Free Coming Home for Christmas by Marie Ferrarella Page B

twenty times, if not more. Flipping channels, he’d encountered it—a few scenes into the story—on one of the cable stations, and it was like running into an old friend.
    Watching it was somehow comforting. He couldn’t recall falling asleep, but he must have.
    When had he turned off the set?
    Or had he?
    As Keith struggled to clear his head and piece together the tail end of his evening, the scent of coffee became stronger.
    And then he realized why.
    â€œHi, you’re up,” Kenzie said as if it was an event she’d been waiting for. She placed a large cup of coffee—black—in front of him.
    His brain still hadn’t fully clicked in, but he distinctly remembered Kenzie going home last night. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œPutting coffee in front of you,” she responded brightly. Kenzie knew that he wasn’t really asking that, so she answered what she assumed was his actual question. “I let myself in this morning. I hope you don’t mind.”
    The fog was still hovering around his brain, clouding it. “I gave you a key?” Keith couldn’t remember doing that.
    And, it turned out, with good reason.
    â€œNo,” Kenzie answered. “But there was an extra front door key hanging on the key rack in the kitchen, so I took it last night. I need to get an early start this morning, and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
    The information was going in, but it still wasn’t finding a proper home. “Early start?” he echoed. “Doing what?”
    â€œInventory,” she answered. And then she prodded his memory a little more. “You hired me to organize an estate sale, remember?”
    â€œI know,” he bit out impatiently, “but what I remember is you taking over my mother’s funeral arrangements—not that I’m not glad you did,” he quickly interjected, afraid that she might just back off and subsequently out of everything if she thought he was complaining. Now that apparently everyone was coming to the house after the funeral, he definitely wanted Kenzie to remain and act as his buffer.
    Looking to move on, Keith picked up the mug from the coffee table. The coffee immediately drew the focus of his attention. In this day and age of designer coffee, his own taste in coffee had remained unchanged.
    After taking an appreciative first sip, he raised his eyes to hers and asked, “How did you know that I take it black?”
    â€œI guessed,” Kenzie confessed. “No cream, no sugar, just black. It seemed to me that would be your style,” she added.
    â€œAnd strong.” Which he discovered after taking his second sip of the hot brew. His first reaction hadn’t been a fluke. The coffee tasted as if it could double as a paint remover.
    â€œAnother guess,” she admitted. “There’s also breakfast in the kitchen if you like,” she added. Keith must have looked puzzled, because she elaborated. “Eggs, bacon, toast. Nothing fancy, just hot.”
    â€œI didn’t see any eggs or bacon in the refrigerator.”
    â€œThat’s because there weren’t any. I stopped at the store on my way here.”
    That seemed to him unnecessarily complicated. “Would’ve been easier stopping at a drive-through,” was his assessment.
    â€œMaybe,” Kenzie conceded. “But I like to cook, and most breakfasts are simple enough to make. This certainly was,” she added. “So, if you’re interested, the plate’s on the stove, still warm.”
    With that, she turned away and headed toward the stairs.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Keith asked. He got up, holding the coffee mug in both hands.
    â€œUpstairs. Inventory,” she answered again. Then she asked with a patient smile, “Remember?”
    Keith frowned. He figured that he had to in order to maintain the ruse that he was effectively keeping Kenzie at arm’s length, even