The Christmas Child

Mouth twitching, Jesse made the phone call. When the social worker agreed with Ida June’s plan, Kade was amazed. Small towns worked differently than the city where the letter of the law was followed, regardless. Here, apparently, human beings took precedence over protocol. Interesting.

They prepared to load Davey and his book into Kade’s truck. Ida June had wanted him to ride with her, but Kade and Jesse both said, “No!” with such force that Ida June puffed up like an adder and stalked off. Kade didn’t ride with her. He sure wasn’t putting a child in the truck with her.

“She cut across the street yesterday, slapped a U-turn as if there weren’t cars coming both ways, all because there was a parking spot on the other side.”

Rainmaker nodded sagely. “I think she got her driver’s license out of a cereal box.”

Kade arched an eyebrow. “She has one?”

Both men chuckled.

“Come on, Davey,” Kade said, taking the boy by the hand.

Davey hopped obediently from the chair and reached for Sophie. Her face crumbled. “Oh, honey, I can’t go with you. I have to go to work.”

Davey wrenched away from Kade to throw both arms around Sophie’s middle. With a helpless look toward Kade, she hugged Davey close against a long blue sweater. Kade got a funny kick in the gut and fought off the urge to join the hug fest.

“You’ll come to the house after school.” His was a statement, not a question. He knew she’d come.

She nodded, gray eyes distressed. “I’ll be there right after three.” She held Davey back from her a little, hands on his shoulders. “Do you hear me, Davey? Go with Kade to Miss Ida June’s house. They’ll take good care of you, and as soon as school is out, I’ll be there. We’ll read your book as many times as you want. Okay?”

Looking from her to Kade and back as if he thought the pair of them went together, Davey thought over the proposition. Then, he retrieved the book he’d dropped, clasped Kade’s hand and followed him to the truck.

Sophie’s school day started out shaky, but she, an eternal optimist, was certain things would get better. They didn’t.

After rushing home for a quick clothing change, she arrived to find her class in chaos. Emily Baker had suffered a seizure and had to go to the hospital. Even though everyone knew about Emily’s disorder, witnessing a seizure frightened the class. Even Zoey Bowman, the vet’s daughter whose blindness only increased her compassion and wisdom, had not known how to react. She and best friend, blonde and bouncy Delaney Markham, huddled together holding hands, desks scooted close.

By the time Sophie settled the group down with assurances that Emily was not going to die and a promise to get Mrs. Baker on the speakerphone in a few hours so they all could hear an update for themselves, lunchtime arrived.

“Academics took a backseat this morning,” Carmen, the teacher’s aide, said as she slid her lunch tray onto the cafeteria table next to Sophie. A fortysomething bleached blonde with an extra twenty pounds, Carmen floated between classrooms doing whatever was needed.

“Caring for people is more important sometimes,” Sophie said. She sniffed a forkful of mystery casserole, a combination of tomato and meat scent with sticky pasta in the mix. Or was that rice?

“Don’t say that to Mr. Gruber.”

“I already have.” Sophie jabbed a fork into the glob and took a bite. Not bad. Not good. She reached for the salt and pepper.

“Only you could get away with talking like that to the principal.”

“Oh, that’s not true. He’s fair to everyone. Here, try salt on that.” She offered the shakers to her seatmate.

“Anything to hide the taste,” Carmen said with a wry grin.

The clatter and din of kids in a cafeteria made talking tough, but Carmen had the kind of voice that could be heard by thirty rowdy kids in a noisy gym. “Come on, Sophie, everyone knows Mr. Gruber has a thing for you.”

“Shh. Not so loud.” Sophie glanced around, hoping no one had heard. Carmen chuckled, the sound of a woman who enjoyed teasing and gossip, not necessarily in that order. Biff Gruber was a decent man and a good, if uptight, principal. Sophie respected his leadership.

She scooped another bite of the bland casserole, eyeing it suspiciously. “What is this anyway?”

Carmen laughed at the common refrain as the glass double doors swept open. Noise gushed in like a sudden wind. A flurry of overzealous teens, shuffling their feet and jockeying for position in line, pushed inside. Over the din, Carmen said, “There’s your dad.”

Sophie glanced up. Amid the gangly teens, a graying man in white dress shirt and yellow cartoon tie grinned at something one of his students said.

