Her Holiday Family

Wind tunneled down Main Street, tumbling the last of autumn’s leaves. They scurried along the street, pushed by the stiff breeze, gathering in curves and hollows.

Soon it would snow. And they’d continue to decorate the town in beautiful light, a beacon of Christmas hope and cheer. And once again she’d spend Christmas alone, no family, no beloved, no kids.

Beezer pushed his head up under her arm.

He wanted her to pet him. Talk to him. So she did just that on the drive to the Campbell house, happy that no one could see her talking with the big yellow dog, but more glad of his trusting company.

If nothing else crazy occurred in her life this year, she was determined to get herself a dog. Maybe.

Beezer yipped softly, as if telling her she didn’t need another dog, she could still share him. If she stayed.

And there was the crux of the problem. A big part of Tina didn’t want to stay and face past failures anymore.

Chapter Three

“Hey, Beeze.” Max swung down from the elevated boathouse as Tina rounded the corner of the Campbell house at half past six. He looked sports-channel-commercial-friendly in easy-cut jeans and a long-sleeved Pittsburgh Pirates sweatshirt.

“Did you keep an eye on things, old fella?” He stooped and ruffled the dog’s neck, rubbing Beeze’s favorite spot beneath the wide collar. “All good?” He looked up at her as he asked the question, and the sight of him, caring for the aging dog, looking all sweet and concerned and amazingly good-looking...

She took three seconds to put her heart back in normal sinus rhythm mode. “Everything went fine. Dozens of happy customers picking up their tools and buying fixer-upper stuff to get ready for the holidays.” She frowned as Beeze headed for the water, though she knew she had nothing to worry about. Beeze was a country dog and his daily swim was an old habit now. “He’ll smell like wet dog all night.”

“I’ll put him on the porch. Dad’s gotten sensitive to smells. The chemo, I guess. He says nothing smells right anymore.”

“Will it get better when he’s done?”

Max’s expression said he wasn’t sure anything would get better, ever. Seeing that, her heart softened more.

“Hope so.” Max headed for the house. “Come on in. Beeze will join us once he’s done with his swim.”

Tina knew that. She’d spent an increasing amount of time at the Campbell house over the past decade. Charlie and Jen were good at taking in strays, and when her family had fallen apart, they’d jumped right in. She’d spent holidays here, preserved food with Jenny during the summer, and when Seth Campbell spotted her café on fire a few weeks back from his house across the road, he’d called 9-1-1 and his parents.

They’d helped her then.

She’d help them now. And she’d have done it for no pay, but Charlie wouldn’t hear of it. A true fatherly type, he understood cash was finite in a week-to-week existence, and he insisted on paying her for her time. “You know, if you’re too tired, we can go over this stuff in the morning. I know you’ve had a long day.”

“Except we could really use the light guy’s take on all this.” Max’s nod toward the door said Charlie’s input was key.

“Is he up to it?”

“Let’s ask him.” Max swung the porch door wide and waited while she stepped in. The smell of roast chicken chased away any pale arguments she might have raised about staying for dinner. She used to grab quick food as she prepared orders at the café. She’d never worried about cooking or grocery shopping at home because she ate on the job. Now?

Truth to tell, she’d been barely eating at all. The realization smacked her upside the head as she crossed to Charlie’s big recliner. “Hey, there. We had a great day today, thanks to Max’s overnight efforts.”

“Yeah?” Charlie’s smile was a thin portrait of the one they knew so well. Tiredness dogged his eyes. “Max and Earl got all that stuff fixed?”

“We did. And how about we have you move into the living room, Dad, because when Beeze comes in from the lake, he’s going to smell pretty bad. I’ll leave him outside for a while, but then I’ll tuck him on the porch. If that’s all right.”

“I can towel him off when he’s done with his swim,” Tina added. “Then he can curl up by the heater. He and I are used to this routine.”

“Are you now?” Max lobbed an old towel her way from the stack they kept inside the back door. “You’re elected, then. Need a hand, Dad?”

“I wouldn’t mind one.” Charlie huffed as he pressed his hands against the wide arms of the chair. He pushed down hard, but paused midway to catch his breath.

