Holiday Homecoming (7 page)

Mom pretended to look shocked. “You are all exaggerating. I do not harp.”

“Yes, you do, Mom.” Kirby's gentle ribbing included wrapping their mother in a big hug. “Admit it.”

“Yeah, admit it, Mom.” Kristin set down the glass and soda can and wrapped her arms around Mom and Kirby. “It's the second thing you talk about every time you call, right after ‘hello.' You say, ‘have you met anyone yet?'”

“I'm not that bad.”

“You're
that
bad.” Kendra was next, joining the circle.

Followed by Karen. “We like our Kristin happy and we want her to stay that way, married or not.”

Kristin leaned her cheek against Karen's. What would she do without her sisters?

Michelle entered the room with a distressed cry. “Like, leave me out!” She joined the circle with outstretched arms.

Boots knelled on the linoleum and stopped. “All right, break it up. What does a man have to do to get a drink around here?”

Ryan.
Kristin took a step back, unaware of her sisters milling around. Mom's warm greeting buzzed like a fly next to her ear. Yep, by the sound of it, Mom was definitely hoping for a match between them.

She knew her mother meant well, but please! She held up the glass. “I wasn't about to let you dehydrate. I know you have to keep your throat well lubricated for all that yelling you men do at the refs and the players.”

“And the coaches. Thanks.” Ryan took the glass. “I can remember the last time I've been in your kitchen. I think it was the summer I turned eight and Mom made me go everywhere with her.”

“Wasn't that the summer you drove the family car into the ditch?”

“Yep. Not one of my better moments. I was just pretending to drive. How was I to know the parking brake wouldn't hold? I popped in the clutch and the car rolled backward down the driveway and into the irrigation ditch.”

Her sisters' laughter filled the air. “I remember,” Karen began. “Dad drove the tractor over to pull the car out.”

“You were the talk of the church picnic the next day,” Kirby added. “No one figured you'd wreck the family sedan before you hit your teens.”

“Mom grounded me for life after that. She commuted my sentence to three weeks when the same thing happened to her and she dented Mr. Winkler's Buick. Seems the parking brake really
was
faulty so she got it fixed.”

Ryan couldn't believe it. The McKaslin girls may have grown up and gotten married, were wives and mothers, but they were still the same—warm, friendly and lighthearted.

It had been a long time since he'd felt this at-home anywhere. Obeying the demands of his rumbling stomach, he flicked off the lid and took a big fat gooey piece of fudge. “Karen, Kendra, Kirby. It's good to see you
again. And little Michelle, look at you. When are you due?”

“This spring. This one will be my second. Emily's in the living room with her daddy.” Beaming, Michelle stroked her sizable stomach and stopped to listen. “I hear more groans coming from the living room. Bad news?”

“Painful. That's why I'm here. Thought I'd hide from the grim sight of my lifelong favorite team getting thrashed. Figured the sight of you beautiful ladies would help ease the sting of defeat.”

“That compliment earns you a piece of the pie of your choice.” Kristin, by far the most beautiful of the sisters, held out two plates. “Apple or pumpkin?”

Was that real whipped cream? Yep, it looked like the real thing. As genuine and rich as the woman in front of him. “Are you kidding? It's Thanksgiving. Pumpkin.”

Mrs. McKaslin leaned over the table to say, in that way of matchmaking mothers, “Kristin is an excellent baker. Aren't you, sweetie?”

“I'm the worst baker of the group and you know it.” Kristin turned a cute shade of pink. Embarrassed, she jabbed a fork at him, taking the slice of apple pie over to her mom. “You promised to stop.”

“Yes, but he's a
doctor
.”

Poor Kristin. She looked so exasperated and embarrassed. He had lots of practice with this subject. “If I had a buck every time I heard a woman's mother say that, I'd have my med-school loans paid off by now. I know. Marrying off your daughters is a mother's duty.”

“That it is. I want all of my girls happy.”

“
Mom.
I'm happy the way I am.” Kristin marched the length of the kitchen, keeping far away from him.

She wasn't even giving him those telling looks, the ones that said that she was hoping for a doctor to marry and zeroing in on him, since he was single.

After yanking open the freezer, she dropped a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream on the counter with a resounding thud. “Don't take this personally, Ryan. Mom has had so much fun planning everyone's wedding, that she wants to plan mine next.”

“Oh, I understand. Believe me. It was my mom who conveniently ‘forgot' to bring the fudge by.”

“I know your pain.” Kristin looked a little less embarrassed. “Ice cream?”

“With my second piece of pie, sure. Let me finish this one first.”

