“What could be so terrible that a child would stop speaking?”

Sophie asked. “I can’t imagine.”

Something flickered in Kade’s stolid expression, a twitch of muscle, the narrowing of coffee-colored eyes in a hard face. “I plan to find out,” he said.

“Your police experience should help us find Davey’s family,” Sophie said.

“Us?”

“Well …” She’d been there when Davey was found and she didn’t intend to walk away and leave him with all these unanswered questions. “I know the community really well. People trust me. They’ll talk to me. I don’t know the first thing about investigating a missing boy.” She stopped, frowned. Davey wasn’t missing exactly. “Or rather, a found boy. But I know how to deal with people.”

Kade raised a palm. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s early yet. Someone may come home from work tonight, find their son gone, and call in. Problem solved.”

“Do you think they will?” she asked hopefully.

“To be honest?” He dropped his arms to his sides, shot a look toward the living room. “No.”

Something in the sudden clip of his voice chilled Sophie’s bones.

Dear Reader,

Cookies are a major topic in The Christmas Child as well as around the Goodnight house! We love our cookies, especially chocolate chip, and have tried many variances on the old standby recipe. Here is one of our favorites, first discovered by my granddaughter, Lexi. Yummy!

Lexi’s Cookies

1 cup butter or stick margarine, softened

¾ cup brown sugar, packed

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 egg

2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soda

½ to 1 cup chopped pecans

1 package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

Cream butter or margarine; add sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir in flour, salt and soda until well blended. Mix in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased or sprayed cookie sheet. Bake for about 8–10 minutes.

Until our next visit to Redemption, Merry Christmas and happy reading.

About the Author

LINDA GOODNIGHT Winner of a RITA® Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won a Booksellers’ Best, an ACFW Book of the Year and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband, Gene, live in Oklahoma. Readers can write to her at linda@lindagoodnight.com, or c/o Love Inspired Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

The Christmas Child

Linda Goodnight

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Diane in Dallas, who makes me laugh and cheers me on, as well as all you other dependable, wonderful readers. You know who you are—and I treasure each of you. Thank you for your letters and emails, your Facebook messages and blog comments. This book is for you!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

—Isaiah 9:6

Chapter One

In twenty years of Dumpster diving, Popbottle Jones had found his share of surprises in other people’s trash. But nothing prepared him for what he discovered one chilly November dawn.

Agile as a monkey at seventy-two, Popbottle hopped over the side of the giant bin located downwind of Redemption’s municipal building and dropped lightly onto a mound of battered cardboard boxes. The usual garbage and old-food smells rose to greet him, odors he’d trained his nose to ignore in pursuit of more profitable treasures. After all, he and his business partner, GI Jack, were in the recycling business.

From one corner of the dimly lit bin came a scratching sound. His heart sank. Rats or kittens, he suspected. Rats he shooed. The kittens, though, troubled him. He’d never leave domestic creatures to be scooped into a compactor and bulldozed at a landfill.

Gingerly picking his way through the mess, Popbottle directed his steps and his miner’s lamp toward the sound. His stomach plummeted. Not rats. Not kittens, though two eyes stared out. Blue eyes. Frightened eyes. The eyes of a child.

* * *

Taking a bullet would have been easier, cleaner, quicker. Dying slowly wasted a lot of time.

Kade McKendrick dropped one hand to the golden retriever sitting patiently beside him along the riverbank and tried to relax.

Even now, when he’d been shipped off to Redemption, Oklahoma, for R & R, he wielded a fishing rod like a weapon, fingers tight on the reel’s trigger. He’d become too paranoid to go anywhere unarmed.

Memories swamped him. Faces swam up from the muddy red river to accuse. Kade shifted his gaze to the far bank where straggling pale brown weeds poked up from the early winter landscape, hopeless sprouts with nothing in their future but more of the same. Feathery frost tipped the dead grass, shiny in the breaking dawn.

“Might as well give it up, Sheba.” Kade reeled in the ten-pound test line, mocking his ambitious tackle. The clerk at the bait and tackle warned him that fish weren’t biting this time of year.

He slammed the metal tackle box, startling the dog and a red-tailed hawk still napping on a nearby branch. The bird took flight, wings flapping like billows over the calm, cold waters. Sheba looked on, quivering with intense longing. Together, man and dog watched the hawk soar with lazy grace toward the rising sun. Other than a rare car passing on the bridge, all was quiet and peaceful here on the predawn river. The place drew him like a two-ton magnet in those dark hours when sleep, the vicious tease, evaded him.

Kade sniffed. His nose was cold, but the morning air, with crisp, clean sharpness, invigorated more than chilled. He picked up the scent of someone’s fireplace, a cozy home, he surmised, with two-point-five kids, a Betty Crocker mom and a dad who rose early to feed the fire with fragrant hickory wood.

His lip curled, cynic that he was. Happy ever after was a Hallmark movie.

He, too, had risen early, but not for a cozy fire and a loving family. Although gritty-eyed with fatigue, he hadn’t slept a full eight hours in months. But the shrink said he was making progress.

Kade huffed, breath a gray cloud. The shrink probably didn’t wake up when his dog barked.

Gathering his gear, Kade started toward his car, a red Mazda Miata parked at an angle near the edge of the Redemption River Bridge. Sheba padded softly at his side, a loyal, undemanding companion who never complained about the nocturnal ramblings.

His great-aunt, on the other hand …

Ida June rose early and she’d be waiting for his return, spouting sluggard quotes, her favorite being, “The field of the sluggard is overtaken by weeds.” There were no weeds in Aunt Ida June’s fields. One positive aspect of visiting his feisty great-aunt was that she kept him too busy all day to think. Days were all right. Nights were killing him.