“Oh, good. I was hoping he’d stop for lunch today.” Her dad taught science in the high school. Many days he ate at his desk while tutoring kids. She raised a hand, flagged him over to join them.

As his gray plastic tray scraped onto the table across from her and he greeted the other teachers with an easy smile, the familiar pang of fierce love stirred in Sophie’s chest. Mark Bartholomew had aged more than the five years since his divorce from Sophie’s mother, a divorce he’d never wanted. Worse, Meg Bartholomew had remarried almost immediately. The implication of an affair still stung, a bitter, unexpected betrayal. Sophie could only imagine how humiliated and hurt her father must have felt.

“Hi, Dad. How’s your day?”

“Better now that I see your smiling face. How is yours?” He spread a narrow paper napkin on his lap and tucked in his “mad scientist” tie.

“Something crazy happened this morning.”

Expression comical, he tilted his head, prematurely graying hair glossy beneath the fluorescent lights. “Crazier than usual? This is a school, remember? The holiday season always stirs up the troops.”

Sophie and her father shared this love of teaching and the special hum of energy several hundred kids brought into a building. At Christmas, the energy skyrocketed.

“We found a lost boy in the municipal Dumpster.”

Her father lowered his fork, frowning, as she repeated the morning’s events. When she finished, he said, “That’s tragic, honey. Anything I can do?”

“Pray for him. Pray for Chief Rainmaker to find his family.” She shrugged. “Just pray.”

He patted the back of her hand. “You got it. Don’t get your heart broken.”

“Dad,” she said gently.

“I know you. You’ll get involved up to your ears. Sometimes your heart’s too big.”

“I take after my dad.”

The statement pleased him. He dug into the mystery casserole. “What is this?”

Sophie giggled as she and Carmen exchanged glances. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

He chewed, swallowed. “Better than an old bachelor’s cooking.”

He said the words naturally, without rancor, but Sophie ached for him just the same. Dad alone in their family home without Mom unbalanced the world. Even though Sophie had offered to give up her own place and move in with him, her father had resisted, claiming he wanted his “bachelor pad” all to himself. Sophie knew better. He’d refused for her sake, worried she’d focus on his life instead of hers.

Carmen dug an elbow into Sophie’s side. “Mr. Gruber just came in.”

“Principals eat, too.”

Carmen rolled her eyes. “He’s headed this direction.”

Sophie’s father looked from one woman to the other. “Have I missed something?”

“Nothing, Dad. Pay no mind to Carmen. She’s having pre-Christmas fantasies.”

“Mr. Gruber is interested in your daughter.”

“Carmen! Please. He is not.” She didn’t want him to be. A picture of the quietly intense face of Kade McKendrick flashed in her head. This morning’s encounter had stirred more than her concern for a lost child.

“Gruber’s a good man,” her dad said. He stopped a moment to turn to the side and point at a pimply boy for throwing a napkin wad. The kid grinned sheepishly, retrieved the wad and sat down. The high schoolers were convinced Mr. Bartholomew had eyes in the back of his head.

“Dad, do not encourage rumors.”

Her father lifted both hands in surrender as the principal arrived at their table. Biff Gruber nodded to those gathered, then leaned low next to Sophie’s ear. His blue tie sailed dangerously close to the mystery casserole. Sophie suppressed a giggle.

“I need to see you in my office, please. During your plan time is fine.”

Without another word, he walked away.

“So much for your romantic theories,” Sophie told a wide-eyed Carmen. “That did not sound like an interested man.”

“No kidding. Wonder what he wants,” Carmen said, watching the principal exit the room. “An ultimatum like that can’t be good.”

Sophie put aside her fork. “Sure it can. Maybe he wants to order ten-dozen cookies.”

Carmen looked toward the ceiling with a sigh. “You’d put a positive spin on it if he fired you.”

Well, she’d try. But she couldn’t help wondering why her principal had been so abrupt.

She found out two hours later, seated in his tidy, narrow office. The space smelled of men’s cologne and the new leather chair behind the unusually neat, polished mahogany desk. It was a smell, she knew, that struck terror in the hearts of sixth-grade boys. A plaque hung on the wall above Biff Gruber’s head as warning to all who entered: Attitudes Adjusted While You Wait.

