Coming Home For Christmas

Dear Diary,

The Matchmaking Mamas have found our latest project! There are lots of lonely hearts to heal this Christmas, but we’ve discovered a special two-some that we hope will meet under the mistletoe on December 25.

Keith O’Connell is a handsome lawyer who’s headed home for the holidays … but not to celebrate with his family. Sadly, he was estranged from his mother, who’s since passed away. Now he’s back in town to sell his childhood home.

So far, we have seen a few signs of Keith opening up to someone, a woman he’s known for years. She’s beautiful and smart, and she seems to be luring him out of his shell, bit by bit, this holiday season.

I know Kenzie Bradshaw had a crush on Keith back in junior high, but they’re both all grown up now. And she’s still got a thing for the guy in a buttoned-up suit with a closed-off heart. Keith is one puzzle that Kenzie is determined to unravel, but will they realize how perfect they are together in time for Christmas? I can’t wait to watch and find out.

Love,

Maizie

Matchmaking Mama Extraordinaire.

Coming Home

for Christmas

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Elliana Melgar,

Welcome

To

The

World.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

It felt very odd to be back.

In all honesty, he never thought he’d be back here again. Not back in this city. Certainly not back in this house.

But then, he never thought his mother would become someone he’d be forced to think of in the past tense, either.

Granted, he and his mother hadn’t spoken in almost ten years. But despite his criticism the last time words—angry, hot words—had been exchanged between them, she had always struck him as being a force of nature. Forces of nature didn’t just cease to exist. They continued. Whether or not someone was there to witness the force, it continued.

Somewhere in his unconscious, he had thought his mother would be the same way. She would just continue.

But Dorothy O’Connell didn’t continue. Quite abruptly, without any warning, without any lingering diseases, her heart just suddenly gave out and she died. If it hadn’t been for the phone call he’d received from her neighbor, he wouldn’t even have known this had transpired.

Well, now he knew. Knew when there was nothing further he could do about it. Knew that there would never be an opportunity to mend the rift that had existed between them.

Not that there would have been much chance of that, even if she were still alive and they had another twenty years. The wounds had gone too deep.

And he had lost his mother long before he’d walked out of the house that day.

Keith sighed as he looked around the first-floor family room. You would think, after ten years—and knowing that she was gone—he wouldn’t expect to see her come walking into the room. Wouldn’t, on some level, strain to hear the sound of her voice as she called out to him, or to Amy.

Or both.

The house had always been filled with her voice and her presence. At least, he amended, for most of the years he’d lived in it. It was only after—after the car accident—after Amy wasn’t around anymore—that everything changed.

And somehow, in an odd sort of way, it had stayed the same. Except tenser. So much tenser. He supposed that part of it had been his fault, too.

Keith shrugged even though there was no one there to see him do so. No one there to call him on it.

It didn’t matter. All the tension, the things that were said, the things that weren’t said, none of it mattered anymore. It was all in the past now.

Just like his mother was in the past.

He was here. Here to tie up all the loose ends, to tend to the arrangements. To shut down that chapter of his life and put it all away in a box.

After all, life went on. Except, of course, when it didn’t.

Keith resisted the fleeting temptation to go upstairs and look into rooms he hadn’t looked into in ten years. There was no point to that. He wasn’t here to thumb a ride down memory lane. He was here for one purpose only: to sell the house and everything in it. The items in the house were of no use to him and hadn’t been for a very long time.

Squaring his shoulders, Keith got down to business. The sooner he was finished, the sooner he could get back to the firm up north in San Francisco and to his life.

And forget all about the house on Normandie in Bedford and the woman who had lived in it.

Chapter One

With her trim figure and attractively styled light blond hair, Maizie Sommers looked far younger than the actual years noted on her birth certificate. She liked to tell people that her family and her real estate company kept her vital and young, which was true.

And then there was her other hobby, the one she was involved in with Theresa and Cecilia, her two best friends since the third grade. The hobby that, she firmly believed, aided her in finally getting the son-in-law and grandchildren she’d always hoped for. She, Theresa and Cecilia were very skilled at, quite unashamedly, matchmaking.

Specifically, covert matchmaking. The unassuming objects of their selfless efforts were never aware of what hit them when love came barreling into their lives.

The matchmaking tasks were usually undertaken at the behest of either one unwitting participant’s relative or the other, most often a parent. And the ladies happily took it from there.