Sophie Bartholomew bebopped out the door of the Redemption Register, a happy tune on her lips and an order for six dozen cookies on her notepad. She stopped on the sidewalk and danced a little boogie to celebrate the sale. Her students would be pumped, too.

Sophie loved mornings, especially this time of year with Christmas right around the corner. Already, Redemption geared up for the monthlong celebration.

This crisp morning when the town was just awakening, the scent of fresh doughnuts tantalized the streets in front of the Sugar Shack bakery and café. Sophie headed there next to round up more orders for the annual fifth-grade charity cookie sale. Miriam, owner of the Sugar Shack, never minded, even though the sales cut into her business.

Down the block a city worker dangled from a bucket truck to lace white lights along the front of the town’s historic bank building. Sophie gave a little wave. Christmas was unofficially here, and no one was happier about that than Sophie.

She loved everything about Christmas, from the celebrations and festivities to church and decorated cookies and gaily wrapped gifts. Even the commercialism didn’t bother her. Christmas, she’d long ago decided, meant joy and love and Jesus, in whatever form it was celebrated.

Across the street on the town square, Ida June Click, octogenarian handywoman, pounded on a half-erected stable while a lean, dark man unloaded lumber from a truck, his navy plaid shirt open over a white T-shirt. Sophia recognized him as Kade McKendrick, Ida June’s nephew, although Sophie didn’t know him well. He was new in town, but her single friends and several not-so-singles noticed his comings and goings. He mostly stayed to himself. His quiet aloofness made everyone wonder, including her. But he was a looker, as her close friend Jilly Fairmont said. A mysterious looker. What could be more intriguing to a female? Not that Sophie thought all that much about her single status. She was too busy teaching kids and loving the life the Lord had given her.

She had one hand on the glass door of the Sugar Shack when she heard a shout. Over on the curb by the buff-brick municipal building, GI Jack, the eccentric old Dumpster diver who ran a recycling business and created junk art, waved his arms and yelled for help.

“Ida June,” he called to the twig of woman in bright red overalls and a man’s work jacket. “Get over here quick.”

“Here” was a spot right next to an industrial-size trash bin.

“Not another cat. My cup runneth over already.” But the feisty eightysomething woman hustled toward him just the same.

So did Sophie. GI Jack was not an alarmist, and one quick glance told her Popbottle Jones, the other eccentric Dumpster diver, was nowhere to be seen.

Traffic was slow this time of day, and Sophie darted across the street with barely a glance. Had something happened to Popbottle Jones?

“What can we do? Shall we call for an ambulance? I have my cell phone.” Ida June, still a little breathless from the jog, whipped a modern smartphone from the bib of her overalls. “We must get him out of that Dumpster ASAP. He who hesitates is lost.”

Confusion clouded GI Jack’s face. “Well, yes, ma’am, I reckon so, but we don’t need no ambulance.”

“If Popbottle is hurt—”

The funny old man blinked. “Popbottle ain’t hurt.”

“My friend is correct. I’ve suffered no ill effect.” Ulysses E. “Popbottle” Jones grasped the top of the heavy metal trash bin and peered over the edge, his red miner’s hat tipped to one eye. “But we do require assistance.”

Curiosity got the better of Sophie and she tiptoed up for a look. The sight she beheld chipped off a piece of her teacher’s heart. Cowering against the side of the bin and surrounded by trash, a young boy, maybe eight or nine, clutched a book against his chest and stared out with round blue eyes. Poorly dressed for the cold day, his shaggy blond hair hung limp and dirty around a pale, thin face smeared with something yellow, probably mustard from the piece of old hamburger gripped in his other hand.

“The small fellow won’t allow me near him,” Popbottle said with some chagrin as he hopped to the street. “Must be my unusual attire or perhaps the miner’s lamp. I thought one of you ladies would fare better.”

“Probably thought you were an alien from Jupiter,” Ida June grumbled. Barely tall enough to see inside, she chinned herself like a gymnast, peered in, then slithered back to earth, muttering. “My nephew will know what to do.” Whirling toward the town square she barked loud enough to be heard over the din of a city truck rattling past. “Kade, on the double! We need help.”

Sophie, too concerned with the child to wait, said, “GI, boost me up.”

The gentle old man, still strong as the soldier he’d been, patted his bent knee. “Foot here.”

She grabbed the top of the trash bin and vaulted up and in to slide unceremoniously onto a pile of damp newspapers. She rested there for a few seconds to study the little boy and gauge his reaction to her presence. Dampness soaked through the back of her sweater. She’d need a trip home before schooltime. Not that her clothes mattered at the moment.

When the little boy didn’t scramble away, she slowly moved toward him, picking her way across the junk, careful not to turn an ankle in the heeled boots.

“Hello, there,” she said in her kindest voice. “My name is Sophie. What’s your name?”

The question was met with a silent stare.

Sophie went into a crouch, inches from the child, but careful not to touch until he was ready. Holding back was hard. She was a toucher, a hugger, believing children needed physical connection. “I’m a nice person, honey. You can talk to me and I’ll help you.”

Still only that bleak stare.

“I’m a teacher here in Redemption. Fifth grade. What grade are you in?”

Nothing.

Outside the trash bin voices rose and fell—Ida June’s spit and vinegar, and a chorus of males. By now, someone had likely called the police station, and Sophie worried the sight of an officer might frighten the boy even more. He was like a wary, wild thing, cornered and ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

Metal scraped against the outer bin. Someone else was scrambling up the side. The boy’s gaze shifted to a spot behind Sophie just as that someone dropped to the surface with catlike quiet.

Sophie glanced over one shoulder to see the trim, lithe, dark-as-a-shadow nephew of Ida June Click. His eyes, the same espresso brown as his hair, met hers in a narrow squint. There was something lethal about Kade McKendrick, and she remembered the rumor that he’d been a big-city cop or in the DEA or some such. He looked more like a man who’d been on the wrong side of the law than a police officer.

