Coming Home For Christmas. Marie Ferrarella

liked to say. If he wasn’t married, well then, she just might have met her newest challenge.

      “Are you here looking to buy a house, Mr....” She let her voice trail off, giving him the opportunity to state exactly why he was here as well as introduce himself.

      “Oh, sorry.” Keith upbraided himself. He really wasn’t on his game today. Going straight from the airport to the house and then staying there overnight had done that to him. He would have been better off booking a hotel room.

      He was going to have to see to that as soon as he finished up with this woman.

      “Keith O’Connell,” he told her, shaking her hand belatedly. Given their proximity and difference in height—Maizie was petite while he was six-foot-two—he didn’t have to lean over her desk because she was standing up. “And I’m looking to sell, not buy, actually.”

      “Sell,” she repeated slowly, as if she was pausing to taste the word. “You own a home here in Bedford?” she asked.

      “In a manner of speaking.”

      He couldn’t think of himself as being the actual owner. That had been his mother, who had worked long and hard, stitching together disjointed hours so she could be home for Amy and him when they were younger and needed her, but still provide for them. It was his mother’s sweat and dedication that had managed to pay for the house. He had just lived there—until he didn’t. And now it was his by default.

      Because there was no one left.

      “It is—was,” Keith corrected himself, “my mother’s house.”

      Maizie sensed another wave of discomfort sweeping over her client-to-be and interpreted it the only way she could. He was having second thoughts about the fate of the house.

      “Are you sure you want to sell it?” she questioned gently.

      “Yes.” The single word was emphatic, exploding from his lips almost like a gunshot. And then Keith backpedaled just a shade. “I live and work in San Francisco, and there’s no reason for me to maintain a house down here. I’d like to sell the house as quickly as possible,” he added.

      Maizie had remained on her feet. “Well, then, let’s go take a look at it, shall we?” she suggested brightly.

      Keith nodded. “My car’s parked in front of the restaurant,” he told her. Striding ahead of the agent, he opened the office’s front door and held it for her.

      Maizie glanced over her shoulder at the young woman seated at a desk in the corner. “I should only be gone for a little while, Rhonda. Hold down the fort,” she instructed her assistant cheerfully.

      The woman she addressed looked as if she was eager to be the only occupant of the “fort.”

      “Yes, ma’am!”

      “She’s in training,” Maizie confided to her client-to-be once they were outside the office and the door had closed behind them. “More willing than able at the moment, I’m afraid. But with luck that should change soon.” At least, she hoped so. “We’ll take my car,” she announced as she stopped in front of a cream-colored Mercedes.

      Keith glanced over toward his own dark blue sedan parked several yards away. He was accustomed to taking charge, no matter what the situation. He was also accustomed to being the one behind the wheel. “I thought that—”

      Maizie neatly cut him off, her maternal smile widening considerably.

      “No reason for you to use up your gas,” she informed him cheerfully. Aiming her key fob at her vehicle, she pressed it, and a melodious signal announced that the door locks had been released.

      Without hesitation, Maizie got in, buckled up, then looked to her right and waited. After a beat, her would-be client got in on the passenger’s side. She hadn’t quite comprehended how tall the man was until he more than filled that section of her vehicle.

      Hands resting on the steering wheel, she paused until Keith buckled up before saying, “Now, if you just give me the address, we’ll be on our way.”

      Keith gave her the house number, adding, “That’s in the—”

      “West Park development,” Maizie acknowledged. She flashed a smile at Keith as she pulled away from the curb. “I’ve been at this for a while now,” she told him.

      Good for you, Keith thought as he stared, sphinxlike, straight ahead through the front windshield. With luck, this would wind up being one of his last drives to his mother’s house.

      * * *

      “It’s a lovely home,” Maizie concluded after her tour of both floors, the three-car garage and the backyard.

      She preferred to build up her own rapport with the house she was to sell, but many of her clients insisted on leading the tour. She’d noticed Keith had hung back a little after he’d unlocked the front door.

      It was very evident he had no desire to be here.

      Either that or Keith was reluctant about selling the house in the first place but found himself in a financial situation forcing him to take this path.

      “How fast can you sell it?” he asked her abruptly the moment he saw that she had finished her initial inspection.

      Maizie watched her newest client for a long moment, studying him before she finally replied.

      “I’m afraid that all depends on the market, the price of the house, what you—”

      “You do it,” he said abruptly.

      “Do what, exactly?” Maizie asked. He looked to be on edge. Why? she wondered. Did it have to do with the house or something else? There were a lot of gaps she would have to fill. It didn’t necessarily help with the sale of the house, but the information would be useful in other ways.

      “You determine the going price for the house and sell it for just under that,” he explained.

      “Under the going rate?” Maizie questioned. Why would he want to sell it short? This was one of the more popular models in the development, and its orientation was ideal. The morning sun hit the kitchen and family room first. By the time the afternoon arrived with its heat, the sun was hitting the driveway, leaving the house enveloped in comfort.

      Maizie looked at her new client more closely. “What’s wrong with the house, Mr. O’Connell?”

      “Nothing.” He had to hold himself in check to keep from snapping. That wasn’t going to help. Besides, it wasn’t Mrs. Sommers’s fault that closure felt as if it was eluding him. “There’s nothing wrong with the house. I just want to get rid of it. I told you, I don’t live in this area anymore, and I just want to sell the house and get back to my work.”

      “What is it that you do, Mr. O’Connell?”

      “I’m a lawyer.” Usually he experienced a tinge of pride accompanying that sentence. But this time there was nothing, just this odd, hollow feeling, as if being a lawyer didn’t matter anymore.

      That was ridiculous. Of course it mattered. He was just fatigued, Keith insisted, silently scolding himself for the irrational thought.

      “A lawyer,” Maizie repeated with an approving nod of her head, surprising him. “The son and daughter of one of my best friends are both lawyers,” she told him conversationally. And then she sobered slightly and she asked in as kind a tone as she could, “Did your mother die at home, by any chance?”

      Because if the woman had, that put an impedance on the idea of a quick sale. Legally, at-home deaths had to be stated as such, and there were a great many people who wouldn’t dream of buying a home that supposedly came with its very own ghost to haunt its hallways.

      Keith blinked. “What? No. Why?” The single-word sentences were fired out at her like bullets, shot one at a time.

      Maizie’s tone continued