“What makes you think that you get seconds?”

“My charming personality?” That made everyone laugh. Okay, so he liked being the center of attention. Who didn't? And it felt good to be accepted so easily into the McKaslins' family circle, when his mom's house offered him no peace.

“All right, Mr. Charming. Make yourself useful and take that with you.” Kristin shoved two dessert plates at him. Huge pie wedges topped with scoops of vanilla and chocolate. “The apple's for Dad. The other is for whoever grabs it first.”

“Me, useful? You've got the wrong impression of me. I'm never useful.”

“Never.
Right
.” Sparkling with held-back laughter, Kristin breezed away, taking with her the scent of vanilla and something else. He couldn't name it as he hesitated.

He didn't want to leave just yet. There was something troubling him. Something within him that wanted to stay in the light of her presence. “Anything else I can carry for you, while I'm here?”

“Nope. That's it.” Her eyes danced as she studied him from behind the refrigerator door.

An odd sensation tightened deep within his chest. The ice within him cracked, and that hurt, too, although he didn't know why. Maybe because he stood in the kitchen of a real family. One with both parents. He'd always admired the McKaslins. In truth, when he'd been young, been envious of them, too. Not that he was proud of it, but he'd learned since then that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Although, standing in this kitchen looked pretty great to him. Since that was way too domestic of a thought for a guy like him, Ryan trained his attention on the living room. Exit stage left.

“I'm getting out of here before I eat
all
the pie.” He caught Kristin's twinkling gaze as he left the room, leaving the women laughing behind him.

He handed off the pie plates and took the corner of the couch. That TV sure was something. He could see every detail with perfection as his team lined up on the thirty-four, third down and five to go. They were behind, okay, so they were losing, but if they made a good play, they had a good chance to—

“Yeah!” Shouts rose around him, Zach and Sam, two of the brothers-in-law, jumped to their feet, urging the running back on. The twenty-two, the eighteen— “Keep goin', c'mon!”

Down at the fifteen. Ryan was on his feet. Excitement zinged through him. He shoveled down pie, along with the other men in the room during the huddle, which took forever. When he should have been willing his quarterback to pass, his thoughts were not on the game. But on the golden-haired woman, her short hair sweeping against her jaw as she circled around the couch and into the dining room.

The team broke up, warriors hungry for victory.

“Run it,” Mr. McKaslin advised.

“A pass, high and long,” Sam, Kirby's husband, shouted at the screen.

“No, all they need is a field goal,” Zach argued.

The center hiked the ball. Ryan's fork froze in midair as he watched the play unfold. A sack attempt by the defense, but the quarterback feigned right in time, stepped left and arced the ball with the perfect spin to set it in the tailback's hands behind the goal line. Touchdown!

Ryan yelled right along with the others. Yeah! They had a chance of winning this one. Something buzzed at the back of his neck. He slapped his hand there—not a bug or an itch or anything. The tickle remained. When he looked up, Kristin was in his line of sight, unboxing a board game on the dining-room table.

She sure was nice. He'd noticed that before—but not
like this. Never like this. On the plane she'd looked coolly professional in her power suit. On the long drive through Idaho, she'd looked in charge and competent. Everything he'd expect in an urban woman with, as his mom always put it, a highfalutin' job. He'd liked that Kristin.

He liked this one more. She was one hundred percent pure Montana girl in worn jeans and a gray U of M sweatshirt. Girl-next-door fresh and warmhearted. Deep in his chest his steel defenses buckled a little, letting in a crack in the armor. Giving way to a hitch of emotion, but he shut that down before the feeling could grow.

His cell chirped from the entryway. Taking the pie with him, he wolfed down the last of the rich spicy pumpkin as he dashed through the room and down the hall. He dug out the phone and flipped it open. “Hey, Mom.”

“I hope you're not ruining your appetite.”

“How do you always know when I'm misbehaving? Not only do you have eyes in the back of your head but you have X-ray vision, too.”

“Of course! Mothers are extraordinary, my boy. Besides, I can tell you're talking with your mouth full. My bet is pie.”

“And it's good pie.”

“Not one more piece, young man! The turkey comes out of the oven in twenty minutes, and I want you front and center to carve it for me. Oh! Your sister just drove up. I've got to go.”

“I'm on my way,” he promised, snapping off the phone.

Home
. His guts tightened. Tension snaked through his muscles and he realized he was holding his breath.

Time to go home. To face again the house that brought back memories that could make him bleed.

He felt her presence behind him, knew it was Kristin before he turned with his coat over his arm. “My mom said I have to go home now. It's dinnertime. It's funny. I haven't said those words since I was eighteen.”