“The cookie lady,” he said with an unsmiling nod.

Sophie offered a cheeky grin. “You’ll order some yet. It’s a great cause.” Every year she and her fifth graders baked and sold Christmas cookies and contributed the proceeds to charity.

He went to his heels beside her and hitched his chin toward the child. In the bin, large as it was, three was a crowd. “Who’s your friend?”

She tilted her face toward his, noticed the tense lines around his eyes and mouth. “One frightened boy.”

Kade turned a quiet look on the child. “Hey, buddy, what’s your name?”

Sophie waited, but when the child’s response was more silence, she said, “He’s not said a word to me, either.”

“What’s that he’s holding?” Kade gestured, stirring the scent of warm, working male and clean cotton shirt, a welcome respite from the stink of trash.

“A book.”

“Good work, Sherlock,” he said, lightly enough that Sophie would have laughed if she hadn’t been so concerned for the child. “What kind of book and why is he gripping it like a lifeline?”

Sophie wondered the same thing.

To the boy, she said, “I’m a teacher, honey. I love books. What kind of story are you reading?”

He shifted slightly, his gaze flickering to the oversize book.

“Will you show it to me? Maybe we can read it together over breakfast? Are you hungry?” She extended an upturned palm and waited. She was surprisingly aware of Kade squatted in the trash next to her. She knew little about him, other than rumors and that he was good-looking in a black panther kind of way. An interesting energy simmered, in this of all places, as his arm brushed hers.

She ignored the sensation and smiled encouragement at the little boy, all the while praying for guidance and a way to connect.

Slowly, with stark hope and a dose of anxiety, the towheaded boy relinquished the picture book. Sophie shifted nearer, relaxing some and moving easily into teacher mode. She knew books, knew kids, knew how to relate.

“This is beautiful.” She touched the brightly colored cover. “Is it your favorite?”

For the first time, the boy responded. His head bobbed up and down. He scooted closer and opened the cover of the popular Christmas tale. Sophie shot a glance at Kade, who offered a quick, approving hitch of his chin. For some reason, his encouragement pleased her. Not that she wanted to impress Ida June’s great-nephew, but they were in this crowded Dumpster together. The thought made her giggle. The males gave her identical, bewildered looks.

“Look what we have here,” Sophie said, her finger on the flyleaf inscription. “To Davey. Happy Birthday. Love, Mama. You must be Davey.”

Eagerly, the child nodded, his face lighting up.

Someone rapped sharply on the side of the trash bin. The sound echoed like a metallic gong. Davey jumped, then shrank back into himself.

“Are you two taking up residence in there?”

Sophie glanced up. Three pairs of eyes peered back from above the edge, watching the scene below.

“Ida June has the patience of a housefly,” Kade muttered, but rose and offered a hand to the little boy. “Come on, Davey, I’m hungry. Let’s get some pancakes.”

Davey hesitated only a moment before putting his small hand in Kade’s much larger one. Then, with eyes wide and unsure, he reached for Sophie on the other side. Body tense, his fingers trembled. Over his head, Kade and Sophie exchanged glances. She wasn’t sure what she expected from Kade McKendrick, but anger burned from eyes dark with a devastation she couldn’t understand.

In that one look, Sophie received a stunning message. Davey was lost and alone. So was Kade McKendrick.

Chapter Two

Davey sat in Police Chief Jesse Rainmaker’s desk chair, swiveling back and forth, while the adults—Sophie, Ida June and Kade—discussed his situation. The Dumpster divers had come and gone, promising to “spread the word” and find where Davey belonged.

Kade hoped they could, but he wasn’t holding his breath. He’d seen this before, although finding a kid in a trash can was a new low. A kid, tossed away like tissue. Use once and discard. Yeah, he’d seen plenty of that. Only they got used more than once before they ran or were discarded.

Kade’s gut burned with the implication. He hoped he was wrong. He turned his back to the sad little scene and perused the faxes and photos on a bulletin board. Creeps, losers, scum. Somebody somewhere knew who this kid was and what had happened to him.

“Has he told you anything at all? Where he’s from, his name, his parents. Anything?” Police Chief Jesse Rainmaker was a solid man. In a few short weeks, Kade had come to respect the understaffed officer and his handful of deputies. They were small-town but efficient and smart. Good cops.

“Nothing,” Sophie said. “Even over breakfast, he didn’t say a word. I’m starting to wonder if he can speak.”

The sweet-faced schoolteacher had drawn a chair up next to Davey. She was good with the kid, calmed him, gave him a sense of security. For a fraction of a minute in the Dumpster, she’d done the same for him. It was a weird feeling.

Kade pivoted. “Why don’t we ask him? Obviously, he can hear.”

“Or he reads lips,” Sophie said.

Chief Rainmaker tilted his head. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“I know sign language. I can try that, too,” Sophie said, moving round in front of Davey. “Davey.”

The dirty little boy focused on her face. Some of his fear had dissipated, but he remained edgy, watchful, uncertain.

With a grace Kade found beautiful, the woman moved her hands in silent communication. Davey stared but didn’t respond.

“Well, that didn’t work. Davey, can you hear me?”

An eager head bob.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

Davey shrugged, one hand moving to his throat.

“Let’s send him over to the clinic,” Rainmaker said. “Have him checked out. Either he won’t talk for some reason or he can’t.”

Restless in the small office Kade paced from the bulletin board to the boy and back again. Someone had put an automatic air freshener on top of the file cabinet to counter act the smell of burned coffee and stale shoes. Every few minutes, a spurt of fragrance hissed a girly scent into the air. Jesse either had a wife or secretary. No self-respecting cop would buy—Kade squinted at the can—white tea and roses. Smelled pretty good, though.