“I understand you’re doing the cookie project again this year,” he said without preliminary.

Sophie brightened. Maybe he did want to place an order. She folded her hands in her lap, relaxed and confident. This was Biff and she was not a sixth-grade rowdy. “I turned in the lesson plan last week. We’re off to a promising start already and I hope to raise even more money this year.”

Biff positioned his elbows on the desk and bounced his fingertips together. The cuffs of his crisply ironed shirt bobbed up and down against his pale-haired wrists. The light above winked on a silver watch. His expression, usually open and friendly, remained tight and professional. Sophie’s hope for a cookie sale dissipated.

“We’ve had some complaints from parents,” he said.

Sophie straightened, the news a complete surprise. No one had ever complained. “About the project? What kind of complaints? Students look forward to this event from the time they’re in second and third grade.”

In fact, kids begged to participate. Other classes loitered in her doorway, volunteered and occasionally even took orders for her. This project was beloved by all. Wasn’t it?

“How many years have you been doing this, Sophie?” The principal’s tone was stiff, professional and uneasy.

Suddenly, she felt like one of the students called into the principal’s office for making a bad judgment. At the risk of sounding defensive, she said, “This is year five. Last year we donated the proceeds, a very nice amount, I might add, to the local women’s shelter. Afterward, Cheyenne Bowman spoke to our class and even volunteered to teach a self-protection seminar to the high-school girls.”

Biff, however, had not followed up on that offer from the shelter’s director, a former police officer and assault victim.

“I’m aware the project does a good deed, but the worry is academics. Aren’t your students losing valuable class time while baking cookies?”

“Not at all. They’re learning valuable skills in a reallife situation. I realize my teaching style is not traditional but students learn by doing as well, maybe better, than by using only textbooks.”

Biff took a pencil from his desk and tapped the end on a desk calendar. He was unusually fidgety today. Whoever complained must have clout. “Give me some specifics to share with the concerned parent.”

“Who is it? Maybe if I spoke with him or her?”

“I don’t want my teachers bothered with disgruntled parents. I will handle the situation.”

“I appreciate that, Biff. You’ve always been great support.” Which was all the more reason to be concerned this time. Why was he not standing behind her on the cookie project? Who was putting pressure on the principal? “The project utilizes math, economics, life skills, social ethics, research skills, art and science.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “There are more. Is that enough?”

Biff scribbled on a notepad. “For now. You may have to articulate exactly how those work at some point, but we’ll start here.”

“I really don’t want to lose this project, Biff. It’s a high point for my students.”

“As well as for their teacher who loves everything Christmas.” With a half smile he bounced the pencil one final time. “Why don’t we have dinner tonight and discuss this further?”

The offer caught Sophie as much by surprise as someone’s objection to the cookie project. She sputtered a bit before saying, “Thank you, but I have to say no. I’m sorry.”

Her thoughts went to Davey and the way he’d clung to her this morning. She couldn’t wait to see him again and let him know she kept her promises. She’d phoned after lunch to say hello and see how he was doing. Kade had answered, assured her Davey was doing fine and was at that moment sound asleep on Ida June’s couch. The memory of Kade’s voice, clipped, cool and intriguing, lingered like a song she couldn’t get out of her head.

No, she definitely did not want to have dinner with the principal.

“I’ve already made other plans.”

Biff’s face closed up again. He stuffed the pen in his shirt pocket. “Ah. Well, another time, then.”

At the risk of encouraging him, Sophie nodded and quickly left his office. The mystery casserole churned in her stomach. As her boot heels tapped rhythmically on highly waxed white tile, she reviewed the unsettling conversation. As much as she wanted to believe Biff’s dinner invitation was purely professional, she knew better. Carmen was right. The principal liked her. She liked him, too. It wasn’t that. He was a good man, a by-the-book administrator who strove for excellence and expected the same from his staff. As a teacher, she appreciated him. But as a woman? She hadn’t thought seriously about her boss, and given the buzz of interest she’d felt for Ida June’s nephew, she never would.

Frankly, the concerns about her teaching methods weighed more heavily right now.

Would Biff go as far as vetoing the cookie project?

Chapter Three

Kade pushed back from the laptop perched on Ida June’s worn kitchen table and rubbed the strain between his eyes. Hours of poking into every law-enforcement database he could access produced nothing about a missing mute boy named David. He’d chased a rabbit trail for the past hour only to discover the missing child had been found.

