A Family for Christmas (11 page)

Wendy's heart danced with excitement. Her pulse quickened at the thought of living here as Evan's wife.

“Yes, Evan, I want to marry you. But you should know that I'll never be able to fill Hilda's shoes, and I really don't want to. I love your family, and while I think their traditions are important, I'd like to put my stamp on the family. I want to be myself, not just another Hilda, doing everything just the way your ancestors have done. If we move here, I'd want to re-decorate the house to my taste, even if it does change something your grandmother or mother had chosen. Do we have to live in the past? Why can't we start some traditions of our own? Do you understand what I mean?”

“Of course, and I agree with you,” Evan said, amazed at Wendy's perspective, because she'd never shown such an independent spirit before. “You should finish your college and teach school like you want to do. God willing, it will be many years before we'll have to move into the big house. Once we're married, you'll be first in my life. If you don't want to live here, we'll live elsewhere, although I still feel obligated to help out until Daddy is better.”

“I'd love to live in
this
house with you,” Wendy
said. “But I want to live here because we choose to, not because it's traditional. I'd feel like a prisoner if I knew the next fifty years of my life are already mapped out just because I marry a Kessler. And if my son wants to be an astronaut, or whatever, rather than a farmer, he should have the right to choose.”

Laughing, Evan squeezed her until she gasped. “If you give me a son,” he said, “he can be what he wants to be. And if our daughter wants to run the farm, she can.”

“You do understand that I may end up doing everything just like Hilda does, but only because I want to.”

“That's fine with me. And I've saved the best for last. A representative of Ohio State University contacted me a few days ago and asked me to consider taking a position as the county extension agent in this area.”

Wendy experienced a sinking feeling. Was this something else to keep Evan and her apart?

“I wouldn't give him an answer until I had time to discuss the job with you.”

“What kind of work would you do?”

“I'd be advising farmers and promoting agriculture in this area, with time left to still supervise the farm as much as Daddy wants me to. I have a cousin who'll take over the dairy work so I can go back to Florida this semester and finish the work on my Ph.D., while you're completing your work. We can be married in the spring, if you're willing.”

His words released any doubt she had about mar
rying Evan. Flinging herself into his arms, before their lips met, she whispered, “I'm willing.”

Evan released her reluctantly. He reached in his pocket and took out a box. With wondering eyes, Wendy opened the box and stared at the “past, present, future” ring she'd admired at the jewelry store the day Evan had proposed to her. The large diamond in the center and the two smaller stones on each side glittered in the shaft of sunlight beaming through the window.

“Oh, Evan!” she whispered. “This is the ring I liked best, but how did you know? Where did you buy it?”

“Before I left Florida last month, I swung by the jewelry store and bought it.”

Wendy experienced a glow of pride that Evan, who'd been worrying about his father, had taken time to buy a ring he knew she liked. She'd never again fear that Evan loved his family more than he did her. She snuggled close to him.

“I love you
and
your family, Evan.”

Evan's thoughts turned toward the day when they would live in the ancestral home—his birthright—that they and their children would share during the years to come. He slipped the ring on Wendy's finger, sealing the promise of their future.

Dana Corbit

To my sister, Sabrina Puckett, my protector
when I needed one, my defender whether
I deserved it or not, my fan when I was
insecure and always, always, my friend.

Special thanks to Laura Gentry, family case
manager supervisor for the Hancock
County (Indiana) Division of Family and
Children for lending her expertise and a
small dose of reality to my fanciful tale.

And this will be a sign for you:
you will find the babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

—
Luke
2:12

T
he scenery couldn't have been more perfect if a wondrous star had appeared like a spotlight over the stable. Okay, a miracle or two couldn't hurt. Allison Hensley grinned at the thought as she stepped outside the New Hope Church building, the rumble of the crowd's competing conversations assailing her.

She inhaled the frigid December air, tinged with the competing sour-sweet scents of livestock and hay. Her breath spread before her in a moist cloud. When the wind picked up, she shivered, already losing the relief from the cast's indoor break.

Miracles. If she'd prayed for one this special night of Destiny's first, and hopefully annual, interfaith live nativity scene, she would have asked for balmy Bethlehem temperatures instead of this east-central Indiana chill. Local meteorologists were calling this weather unseasonably warm, but they weren't outside without gloves and dressed in costumes as thin as bedsheets, either.

Chin up, Allison.
She rubbed her hands together and adjusted the shawl over her hair. She would just have to pretend she wasn't miserable and that her costume was fleece-lined. Maybe she should suggest that her best friend do a little acting of his own, outside his role as Joseph. David Wright was the picture of misery, scratching behind his beard where the adhesive must have itched, and shivering as he fidgeted with the belt on his robe.

“What's so funny, Mary?” David frowned. “Your pregnant belly is falling out, by the way.”

Allison's hands lowered to the pillow beneath her robe, and she shoved it back where she guessed a growing baby belonged. “Thanks, Joseph.”