As it turned out, they were enabled in their altruistic endeavors because of the companies they had formed during the second half of their lives. After each woman had raised her child—or, in Theresa’s case, children—and found herself squarely faced with widowhood, all three friends had met the resulting emptiness in their lives the same way. They turned their attention to whatever skills they had and transformed those into what eventually amounted to lucrative livelihoods. Maizie went into real estate, Theresa undertook catering and Cecilia, always the very last word in organization and neatness, began her own housecleaning service.

Each of these three businesses, now quite nicely successful, brought into their collective lives an ever-changing and growing pool of people.

It was within this pool that the three friends found their likely candidates: unattached people who were in need of soul mates in order to reach their own full potential and thrive.

Maizie, Theresa and Cecilia thought of their matchmaking as a calling.

Even as they conducted business as usual, all three women were on the lookout for their next matchmaking success stories.

And none was as proactive as Maizie, whose cache of candidates was always changing.

Maizie had an eye not just for excellent property buys, which in turn were responsible for bringing money into her company, but also for loneliness, no matter how well disguised that loneliness might be within the person who crossed her path.

Such was the case, she felt, with her latest client. The tall, good-looking young man walked into her office on a Wednesday morning, wearing a somber expression and an expensive gray suit. He had green eyes and very precisely cut thick, dark brown hair, and his incredible straight-arrow posture made his broad shoulders appear even broader than they were.

“Maizie Sommers?” Keith asked as he approached her desk.

He’d gotten her name from the same neighbor who had notified him of his mother’s sudden passing. He felt one real estate firm was as good as another, but perhaps a smaller one was a little hungrier than a corporation so the agent could be persuaded to sell the house faster. At least, that was his reasoning when he’d found her on the internet and then came here immediately after that.

Maizie looked up into his eyes and gave the young man her best maternal smile. It usually went a long way in disarming her prospective clients and getting them to trust her.

She didn’t do it for any devious or self-serving purpose. What she was trying to convey to her clients was that it wasn’t a matter of her versus them but a matter of them and her. She thought of herself and her clients as a team, and she intended to be on her clients’ side.

Sales were not final until the clients were happy with the home they were buying. She took any misgivings they might entertain very seriously. Their ultimate satisfaction was always her bottom line.

And if, along the way, said client also turned out to be an unattached person who would be decidedly happier as part of a twosome—Maizie was a very firm believer in love—well, so much the better.

That part of what she and her friends did—the matchmaking—was undertaken without any thought—or collection—of financial rewards. Maizie, Theresa and Cecilia all unequivocally believed that the soul needed nurturing as well as the body. And in the case of their matchmaking efforts, with each success—and thus far, they had only successes—they felt even more fulfilled than they did when the actual jobs they did collect fees for were successfully executed.

Thus, until she knew otherwise, Maizie viewed the young man who walked into her office this morning as quite possibly a candidate on two fronts.

The smile on her lips came from deep within.

“Yes, I am, young man,” she told him warmly. “What can I do for you?” she asked, rising ever so slightly from the seat behind her desk to shake his hand.

The woman reminded him of his mother.

It wasn’t so much that this Maizie Sommers he had come to see actually resembled his mother visually, but there was an enthusiasm—as well as a kindness—that seemed somehow to radiate from this woman. Such was often the case with his mother.

At least, his mother the way she had been those years when he was growing up. The years before Amy had died. The three of them had been a happy unit then, bolstering one another. And no matter what, he and Amy had always been secure in the knowledge that although there was no father in the picture for a good deal of the time, all was well in their lives because their mother was with them. They were convinced Dorothy O’Connell could handle anything. Nothing would ever hurt them as long as she was around.

It turned out to be a lie.

Keith realized that he had lapsed into silence when he should be saying something. Attempting to recover ground, Keith cleared his throat and took a stab at apologizing, something he hardly ever did.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” he said, deliberately averting his eyes from her. “For a minute, you reminded me of someone.”

Maizie’s bright blue eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled at him. “A pleasant memory, I hope.”

“Yes, well, it was. Once,” he allowed, stumbling ever so slightly over the words coming out as he continued looking away.

“I see,” she responded, hoping he’d continue. Her prospective client appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable, though. One of the things she prided herself on the most, an ability she had honed both as a mother and as a successful independent businesswoman, was putting someone at ease.

Glossing over the young man’s last words, Maizie purposely went on to the reason she assumed that he had come to her in the first place. In her judgment, he appeared to be the type who was more comfortable sticking to the business at hand than touching upon anything even remotely personal.

Still, she couldn’t help wondering if he was married or, at the very least, spoken for. The young man was clearly the kind who fell into the “drop-dead gorgeous” category, as Cecilia’s daughter liked to say. If he wasn’t married, well then, she just might have met her newest challenge.

