Holiday Homecoming. Pamela Tracy

in his old age.

      “We’re having a family meeting on Friday. Today changes everything,” Meredith said.

      Zack took Grandpa back to his bedroom, propping Grandpa’s foot up, taking his temperature, giving him an aspirin and making him comfortable. When they were little, Meredith had rescued animals, but Zack had fixed them. Their little sister, Susan, had stuck bows in the animals’ fur. Jimmy, of course, had made up stories about them.

      Leaving Grandpa with Zach, Meredith headed for the kitchen. Sitting at the table was Danny Murphy, bigger than she remembered and missing the smile that had driven the girls wild in high school. Of course, it had been a long time. Maybe the smile was a thing of the past.

      Jimmy sat next to him, tapping the table with his fingers, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was.

      “You say this dog was part wolf?” Danny’s brown eyes met Meredith’s green ones. She couldn’t ignore the stoic expression on his face or how straight he sat. Because of her, he clearly felt like a stranger in her grandpa’s house.

      But then, so did she.

      “Probably more than half,” Meredith said.

      Danny leaned forward. “Could it kill a cow?”

      “Did you lose one?” Meredith countered.

      “You didn’t tell me you’d lost any cattle,” Jimmy said.

      “I’ve lost three head.”

      “Were they old or young?” Meredith asked.

      “Both,” Danny said. “Two were just calves and one was old, losing her teeth and all. I expected her to die, though, not disappear. Why?”

      Meredith thought for a moment. She was mostly familiar with the behavior of wolf dogs in captivity, but she could generalize. “Wolves do go after calves, but they generally leave cows alone. Cows don’t act like prey.”

      “She’s right,” Jimmy said. “A cow tends to look danger in the eye and ignore it. Confuses the heck out of predators. Plus, for a wolf, given the size of its mouth, it’s hard to find a place on a cow to grab on to. Cows are big. Kinda like trying to bite into a whole watermelon using your teeth. Wolves prefer something a little smaller.”

      Meredith stared at Jimmy in disbelief. “And you know this how?”

      “I specialize in doing documentaries on wild animals and writing for Nature Times magazine. I know just as much about animals as you do.”

      “I know you write for Nature Times, but wolf dogs aren’t endangered. There’s no reason for you to have researched them.”

      “Wolves are endangered, so I’ve done plenty of research. When we went multimedia and started doing documentaries, we started small. The gray wolf was one of my first stories.”

      She didn’t remember that, or remember that at one time Nature Times had only been a magazine. Usually she agreed with what his pieces, at least when it came to disappearing habitats and hunting for sport or seizure. But then he’d climb on his animals-belong-in-the-wild soapbox, and criticize zoos for making tigers lose their natural inclination to hunt, or making chimpanzees depressed, or forcing bears to wear silly hats and tutus.

      Okay, she didn’t have to read or watch him. She’d just been drawn to. She’d loved him, after all.

      And still missed him.

      She’d been engaged to Danny, but it was Jimmy who had been the love of her life. And if she was being honest, he, James Henry Murphy, was the reason she was still single. No one made her feel the way he had.

      Even though he’d more than once written about the cruelty and injustice that wild animals suffered in captivity, never once acknowledging that there were sanctuaries like Bridget’s Animal Adventure, which actually saved animals’ lives.

      But then, he’d always been a bit tunnel-visioned, seeing what he wanted to see. Isn’t that why he’d refused to wait for her?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      IN THE END, sitting at the table in Ray’s tiny kitchen, Meredith convinced Danny that the wolf dog had probably not been responsible for the disappearance of the calves or the adult cow. A pack of full-blooded wolves maybe, Meredith had allowed, but a lone wolf dog, no.

      And not one wearing a collar and leaving no carcass.

      Jimmy’d seen wolves in the wild. They were cunning, creative and callous when hungry. He did, however, agree with Meredith that calves were a more likely target. He also was somewhat sure a lone wolf could do the job, too, especially on an old or already wounded bovine.

      But this hadn’t been a wolf, not really. It had been a wolf dog, the first one Jimmy’d ever seen.

      He’d have to Google them when he got home tonight. Maybe little Gesippi, Arizona, would have a wild-animal story to offer, an assignment that would appease his boss—who was already acting as if Jimmy was on his way out instead of merely taking a break—and give Jimmy something to document, both in words and film.

      It worried him that his last two shoots had been less than stellar. It worried him even more that his boss wasn’t phoning and asking him for new ideas.

      On the other hand, Briana was actually smiling again. Something she’d not done much of during the year he’d dragged her to exotic locales. No, during their travels she’d been well-behaved but almost eerily silent. Nothing like the happy child she’d been before...

      She missed her mother; she missed having a permanent home and friends; she missed having a routine. So, for her sake, Jimmy tried to be glad about being home. And in those moments when she smiled and talked a million miles a minute about her new friends, it was all worth it.

      Jimmy thought of his own friends that he rarely talked to, the people that he’d allowed to slip out of his life. He was glad he’d been able to visit Ray twice since he’d been home. The first visit had been for old times’ sake. The second had been because Jimmy had realized that visiting Ray Stone was a now-or-never venture.

      But both visits had been slightly off-kilter. Ray had been twitchy, insisting they sit on the porch and rarely taking his eyes from the road, though he claimed not to be expecting company. Jimmy had chalked it up to a by-product of old age.

      On his first visit, neither brought up Meredith’s name, as if instinctively knowing she was off-limits. On the second visit, Ray had been a bit more forthcoming, talking about Meredith and how she was faring, and expressing some concern that she still felt she had to stay away from her home.

      Gazing at her now across the table, Jimmy had to admit that Meredith was even more beautiful than he remembered.

      She’d always filled a room with her personality and passion. That hadn’t changed. Back when they’d been dating during most of his junior and all of his senior year, there were moments when he couldn’t imagine his life without her. But there’d also been times when she’d almost consumed him, made him lose who he was, made him question if he could compete with her.

      Which he shouldn’t have cared about because he’d loved her...but he had. His brother had never felt that type of angst. Danny would have followed Meredith anywhere, happily, without question. And he hadn’t questioned her when she’d agreed to marry him. He’d been unable, or maybe unwilling, to believe that Meredith didn’t love him.

      “I’m heading home.” Danny pushed himself up from the chair, his face still stoic, his demeanor tired. Younger than Jimmy by just one year, he looked five years older.

      “I really appreciate all you guys did,” Meredith said. “Grandpa, well, he’s special.”

      Danny nodded even as he exited the kitchen. Jimmy wasn’t sure why he stayed; there was nothing else to say. And sitting in this kitchen with Meredith wasn’t