Max didn’t fuss, he didn’t act the least bit concerned or surprised, which told her he was skilled at pretense, and that wasn’t something women put in the plus column. She’d had her share of guys who pretended to be happy. Never again. Still, his calm demeanor and strong arm beneath his father’s elbow allowed Charlie the extra support he needed, and Max’s matter-of-fact manner kept the moment drama-free. “Do you want to eat at the table or in the family room? There’s an eight-o’clock game on ESPN.”

“Who’d you say was playing?”

Tina sucked a breath. Charlie Campbell knew sports like no other. He loved catching games on TV, and he’d installed a TV in the hardware store so he could catch Pittsburgh throughout both seasons, baseball and football. He’d been celebrating their growing success all year. Before chemotherapy muddled his mind, Charlie would never forget what game was on, who’d scored the most points or who landed on the disabled list.

But he had.

He passed a hand across his forehead as he settled into the firm family-room chair. “They said I might forget stuff.”

“It appears they were right,” Max teased. “But Dad, that’s normal for chemo. And it all comes back later.”

Charlie stared at Max, stared right at him with a look that said too much, but then he shrugged, playing along. “That’ll be good.”

Tina’s heart sank. For just a moment, she read the realization in Max’s eyes, his face-off with the grim reality of a new timeline, but then he leaned in, hugged his father and backed off. “I’ll bring you a tray, okay?”

Charlie’s face paled further, and Tina hadn’t thought that was possible. She touched Max’s arm to draw his attention to “Plan B.” “Or Charlie and I could just sit and talk while you guys eat,” she offered brightly. “I’ll fill him in on store stuff and pick his brain about the festival of lights.”

“Since I want to be in on that conversation, I bet Mom won’t mind if we hold off supper for a few minutes while we figure this out. Great idea, Tina.”

His praise warmed her. His expression said he recognized her ploy and approved. It was clear that Charlie didn’t want food, and despite the great smells emanating from Jenny Campbell’s kitchen, Tina didn’t mind waiting. Not if it helped Charlie.

* * *

Max set a side chair alongside Tina’s in the family room and took a seat. She pulled a notebook and pen out of her purse. “Charlie, can you give us a quick overview of your normal festival timeline? Max has offered to help, but he hasn’t been here since this tradition started.”

Ouch. Salt in the wound... Max angled her a look she ignored.

“I’ve got some notes on my laptop. I’ll have Mom get you the file,” Charlie promised Max, but then added, “Thing is, I go my own way most times, and your mother told me I should write stuff down, but I was stubborn—”

A distinct cough from the kitchen said Jenny heard and agreed.

“So some of this I just roll with as it happens.”

“Tell me those parts, Dad, then I can roll with it in your place.”

Charlie explained the contracted light display in the park and the circle of lights surrounding the lake supplied by year-round home-owners and lakeshore businesses. A few cottage owners came back in December, too, solely to set up light displays at their summer homes. “The Kirkwood Lady takes dinner cruises around the lake after Thanksgiving,” he added. “It only holds three dozen diners, so it gets booked up fast, but it’s a sight to see, the boat, all lit up, circling the lake, surrounded by Christmas lights.”

The image painted a pretty picture. The big boat, all decked out, surrounded by a ring of lights, trolling the lake’s perimeter.

Max had been raised on the water. He’d learned how to fish, catch bait, water-ski and swim, all along the shores of Kirkwood Lake. But since the Sawyer family tragedy, and with the exception of army-related maneuvers, he’d purposely stayed on land. Losing his best friend, knowing what led up to that tragic night and how he might have prevented the heartbreak that followed, spoiled the beauty of lakeshore living.

As Tina jotted down information about the contracted lighting company, Charlie’s eyes drifted shut.

“Supper’s ready.” Jenny walked into the room, saw Charlie and didn’t hide the look of concern quite quick enough.

“We tuckered him out.” Tina stood, leaned over, kissed Charlie’s forehead, then moved toward the kitchen as if Charlie’s slumber was the most natural thing in the world.

It wasn’t, and Max felt funny leaving his father sleeping in the chair, worn from the influx of medications. He hesitated and remained seated. “I could just sit with him while he sleeps.”

