The Christmas Child

“You’ll take your dad some lasagna.” From Sophie’s quiet acceptance, Kade figured she knew not to argue with Ida June. “Stable’s nearly done. Would have been if Kade had been there. Makes me so aggravated not to be able to carry a four-by-eight sheet of plywood by myself.” She flexed an arm muscle and gave it a whap. “Puny thing.”

“Nobody would accuse you of being puny, Ida June.” Kade moved to Sophie’s side and reached for the coffee mug.

She scooted but didn’t turn loose of the cup. She did, however, flash him that sunny smile, only this one carried a hint of his aunt’s sass. “I can do it.”

“Yeah?” he arched a brow.

She arched one, too. “Yeah.”

Was the cookie lady flirting with him?

They jockeyed for position for a few seconds while Kade examined the interesting simmer of energy buzzing around the pair of them like honeybees in a glass jar, both dangerous and sweet. Danger he understood, but sweet Sophie didn’t know what she was bumping up against.

Ten minutes later, he walked her out the front door, leaving Ida June to heat a spicy casserole that would torture him again tonight.

He opened the car door for Sophie, stood with one hand on the handle as she slid gracefully onto the seat. At some point in the day she’d changed her clothes from a long blue sweater to a dark skirt and white blouse. She looked the part of a teacher. Weird that he’d notice. “Don’t worry about the kid.”

Keys rattled as she dug in the pocket of a black jacket. “I won’t. But I will pray for him.”

His teeth tightened. “You pray. I’ll find answers.”

A cloud passing overhead shadowed her usual cheer. “We can do both.”

“Right.” God listened to people like Sophie. Kade still believed that much.

She started the engine and yet he remained in the open car door, wanting to say something reassuring and not knowing how. Life, he knew, did not always turn out the way it should.

“Kade?” she said.

“Yeah?”

She reached out and placed her hand on his sleeve. Her warmth, or maybe the thought of it, seeped through the thick cotton.

“Everything will be all right.” Her gray eyes smiled, serious but teasing, too. “I promise.”

The tables had turned. She was the one doing the reassuring. For two beats he even believed her.

Then he said, “Don’t make promises,” and shut the door.

“Dad, have you ever met Kade McKendrick?” Sophie stood on a stepladder propped against her father’s brick house, feeding tiny blue lightbulbs into equally tiny sockets. Next to her, on another stepladder, her dad attached strands of Christmas lights to the gabled eaves. “Ida June’s nephew? Yes, I’ve run into him a time or two. Why?”

“What was your impression?”

“Polite. Watchful. A man with something on his mind.”

“Hmm.” Yes, she saw those things. He was wounded, too, and maybe a little sour on the world. Beneath that unhealthy dose of cynicism, she also saw a man who didn’t back down, who did what he promised. Although he had this thing about not making any promises at all. “Hmm.”

Her father paused, one hand braced against brick to turn his head toward her. “What does that hmm of yours mean?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Nothing really.” She didn’t know how to put into words the curious interest Kade had stirred up. “He says he’ll find Davey’s family.”

“Maybe he will,” her dad said. “I heard he was an agent for the DEA.”

“He mentioned special units, whatever those are.”

“Could be DEA or any of the other highly trained groups. Seems strange, don’t you think, for him to be here in Redemption doing odd jobs with a great-aunt?”

She took another bulb from her jacket pocket and snapped it into the tiny slot. “Maybe he’s simply a nice guy helping out an older relative.”

“Ida June? Older?” Dad snorted and turned back to his task. “I won’t tell her you said that.”

Sophie laughed. “Thanks.”

“So what are you ruminating about?”

“When I mentioned praying for Davey, Kade threw up a wall of resistance. He did the same thing when I mentioned Christmas.”

“Lots of non-Christians get uncomfortable with God talk, but Christmas is a different matter. Maybe something bad happened during the holidays?” He paused to take another strand of lights from her outstretched hand. “Or maybe the guy’s a jerk.”

“I don’t think so, Dad. He was kind to Davey. Almost tender. You should have seen the pair of them digging through that bag of clothes.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

Her heart jumped, a reaction she didn’t quite get. She liked everyone. “Beyond his kindness to Davey, I barely know him.”

“I knew your mother was the one the minute I laid eyes on her.”

Like a fly on her hamburger, the remark soured Sophie’s stomach. How could Dad speak casually and without bitterness when Sophie still felt the disappointment as keenly as she had five years ago?

She pushed one final bulb into a socket and backed down the ladder. “Are we putting the sleigh on the roof this year?”

If Dad noticed the change in subjects, he didn’t let on. With a sparkle in his eyes and the nip of wind reddening his cheeks, he asked, “Do elves make toys? Does Santa have a list of naughty and nice?”

Mark Bartholomew was almost as Christmas-crazy as his daughter, and every year they worked for days decorating first his house and then her little cottage. No matter how cold and fierce the wind or how many other activities they had going, this had become their tradition since the divorce. She’d started the practice so that the first holiday without Mom would be easier for him, but now she treasured this special time with her father.

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