“Ah, that's what you get for coming home. No matter how old you are, you're still your parents' kid.”

“Yeah.” He felt awkward. He didn't know why.

Maybe it was because he didn't want to face the past, or maybe it was that he didn't want to leave this house full of love and family togetherness. Of easy laughter and unfailing devotion. He simply didn't want to leave just yet and Kristin was the reason. The pretty woman with the shadows in her expressive eyes and the amazing blend of honest country girl and successful career woman.

Haloed in the soft illumination of the wall sconce, she seemed to softly glow. Her hair shimmered with a hundred different shades of gold, and light burnished her shoulders so that when she reached out to take his plate, she was the most beautiful image he'd ever seen.

Her hands were slender and fine-boned with beautifully tapered fingers. Her nails were short and painted a seashell pink. It looked as if hers would be a nice hand to hold in his.

Not that he was looking for wife candidates. He was deeply committed to his bachelor status. Still, she was sure something, as if the light moved through her and he could see her goodness. Her kindness. He swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat and shrugged into his jacket. “Take good care of yourself, Kristin McKaslin.”

“You, too, Dr. Sanders.”

The next step he took felt like a momentous one. As if he'd reached a fork in his life path offering two very different choices. It was a weird way to feel, because there was nothing consequential about opening the door and walking into the snow. Nothing life changing about zipping up his zipper and digging the keys out of his jeans pocket.

Then why did it feel wrong, somehow? When his mom was waiting for him, and his sister was probably chatting a hundred miles a minute in the kitchen. In twenty minutes he'd be sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner.

His feelings didn't make sense. Not at all.

He was just troubled about being here in Montana. Maybe that was it. As he crunched down the snowy steps and the winter air radiated through his coat to make him shiver, no other explanation came to mind. Only four more hours, he thought, glancing at his watch. His flight departed at seven-thirty—the airport had recovered from the blizzard and was up and running. He could survive until then.

As he drove off, the day was already changing. Twi
light cast a somber mood across the snow-mantled world. Making the shadows a deep blue-gray and the sky a mourning shroud as memories, cold and dark, had a hold on him and didn't let go.

December 3

W
ith the temperate heat of the Phoenix sun on his back, Ryan pushed hard for the last quarter mile. Jogging wasn't his favorite thing—it made his shins hurt, his knees ache and it was plain hard work—but for some unexplained reason he looked forward to setting out on his five-mile run every day after work. Even on a perfect Saturday like this one.

Not a cloud in the bright blue sky. The sun a friendly brightness reflecting off the miles of concrete and pavement that comprised the Scottsdale neighborhood he lived in. All different kinds of palm trees, from the short stubby pineapple palms to the tall tropical ones, waved their fronds in the breeze.

His neighbor's cat darted out from beneath the oleander hedges and streaked down the sidewalk and out of sight. Nothing but a blur of gray and white. Tonight,
as usual, he'd terrify the poor animal, without meaning to, by opening his slider door.

The cat napped on Ryan's lounge-chair cushion. Not that he minded, but he would rather befriend the animal instead of always watching it run in the opposite direction.

He understood, though. He and that cat had a lot in common. Keep your distance. Don't trust anyone.

He was so good, he'd perfected it into an art form.

At the end of the hedges, he dropped into a walk. Sweat sluiced off him, but it felt good to have pushed like that. He worked indoors all day. He loved his work; he just hated being confined.

Probably because he'd spent most of his youth outside—playing in the meadows and woods, riding his bike for miles on quiet country roads and, when he was older, working in the fields for extra money. Throughout the long years of his medical training, he'd spent endless hours indoors. He'd never acclimated to it.

It had gotten worse since he'd been back home for Thanksgiving.

Scottsdale had its own strange beauty. Not the rugged granite mountains and lush fertile river valley of his hometown. Still, the eerily human forms of the saguaro cacti, with their arms stretched toward heaven, and the stubborn green of the palm trees and the rocky camel-back ridges of the Superstition Mountains were a form of beauty, too.

It just wasn't Montana.

Ryan wasn't sure if it was Montana he missed or the
woman he'd reunited with there. Kristin had been on his mind since he'd left the McKaslins' home to carve Mom's turkey. He didn't know why he kept thinking about her. Probably because she was really something, that's why. Just because he planned on being unattached forever didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a fine woman.