Jenny shifted her attention from son to husband and back, then she crossed the room, took Max’s arm and drew him up. “He’d feel bad if you skipped eating, and the smell of food doesn’t sit well with him now, so come to the kitchen, eat with us, and then you can sit with him. The doctors told us to expect this, all of this.” The wave of her hand included Charlie’s tiredness, his lack of appetite, aversion to smells and the loss of hair. “Though telling us didn’t prepare me for the reality of watching him struggle.” She hugged Max’s arm as they moved into the kitchen he’d loved as a youth. “We’ll take each day as it comes. I’m so glad you’re here to help out, Max. I truly don’t know what I would have done without you. Just having you at the store with Tina has taken such a load off his mind. Last night was the first peaceful night’s sleep he’s had since his diagnosis a few weeks ago. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

Her affirmation confirmed two things for Max. First, he’d made the right decision in coming home. Second? He’d waited far too long, and if God allowed do-overs Max would be at the front of the line, begging. But for now he’d do what he could, when he could, making things easier for his parents. Yes, it meant he’d have to face the past—

And sooner or later he’d run into someone from the Sawyer family. Wanting to take charge of the situation, he decided to make the trip to the Sawyer house a priority. Knock on the door, walk in and talk to Pete’s parents. Would they hate him for not stopping Pete from taking the boat that night?

Maybe. And they’d be justified in feeling that way. But owning his part in his friend’s accident was the right move to make. And way overdue.

* * *

“That was amazing.” Tina glanced at the messed-up dinner table and made a face. “I think I ate half that pan of chicken and biscuits. Which means you two didn’t get enough, and while that should make me feel guilty, I’m too happy and full to apologize properly.”

“Not eating right lately?”

Max’s question made her squirm because she wasn’t looking for sympathy or someone to watch over her. She’d just been downright hungry and Jenny was a great cook.

Downright hungry? I’d go with ravenous. Quick, there’s one last biscuit. Don’t let it get away!

“You don’t know this, but we had a fire once, Tina, a long time ago.” Jenny leaned forward, hands folded. “Charlie and I were newlyweds, living in an apartment in Clearwater. We were saving like crazy to buy a house of our own. Our oldest son, Marcus, was a baby and we’d broken the smoke alarm. I meant to buy a new one, but it was winter, Marcus had a bad cold and I didn’t get out to the stores.

“A space heater in the apartment below us caught fire. Dad was working for the town, and he’d been called in to run the road plows. Marcus woke up to eat.” She frowned, glanced down and clenched her hands tighter. “I wouldn’t have known there was a fire if that baby hadn’t been hungry. What if he hadn’t woken up? Already the smoke was coming through the vents and the heat ducts. I grabbed Marcus and a big coat and some blankets for him, and we got outside, but for weeks afterward, all Dad and I could think was what if he hadn’t woken up? There was no smoke detector, and we knew it. I could barely live with myself, Tina, imagining what-ifs. I couldn’t eat and I don’t think I slept for more than minutes at a time. It was crazy.”

Tina had been doing exactly the same thing. Not eating, barely sleeping. But she’d spent so long pretending everything was okay in her world that having someone—even Jenny Campbell, mother extraordinaire—recognize her weaknesses seemed to put her at risk.

“For once Marcus’s demanding personality did us some good.” Max’s joke eased the moment, but Jenny didn’t let it go. She reached a hand over to Tina’s and said, “Charlie and I will support whatever decisions you make, but we want you to know how much we love having you in Kirkwood. We’ll do whatever it takes to help you reestablish your business if you decide to do that here. Now, I know you’re thinking of starting over elsewhere, so I’m not saying this to pressure you,” she added as she stood. “But we wanted you to know we’re on your side, Tina.”

Jenny’s promise of help during this time of personal struggle should have made Tina feel good.

It didn’t.

She didn’t want to be torn. She didn’t want to weigh options or decisions or pros and cons. She didn’t want to talk to God about it, or waste more time than was absolutely necessary.

She just wanted to leave. Put it all behind her and go, brushing the dust of her family-less hometown off her feet like Jesus directed the disciples to do. She didn’t want to think about broken engagements, loss of family and burned-out businesses. She wanted a clean slate, a new beginning.

Alone? You really want to start all over, someplace else? Absolutely alone?

Jenny’s sincerity made Tina’s decision to pull up stakes and leave town seem less inviting.

Beezer whined at the door. Jenny started to turn, but Tina raised her hand. “I promised Max I’d towel him off when he was ready to come in. I’ll get him, Jenny.”

“Thank you. I’m so distracted lately that I’m afraid I’ll forget to take care of him while I’m helping Dad.”