“Then what happens to him?” he asked.

Rainmaker rounded his desk, a long metal structure overflowing with paperwork. Kade empathized. Paperwork was the bane of cops.

The chief shuffled through some messages, pulled a stack of faxes from the basket. “Nothing on the wires about a missing child in the area, but I’ll make more calls and get the word out. We’ll hear something soon.”

Kade didn’t let it go. Couldn’t. “If you don’t?”

“Child protective services will take over. I’ll have to notify them anyway. Someone is responsible for letting this boy get in this situation. Finding them is my job. Taking care of the child isn’t.”

Kade grunted. Shoulders tense, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. He’d told himself the same thing once. It was a lie. Taking care of the kids was everyone’s job.

Ida June, who’d remained amazingly silent for a full ten minutes, piped up in her take-no-guff tone. “We’ll take the boy home with us. No need to call anyone.”

His aunt’s idea took Kade by surprise, but he didn’t object. He wanted to keep an eye on Davey, just as he wanted to find out who’d left him in such a condition. Someone needed to pay big-time. And Kade was in the mood to be the collector.

“Now, Miss Ida June, you know I have to follow the law,” Jesse said patiently.

“Please, Jesse,” Sophie said, voice as sweet as her face. “I’d take him myself, but I have to get to school. I’m already late and an aide is watching my class, but Davey’s too fragile to go with another stranger right now.”

If Rainmaker could resist that face and tone, he was a strong man.

“Girl’s right,” Ida June announced with a slap to the desktop. Davey jumped, blue eyes blinking rapidly. Sophie placed a soothing hand on his knee. “We’ll take Davey to the clinic, me and my nephew here, and then home to clean up. I figure the little man is tuckered plum out. He can rest up for a few hours at my place, and then if you haven’t found his mama and daddy, you can call Howard Prichard.”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “Tell you what, Miss Ida June, I’ll give Howard a call and apprise him of the situation. If he agrees, it’s a deal.”

Good luck with that, Kade thought.

“Well, get to it.” Ida June crossed her arms over the front of her overalls. “Time wasted is gone forever and Lord knows, at my age, I can’t afford to lose any.”

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?”

“He found no physical reason for Davey not to speak, though he did recommend a specialist.” Kade poured two cups and held up the sugar bowl. Sophie shook her head. Figured. She was sweet enough. Kade loaded his with three spoons and stirred them in. “We’ll have to leave that to social services.”

Sophie grimaced. He got that. Social services did what they could, but who really cared about one little boy?

“Then there must be something mental or emotional, and he doesn’t appear mentally handicapped.” She accepted the offered cup, sipped with her eyes closed. Kade, a detail man courtesy of his career, tried not to notice the thick curl of mink lashes against pearl skin. “Mmm. Perfect. Thanks.”

“Which leaves us with one ugly conclusion.” He took a hot gulp and felt the burn before the liquid ever hit his belly. The more he thought about what could have happened to Davey, the more his gut hurt. “Trauma.”

“I wondered about that, but was hoping …” Her voice trailed off. She picked at the handle of her cup.

“Yeah, me, too.”

Sophie’s fingers went to her lips, flat now with concern for the little boy. She painted her fingernails. Bright Christmas red with tiny silver snowflakes. How did a woman do that?

“You think something happened that upset him so much he stopped talking?”

Jaw tight, Kade nodded. “So does the doc.”

And if it took him the rest of his life, somebody somewhere was gonna pay.

Sophie studied the trim, fit man leaning against Ida June’s mustard-colored wall. In long-sleeved Henley shirt and blue jeans, dark brown hair combed messily to one side, he could be any ordinary man, but she suspected he wasn’t. Kade McKendrick was cool to the point of chill with a hard glint to wary eyes that missed nothing. He was tough. Defensive. Dangerous.

Yet, he’d responded to Davey’s need with concern, and he had a wry wit beneath the cynical twist of that tight mouth. He didn’t smile much but he knew how. Or he once had. Her woman’s intuition said he’d been through some trauma himself. Her woman’s heart wanted to bake him cookies and fix him.

A little troubled at the direction of her thoughts, she raised her coffee mug, a shield to hide behind. She didn’t even know this guy.

“What could be so terrible that a child would stop speaking?” she asked. “I can’t imagine.”

Something flickered in the stolid expression, a twitch of muscle, the narrowing of coffee-colored eyes in a hard face.

“I plan to find out.”

“I heard you were a cop.”

“Listening to gossip?”

She smiled. “Not all of it.”

The admission caught him by surprise. He lightened, just a little, but enough for her to see his humor. She didn’t know why that pleased her, but it did. Kade needed to lighten up and smile a little.

“I am.” He went to the sink and dumped the remaining coffee, rinsed the cup and left it in the sink. “A cop, that is. Special units.”

“You don’t want to hear about the other rumors?”

He made a huffing noise. “Maybe later. You don’t want to hear about the special units?”

“Maybe later.” She smiled again, hoping he’d smile, too. He didn’t. “The important thing is Davey. Your police experience should help us find his family.”

“Us?”

“Well …” She wasn’t a person to start something and not follow through. She’d been there when Davey was found and she didn’t intend to walk away and leave him with all these unanswered questions. “I know the community really well. People trust me. They’ll talk to me. I don’t know the first thing about investigating a missing boy.” She stopped, frowned. Davey wasn’t missing exactly. “Or rather, a found boy, but I know how to deal with people.”

Kade raised a palm. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s early yet. Someone may come home from work tonight, find their son gone and call in. Problem solved.”

“Do you think they will?” she asked hopefully.

“To be honest?” He dropped his arms to his sides, shot a look toward the living room. “No.”

