Mindy Obenhaus - The Deputy's Holiday Family

However, this was Kenzie’s first Christmas without Marissa. They owed it to her to make it the best Christmas the kid could possibly have. That meant having a tree, presents and everything else Lacie and Marissa had enjoyed as kids.

“There you are.” Mom draped a glittering silver pashmina scarf around the neck of a dress form sporting a pine-bough skirt adorned with silver ribbon, purple and silver balls, and peacock feathers. “How’s the car?”

“Up and running again, I’m happy to say.” She spotted Kenzie off to one side playing with—“Mom, is that Marissa’s and my old dollhouse?”

“Sure is. I thought, since Kenzie will be here with us a lot and that old thing was just collecting dust in the basement, she might enjoy playing with it.” Moving beside Lacie, she lowered her voice. “And I was right. She’s been playing with it this entire time.”

Lacie’s heart grew hopeful. Perhaps Mom hadn’t lost all sentiment.

She crossed to the small table where Kenzie was carefully moving the tiny furniture pieces, her smile widening with each step. The kid must have been having fun because she hadn’t even noticed that Lacie was there.

Kneeling beside her niece, she said, “What are you doing?”

“Playing house.” Tongue peeking out the corner of her mouth, Kenzie placed the miniature baby into the tiny crib.

“Are you having fun?”

Kenzie nodded, her expression somewhere between determined and delighted.

“I know just how you feel, Kenzikins.” Lacie’s father had built the dollhouse when she and Marissa were little. Like Kenzie, Lacie would spend hours rearranging furniture and contemplating different wall colors. No wonder she’d gone into interior design.

“Would you mind helping me assemble these, dear?” At the counter beside the cash register, Mom shoved glitter-covered branches into one of five tall galvanized buckets.

“Sure.” She shrugged out of her coat, setting it beside the dollhouse before joining her mother.

Reaching for a trio of sparkling white branches, she mustered the courage to broach the topic of the holidays. “I noticed there wasn’t a turkey in the fridge or freezer. Would you like me to pick one up?” One at a time, she plunged the stems into the Epsom salt snow.

“That won’t be necessary.” After admiring her handiwork, Mom picked up a spool of wide purple ribbon and stretched a length around the first bucket. “I thought we’d just go to Bon Ton or The Outlaw. No point in spending our day off in the kitchen when for all intents and purposes, Thanksgiving is just another day.”

Had Mom’s heart really grown that hard?

“No, it’s not.” She stared at the woman in disbelief. “Thanksgiving is when family and friends come together to give thanks for their blessings.” Like we used to do when Daddy was alive.

Her mother smiled, seemingly unaffected by Lacie’s comments. “Okay, you pick where we should eat then.”

Passing the first bucket off to Mom for ribbon, Lacie reached for another cluster of branches. “Actually, I was kind of looking forward to some of your homemade dressing.”

No response. Barbara Collier had always been good at avoiding conflict.

But Lacie wasn’t willing to let it drop. “What if I cooked Thanksgiving dinner? Nothing fancy. Just some turkey, dressing—I’ll need your recipe—and maybe a pumpkin pie. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger.”

“I don’t know.” Mom tied another swath of ribbon. “I hate for you to go to so much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. I like to cook.” Especially when she had people to cook for. “Throw in those traditional recipes and I’m a goner.”

Mom was silent for a long moment. Finally, “Oh, all right. If you insist.”

She wasn’t aware she was insisting, but as long as they were on a roll... “And then, after dinner, maybe we could put up the Christmas tree.” Biting her lip, she held her breath and stabbed another twig in the bucket.

But her mother remained focused on the task at hand. Without so much as flinching, she said, “Lacie, you know I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore. If you want to take Kenzie to some of the festivities around town, that’s fine. But there is no Christmas at the house.”

She glared at her mother. “There used to be.”

How she used to love coming down the hallway Christmas morning to the glow of twinkling lights and the soft sound of Christmas carols playing in the background. So many memories. Memories she desperately wanted to recreate for Kenzie. God, please soften Mom’s heart.

“That was a long time ago.” Her mother moved her reading glasses to the top of her head and looked at Lacie. “People change.”

“And you won’t change for your granddaughter?”

Scooping up the two completed buckets, she whisked past Lacie to disperse them throughout the store. “We all have our beliefs and convictions. I have chosen not to celebrate Christmas.”

The bell over the door jangled then, ushering in a customer and effectively ending their conversation. Even though Lacie had so much more to say.

She glimpsed the little girl across the room. No, that wasn’t a discussion to be had while Kenzie was within earshot.

So she finished the other three buckets while Mom assisted her customer, then went to check on Kenzie. “Are you about ready to go pick out your birthday cake?”

The child beamed. “I want chocolate.”

Turning her gaze to the window, Lacie couldn’t help smiling. “Chocolate it is then.”

Maybe she’d even get the kid to take a nap this afternoon, allowing Lacie to work on that list for Matt.

Thoughts of the deputy had her wondering what he was doing for Thanksgiving. Perhaps they should invite him to join them. As a thank-you for helping her today.

She rubbed her arms, quickly dismissing the ridiculous notion. He had his own family. A rather large one, at that.

Besides, she had better things to do than worry about Matt Stephens’s Thanksgiving plans. Like figuring out how on earth she was going to have a Christmas for Kenzie when her mom was dead set against it.

* * *

An hour after Lacie pulled away, Matt sat at the counter at Granny’s Kitchen, a local diner, staring at his untouched burger. Seemed no matter how hard he tried to erase the memory, his mind kept rewinding to one February night nearly six years ago. Marissa’s last in Hawaii. A night that never should have happened.

His insides churned. The math added up. But still...

Marissa may have done him wrong, but she would have told him he had a child, wouldn’t she? Then again, she hadn’t told him she was dating someone else, either.

So why isn’t Kenzie’s dad raising her?

He picked up a fry and forced himself to take a bite. He didn’t want to believe it. But he couldn’t ignore it, either. Could Kenzie be his daughter?

“What’s up with the sad face?” A hand clamped on to Matt’s shoulder.

He looked up as his brother Andrew helped himself to one of his fries. “What are you doing here?”

Andrew plopped down in the seat beside him. “Carly’s putting up the Christmas decorations at Granger House, so I’m on my own for lunch.” For the past nineteen years, Andrew had lived in Denver, where he ran a multimillion-dollar commercial construction company. Until last spring when he sold it, came back to Ouray and married his high school sweetheart. Now they were stuck with him.

“Christmas decorations? It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

Andrew snagged another fry. “True, but we’ve got guests booked for this weekend, so the bed-and-breakfast portion of the house needs to be ready before then.” His gaze drifted to Matt’s plate. “Something wrong with your burger? You haven’t touched it.”