Tina grabbed her hoodie and went out the front porch door. She toweled Beezer off, then brought him into the warmth of the enclosed porch. “Here you go, old buddy.” She switched the radiant heater on and laid one of Beeze’s favorite worn blankets on the floor.

“You have done this before.”

Approval softened the deep timbre of Max’s tone. He stepped down onto the porch and reached low to pet Beezer. “He was little more than a pup when I joined the service.”

“Yup.”

“He’s gotten old.”

“That’ll happen.” She couldn’t sugarcoat things for him. Sure, he was devoted to the service, to making rank, to moving up, but he’d stayed away on purpose. And that was inexcusable.

“I wish I’d been here.”

His honest admission defused her resentment. She expected him to make excuses, to launch a well-prepared defensive explaining his choices and lauding his service.

He did no such thing. He just sank down onto the floor and petted the old dog’s head silently.

She didn’t know what to say, what to do. He’d surprised her. She’d spent years wishing she had a family like this, a family that clung together through thick and thin, while Max had brushed them off.

But she hadn’t expected outright, blatant honesty. Hearing his regret said she might have been too harsh in her initial assessment.

“Do you have a dog, Tina?”

She’d never had any pets. Why was that? she wondered, seeing the love bond reignite between Max and Beeze. “I don’t, no.”

“But you’re so good with him.” Max tipped his head back and looked at her, and there it was again, that glimmer of assessment, appraisal. “Like you’re born to love animals.”

“I get my share of loving when I come over here,” she told him. She stood, gathered her purse and slung it over her shoulder crosswise. “That’s plenty. It’s tough to give an animal all the love and care it needs when you’re working all the time.”

His nod said he understood.

His eyes said something different altogether.

But no matter what Max thought, Tina understood the motivations behind her singular actions. When everything you’ve ever loved...or thought you loved...went away, alone was just plain better.

* * *

Max’s cell phone buzzed him awake in the middle of the night. He answered it quietly, not wanting to disturb his parents, but knowing it must be important for his brother Seth to place a call at that hour. “What’s up? Do you need help? I can be there in five minutes.”

“Only if you break all the speed limits, and yes, I need you here. Now.”

Max was half-ready before his brother placed the request. “Are you okay? Is it the babies? What’s going on?”

“My family’s fine,” Seth assured him.

Max breathed a sigh of relief. Seth’s wife, Gianna, had given birth to fraternal twins in early summer. Mikey and Bella were the sweetest things God ever put on the planet, and he’d felt a fierce shot of protective love when he’d met them for the first time the week before.

“Someone was snooping around the remains of Tina’s place on the water, then cut through the pass between the church and the hardware store. I’d just finished feeding Mikey and saw a flash of movement at the edge of the light. I don’t think he or she knows they’ve been spotted.”

“I’m on my way.”

Max bolted for the car once he’d quietly closed the kitchen door to the side entrance. He started the engine, backed out of his parents’ drive slowly, then picked up speed as he cruised toward the village at the northern point of Kirkwood Lake. In town, he drove past the hardware store as if it was perfectly normal for traffic to pass through Kirkwood in the middle of the night. He turned right onto Overlook Drive, passed Seth’s house deliberately, then let the car glide to a silent stop. He turned the engine off, slipped from the driver’s seat and leaned the door shut. If anyone was still around, he didn’t want to ruin the false sense of security he’d just created.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly. He spotted Seth’s unmoving frame at the far edge of his carriage-style garage. Max walked around the garage, hoping Seth recognized his maneuver. When Seth melded back into the shadows on the far side of the angled garage, Max knew he understood. They met up on the farthest, darkest edge of the building. “Have you seen him again?”

Seth shook his head. “No. But I’ve been watching to see if he came back.”

“Was he at the hardware store? Do you think someone’s trying to break in? Or set another fire?”

Backlit by the outside house lights, Max couldn’t see Seth’s face, but he read the consternation in his tone. “I’m not sure. It seemed the original intent was to find something in the ashes of the café.”

“This person was crawling through a roped-off crime scene?”

“Yes.”

Max could only think of one reason why anyone would grope their way through the ashes of Tina’s cafe in the middle of the night: to find something that might incriminate them. “Man? Woman? Child?”

“No way to tell. Too far and too dark. But whoever it was moved quick and light.”

“Probably a woman or a kid.”

“I hate to think either,” Seth admitted, “but that was my gut reaction, too.”

