag that her mother handed her. She slipped the hat snugly on Keith’s head. “There, it’s official. I hereby dub you Santa Claus for a day! Now let’s go get you into this getup so you can start making some very deserving little kids happy.”

  After five minutes and one detour into the kitchen so he could put on the suit, Keith stood frowning at the traditional costume that hung around his body. He’d been forced to put it on over his own clothes in an attempt to deal with its size, but it was still dangerously baggy and threatening to fall off at any moment.

  “I really don’t think I can do this,” he told Kenzie as she fussed around him, using safety pins to decrease the size where she could.

  “It would have been even looser on me,” she told him, adding, “We have to work with what we have.”

  “No, we don’t. I don’t,” h
e corrected her.

  Kenzie stopped what she was doing, one last safety pin still in her hand. She didn’t look at him with exasperation or annoyance. Instead, she searched her mind for a way to approach him logically instead of using emotions to win him over.

  “Have you ever pleaded one of your cases before a judge?” she asked him quietly.

  Was she kidding? He wasn’t a law clerk. He was an accredited lawyer. “Yes, of course I have.”

  Nodding, Kenzie continued. “Was he a friendly judge?”

  Subsequent judges had melded together, but not his first one. That man’s dour face was still as vividly clear in his mind as if the trial had taken place yesterday. “Not particularly,” he answered gruffly.

  “Then I guess, since you didn’t think it was a slam-dunk, you gave up.” She said it as if it was a foregone conclusion.

  “No, of course not.”

  “But you didn’t win.”

  He saw where Kenzie was going with this. “Yes, I won.”

  Kenzie smiled, her argument made. “Then you can do this,” she assured Keith with total confidence. “These kids are more than willing to meet you halfway. Having Santa Claus find them brings hope into their young lives. And the gifts in here,” she told him, patting the side of the large sagging red sack, made out of the same material that his suit was, “will sell themselves. All you have to do is say ‘Ho-ho-ho’ and the toys in the bag will do the rest of your talking for you.” She put on the finishing touch: pulling a white beard out of the same bag that had held his costume. After helping him put it on, she looked at him and grinned. “Hottest looking Santa I’ve ever seen, bar none. Ready?”

  Keith was still not completely convinced he could pull this off. “No, I don’t think I’m—”