Coming Home for Christmas (5 page)

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

K
eith 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.

Taking his cue, Keith left her to it.

Or thought he did.

The problem was that the house was so quiet, it was almost eerie. There was no competing noise to draw his attention away from the sound of Kenzie's voice as she made call after call, saying, essentially, the same thing over and over again.

Even with a room between them—he was in the tiny room that had been used as a study—he could still hear her clearly.

Kenzie's voice, he thought, sounded almost melodic despite the fact that it was infused with the proper subdued decorum as she called the first of many people to announce solemnly his mother's passing.

He caught himself being drawn to the sound of her voice even though he tried not to listen.

He fully expected Kenzie to keep her end of the conversation identical from call to call. But after listening to her phone what he assumed were the first two people in the book, he realized she was tailoring what she said.

Kenzie Bradshaw was nothing if not personable. He found himself admiring her.

He had spent the first night here on the sofa rather than going upstairs to his old bedroom. But with the sound of Kenzie's voice filling up the living room and perforce the surrounding area, he decided he needed to escape. So he reluctantly went upstairs to his room, thinking he'd give what he'd left there ten years ago a cursory look on the off chance that there actually
was
something he might want to keep from that period of his life.

As he climbed up the stairs, Keith couldn't help thinking that he'd lucked out hiring Kenzie. What she was doing right now was definitely over and above the call of duty. He appreciated that she had taken on what would have been to him nothing short of an ordeal. Notifying people that someone they knew and presumably liked was dead was an onerous task. That went double since the deceased was his mother.

Yet Kenzie had taken the job on more than willingly.

He wondered why she'd done that.

Was she playing some sort of an angle? And if so, what?

He'd been a lawyer much too long. Otherwise, he wouldn't be on his guard like this. Not everyone had an underhanded motive in mind, he reminded himself. Sometimes a kindness was just a kindness.

The embroidery-worthy slogan caught him up short as it popped into his head.

That was something his mother used to say. Now that he thought about it, she had always been a champion of good deeds for their own sake, not for any sort of financial gain or reward other than a feeling of satisfaction.

And then he frowned, remembering that their last argument had been about just that.

* * *

A strong feeling of déjà vu swept over Keith the moment he crossed the threshold into his old bedroom. Until this point, he had been convinced he was in no danger of feeling even remotely nostalgic. After all, he'd left in the heat of anger, and anger had continued to be his shield all these years.

When he thought of the house on Normandie, there was no overwhelming fondness vying for his attention. There was just that feeling of anger, anger that effectively managed to cocoon him.

So where was that shield, that cocoon now? he silently demanded.

Keith felt naked and exposed, and he definitely felt vulnerable.

He almost turned on his heel and walked out again, but that would have been cowardly and he refused to be a coward, even if only in his own eyes.

So he forced himself to remain in the room, opening bureau drawers and looking into his closet.