Holiday Wishes by Nora Roberts Page A

thought with deep affection. Her voice was kind of funny, sort of scratchy and deep, but nice. Now and again she looked back toward him and smiled. When she did, his heart acted strange, kind of beating hard, like he’d been running.
    She turned to a group of girls and sang. It was a Christmas song, which made Zack’s eyes widen. He wasn’t sure of the name, something about a midnight clear, but he recognized it from the records his dad played around the holiday.
    A Christmas song. A Christmas wish.
    “It’s her.” He hissed it to his brother, rapping Zeke hard in the ribs.
    “Who?”
    “It’s the mom.”
    Zeke stopped playing with the action figure he’d had stuck in his pocket and looked up onstage, where Nell was now directing the alto section. “Kim’s teacher is the mom?”
    “She has to be.” Deadly excited, Zeke kept his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “Santa’s had enough time to get the letter. She was singing a Christmas song, and she’s got yellow hair and a nice smile. She likes little boys, too. I can tell.”
    “Maybe.” Not quite convinced, Zeke studied Nell. She was pretty, he thought. And she laughed a lot, even when some of the big kids made mistakes. But that didn’t mean she liked dogs or baked cookies. “We can’t know for sure yet.”
    Zack huffed out an impatient breath. “She knew us. She knew which was which. Magic.” His eyes were solemn as he looked at his brother. “It’s the mom.”
    “Magic,” Zeke repeated, and stared, goggle-eyed, at Nell. “Do we have to wait till Christmas to get her?”
    “I guess so. Probably.” That was a puzzle Zack would have to work on.
    * * *
    When Mac Taylor pulled his pickup truck in front of the high school, his mind was on a dozen varied problems. What to fix the kids for dinner. How to deal with the flooring on his Meadow Street project. When to find a couple of hours to drive to the mall and pick up new underwear for the boys. The last time he folded laundry, he’d noticed that most of what they had was doomed for the rag pile. He had to deal with a lumber delivery first thing in the morning and a pile of paperwork that night.
    And Zeke was nervous about his first spelling test, which was coming up in a few days.
    Pocketing his keys, Mac rolled his shoulders. He’d been swinging a hammer for the better part of eight hours. He didn’t mind the aches. It was a good kind of fatigue, a kind that meant he’d accomplished something. His renovation of the house on Meadow Street was on schedule and on budget. Once it was done, he would have to decide whether to put it on the market or rent it.
    His accountant would try to decide for him, but Mac knew the final choice would remain in his own hands. That was the way he preferred it.
    As he strode from the parking lot to the high school, he looked around. His great-great-grandfather had founded the town—hardly more than a village back then, settled along Taylor’s Creek and stretching over the rolling hills to Taylor’s Meadow.
    There’d been no lack of ego in old Macauley Taylor.
    But Mac had lived in DC for more than twelve years. It had been six years since he’d returned to Taylor’s Grove, but he hadn’t lost his pleasure or his pride in it, the simple appreciation for the hills and the trees and the shadows of mountains in the distance.
    He didn’t think he ever would.
    There was the faintest of chills in the air now, and a good strong breeze from the west. But they had yet to have a frost, and the leaves were still a deep summer green. The good weather made his life easier on a couple of levels. As long as it held, he’d be able to finish the outside work on his project in comfort. And the boys could enjoy the afternoons and evenings in the yard.
    There was a quick twinge of guilt as he pulled open the heavy doors and stepped into the school. His work had kept them stuck inside this afternoon. The coming of fall meant that his sister was diving headfirst into several of