Licensed for Trouble (36 page)

Bix wasn't hiding by the bank or by the row of beachwear boutiques or on the streetside veranda of Sunsets Supper Club. Occasionally PJ shot a glance at her daughter, checking out—

There. Tinker Bell had even climbed up to stand on the seat, waving in a manner unbecoming a beauty queen. “Mommy!”

PJ followed her gaze.

Gotcha.
Bix hid just behind a man holding a Mylar balloon, her hair hidden by a baseball cap and her eyes by dark glasses.

Anyone else may not have recognized her, but PJ well remembered those sinister raccoon eyes.

After all, she knew how to spot a criminal.

She kept marching. Thinking. Once Tinker Bell had passed, Bix would take off.

Vanish.

Not again.

PJ sprang out of line, straight for Bix.

For a moment, the sight of the Kellogg Turkey bursting out of line and running toward the onlooking crowd stunned even Bix into silence. Her mouth opened slightly.

Then she bolted.

“Bix!” PJ banged through the crowd. “Make a hole!”

Most seemed so horrified to see a hundred-plus-pound turkey lunging at them that they scattered. A few bumped off her costume, but she wasn't trying to negotiate the bottom of a hot dog bun this time. No sirree, she had her running legs and Converse on and she lit out after Bix like a gobbler escaping a farmer.

Bix ran into the parade, checking a few Girl Scouts into a float, bowling over a handful of others. She scooped up a couple aluminum cans from the Recycle for Life bins and chucked them at PJ.

Oh, please. She'd had real killers after her. With real bullets.

“Bix, it won't do you any good!”

Bix didn't look back, just rounded the edge of the Meyer Brothers Dairy float and barreled down the other side.

PJ sprinted down the opposite side of the road, eyes on Bix. She dodged an elf, another, finally flattened a third as Santa's float rumbled toward her.

“PJ, what are you doing?” Boone's fake bowlful-of-jelly tummy bounced as he took to his feet.

“It's Bix!” PJ pointed at the woman, now running without glasses or hat.

Boone pulled off his beard, and the crowd gasped as he jumped off the float.

But PJ was already past it, running flat out for Iwo Jima. The VFW float had won the award for best detail, and yes, it certainly had all the elements of the rocky knoll where the World War II soldiers had staked their victory. She half bounced, half scrabbled up the side, glad they'd reinforced it with some sort of chicken wire, then hit the top.

Bix looked up, a sort of horror in her eyes.

And why not? A turkey on top of a mountain, ready to leap upon her, might make any hardened criminal trip, stumble, cry out—

PJ leaped from the top of Iwo Jima in a perfect all-state tackle that even Boone would have been proud of.

They rolled, hard, into the gutter. Thank goodness for extra stuffing, because the costume cushioned her fall.

Bix, however, lay on the street, groaning.

“You got 'er, PJ!” A gravelly voice hollered from the flatbed behind, where the veterans sat on their folding chairs. PJ didn't have to look up to recognize Hugh's voice. Not when he lived right across the street from her in the carriage house. Benefits from the sale of his mother's estate—supervised by Connie and doled out to him monthly—meant that Hugh could live the rest of his years off the streets.

Good old Kellogg—despite his dishonorable discharge from the military, the veterans decided to let him aboard their float.

But Bix wasn't done. As PJ grabbed her jacket, she rammed her elbow into PJ's face, and a cry went up from the crowd. PJ scrabbled after her, grabbing Bix's foot as Bix rolled to her knees.

She kicked at PJ. “Get away from me!”

“You pushed me into the lake!”

Bix kicked at her again, a seesaw effect with PJ at the other end. “I did not—”

“Give it up, Bix. I bet if I run the plates, I'll find out it's your GT Deena is driving. I saw the Kellogg High tassel hanging from your mirror. You need to get over the past and start living in the now. High school is
over
!”

Then she launched herself again at Bix, flattening her to the ground.

Not necessarily a practiced move, but a good PI improvised, too.

And in case she needed help, Dog ran up, barking wildly, slurping them both on the face.

“Get away from me, you mutt!”

“He's not a mutt!” PJ said even as she flattened one arm into Bix's neck, twisting her hand into a submission hold.

“Ow!”

Thank you, Jeremy Kane school of martial arts.

PJ looked at the dog. “You're your own breed, aren't you, Killer?”

Dog slurped her again on the face. Sat down. Wagged his tail.

Killer?

No . . .

“PJ!” Boone ran up. “What on earth?”