It didn't help matters that Mom had done nothing else but talk up Kristin. Through their Thanksgiving meal, Mom kept peppering the conversation with comments about Kristin, even if she had to change the subject back to the pretty Montana girl. She was so successful that she'd bought her own place. She was smart with money. She wasn't dating anyone. She had a lot in common with him. She loved movies and books and she jogged, too.

Poor Mom. He knew it was hard for her to understand why he stayed single. That really perplexed him because she'd lost Dad, too. She'd never dated. She'd never considered getting remarried. So, why did she want him to? Both of them knew there was no sense in going through that kind of pain again. People died. Life ended. As a doctor, he couldn't deny how frail life was.

He wasn't about to get close to anyone again. No. He couldn't take that kind of devastation one more time. He was just fine alone. It hadn't been easy for the eight-year-old he'd been to attend his dad's funeral. To try to pick up the pieces shattering all around him—his mom's grief, his own heartbreak, the gaping hole that Dad had left behind. To live every day without him, to
comfort his mom and sister, to worry about money, to know that if he lost one parent, then he could just as easily, just as suddenly, lose the other.

No, he'd lived with enough of that uncertainty. Swiping the sweat from his brow, he stopped in front of the mailboxes and bent down to give his hamstrings a good stretch. He'd missed a few days of running, with the holidays and the long office hours. He was paying for it now.

He looked in his mailbox—the standard stuff. The water bill. Pizza ads. A flyer for free windshield-crack repairs. And a bonus—an envelope from Tim, his buddy in Boise. The E.R. doc. Ryan ripped that one open.

“Hey, Ryan,” he read in Tim's typical hurried, doctor's scrawl. “Samantha Fields was discharged last week, and she asked me to pass these notes on to you. I didn't know the woman you were with, but I figure you'll know how to reach her.”

Ryan looked in the envelope at the two note cards, one addressed to him and the other simply to Kristin.

There he was, thinking about her again. How there'd been steel in her that night—how she'd worked without complaint in the bitter cold to help him tend to Samantha. And there was light in her, the kind that shone as true as the sun. A kindness that moved even a grouchy old bachelor like him, who was so set in his ways.

The trouble was, he didn't have her address in Seattle. If he called his mom, boy, would she make a big deal about it. She'd think she was making progress on her campaign to match him up with a suitable woman. No, he couldn't call his mom. A call to Kristin's mom was out, too.

One of her sisters. Yeah, he'd give Kirby a call. Kirby was a nurse. She understood about confidentiality. He'd get her number from information. Yep, that was a good idea. This way his mom would never know he wanted to write Kristin.

It wasn't his idea to write her, after all. Nope. It was his duty to forward the note from Samantha Fields. And, being an honorable man, what else could he do?

December 8

Rain smeared the windshield of Kristin's sedan and the wipers couldn't keep up with the downpour. Water rushed in rivulets down the paved city streets and sheened on the blacktop of her complex's parking lot. It was only seven o'clock, but it could have been midnight, for the evening felt bleak and endless.

She hit her garage-door opener, grateful to be home safe. The freeway through the downtown corridor had been a mess. Accidents everywhere, lanes of traffic idling in both directions for miles. She turned off the engine, clicked off the headlights, gathered up her work and hit the garage-door button. With the wind and cold locked safely outside, she hopped up the three steps to her kitchen door and unlocked it.

Two frowning Persian cats were two shadows of fluffy shades of gray in the middle of the kitchen. They studied her with unblinking eyes.
Uh-oh, there was a reprimand coming.

“I'm late, I know. I'm sorry.” She dropped her arm
load of work on the counter, along with her purse, and shrugged out of her waterproof coat.

The garment was still a little damp from her run from the office building to the parking garage—the economical parking was down the street, of course, she didn't want to pay a premium just to park close—but today she'd regretted her sensible budgeting. She'd been soaked the instant she stepped outside. Lovely. She was still wet through. And cold.

The dripping water was another transgression to the cats that had obvious standards to maintain. They still hadn't entirely forgiven her for leaving them for Thanksgiving.

“I know it's hard being inside in the warm house all day.” She knelt to thread her fingers through the warm silk of their fluffy hair. Minnie, who held a grudge the longest, looked away, but Mickey, her brother, leaned into Kristin's touch and gave a gravelly purr.

“I missed you, too.” She loved animals. She'd never been without a pet of one kind or another until she'd left home for college. As soon as she had her own place, she'd bought the pair of kittens, who'd been the best company. A little demanding, but then, cats were very wise and regal creatures.

She refilled their water bowls and Mickey's dish was low on dry food, so she filled that, too. Shivering, she turned up the heat as she hurried through the living room. It was a small place, but cozy, with a wide bay-window seat near the front door and a gas fireplace in the back wall.

