“If you don’t take a turn, then Alyssa will have to do it again. That’s not fair to her.”
“I’m really, really sorry. I tell you what, Keefe. If I push really hard, maybe I can get up there for the New Year’s festivities and the Court of Honor.”
“Oh, sure you will.” Keefe sounded extremely skeptical.
“It could happen.”
Voices raised in the background. Keefe sighed and said, “Wait a minute. The kids are fighting.”
Kyle watched as a FedEx truck drove slowly past his house. Needing to get back to his book, he turned back and drummed his fingers on his desk. Come on, Keefe. I’ve got work to do.
Music sounded in the background. Very familiar music. No wonder. Keefe had turned on Christmas music and the strains of Walking in a Winter Wonderland played over the phone.
“Okay, I’m back.”
“Turn that down. You know I can’t hear myself think with that rot playing.”
Keefe just laughed. “Oh, bah, humbug! yourself, Kyle. ‘Tis the season. You’ve just become a scrooge.”
“I have not.”
“A grinch, then.” Keefe got serious and his voice lowered. “The grieving has been going on long enough, Kyle. It’s been twenty-two years. It’s time we get over it. Alyssa would like this to be a healing Christmas for our family. Mama would want it.”
If there was anything Kyle didn’t want to do this year, it was deal with that particular hurt. “I’m going to hang up now.”
“Okay. Hey, I’ll see you next spring at one of your book signings. It might come as a surprise to you to know that some people don’t care about books, and not everybody in the world cares that you’re a best-selling author. And maybe one day you’ll learn that there’s more to life than deadlines. Like family.”
Kyle fought back his irritation. “I bet the next person I speak to knows my name.”
“That’s really nice. Too bad so few of your family can remember it.” A click told Kyle that Keefe had gotten the last word in their conversation.
He replaced the receiver and sat quietly for a moment. Why couldn’t his family understand how important his deadlines were? They were always pushing him to come to events--but his writing was his livelihood. Besides, he had fans who’d be disappointed if his next book didn’t come out six months from now. Kids.
And, speaking of writing, he’d better get back to it or he’d never get Book Five finished, much less need to decide on the official title, whether or not the publishing company actually used the one he chose.
Reaching over, he took the phone off the hook. Multiple potential interruptions handled with one simple motion.
He cracked his knuckles, put his hands over the keyboard, and picked up where he’d left off.
In other words, he was still stuck.
Jared had nowhere to go.
* * *
Lexi stood back and surveyed her work.
The snowman was magnificent. The three balls were perfectly round, each smaller than the one below it. He was the perfect snowman, with eyes of coal, a carrot nose, twig arms, red licorice lips and a brightly colored muffler. A slow smile rolled across her lips. “What do you think?”
Trista walked all the way around the rotund, frozen, white body. “It’s great.”
“I don’t know, Mom.” Steven pointed to its belly. “I kind of think it needs a knife sticking out right here and maybe some ketchup dripping down.”
Lexi rolled her eyes at her blood-thirsty son. “It does not need anything of the sort. The photographers will be rolling up the street first thing in the morning to film this snowman in front of this gorgeous pine tree for my first show on the new contract. There will be no knives, no fake blood, no heads cut off. Do you understand?”
Steven frowned. “Ah, Mom.”
Trista laughed. “Boys are so lame.”
Lexi’s cell phone rang. “Hello.”
“Listen, Lexi,” Craig said, “the party’s off for tonight.”
“Ahh, and both the snowman and the food are perfect.” Lexi teased with her favorite cameraman. “You’d better be kidding me, because that is not a funny thing to tell a woman with several hundred dollars worth of appetizers sitting in her brand new kitchen.”
“I wish I was joking. I’m calling from the hospital. Carolyn’s in labor.”
“But she’s not due for two weeks. Is she all right?”
“The doctor says she’ll be fine, but the crews have set up for the birth\. It’s looking like we’ll be here all night.”
Carolyn was a local single anchorwoman who had been artificially inseminated and thus become the focus of an on-going special edition story. And the news crews--who Lexi’d invited to a get-acquainted party--of course had to film the dramatic ending to the story.