Something in the sudden clip of his voice chilled Sophie’s bones. She frowned and leaned forward, propping her arms on the metal dinette. Ida June must have had this thing since the 1950s. “Have you worked in Missing Children before?”

She was almost certain he flinched, but if he did, he covered the emotion quickly.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Sophie waited for an explanation, but when none was forthcoming, she asked, “Do you have any ideas? Any thoughts about where he came from or what happened?”

“A few.” He crossed his arms again. She recognized the subconscious barrier he raised between them. What had happened to this man to make him so aloof? For a people person, he was a challenge. For a Christian, he was someone to pray for. For a single woman, he was dangerously attractive. What woman wouldn’t want to delve behind those dark, mysterious eyes and into that cool heart to fix whatever ailed him?

“Care to share?” she asked.

He cocked his head, listening. “Davey’s awake.”

Sophie hadn’t heard a sound, but she pushed away from the table and hurried past Kade to the sofa and the little boy who’d had her prayers all day. Behind her, a more troubling and troubled presence followed. She was in the company of two mysterious males and they both intrigued her.

“Hi, Davey.” She sat on the edge of the couch, the warmth of Davey’s sleep-drenched body pleasant against her leg. Kade’s big dog, a golden retriever, slid off the sofa and padded to her master. He dropped a hand to her wide skull and stood like a dark slab of granite watching as Davey looked around in that puzzled “Where am I?” manner of someone waking in a strange place.

“Remember me? I’m Sophie. My students call me Miss B.”

The towheaded child blinked stubby lashes and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He sat up, the blanket falling to his waist.

Sophie grinned up at Kade. “Your shirt?”

A wry twist to one side of his mouth, Kade nodded. “My sweats, too. His clothes are in the dryer.”

Davey pushed the cover away and stood. The oversize black pants puddled around his feet. Sophie laughed. “I need a camera.”

Davey looked down, and then, too serious, glanced from Sophie to Kade and back again, eyes wide and uncertain.

“Guess what? We have some great new clothes for you. You want to look through the bag and find something you like?” She dragged the bag from the chair with a plastic thud against green shag carpet and pulled open the yellow tie. “There’s a very cool sweatshirt in here. And wait till you see this awesome jacket with a hood and secret zip-up pockets.”

She was rewarded when Davey realized her mission and went to his knees next to the bag. Sophie held up a T-shirt. “What do you think?”

He nodded eagerly, then plunged his hands into the sack and removed a pair of cowboy boots. His whole body reacted. He hopped up, stumbled on his long pants and would have gone down if Kade, swift as a cat, hadn’t caught him. “Easy, pard.”

“I think he likes his new duds.”

Davey held the boots up for Kade’s inspection. Sophie watched with interest as the man pretended to consider before nodding his head. “Shoulda been a cowboy myself.”

Davey’s face broke into a wide smile. He plopped onto the floor and shoved at the too-long pants to find his feet. Sophie’s smile widened. “Here, Davey. I think you could use some help.”

Kade moved into action. “Why don’t we find some jeans first and then try the boots?”

But Davey was already shoving his small feet into the brown-and-white-stitched footwear. His foot went in with an easy whoosh of skin against leather. Thrilled, smile wide enough to crack his cheeks, he leaned in to hug her from the side. Sophie’s heart pinched. The boots were obviously too big, but Davey behaved as though she’d given him the best Christmas present of his life.

He levered himself up with her shoulder and attempted to clomp around, still grinning. The sweats puddled on the floor and tripped him up again. Kade reached out to steady him, expression inscrutable. “Grab him some jeans. I’ll help him change.”

Sophie did as he asked, touched when Kade hoisted Davey under one arm and carted him, boots, jeans and all, sweats flopping in the empty space beneath Davey’s feet, to another room. Sheba padded softly behind, her nose inches from Kade.

Minutes later Sophie heard a clomp, clomp as the trio returned, Davey dressed in clean jeans, a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt and the too-big boots. Kade had dampened the child’s pale hair and brushed away the bedhead.

“Well, don’t you look handsome?”

Davey beamed and clomped to her. Sheba followed, her nose poked beneath his hand as though expecting him to fall at any moment and prepared to catch him.

“I think the clothes are a hit,” Kade said.

“The boots are for certain.” Sophie dipped in the bag. “Davey, we might as well go through these and see what else you like. You can keep anything that fits.”

As they rummaged through the hand-me-downs, Sophie was a little too aware of Kade kneeling beside her, his taut arm brushing hers as they pulled clothes from the sack. There was a stealthy danger about him, a rigid control she assumed came from his work in law enforcement. Special units, he’d said. Now she wondered what he’d meant.

She was holding a blue dress shirt under Davey’s chin, his little arms spread wide to test the sleeve length, when they heard a car in the drive.

“Ida June?” she asked.

A minute later, the doorbell chimed. “Apparently not.”

Kade shoved to his feet and went to answer. Sophie heard voices but thought nothing of them until Kade returned, trailed by a man in a business suit. Sophie’s pleasure seeped away.

“Hello, Howard.” She knew the social worker from school and the times he’d come to interview teachers about a child’s well-being. Good at his job, professional and thorough, she’d always been glad to have him in a child’s corner. Until today.

“Sophie, how are you?”

“Great.” She’d been better. “Is everything okay? Davey’s doing fine here, as you can see. We’re sorting through some clothes my students donated.”

“Nice of you to take an interest. Tell your students thanks. We appreciate all you’ve done. Both of you.”

“No problem. Davey’s a good boy.”

“The Cunninghams will be glad to hear that.”

Dread pulled at Sophie’s belly. “The Cunninghams?”

“The foster family. We got lucky. They can take him today.”

Sophie made a small sound of distress. “He’s doing fine here, Howard. Why not leave him with Kade and Ida June?”

“Neither has foster-parenting credentials or clearances. The Cunninghams are paper-ready.”