Even though she'd lived here for two years, she was still fixing it up, according to her budget. She'd taken a week of vacation in October and had painted the living room a soft butter yellow. On cold dark nights like this one, the walls glowed with soft warmth.

She'd reupholstered the matching couches in amber tweed that matched the walls. When she took a few extra days after Christmas, she was going to refinish the built-in bookcases packed with hundreds of paperbacks that filled three of the four walls from floor to ceiling.

The TV tucked in the corner was tuned to the one that seemed to interest the cats—the Discovery Channel. Kristin grabbed the remote off the coffee table she'd picked out with last year's Christmas money from Gramma and flipped through the cable listings until she found a beloved Doris Day movie.

Minnie flicked her tail and hopped onto the arm of the couch. Daintily picking up her tiny, soft downy paws, she settled on the back of the cushion and made an adorable fluffy ball. The feline eyed Doris Day swimming around in a mermaid's costume with clear disapproval.

Next trip home, Kristin decided, she was definitely taking the cats with her.

Thoughts of Montana naturally led to memories of Thanksgiving and of Ryan Sanders—of how he'd changed into a man to admire.

It was a no-brainer that Mom had turned his visit on Thanksgiving into a major deal. Every time Mom called since, she'd mentioned something she'd heard about him, through Mary. How busy he was, that he'd just
bought a new car, how he'd taken a weekend and gone skiing in New Mexico with some of his doctor buddies. “What he really needs,” Mom had confided, “is a wife. Mary worries about him.”

If there was anyone who could take care of himself, it was Dr. Ryan Sanders. As she unlocked the door and stepped out onto the covered front step to grab her mail from the little white box, she wondered if she'd ever met anyone more competent. She'd never forget how he'd handled the emergency that night—his hands so steady, his actions so controlled, his calm wisdom.

Why did she sigh when she thought of him? It wasn't as if she was interested in him.

She slammed the door shut against the damp night and stood over the heat register, shivering. A letter from Gramma. She'd save that to read while she ate. A reminder from the state vehicle people that her license tabs needed to be renewed. Oh, and a letter from…she squinted at the strange names of the return address etched in gold. A law office? No, a doctor's office. In Arizona.

Ryan! She ripped the envelope open and she didn't care if she was way too eager. They were, well, sort of friends. It was always good to hear from a friend, right?

It was hard to read his block letters, his handwriting was more of a scribble. So she sat down on the corner of the couch and switched on the table lamp.

Milkshakes? She laughed, amazed that he'd remembered they'd discussed chocolate milkshakes as they'd driven through town Thanksgiving morning.

Inside the envelope was a sealed note card—a note from Samantha Fields.

It was signed, Sam.

Wow. Of course, Ryan was the one who'd made the real difference, being the doctor. He'd known just what to do to help minimize Sam's injuries. Yeah, he was definitely one fine man.

She noticed he'd scribbled his e-mail address on the bottom of his letter. Now the question was, how long would it take her to get up enough courage to write him?

December 22

A cold Seattle rain streamed down Kristin's bedroom window. Wind gusted against the eaves and rattled the barren alder branches outside. They moaned in protest, adding to the desolate feeling of the night.

But inside the house, she was warm and cozy. Snug in her favorite yellow flannel pajamas and thick slipper socks, she cuddled beneath her electric blanket and relaxed against the feather pillows piled up behind her. The laptop rested on the covers, the cursor patiently blinking.

It was now or never. She'd procrastinated long enough.

Okay, what should she say?

Her pair of Persians kept a wary eye on her, especially Minnie who did not approve of computers. The feline, curled on the foot of the bed, watched the glowing contraption with great displeasure. In her opinion, computers obviously did not belong on the bed.

 

Dear Ryan. Two o'clock. Saturday afternoon. I'm looking forward to it.

 

The phone startled her. Since she hadn't gotten online yet, she grabbed the cordless handset and glanced at the caller ID screen. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi. I know it's late, sweetie, but I wanted to check
in with you. You've been on my mind today. I've got all my shopping done except for you.”

“I told you. Something for my house. Oh! Better yet, my kitchen.”

“I can't think you'd like a mixer for Christmas. Lord knows when Pete bought me one for my birthday two years ago, I didn't take too kindly to it. It was sure a nice mixer, but Christmas is for something special.”

“I know, but there's a lot of stuff I'd love to have.”

“Well, I'll have to think about it. It doesn't seem right. Unless…” Excitement flickered across the miles. “You know a woman considering her future might want a well-stocked kitchen.”