“Are you here looking to buy a house, Mr....” She let her voice trail off, giving him the opportunity to state exactly why he was here as well as introduce himself.

“Oh, sorry.” Keith upbraided himself. He really wasn’t on his game today. Going straight from the airport to the house and then staying there overnight had done that to him. He would have been better off booking a hotel room.

He was going to have to see to that as soon as he finished up with this woman.

“Keith O’Connell,” he told her, shaking her hand belatedly. Given their proximity and difference in height—Maizie was petite while he was six-foot-two—he didn’t have to lean over her desk because she was standing up. “And I’m looking to sell, not buy, actually.”

“Sell,” she repeated slowly, as if she was pausing to taste the word. “You own a home here in Bedford?” she asked.

“In a manner of speaking.”

He couldn’t think of himself as being the actual owner. That had been his mother, who had worked long and hard, stitching together disjointed hours so she could be home for Amy and him when they were younger and needed her, but still provide for them. It was his mother’s sweat and dedication that had managed to pay for the house. He had just lived there—until he didn’t. And now it was his by default.

Because there was no one left.

“It is—was,” Keith corrected himself, “my mother’s house.”

Maizie sensed another wave of discomfort sweeping over her client-to-be and interpreted it the only way she could. He was having second thoughts about the fate of the house.

“Are you sure you want to sell it?” she questioned gently.

“Yes.” The single word was emphatic, exploding from his lips almost like a gunshot. And then Keith backpedaled just a shade. “I live and work in San Francisco, and there’s no reason for me to maintain a house down here. I’d like to sell the house as quickly as possible,” he added.

Maizie had remained on her feet. “Well, then, let’s go take a look at it, shall we?” she suggested brightly.

Keith nodded. “My car’s parked in front of the restaurant,” he told her. Striding ahead of the agent, he opened the office’s front door and held it for her.

Maizie glanced over her shoulder at the young woman seated at a desk in the corner. “I should only be gone for a little while, Rhonda. Hold down the fort,” she instructed her assistant cheerfully.

The woman she addressed looked as if she was eager to be the only occupant of the “fort.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“She’s in training,” Maizie confided to her client-to-be once they were outside the office and the door had closed behind them. “More willing than able at the moment, I’m afraid. But with luck that should change soon.” At least, she hoped so. “We’ll take my car,” she announced as she stopped in front of a cream-colored Mercedes.

Keith glanced over toward his own dark blue sedan parked several yards away. He was accustomed to taking charge, no matter what the situation. He was also accustomed to being the one behind the wheel. “I thought that—”

Maizie neatly cut him off, her maternal smile widening considerably.

“No reason for you to use up your gas,” she informed him cheerfully. Aiming her key fob at her vehicle, she pressed it, and a melodious signal announced that the door locks had been released.

Without hesitation, Maizie got in, buckled up, then looked to her right and waited. After a beat, her would-be client got in on the passenger’s side. She hadn’t quite comprehended how tall the man was until he more than filled that section of her vehicle.

Hands resting on the steering wheel, she paused until Keith buckled up before saying, “Now, if you just give me the address, we’ll be on our way.”

Keith gave her the house number, adding, “That’s in the—”

“West Park development,” Maizie acknowledged. She flashed a smile at Keith as she pulled away from the curb. “I’ve been at this for a while now,” she told him.

Good for you, Keith thought as he stared, sphinxlike, straight ahead through the front windshield. With luck, this would wind up being one of his last drives to his mother’s house.

* * *

“It’s a lovely home,” Maizie concluded after her tour of both floors, the three-car garage and the backyard.

She preferred to build up her own rapport with the house she was to sell, but many of her clients insisted on leading the tour. She’d noticed Keith had hung back a little after he’d unlocked the front door.

It was very evident he had no desire to be here.

Either that or Keith was reluctant about selling the house in the first place but found himself in a financial situation forcing him to take this path.

“How fast can you sell it?” he asked her abruptly the moment he saw that she had finished her initial inspection.

Maizie watched her newest client for a long moment, studying him before she finally replied.

“I’m afraid that all depends on the market, the price of the house, what you—”

“You do it,” he said abruptly.

“Do what, exactly?” Maizie asked. He looked to be on edge. Why? she wondered. Did it have to do with the house or something else? There were a lot of gaps she would have to fill. It didn’t necessarily help with the sale of the house, but the information would be useful in other ways.

“You determine the going price for the house and sell it for just under that,” he explained.