Hunching his shoulders high to relieve the tightness, he glanced past the narrow dividing bar into Ida June’s living room. Davey still slept, curled beneath a red plaid throw on the 1970s sofa, a psychedelic monstrosity in red, green and yellow swirls that, ugly as sin, proved a napping boy’s paradise. In sleep, Davey had released his beloved book to fall in the narrow space between his skinny body and the fat couch cushion. Sheba lay next to him, her golden head snuggled beneath his lax arm. She opened one eye, gave Kade a lazy look and went back to sleep.

“Traitor,” he said, softly teasing. The boy had taken one look at the affable dog and melted. Sheba could never resist a kid. When Davey went to his knees in joyful greeting and threw his arms around her neck, Sheba claimed him as her own. He’d shared his lunch with her, a sight that had twisted in Kade’s chest. The kid had been hungry, maybe for days, but he’d shared a ham sandwich with the well-fed dog. Whatever had happened to Davey hadn’t broken him. It may very well have silenced him, but his soul was still intact.

Kade rubbed a frustrated hand over his whiskered jaw and asked himself for the dozenth time why he’d gotten involved. He knew the answer. He just didn’t like it.

Leaving the pair, he poured himself another cup of coffee and went to finish the laundry. At the moment, Davey wore one of Kade’s oversize T-shirts and a ridiculously huge pair of sweats tied double at the waist. Now, when he awoke, Davey’s clothes would be as clean as he was.

Once the boy had been fed, cleaned and his clothes in the washer, Ida June had barked a few orders and gone to work at the little town square. With Kade’s less-than-professional assistance, she’d been erecting a stable for the town’s Christmas celebration. She’d promised to have it finished this week, and leaving Kade to “mind the store” and “find that boy’s mama,” Ida June had marched out the door with a final parting shot: “Promises are like babies squalling in a theater—they should be carried out at once.”

He was still smirking over that one. His mother’s aunt was a colorful character, a spunky old woman who’d outlived two husbands, built her own business and half of her own house, drove like a maniac and spouted quotes like Bartlett. And if anyone needed a helping hand, she was there, though heaven help the man or woman who said she had a soft heart.

Kade removed Davey’s pitiful jeans and sweatshirt from the dryer and folded them next to clean socks and underwear before tossing the washed sneakers into the stillwarm drier. He set them on tumble with one of Ida June’s fragrant ocean-breeze dryer sheets and left them to thump and bang.

He wasn’t much on shopping any more than he was on doing laundry, especially at Christmas when the holly, jolly Muzak and fake everything abounded, but a single man learned to take care of business. The boy needed clothes, and unless Sophie Bartholomew or Ida June offered, he’d volunteer.

Sophie. The wholesome-looking teacher had played around the edges of his thoughts all day, poking in a little too often. Nobody could be that sweet and smiley all the time.

“Probably on crack,” he groused, and then snorted at the cynical remark. A woman like Sophie probably wouldn’t know crack cocaine if it was in her sugar bowl.

His cell phone jangled and he yanked the device from his pocket to punch Talk. With calls into various law-enforcement agencies all over the region, he hoped to hear something. Even though he was a stranger here, with few contacts and no clout, his federal clearances gave him access to just about anything he wanted to poke his nose into.

It had been a while since he’d wanted to poke into anything. When he turned over rocks, he usually found snakes.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The year undercover had skewed his perspective. He wasn’t looking for snakes this time. He was looking for a boy’s family.

One hand to the back of his neck, the other on the phone, he went to the kitchen window and stared blindly out at the gray sky as the voice on the other end gave him the expected news. Nothing.

He figured as much. A dumped kid might be big news in Redemption but to the rest of the world, Davey was another insignificant statistic.

Acid burned his gut—an ulcer, he suspected, though he’d avoided mentioning the hot pain to the shrink. Being forced by his superiors to talk to a head doctor was bad enough. No one was going to shove a scope down his throat and tell him to take pills and live on yogurt. He didn’t do pills. Or yogurt. He’d learned the hard way that one pill, one drug, one time could be the end of a man.

