1225 Christmas Tree Lane

Regardless, their affection for Mary Jo was obvious and it made a difference in her life.

Grace returned just then and Mary Jo heard the sound of a car door closing. The front door opened a moment later and a girl of about five ran inside. “Grandma! Grandma!” she cried. “I’m an angel tonight! I’m an angel tonight!”

Grace knelt down, clasping the child’s hands. “You’re going to be an angel in the Christmas pageant?”

The little girl’s head bobbed up and down. “In church tonight.”

Grace hugged her granddaughter. “Oh, Katie, you’ll be the best angel ever.”

The girl beamed with pride. Noticing Mary Jo, she immediately walked over. “Hi, I’m Katie.”

“Hi, Katie. I’m Mary Jo.”

“You’re going to have a baby, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

The door opened again and a young couple came in. The man carried a toddler, while the woman held a large, quilted diaper bag.

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Grace’s daughter said, kissing her mother’s cheek. She turned to Mary Jo.

“Hello, I’m Maryellen. And I’m so glad you’re going to be joining us,” she said, smiling broadly.

Mary Jo smiled back. She’d never expected this kind of welcome, this genuine acceptance. Tonight would be one of the most memorable Christmas Eves of her life.

Now, if only her back would stop aching….

13

“Officer, let me explain,” Linc said, doing his best to stay calm. His brothers stood on either side of him, arms raised high in the air. The deputy, whose badge identified him as Deputy Pierpont, appeared to have a nervous trigger finger.

The second officer was in his car, talking into the radio.

“Step away from the vehicle,” Pierpont instructed, keeping his weapon trained on them.

The three brothers could’ve been playing the children’s game, Mother, May I as they each moved forward one giant step.

“What were you doing on private property?” Pierpont bellowed as if he’d caught them red-handed inside the bank vault at Fort Knox.

“We’re looking for our sister,” Mel blurted out. “She ran away this morning. We’ve got to find her.”

“She’s about to have a baby,” Linc said, feeling some clarification was required.

“Then why are you here?” the deputy asked, his tone none too friendly.

“Because,” Linc said, fast losing patience, “this is where we thought she’d be.”

The second officer approached them. His badge said he was Deputy Rogers. “We had two separate phone calls from neighbors who claimed three men were breaking into this house.”

“We weren’t breaking in,” Mel insisted, turning to his brothers to confirm the truth.

“I looked in the window,” Linc confessed, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize that was a crime.”

Pierpont snickered. “So we got a Peeping Tom on our hands.”

“There’s no one at home!” Linc shouted. “There was nothing to peep at except a crazed cat.”

“I tried to open the back door,” Mel said in a low voice.

“Why’d you do that?” Rogers asked.

“Well, because…” Mel glanced at Linc.

As far as Linc was concerned, Mel was the one who’d opened his big mouth; he could talk his own way out of this.

“Go on,” Rogers prodded. “I’d be interested to know why you tried to get into this house when your brother just told us you were searching for your sister and that you knew there was no one here.”

“Okay, okay,” Mel said hurriedly. “I probably shouldn’t have tried the door, but I suspected Mary Jo was inside and I wanted to see if that elderly couple was at home or just hiding from us.”

“I’d hide if the three of you came pounding on my door.” Again this was from Deputy Rogers.

“What did I tell you, Jim?” Pierpont said. Mel’s comment seemed to verify everything the officers already believed. “Why don’t we all go down to the sheriff’s office so we can sort this out.”

“Not without my attorney,” Linc said in a firm voice. He wasn’t going to let some deputy fresh out of the academy railroad him. “We didn’t break any law. We came to the Rhodes residence in good faith. All we want…all we care about is locating our little sister, who’s pregnant and alone and in a strange town.”

Just then another car pulled up to the curb, and a middle-aged man stepped out, dressed in street clothes.

“Now you’re really in for it,” Pierpont announced.