“You’ve known Ida June forever and Kade is in law enforcement.”

“The system doesn’t work that way. Sorry. The Cunninghams are a good family with experience with special-needs children. He’ll do well with them.” Howard hitched the crease of his navy slacks and went to one knee in front of Davey. “My name is Mr. Prichard, Davey. You’ll be coming with me today. There’s a family waiting to meet you. You’re going to like it at their house.”

Davey frowned, bewildered gaze moving from Howard to Sophie and Kade.

“Howard,” Sophie said, beseeching.

“I have a job to do, Sophie. Our department comes under enough fire as it is. We have to follow procedures.” The social worker rose, matter-of-fact. “If you’d gather his belongings, he can take them along.”

“This is all he has.” The plastic bag crinkled as she pushed at it. A few hand-me-down clothes and an oversize pair of boots.

“More than most have, sad to say. Come along, Davey.” The man grasped Davey’s hand and started for the door. Davey jerked away and ran to Kade, throwing his arms around the familiar man’s legs. Sheba whined and pushed against Davey’s back. He fell against her neck and clung.

“Let him stay.” Kade’s voice was hard as granite.

Howard ignored the request. “Come now, Davey.” When the boy didn’t obey, the social worker scooped Davey into his arms and headed to the car. Davey squirmed but didn’t make a sound. The silence was more terrible than any amount of crying.

Sophie followed, fighting tears, her throat clogged with emotion. She pushed Davey’s beloved book into his hands. “It’s okay, Davey. I know the Cunningham family. They’re nice people. I’ll call you. I’ll come over and see you. We’ll find your family. I promise. I promise. Don’t be afraid.”

Tense fingers caught her arm. Kade, face as hard as ice, said, “Don’t make promises.”

Sophie stopped in the driveway next to the black Taurus and forced an encouraging smile as the social worker buckled the little lost boy into the backseat. Beside her, Kade said nothing, but anger seethed from him, hot against the evening chill. She lifted her hand, waved and held on to the fake smile while the car backed into the street and pulled away.

A cold wind swirled around her, lifted her hair, scattered scratchy brown leaves across the pavement. The dark sedan turned the corner, out of sight now.

Sophie lowered her hand and stood dejected in the bleak afternoon. What a sad way to spend Christmas.

Be with him, Jesus.

Even though her prayer was heartfelt, Sophie knew little comfort. The sight of Davey’s tormented face pressed against the window glass with silent tears streaming would stay with her forever.

Chapter Four

Kade wanted to punch something. Fists tight against his sides, he glared at the departing car, shocked by his reaction. He wasn’t supposed to get personally involved. But he was supposed to protect and serve. With Davey gone to strangers, how could he do that?

Sophie touched him. A gentle hand to his outer elbow. A comforting squeeze and release. His muscles tensed. He turned from staring down Hope Avenue, a useless occupation considering the car was long gone, to meet the teacher’s gaze. He didn’t say what he was thinking. A woman like her wouldn’t want to know, and as the dismayed shrink had discovered, Kade was not one to vomit his emotions all over someone else anyway.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“Nothing we can do.”

“This doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why exactly. We barely know Davey, but I’m worried about him. He seemed comfortable with us.”

“Yeah.” Kade pivoted toward the house. “Might as well get out of the wind. Want to come in?”

“No, I should go. I—” She pushed aside a blowing curve of hair, only to let it blow right back across her face.

“Come in. Finish your coffee.” He wasn’t ready for her to leave. They shared a common concern and a common ache. Sophie was a nice woman, the kind a man didn’t blow off and leave standing in his driveway.

She didn’t argue but fell in step beside him. Her height was average, as was his, but his stride was longer. She picked up her pace. “I hadn’t read the book. I promised to read his book.”

He’d told her not to make promises. Promises got broken. He pushed open Ida June’s front door, a bright red enameled rectangle festooned with a smelly cedar wreath the size of an inner tube. “He’ll be okay.”

“The Cunninghams are good people. They live on a farm.”

Sheba met them at the door, body language asking about Davey.

Sophie stroked the golden ears. “She didn’t want him to leave, either.”

“No.”

“I’ll call Cybil Cunningham tonight and check on him. She won’t mind.”

“Good.” He went to the kitchen, stuck their coffee mugs in the microwave to heat. “This doesn’t end here.”

The words came out unexpectedly but he meant them. The microwave beeped and he popped the door open to hand Sophie her heated coffee.

She took the mug with both hands and sipped, gray gaze watching him above the rim. “You’re going to search for his family?”

“I’m searching for answers. It’s what I do. And I’ll find them.” The stir in his blood was far more potent than the acid in his belly. Finding answers for Davey gave him focus, a mission, something to do besides relive failure.

“The police will do that, won’t they?” She set the mug on the metal table and drew out a chair.

Kade shrugged. A lot she knew about law enforcement. “They’ll try. For a while. But if the trail grows cold, Davey will go on the back burner.”

“And be stuck in the social system.”

“Right.” Restless, he didn’t join her at the table, but he liked seeing her there, calm to his anxious. How did she do that? How did she shift into serene gear after what had just happened? He knew she’d been emotional when Davey left. He’d watched her struggle, saw her pull a smile out of her aching heart for Davey’s sake. Now she drew on some inner reserve as though she trusted everything would work out for the best. “I talked to Jesse Rainmaker an hour ago. Nothing. Nothing on the databases, either.”

“I don’t understand that. If your child was missing, wouldn’t you call the police?”

She was as naive as a baby, a cookie-baking optimist. The thought tickled the corners of his eyes. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Her cup clinked against the metal top. “I don’t know much about this kind of thing, Kade, but I want to do something to help Davey find his family. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

He was positive she didn’t want to hear it all. “I can think of a couple of scenarios. One, his family doesn’t know he’s missing.”