A twinge of sadness fluttered over her that she probably would never cradle her own child in her arms, but she tucked the thought in the back of her mind where it belonged. She focused instead on her fellow performer, who finally had released his belt and had moved on to fussing with his strange hat.

“Quit fidgeting, or the audience will think Joseph has a tick.”

“Well, thanks.” Still, he dropped his hands and stared across the church lawn at the nearly two hundred spectators crouched in lawn chairs and huddled on blankets. “Why did I let you talk me into this? Just because you planned the whole thing didn't mean you had to rope me into it.”

Allison grinned at David, eight years younger and the brother she'd never had. “You needed a new hobby, and the single women of Destiny needed a night off.”

“At least one of us is going on dates.”

Allison stuck out her tongue at him. It wasn't as if guys were beating down the door to ask her out. Or that they ever had been, even earlier than five years ago when her thirtieth birthday had come and gone. “You won't change my mind. I'm not letting the ladies from the county assessor's office set me up with some new guy.”

She hated feeling like an old-maid charity case. Besides, if she went out with the city's newest-ergo-most eligible bachelor, she would be a cradle robber, too. Busybodies in town were always thorough, so Allison already knew the bachelor in question was just in his early thirties.

“You never know….”

Yes, she did. A lifetime of being the chunky girl whom boys chose for a pal instead of girlfriend had taught her plenty about too-high expectations.

“You can forget it. I'm not going.”

David opened his mouth to say something else, but one of the local farmers approached, leading an old Shetland pony—the show's version of a donkey. Instead of saying whatever he'd planned to before, David gestured toward the “donkey.” “Ready for the long journey to Bethlehem?”

“Ready if you are.”

After a quick ride across the lawn for effect, and an unfruitful visit with the innkeeper, they stepped inside the stable for the rest of the performance. As silence settled over the crowd, a musician started strumming chords on an acoustic guitar.

“‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed…”' the
choir sang, the significance of those well-known lyrics seeming to join the spectators in a singular mind-set of worship.

Allison could have sworn that the stars shone brighter for just a few seconds. The moment was perfect. It was poignant. It was spiritual.

Until the doll in the manger started to cry.

 

Brock Chandler didn't know exactly when the crime had been committed, but he did recognize the moment his night off had ended. Not when the kid started wailing. Instead, his job started the moment the woman portraying Mary gasped and raced over to the manger, dropping her pillow stomach on the way. So much for his plan to relax in the back of the audience and get to know his new community by watching one of its folksy events.

Like a round of “the wave” in a football stadium, audience members leapt to their feet by rows.

“The baby's real!”

That someone announced the obvious with as much shock as an alien sighting telegraphed that the rest of the audience had been expecting a plastic doll Baby Jesus wrapped in those swaddling clothes. And, from the chaos in the stable, so had the cast.

Shaking off the irritation that a hectic holiday weekend for the Cox County Sheriff's Department had just become busier, Brock pushed his way to the rustic stage and through the human wall of cast members, heavy blankets now draped over their shoulders. But when he reached the inner circle, the hay-lined
trough was empty, and the Mary character was soothing the baby in her arms.

Brock drew in a breath and stared. Mania surrounded her, and yet the woman holding the child appeared serene. At home even.

When he'd initially seen her riding her make-believe donkey into the fictional Bethlehem, he would have described her as more cute than pretty. Her face was slightly wider than oval-shaped, and her nose was pert rather than elegant. But as she cradled the baby, her hazel eyes shone with emotion in the stage lights, and her full lips turned up in a sweet smile that transformed cute into lovely. Like some small reflection of the Madonna she'd portrayed in the stable stage.

With extra care, the woman pulled back blankets to reveal a red-faced infant in a thick, hooded bunting. As she loosened the hood, she traced her fingertips along a tiny cheek.

Something strange and warm unfolded inside Brock's chest—so out of place for a law-enforcement officer. Too soft, those feelings were unacceptable for him, on or off the job. As unacceptable as any form of weakness. Rubbing his gloved hands together, he stepped closer to the woman.

“Excuse me, folks. I'm Sheriff's Deputy Brock Chandler.” He didn't miss how everyone glanced at his leather jacket and jeans where his uniform should have been, or the way the woman's head jerked at his introduction. One day he'd get used to the strange reactions some people had to police officers, but it hadn't happened yet.

As was his habit, Brock ignored the woman and
searched for a man who could provide details. His gaze landed on the Joseph character. “Can you explain the circumstances involving this infant?”

But the woman stepped in front of her fellow performer. “We're not sure who left this little one, or even whether it's an abandonment or a practical joke.” She scanned the chattering crowd with a hopeful expression, as if expecting the child's mother to rush up and reclaim him.

Brock didn't have to look at the crowd. He knew the broad—make that the suspect—wasn't coming back. Deserting mothers never did. And this woman on stage was naive if she believed differently. After several seconds, she turned back to him, her disappointment obvious in her frown.

