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Elaine released him with a gasp.

“My gingerbread!”

Kade chuckled as he followed his mother into the kitchen. He’d never known her to burn anything, but there was always an air of drama in the house when Elaine prepared food.

It appeared that a shipment from the North Pole had been dumped onto the kitchen island since yesterday. Kade set the groceries on the counter, then moved a box of baking ingredients to another stool and settled down to watch Elaine open the oven, waving a hand in front of her face as if smoke billowed forth. Only the heavenly aroma of ginger filled the kitchen, nothing more. This is what he had missed—Elaine’s organized chaos. Getting ready for the traditional December First family Christmas party to kick off the Advent season was a very big deal on the Behar calendar.

“It may not look like it, but everything’s under control here,” she said over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t expect otherwise. Is the gingerbread okay?” He folded his hands together on the counter to watch his mother’s theatrics.

Two baking pans clattered onto the countertop. Steam wafted toward the ceiling. His question hung between them unanswered as Elaine inspected the pans with the single-mindedness of a surgeon in the operating room.

“I think so?”

“Not that I’m an authority, but it looks good from here.” He scanned the kitchen and noted the new cherry-striped wallpaper, maple cabinets, and a single fake stem of holly in a clear hobnail vase on the windowsill above the sink. The kitchen had gotten a makeover, yet not much had changed in the twenty years he’d lived elsewhere. It felt familiar yet foreign, seeing his boyhood home through the lens of maturity.

“I sent your father to D & G for more molasses,” she said. “I think our gingerbread house tradition will grow into a village now that your nieces are old enough to decorate.”

Tim, his more outgoing younger twin brother married his high school sweetheart shortly after they graduated from community college. Now with two daughters, ages three and five, he and Jeannie lived in the white one-story clapboard house on the far side of his parents’ two hundred acres. Tim worked the farm with his father while Jeannie ran a small daycare operation out of their home.

“When is Tyler due to show his face?”

“Oh, who knows.” Elaine gave a dismissive wave.

“Is he giving you trouble?

“You know Tyler. He has that new girlfriend. And that means your father has to hound him to put in a day’s worth of work before he takes off.”

His single brother had recently moved into an apartment in town after living on the farm all of his twenty-four years. Tyler had announced he needed his own space. Kade understood, though the transition was probably tough on their father. Fred relied on his sons to help with farm operations.

“I think your father is starting to feel his age,” Elaine said as she took off the oven mitts and set them aside. She braced herself against the island, facing Kade.

“Oh?”

“Sometimes I see flashes of it, you know, when he’s on the floor with Kyah and Della and it takes him a little longer to get on his feet. Or just the other day when he finished changing the oil on my car. I looked out the window and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat. Just sitting there for the longest time.”

“What was he doing?”

Elaine’s brow wrinkled as she shook her head. “Well, that’s what I asked him when he came inside. Said his heart was racing so he took a break.”

“Racing? Is he under a lot of stress?”

“Your father is the calmest, most even-keeled person I know. If he’s stressed, he’s keeping it a secret.”

Kade looked down at the cookie sheets of cooling gingerbread, lost in thought.

A flash of blue caught his eye through the window across the kitchen. A little compact car darted up the snowy lane toward the house, fishtailing a bit as it took the curve too fast. It stopped near his mother’s brick planter. The headlights blinked off when the door opened. Kade squinted to see if he recognized the visitor at the same time his mother took a mixing bowl to the sink, blocking his view.

“Expecting someone?”

Elaine looked up.

“There she is,” Elaine said, leaning back to look up at the clock hanging on the wall above her head. “She’s late, but it’s just as well. I wouldn’t have been able to leave the kitchen.” She wiped her hands on her apron before she slipped it over her head and wadded it into a ball she left on the island.

When his mother left the sink, Kade had a clear view once again. The woman walking up the path toward the front porch wore a red coat. Her dark hair danced around her face. Even squinting, the sharp angles of her face and her almond-shaped eyes were arresting. She looked very similar to—

“What’s she doing here?”