“I’ll go the long way around the store, circling the outside of the church and the cemetery behind,” Max said. He clicked his watch to mark time. “In four minutes you come around the front to the back entrance of Dad’s store. I’ll flash my pen from the edge of the cemetery woods. And we’ll go in together.”

“You packing?” Seth wondered aloud.

“Always.” Skill with handguns had become intrinsic to Max years ago. Going through life armed and ready was second nature now.

“Just don’t shoot me, okay?”

“It is dark,” Max whispered as he slipped along the back of the garage, then into the shadows of the tree-lined street. Strewn leaves would have marked his presence on a dry night, but the late-day rain silenced his movement. He slipped along the front edge of the graveyard, then through the forested southern border. If this person was targeting area businesses to burn, or searching to remove incriminating evidence, Max was going to make sure he or she didn’t get any farther than Dad’s hardware store parking lot. Unless they’d already made their way home, wherever that was, and in that case, they’d let the authorities figure it out. Right now, with Seth covering his back, Max knew he was in the driver’s seat.

“Stop right there.”

Max froze.

“I’ve already called the police, and if you move, I’ll—”

“Tina?” He turned, hands up, and peered into the trees. “Where are you?” he whispered. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Max?”

If there’d been time or if he was sure she wasn’t pointing a gun at his back, he’d have banged his head against one of the nearby trees in frustration. As it was, he held perfectly still until he made out her shape—well, half her shape—behind one of the sprawling maples planted nearly eighty years before. For one split second he wondered if it had been Tina that Seth had spotted in the rubble...but it couldn’t have been.

Could it?

Why would Tina be snooping around the ruins of her burned-out café, the place she loved so much?

She’s pretty anxious to leave this town behind. Anxiety can push people to do things they’d never do normally.

“I saw someone,” she whispered as she crept through the trees.

Tina lived in an upstairs apartment on Overlook Drive, kitty-corner from Seth’s house. Her front windows overlooked Kirkwood Lake and Main Street. At this point, Max was actually surprised they hadn’t been joined by a cast of thousands, which was just as likely as having four people roaming Main Street in Kirkwood in the dead of night. “What did you see?”

“Someone moving around the timbers of the café.”

“And do you make it a habit of being up in the middle of the night, checking out Main Street?”

“I didn’t used to,” she retorted, and he didn’t have to listen hard to hear the sting in her voice. “I used to sleep soundly. And then someone burned down my business, and I’m lucky I sleep at all. And at this point, the three hours I got tonight will probably be it, because how can I crawl back into bed and fall asleep after all this?”

Jenny’s words rushed back, how she’d lost sleep and her appetite in the aftermath of an accidental fire as a young mother. How much worse must it be to think you were targeted?

Tina pointed west toward Seth’s house. “I woke up and saw Seth’s lights on. I worried that one of the babies might be sick. When he came creeping outside, I knew something was up. I looked further and saw something. Someone,” she corrected herself, “moving through the remains of the café.”

“Doesn’t anyone sleep around here anymore?” Seth’s voice entered the conversation from the near side of the church parking lot.

“It appears not.” Max decided the time for subterfuge was over. He flicked the flashlight of his cell phone on. “Tina saw someone, too.”

“She did, huh?” Seth moved forward, frowned, then yawned. “Well, between the three of us, we’ve managed to give away any tiny advantage we might have had. Max, did you see anything?”

“Other than Tina? No.”

He directed the light toward her. She flushed.

“Me, neither. So whoever it was didn’t hang around tonight, but I don’t like that he or she hightailed it up here toward Dad’s store when he thought he’d been spotted.”

“Me, neither. I could start sleeping here. Add an ounce of Fort Bragg protection to the local mix.”

“Mom would go crazy with that. And Dad would worry, and the last thing we want to do is make Dad worry.”

“No argument there. So what do we do?”

“For now, go home.” Tina offered the suggestion as she turned back toward Overlook Drive. “Although the likelihood of getting more sleep is pretty much impossible now.”

“Because?” Max left the comment open-ended, hoping for the right answer. She supplied it, and wasted no time doing it.

“There’s only one reason someone would be poking around the ashes of my hard work,” she answered quickly, and he read the thick emotion in her voice. “And that’s because they’re looking for evidence that puts them at the scene of the fire. Which means the supposition of arson just became a reality in my head.”