He flipped up his jacket collar to cover his freezing ears while ignoring the temptation to regret the woman's loss of idealism. His own had died a long time ago, and good riddance to it.

“Well, I don't see anyone rushing forward yelling ‘Gotcha,' so we'll investigate this as a crime. But first we need to phone an ambulance and child welfare concerning the abandoned child.”

“That won't be necessary,” the woman whispered, staring down at the infant who'd finally fallen asleep.

“Excuse me?” His harsh tone caused the child to startle, so he lowered his voice. “What are you saying?”

“You won't need to call child welfare. I'm Allison Hensley, an FCM—that's a family case manager—for the Cox County Division of Family and Children.
It's part of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.”

Brock opened his mouth to respond, but the woman had the gall to turn away from him to speak to the Joseph character instead.

“David, could you get my cell phone and call the ambulance? My bag's behind those hay bales.”

Then she walked over to the Wise Men. “Hey, guys, could you do some crowd control? We need a path up to the stable for the paramedics to get through.”

Only after she'd succeeded at removing all of his authority in the situation did Allison return to stand in front of him.

“Okay, now let's—”

Brock raised a hand to interrupt her.
Let's?
She might have stepped in the middle of his first worthwhile investigation in terminally dull Destiny that by luck rather than population had been made Cox County's county seat, but there would be no
us
in the rest of his case.

“Way to be on top of the child welfare thing,” Brock said, loud enough for only her to hear. “Talk about being at the right place at the right time.”

It had to have been the caustic tone he'd attached to the last comment that had her raising an eyebrow at him. “I believe God puts us where He needs us to be.”

“Tell that to your Baby Jesus there. Did God plan for his mother to dump him like a bucket of slop in that hay trough?”

Sure, Brock believed and all, but it was awfully
hard not to question God's will and even His strength in a world where children were left to fend for themselves.

The social worker pulled the blanket closer around herself and the child as if shielding them both from his harsh words and the truth they reflected. Then she shook her head. “I don't know.”

“Well, I think this mess was the plan of a woman with major baby baggage and a flair for the dramatic. Perfect stage to dump a kid, don't you think?”

“
I think
we don't have any idea how desperate the mother's situation is. There are only two things on my mind right now—having this child medically evaluated and finding him temporary shelter.” She glared at Brock. “This baby is the only thing that matters.”

“Except finding the perp who dropped him here.” He used the TV cop slang for
perpetrator
to annoy her, though he wouldn't have been caught dead using the term at the sheriff's department. “That's
my
job.”

“You're not the only one with a job to do here. And it would help mine, too, if the mother would reappear this instant, but until then, I have to fill out a 310—an intake report—and get this child to the E.R.”

With that she turned away from him again and yanked that veil thing off her head to reveal a long ponytail of dark blond hair.

His back teeth ached from grinding as he turned to the Wise Men. “Who was watching the stable in the last twenty minutes before the show?”

The tallest of the trio filled Brock in about the
cast's break and suggested crew members who might have crossed the set during that time. The others explained how the manger initially was hidden by hay bales so the audience wouldn't see Baby Jesus.

“Where is that doll, by the way?”

But the cast didn't have to respond because David rushed back, holding up the doll and a bulky diaper bag.

“Look what I found. Baby Jesus was on top of this bag, and it was right next to your duffel bag.”

Allison flashed Brock a knowing glance, as if the vinyl diaper bag with puppies printed all over it vindicated her forgiving opinion of the mother. “She wanted us to find that stuff.”

“Like she wanted us to find her baby,” David supplied.

“Wait,” Brock called out, but it was too late. David was already rifling through the bag, digging out diapers, formula, bottles and some of those sleeper-jumpsuit things. So much for lifting any clear fingerprints.

David held up one of the bottles. “Look, the formula's already made up.” As the baby started fussing, he stepped over and coaxed a pacifier into his mouth.

Brock shook his head. No wonder the two of them had played the lead roles in the nativity scene. They certainly were a pie-in-the-sky pair who saw the best in people when Brock had so often glimpsed the worst. Pair? Were they? He studied them a few seconds more, their connection obvious as they comforted the child together.

That he was even curious only annoyed him further.
Are you here to investigate a crime or to pick up women?
Especially one who dressed as Jesus' mother in her spare time. And was exasperating and likely already taken. Didn't he ever learn? Between his birth mother and Robin, he would have thought he'd survived enough lessons for a lifetime, but obviously he craved more punishment.

Relief flooded him as ambulance sirens blared in the distance, signaling the caseworker's departure and his chance to regain control. Soon Allison and her charge were in the ambulance, heading to Cox County Hospital, and he could finally properly investigate the crime scene.

He focused on the details, looking for anything out of place in the stable, besides stage lights and a Shetland pony. Chances were the mother wasn't far away, and he was determined to find her and arrest her. A child had been deserted today. No, he wouldn't allow himself to think of another abandonment long ago or to mourn on this child's behalf. He didn't have time for that. This situation was different than the other. This time, he could do something about it.