“Under the going rate?” Maizie questioned. Why would he want to sell it short? This was one of the more popular models in the development, and its orientation was ideal. The morning sun hit the kitchen and family room first. By the time the afternoon arrived with its heat, the sun was hitting the driveway, leaving the house enveloped in comfort.

Maizie looked at her new client more closely. “What’s wrong with the house, Mr. O’Connell?”

“Nothing.” He had to hold himself in check to keep from snapping. That wasn’t going to help. Besides, it wasn’t Mrs. Sommers’s fault that closure felt as if it was eluding him. “There’s nothing wrong with the house. I just want to get rid of it. I told you, I don’t live in this area anymore, and I just want to sell the house and get back to my work.”

“What is it that you do, Mr. O’Connell?”

“I’m a lawyer.” Usually he experienced a tinge of pride accompanying that sentence. But this time there was nothing, just this odd, hollow feeling, as if being a lawyer didn’t matter anymore.

That was ridiculous. Of course it mattered. He was just fatigued, Keith insisted, silently scolding himself for the irrational thought.

“A lawyer,” Maizie repeated with an approving nod of her head, surprising him. “The son and daughter of one of my best friends are both lawyers,” she told him conversationally. And then she sobered slightly and she asked in as kind a tone as she could, “Did your mother die at home, by any chance?”

Because if the woman had, that put an impedance on the idea of a quick sale. Legally, at-home deaths had to be stated as such, and there were a great many people who wouldn’t dream of buying a home that supposedly came with its very own ghost to haunt its hallways.

Keith blinked. “What? No. Why?” The single-word sentences were fired out at her like bullets, shot one at a time.

Maizie’s tone continued to be kind as she answered him. “I thought that might explain why you seem so...tense,” she finally said for lack of a better word.

She didn’t want to offend the young man, but she did want to get to the heart of what might be troubling him, because he was troubled. Anyone could see that.

“Jet lag,” Keith told her dismissively, as if that explained everything.

“San Francisco is in the same time zone,” she pointed out gently. There was no reason for him to be experiencing any sort of jet lag.

“Of course it’s in the same time zone. I’m not an idiot,” Keith protested. “Sorry,” he murmured, doing his best to bank down his temper. Over the years, he’d schooled himself to be emotionally reserved. But what he’d learned was escaping him right now. “I was in New York on business when I got the call that—” Abruptly he changed the course of his response, correcting his last words. “My firm took a call from my mother’s neighbor saying that my mother had passed away. My assistant called me. So I caught the next plane back,” he told her.

And then he stopped cold.

Keith wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself. He hadn’t done that in a very long time. This had all caught him completely by surprise, and he was revealing more than he’d intended.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” he informed her stiffly.

“No,” she agreed, “it doesn’t. But I was just trying to get a feeling for the situation—and you. It helps me do a better job.” Maizie knew she had to sell this to the young man, who needed far more than the sale of this house to tie up loose ends.

He needed peace, she thought.

“I don’t care what you get for it. Just sell it,” Keith was saying. “I don’t want it hanging around my neck like the proverbial albatross.”

“You might not care about the sale price now, but you will someday soon. Perhaps even very soon.” Maizie paused, her sharp eyes sweeping over everything in the living room. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you planning on doing with the furnishings?”

“Furnishings?” Keith repeated uncomprehendingly.

“The furniture, the clothing in the closets, the books—”

He hadn’t even thought about that. He supposed he was still coming to grips with the idea that as far as his mother was concerned, there would be no more tomorrows and all that entailed.

Replaying the agent’s words in his head, Keith waved his hand, dismissing the problem. “Get rid of it. All of it.” The things she’d enumerated represented a place in his life he had no intention of revisiting. “Throw it all away.”

That would be a terrible waste, and Maizie wasn’t about to be wasteful if she could possibly help it. “I think if you do that, if you just throw all this away, you’ll live to regret it.”

He was already regretting this conversation. However, he told himself that it cost him nothing to hear her out. “All right. What do you suggest?”

Maizie thought of the conversation she’d just had yesterday with Theresa over a late lunch. It involved the daughter of a mutual friend.

The single daughter of a mutual friend.

A wide smile blossomed on Maizie’s lips. “I think I have an idea you just might like.”

Chapter Two

“You do realize you work too hard, right?”

Marcy Crawford aimed the question at her younger sister, MacKenzie Bradshaw, as she followed her sister around a showroom that was nothing short of an obstacle course for anyone who wasn’t a size three. And in her current state of pregnancy, Marcy admittedly hadn’t been a petite size three for a little longer than eight months now.