Coming Home For Christmas. Marie Ferrarella

sure he is,” she said, patronizing Marcy just the slightest bit, “but I’m never going to find out because I’m not coming over to dinner.”

      Marcy looked at her pleadingly. “C’mon, Kenzie, don’t be stubborn.”

      “You call it being stubborn. I call it surviving. Stop pulling a Mom on me,” Kenzie requested, then added a little more kindly, “I have no desire to be set up. My life is full enough as it is.” With that, she went on adjusting a new display of furnishings.

      Marcy cast a disparaging look around at her sister’s most recent acquisitions. “Yeah, full of dust and allergens,” she grumbled.

      Kenzie paused for a moment to pat her sister’s cheek. “C’mon, Marcy. Don’t pout. Your face might set that way,” she teased. It was something their grandmother used to threaten them with when they were little and scowled at being reprimanded.

      “What am I going to tell George?” Marcy asked. “I’ve already built you up to him as the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

      “Tell him I ran off to feed the masses,” Kenzie joked. And then she sighed, shaking her head. She would have thought Marcy would know better by now. “This can’t be coming as a surprise to you. You know how I feel about setups.”

      Marcy shifted Alex over to her other hip again, clearly physically uncomfortable. “But that’s when Mom does them.”

      “That has nothing to do with it,” Kenzie pointed out. “A setup by any other family member would be just as rotten.”

      Marcy played her ace card. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her youngest sister. “You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

      “Nobody’s getting any younger, except for Brad Pitt when he played that weird guy in that movie a few years ago.” Kenzie congratulated herself on delivering the comeback with a straight face.

      Marcy’s hands were full as she held onto her son. Otherwise she would have used one to anchor her sister and get her to agree to dinner tonight. “I’m serious, Kenzie.”

      “And so am I, Marce. I’ve got a rocking chair with my name on it at the retirement home. The second I turn thirty, I’ll be sure to get my butt over there and start rocking in it.”

      “This isn’t a joke, Kenzie,” Marcy complained. She clearly wanted her sister to enjoy the sort of happiness she herself had a handle on: home, husband and an expanding family.

      “Neither is being set up.” Maybe if Kenzie issued a blanket warning, her siblings would cease and desist once and for all in attempting to manage her life. “Pass the word along to Marilyn. And while you’re at it, you can also tell Tom and Trevor in case they’re entertaining any ideas to jump in and pick up where you dropped off. I don’t want to be set up. Got that?”

      “I got it,” Marcy grumbled with a sigh. “But someday, you’ll regret this when you find yourself alone.”

      Kenzie suppressed a laugh. “Marcy, I have four married siblings with seven kids among them. I will never find myself alone. Besides, this way I get to be Fun Aunt Kenzie to the short tribe.

      “Now please, I’ve got work to do and I’m going to be here all night if you don’t let me finish it.” She paused for a second to kiss her sleeping nephew and brush her lips against her sister’s cheek. “I appreciate what you think you were doing for me, but trust me, setting me up will only lead to disaster. Now go before Pablo comes in with his duster. If you wind up staying here, you’ll be sneezing for a week,” she promised. “Go, Marcy.”

      Scowling her disapproval at the way things had turned out, Marcy murmured a few disenchanted-sounding words and then backed out of the space she was in. She was still scowling when she slowly made her way out the front door.

      Kenzie breathed a sigh of relief. Finally!

      She had exactly sixty seconds all to herself before the phone rang.

      She made it to the counter, where the store phone was located, by the second ring. Managing to collect herself to convey cheerfulness, Kenzie lifted the receiver from its cradle and declared, “This is Hidden Treasures. How may I assist you today?”

      The moment she heard the voice on the other end of the line, the smile she had deliberately forced to her lips widened of its own accord, generously spreading to the rest of her.

      “Hello, Theresa,” she said warmly to her mother’s close friend and the woman who had handled several catered affairs for her. “What’s up?”

      * * *

      It was a nice house.

      Kenzie recognized it instantly. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but still very nice. And well kept.

      The company her mother had founded and then passed on to her six years ago had her traveling up and down the California coast, visiting estates, regular homes and houses that fell somewhere in between. It was the middle group that tended to present her with the most surprises, yielding the occasional hidden treasure—which was why she had decided to change the shop’s name to that.

      Her work had taught her never to judge a book by its cover. She’d discovered that the most incredible things could be found in old cigar boxes—or their equivalent—left forgotten in the recesses of an attic, under a bed or in a seldom opened closest. Anything—from a vintage pack of playing cards once held in the hands of a famous gunman, to a great-grandmother’s precious missing cameo, to a deed to forgotten property—could turn up if some effort was given to the hunt.

      What she liked most about her work was entering a different world while she assessed the belongings and, in some cases, prepared to undertake the sale of them. She always gave 110 percent of herself so her clients wound up receiving the maximum amount for their things while the items found homes with people who appreciated their worth.

      Kenzie liked to call her undertaking a win-win situation.

      Every place, be it a simple home or an estate, had its own kind of hidden treasure, no matter how unimpressive that item might appear to an outsider. With that in mind, Kenzie couldn’t help wondering what she would find in this pleasant residential home that Theresa Manetti had sent her to.

      She knew it was just serendipity that brought her here because she doubted Theresa had any idea she’d once known Amy, the girl who had lived here—or that she’d had a wild crush on Amy’s older brother.

      Parking her car next to the curb, Kenzie got out and slowly made her way up the front walk. She did a cursory evaluation of what she saw as she went.

      The property had been well maintained, although there was one hearty weed making its way up against the fence as if waiting to let loose with a growth spurt the moment no one was looking. The rest of the front yard, though, had been well tended.

      The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac in an upper-class residential neighborhood. All the houses in West Park appeared to be cared for. Holding a successful estate sale here with just a little bit of advertising would require next to no effort on her part, Kenzie decided just as she reached the front door.

      For a second, snatches of memories came scurrying her way, stirring questions.

      One thing at a time, Kenzie, she told herself.

      It seemed to her that the exact instant she touched the doorbell and pressed it, the front door flew open. She hoped she managed to hide her surprise from the tall, dark-haired man who answered the door.

       Oh, God, is that...?

       Yes, it is him. Keith. This is still his house, then.

      Kenzie struggled to subdue her erratic pulse. She forced herself to breathe normally.

      Had he been standing by the front window, waiting for her? Or was this just a coincidence? Mrs. Manetti had told her that according to her real estate agent friend, Maizie Sommers, the owner