Coming Home for Christmas by Marie Ferrarella

to family, even if that family belonged to someone else. “Ginny’s having a birthday party.”
    He left his seat belt buckled even though she was undoing hers. He had no idea who Kenzie was talking about. “Ginny?” he questioned.
    Kenzie nodded, wondering if he was going to give her a hard time, after all. “One of my nieces. She’s three today.”
    â€œYou brought me to a kid’s birthday party?” he asked in disbelief. This was what he got for letting his guard down and going along.
    â€œI brought you to a
family
birthday party,” Kenzie corrected him. “It just happens to be Ginny’s birthday. If this had been two weeks ago, it would have been my mother’s birthday. Most of the family live pretty busy lives,” she went on, opening the door on her side. “Birthdays are the excuse we use to get together for a few hours.”
    He wasn’t moving. Pausing, she bent down and looked into the car at him. “The car’s too big to fit in the living room,” she said matter-of-factly.
    His eyebrows drew together. “What?”
    â€œYou’re still buckled up,” Kenzie said, nodding at the fastened seat belt. “And I just thought you’d want to know that the car is too big to take in with you, so you’re going to have to unbuckle the seat belt.”
    He was clearly having his doubts about attending. “Maybe I should just stay here until you’re done.”
    â€œMaybe you shouldn’t,” Kenzie countered cheerfully. “The whole point is to get you out of the house and clear your head,” she told him.
    He had his own way of unwinding that didn’t involve pretending to be interested in what strangers were talking about. “A glass of wine will clear my head.”
    â€œNot hardly,” she told him. “Wine just makes things fuzzy. C’mon,” she coaxed him. “I’ve got a very friendly family and they don’t bite—I promise. Besides, if you come in with me, you’ll be doing me a favor.”
    â€œWhat kind of a favor?” Keith asked suspiciously. His hand hovered over the seat belt, which remained buckled.
    She thought back to the other day and her sister’s attempts to set her up with a blind date for dinner at her house. “If my siblings see me coming in with a breathing male under the age of fifty, they might leave me alone for a while.”
    He was no more enlightened now than he had been a moment ago. “I don’t get it.”
    Sighing, Kenzie spelled it out for him. “They’re all married. I’m not. I’m the youngest and somehow, through no fault of my own, I became everyone’s favorite matchmaking project. If they see you, they’ll cease and desist—at least for a little while—and I can breathe and focus on doing my job well instead of having to fend off their efforts.”
    Now he understood. “That sounds reasonable enough, I guess.”
    â€œGreat.” She closed the door on her side. “Now take a deep breath,” she advised. “And let’s go.”
    The second Keith got out of her car, Kenzie aimed her key fob at the vehicle and pressed it. Four locks all closed simultaneously.
    The sounds of people talking, laughing, calling out to one another were all around him long before the front door of the house was opened.
    Echoes from long ago rose up to meet Keith, and he stopped short of the front step.
    He didn’t know if he was up to this, willingly walking into a situation that was already resurrecting memories he had absolutely no desire to revisit.
    Memories that had been, until now, too painful for him.
    The next moment, just before he started to turn away, he felt Kenzie weaving her arm through his as if it were a long practiced maneuver. Before he could say a word in protest—or tell her that he had definitely changed his mind—the front door opened, and he found