He scrubbed his hands over his eyes. He was so tired. He couldn’t help envying Davey and Sheba their sound sleep. He ached to sleep, to fall into that wonderful black land of nothingness for more than a restless hour at a time. The coffee kept him moving, but no amount of caffeine replaced a solid sleep. He took a sip, grimaced at the day-old brew and the growing gut burn. Yeah, yeah. Coffee made an ulcer worse. Big deal. It wasn’t coffee that was killing him.

In the scrubbed-clean driveway outside the window, a deep purple Ford Focus pulled to a stop. The vehicle, a late-model job, was dirt-splattered from the recent rain, and the whitewalls needed a scrub. Why did women ignore the importance of great-looking wheels? The schoolteacher, brown hair blowing lightly in the breeze, hopped out, opened the back car door and wrestled out a bulging trash bag. Curious, Kade set aside his mug and jogged out to help.

“What’s this?” he asked.

The afternoon sun, weak as a twenty-watt bulb, filtered through the low umbrella of stratus clouds and found the teacher’s warm smile. There was something about her, a radiance that pierced the bleak day with light. Kade’s troubled belly tingled. She attracted him, plain and simple—a surprise, given how dead he felt most of the time.

Her smile widening, Sophie shoved the black trash sack into his arms. She had a pretty mouth, full lips with gentle creases along the edges like sideways smiles. “Davey needs clothes.”

“You went shopping?” She’d barely had time to get here from school. And why the hefty bag?

“No.” Her laugh danced on the chilly breeze and hit him right in the ulcer. “I know kids, lots of kids, all sizes and shapes, who outgrow clothes faster than their parents can buy them. I made a few phone calls and voilà!” She hunched her shoulders, fingers of one hand spreading in the space between them like a starburst. “Davey is all fixed up.” Perky as a puppy, she hoisted another bag. “This has a few toys in it. We were guessing size, so I hope something fits. The rest can go to the shelter.”

“Bound to fit better than what he’s wearing now.” She was going to get a kick out of his impromptu outfit.

“How is he?” she asked as they carried the bags inside.

“Exhausted.” Kade dumped his bag in a chair inside the living room and hitched his chin toward the ugly couch. “He’s slept like a rock most of the day.”

“What did the doctor say? Have we heard any news on where he came from? Where’s Ida June?” Shooting questions like an arcade blaster, Sophie moved past him into the room. A subtle wake of clean perfume trailed behind to tantalize his senses. Sunshine and flowers and—he sniffed once—coconut. She smelled as fresh and wholesome as she looked.

Amused by her chatter, he slouched at the bar and waited for her to wind down. “You finished?”

“For now.” She stood over Davey and Sheba, a soft smile tilting her naturally curved lips. “Is this your dog?”

“Was until this morning.”

She gave him that happy look again. She was lucky. No one had wiped away her joy. Life must have always been good in Sophie’s world.

“A boy and a dog is a powerful combination,” she said.

“Sheba’s a sucker for kids.”

“So is her master.”

“Me?” Where did she get such a weird idea? He did his job. Did what he had to. And a dose of retribution was only just.

“So tell me, what did the doctor say?”

“Dehydrated and run-down but otherwise healthy. Nothing rest and nutrition won’t fix.” He’d been careful to ask the right questions and the child showed no signs of physical abuse. No outward signs.

“What about his voice?”

Kade nodded behind him to the kitchen. “Let’s talk in here.”

“Sure.” Smart Sophie got the message. He didn’t want to talk near the boy, not with the suspicions tearing at the back of his brain. With a lingering glance at Davey, she followed Kade to the kitchen.

“Want some coffee?” he asked.

“It’s cold out.” She rubbed her palms together. “A hot cup sounds great if it’s already made.”

“Coffee’s always made.”

She raised a dark, tidy eyebrow. “Chain drinker?”

“Safer than chugging Red Bull.”

The answer revealed more than he’d intended. He went to the counter, more aware of her than he wanted to be and wondering, even though he didn’t want to, what it would be like to be normal again the way she was. Normal and easy in her skin. Maybe that’s what made her so pretty. She wasn’t movie-star beautiful, although she warmed the room like an unexpected ray of sun across a shadow. Dark, soft, curving hair. Soft gray eyes. Clear, soft skin. Everything about Sophie Bartholomew was soft.

“What did the doctor say about Davey’s voice?”