“That’s unlikely, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes parents are out of the house, at work, partying. They come home a day or two later and find their kid gone. By tomorrow, someone should raise a shout if they’re going to.”

“What else?”

“His parents don’t want him.” He saw by her reaction how hard that was for her to comprehend. “It happens, Sophie.”

“I know. Still …” Some of the Christmas cheer leached from her eyes.

“Davey is mute. A family might not be able to deal with that. Or worse, his parents may not be in the picture. Or he could have been missing for so long they aren’t actively looking anymore.”

A frown wrinkled the smooth place between her fascinating eyebrows. A face like hers shouldn’t have to frown.

“Are you saying he might be a kidnap victim?”

“He’s a little young to be a runaway. I searched the data base of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and came up with nothing, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a victim. It only means no one has reported him missing.”

“Are you saying a parent would ignore the fact that their child is gone?”

“It happens. Kids are a commodity. You can buy them on the internet.”

Sophie lifted a weak hand in surrender. “Don’t.”

Ignoring the problem didn’t make it go away, but he bit back the obvious comment. Sophie was small-town sweet and innocent. She hadn’t seen the dark side. She hadn’t lived in the back alleys of the underworld.

Kade poured another cup of coffee, then shoved the mug aside to take milk from the fridge. Something cool and bland might soothe the lava burning his guts.

“Kade?”

He swallowed half a glass of milk before answering. “Yeah?”

“You want to order some fifth-grade cookies to go with that milk?”

In spite of himself, he laughed. She was a piece of work, this cookie lady. “You’re going to hound me.”

“Gently. Merrily. It’s a Christmas project. So,” she said, with quiet glee, “how many dozen?”

“What am I going to do with a bunch of cookies?”

“Eat them, give them as gifts, have a Christmas party. The possibilities are limitless.”

“I don’t do the Christmas thing.”

She didn’t go there and he was grateful. He wasn’t up to explaining all the reasons he couldn’t muster any Christmas spirit. Or any kind of spirit for that matter. His faith hadn’t survived the dark corners of south Chicago.

“Everyone eats cookies.” Her smile tilted the corners of a very nice, unenhanced mouth. He wondered if she had a guy.

“A dozen. Now leave me alone.”

His gruff reply seemed to delight, rather than insult. “You old Scrooge. I’ll get you for more.”

Wouldn’t that be a stupid sight? Him with a bunch of Santas and stars and Christmas trees to eat all by himself. Or better yet, he’d stand on the street corner back home and hand them out. See how long before he got arrested.

“We were talking about the boy,” he said.

She shrugged, a minimal motion of shoulders and face. “Your stomach is bothering you. You needed a distraction.”

Kade narrowed his eyes at her. “The cookie lady is a mind reader?”

“People watcher.”

She had distracted him, although the cookie conversation was not as powerful as the woman herself. A less careful man could get lost in all that sugary sweetness.

He tilted his head toward the garage and the clatter of Ida June’s old truck engine chugging to a halt. Before he could say “She’s here,” his inimitable aunt sailed through the back entrance and slammed the door with enough force to make Sheba give one startled yip.

“I heard what happened.” Disapproval radiating from every pore, Ida June slapped a sunflower knitting bag the size of his gym bag onto the butcher-top counter. “I’ll give Howard Prichard a piece of my mind and he’ll know the reason why. Silliest thing I ever heard of. Jerk a terrified child from a perfectly fine place and take him to live with a bunch of strangers.”

“We’re strangers, too,” Kade said mildly. Seeing her riled up cooled him down even though he appreciated her fire.

“Don’t sass, nephew. What are you going to do about this?” With a harrumph, she folded her arms across the front of her overalls. Sheba, the peacemaker, nudged her knee.

Kade imitated her crossed arms and slouched against the refrigerator. “Find his family.”

“I expected as much. Good to hear it.” Ida June gave the dog an absent pat. Then as if she’d just realized someone else occupied the kitchen, she said, “Hello, Sophie. You selling cookies?”

Sophie set her cup to one side. “It’s that time of year.”

“Put me down for five dozen. Did you get this nephew of mine to buy any?”

The pretty mouth quivered. “A dozen.”

Kade was tempted to roll his eyes because he knew what was to come from his incorrigible aunt.

“He’ll have to do better than that. Stay after him.”

“I plan to.”

“I’m still in the room,” he said mildly. The refrigerator kicked on, the motor vibrating against his tense back. “The least you can do is wait until I’m gone to gang up on me.”

Aunt Ida June gave him a mock-sour look. “Crybaby. Is Sophie staying for supper? I made that lasagna last night and you didn’t eat enough of it to feed a gnat. I refuse to feed it to Sheba.” When the dog cocked her head, Ida June amended. “Maybe a bite. Well, is Sophie staying or not?”

Kade arched an inquiring eyebrow in Sophie’s direction. He didn’t mind if she stayed for dinner. Might be interesting to know her better.

He waited for her answer. An insistent, perplexing hope nudged up inside him.

Sophie rose from the table and pushed in the chair, as polite and tidy as he would have expected. Kade liked what he saw, and not just the fact that she was pretty as sunshine and looked good in a sweater. He liked the feminine way her fingertips glided along the top of the chair rung before straightening the hem of her blouse. And the way she met Ida June’s gaze with straight-on, clear and honest eye contact.

A student of human nature, Kade could spot pretense in a second. There was nothing false about Sophie Bartholomew.

He hoped she’d stay for dinner.

“Thank you, Miss Ida June,” she said. “But I have to say no. I promised to drop by my dad’s this evening and help put up his Christmas decorations.”

Kade’s ulcer mocked him. All right, so she had a life. Other than Davey, she had no reason to stick around here.