“I'm making a citizen's arrest—attempted murder and bail fugitive!”

Boone stared at her with a look of half horror. Then a smile grew on his face. “Well, I guess you could say Turkey Lurkey got her girl.” Boone motioned to a couple cops working crowd control, then leaned over and cuffed the now-cursing Bix. Two cops came over and hauled her to her feet. PJ struggled to find hers.

“Oh, funny. You could move faster, you know, Santa.” She let him pull her up.

Jeremy came running over, out of breath. “Hey, that's my girl you got there!”

“And thank goodness.” Boone let her go even as he gave her a little wink. “Okay, everybody back now. There's nothing to see.”

“Nothing to see?” Jeremy said, dusting off her feathers, straightening her collar. His dark eyes shone, a message in them that went clear to her stuffing. “Oh, I think they haven't seen anything yet.”

Author's Note

I am adopted. It's never been an issue for me. Whether because I had amazing adoptive parents who loved me, or perhaps because of my makeup as a person, it's never been an open wound in my life. Still, growing up, the fact that I was different from my parents (especially in appearance—I had blonde hair; they were both dark-haired) didn't escape me. Nor the fact that my personality seemed to be so much more out-of-the-box than my parents might have expected. As you can imagine, they put up with a lot of daydreaming! I always wondered if perhaps my birth mother was like me—someone who liked to laugh and embrace life and have fun with friends and live large and sometimes messy.

For a long time, I only focused on the differences . . . until a friend spoke truth into my life. She said, “God changed the lineage and the makeup of your adoptive family line by putting you in it. It was meant for their good, as well as yours.”

So in other words, God intended for my messy, exuberant, sometimes-creative personality to infuse a blessing into my adoptive family's lives. As if God, knowing who I was and would be, added molasses to a batch of chocolate chip cookies. (Try it—nummy!)

I love this idea.

I have great respect for my birth mother. Having my own children, I now understand how it takes such selflessness and courage to give your child into the arms of another. I wanted to convey this idea through the Kellogg family—by giving PJ to the Sugars, they were giving her a new life and an opportunity to be a blessing to the Sugar line. But her personality was still Kellogg born, and while she'd been given a new name, she could be a unique mix of both.

As I began book three, I also saw PJ wanting to become more than she was and yet unsure of how to get there, sometimes feeling trapped by the person she'd been, not sure how to synthesize the two.

I think that Christians, despite the transforming power of God in our lives, can be trapped by who we were, the identities of our past. What does it look like to be adopted by God and then live today, with that new identity, in this world? It's just not that easy.

And if we're adopted by God, what does it mean to be coheirs with Christ?

If you'll indulge me for a moment, I believe the answers are found through a journey of looking at who Christ is, a look at His Sonship. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus points out that He and the Father have a unique relationship. The Son and the Father are in close communion, so much so that if you've seen Jesus, you've seen God. God empowered Christ to do miracles, to obey, to live sacrificially. More than that, because of their relationship, God's love for us poured out through Jesus, so much so that our entire destiny was changed.

See, when Jesus appeared to Mary that third day, after rising from the dead, He passed on to us His unique and mind-blowing relationship with God, the Father. (John 20:17). We were no longer outsiders, but brought into the Kingdom, into the family. When we become Christians, our adoption changes us fundamentally. We are given a new identity as children of the King, with all that entails—access to our Father, all the Kingdom power on our side, God's love transforming our lives so much that we could also impact our world. This is what it means to be a coheir; this is our earthly inheritance.

The bottom line is, God gave PJ her inheritance not just for her but for the Sugars and Jeremy and Boone and Kellogg at large. What's more, like Jeremy says, looking back into the past gave her life today meaning. She saw more clearly God's mercy and grace and love. And she passed that on to those around her.

If you have accepted Jesus' payment for your sins and joined the family of God, then you've been given a new identity. You don't belong to the past anymore. Let that new perspective change you, and may you spill out “a little sugar” into the world.

IN HIS GRACE,

Susan May Warren

About the Author

Susan May Warren is a former missionary to Russia, the mother of four children, and the wife of a guy who wooed her onto the back of his motorcycle for the adventure of a lifetime. The award-winning author of over twenty-five books, Susan loves to write and teach writing. She speaks at women's events around the country about God's amazing grace in our lives. Susan is active in her church and small community and makes her home on the north shore of Minnesota, where her husband runs a hotel.

Visit her Web site at
www.susanmaywarren.com
.