“You’re a good daughter,” Ida June said, smacking her lips together with satisfaction. “You’ll make a fine wife.”

“I have a great dad.” If Sophie thought a thing about Ida June’s blatant “wife” remark, she didn’t let on. Apparently, the citizens of Redemption were accustomed to his aunt’s habit of saying exactly what she thought.

Sophie took her coffee cup to the sink and turned on the warm water. Above the whoosh, she asked, “How’s the stable coming along?”

“Leave that cup in the sink. Kade’s gotta be useful for something around here.” Ida June shouldered Kade to the side and yanked a casserole from the refrigerator. She banged the sturdy glass dish on the counter and dug in the cabinets for foil and a spatula. The woman slammed and banged in the kitchen the same way she did on a job. With purpose and sass.

“You’ll take your dad some lasagna.” From Sophie’s quiet acceptance, Kade figured she knew not to argue with Ida June. “Stable’s nearly done. Would have been if Kade had been there. Makes me so aggravated not to be able to carry a four-by-eight sheet of plywood by myself.” She flexed an arm muscle and gave it a whap. “Puny thing.”

“Nobody would accuse you of being puny, Ida June.” Kade moved to Sophie’s side and reached for the coffee mug.

She scooted but didn’t turn loose of the cup. She did, however, flash him that sunny smile, only this one carried a hint of his aunt’s sass. “I can do it.”

“Yeah?” he arched a brow.

She arched one, too. “Yeah.”

Was the cookie lady flirting with him?

They jockeyed for position for a few seconds while Kade examined the interesting simmer of energy buzzing around the pair of them like honeybees in a glass jar, both dangerous and sweet. Danger he understood, but sweet Sophie didn’t know what she was bumping up against.

Ten minutes later, he walked her out the front door, leaving Ida June to heat a spicy casserole that would torture him again tonight.

He opened the car door for Sophie, stood with one hand on the handle as she slid gracefully onto the seat. At some point in the day she’d changed her clothes from a long blue sweater to a dark skirt and white blouse. She looked the part of a teacher. Weird that he’d notice. “Don’t worry about the kid.”

Keys rattled as she dug in the pocket of a black jacket. “I won’t. But I will pray for him.”

His teeth tightened. “You pray. I’ll find answers.”

A cloud passing overhead shadowed her usual cheer. “We can do both.”

“Right.” God listened to people like Sophie. Kade still believed that much.

She started the engine and yet he remained in the open car door, wanting to say something reassuring and not knowing how. Life, he knew, did not always turn out the way it should.

“Kade?” she said.

“Yeah?”

She reached out and placed her hand on his sleeve. Her warmth, or maybe the thought of it, seeped through the thick cotton.

“Everything will be all right.” Her gray eyes smiled, serious but teasing, too. “I promise.”

The tables had turned. She was the one doing the reassuring. For two beats he even believed her.

Then he said, “Don’t make promises,” and shut the door.

“Dad, have you ever met Kade McKendrick?” Sophie stood on a stepladder propped against her father’s brick house, feeding tiny blue lightbulbs into equally tiny sockets. Next to her, on another stepladder, her dad attached strands of Christmas lights to the gabled eaves. “Ida June’s nephew? Yes, I’ve run into him a time or two. Why?”

“What was your impression?”

“Polite. Watchful. A man with something on his mind.”

“Hmm.” Yes, she saw those things. He was wounded, too, and maybe a little sour on the world. Beneath that unhealthy dose of cynicism, she also saw a man who didn’t back down, who did what he promised. Although he had this thing about not making any promises at all. “Hmm.”

Her father paused, one hand braced against brick to turn his head toward her. “What does that hmm of yours mean?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Nothing really.” She didn’t know how to put into words the curious interest Kade had stirred up. “He says he’ll find Davey’s family.”

“Maybe he will,” her dad said. “I heard he was an agent for the DEA.”

“He mentioned special units, whatever those are.”

“Could be DEA or any of the other highly trained groups. Seems strange, don’t you think, for him to be here in Redemption doing odd jobs with a great-aunt?”

She took another bulb from her jacket pocket and snapped it into the tiny slot. “Maybe he’s simply a nice guy helping out an older relative.”

“Ida June? Older?” Dad snorted and turned back to his task. “I won’t tell her you said that.”

Sophie laughed. “Thanks.”

“So what are you ruminating about?”

“When I mentioned praying for Davey, Kade threw up a wall of resistance. He did the same thing when I mentioned Christmas.”

“Lots of non-Christians get uncomfortable with God talk, but Christmas is a different matter. Maybe something bad happened during the holidays?” He paused to take another strand of lights from her outstretched hand. “Or maybe the guy’s a jerk.”

“I don’t think so, Dad. He was kind to Davey. Almost tender. You should have seen the pair of them digging through that bag of clothes.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

Her heart jumped, a reaction she didn’t quite get. She liked everyone. “Beyond his kindness to Davey, I barely know him.”

“I knew your mother was the one the minute I laid eyes on her.”

Like a fly on her hamburger, the remark soured Sophie’s stomach. How could Dad speak casually and without bitterness when Sophie still felt the disappointment as keenly as she had five years ago?

She pushed one final bulb into a socket and backed down the ladder. “Are we putting the sleigh on the roof this year?”

If Dad noticed the change in subjects, he didn’t let on. With a sparkle in his eyes and the nip of wind reddening his cheeks, he asked, “Do elves make toys? Does Santa have a list of naughty and nice?”

Mark Bartholomew was almost as Christmas-crazy as his daughter, and every year they worked for days decorating first his house and then her little cottage. No matter how cold and fierce the wind or how many other activities they had going, this had become their tradition since the divorce. She’d started the practice so that the first holiday without Mom would be easier for him, but now she treasured this special time with her father.

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