She rose and said bravely, "Well?"

He lifted his shoulders and held out his hands. "Nothing. No mouse."

"What?"

"Nada. Looks like the crafty little devil took your bait and got clean away."

"He got away?" Karen said incredulously, giving him a long, narrow look. Her heart was slowly filling with suspicion-a wonderful, shimmering, golden suspicion.

Tony gave another eloquent shrug. He looked, Karen thought, exactly like an altar boy with a frog under his surplice. "Must have. The trap's empty. Guess you'll just have to try again."

She said with a shaky laugh, "Well… maybe I'll just wait until after Christmas."

He laughed, too. "Good idea. A holiday reprieve. Well… if everything's okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." He touched her chin with a knuckle, nudged it upward and brushed her mouth with his. And before she could do more than catch a quick, surprised breath he murmured, "Good night," and went out the door.

Karen stood where he'd left her, absolutely transfixed. He'd lied. Joy and warmth and wonder filled her. He'd lied about the mouse; she was certain of it. He'd disposed of the mouse and then lied about it to spare her pain. What a sweet, beautiful, wonderful thing to do!

In a daze, she wandered into the kitchen. The mousetrap lay on the countertop, disarmed and empty, with not a trace of the peanut butter-smeared cracker she'd used for bait-or anything more grisly-in evidence. She picked it up by one corner and dropped it into a drawer, then leaned her hands on the edge of the sink and stared at her reflection in the dark window. Her face stared back at her, pale and somber and frightened.

Yes! she thought, gripping the cold porcelain while shivers of excitement cascaded through her body. I'm scared-and why not? Falling in love is always scary. And so are miracles.

The next day was dark and cold, with lowering clouds and the promise of snow. December twenty-first, the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year.

After breakfast, while Andrew went to work painting the caboose, Karen mixed up a batch of cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator. While she waited for it to harden, she finished the letter to her former mother-in-law and wrote brief notes in several Christmas cards, some of them to couples who had been friends of hers and Bob's. As always, there was a certain poignancy in the ritual, but this year, for the first time, she was conscious of a growing sense of distance. As if, she thought, she were on a fast-moving train that was carrying her steadily farther and farther away from the times and places of her life with Bob, until now they seemed to her no more real than dots on a distant horizon.

When the dough was hard, she cleared away the Christmas cards and took out the rolling pin and cookie cutters. Andrew heard the preparations and came in begging to help, as he always did. But Karen took one look at his paint-stained hands and sent him outside to play, promising that he could help with the frosting and decorating, which was his favorite part, anyway.

The time passed quickly, while Karen rolled dough and cut out Christmas shapes the way her grandmother had taught her when she was no older than Andrew. "It's the lemon flavoring that makes the difference," she could almost hear her grandmother say. "Put more flour on your rolling pin, Kary, dear…"

Christmas trees and bells and wreaths, stars and angels, Santas and snowmen. "Not too thick, now…and take them out of the oven when the first tinge of brown shows on the edges!"

Karen was just taking the last pan full of cookies out of the oven when she heard Tony's knock. She carefully slid the cookies onto a dish towel, dropped both the pan and pot holder into the sink, and wiped her hands on her jeans while she took one last look around. Then she went to answer the door.

"Hi," Tony said, breaking into a grin when he saw her. He sounded out of breath, whether from the cold or because he'd sprinted up the stairs Karen couldn't guess. It didn't matter; she was too winded herself to answer his greeting, or to even gasp when he suddenly reached out and brushed at something on her cheek. "Flour," he explained, the smile warming his eyes. "Been baking something?"

"Just some cookies," Karen said, sheepishly rubbing her cheeks. "Oh dear, do I have it all over me? That always happens, I don't know why."

"It's okay. It looks cute on you." As casual and easy as if last night had never happened, as if he'd never even thought of kissing her, as if he'd been walking in and out of her house all his life, Tony moved past her and headed for the kitchen, sniffing the air like a hunting dog hot on the scent. "Hmm… smells good. Can I have one?"

Karen hurried after him, dithering like an overprotective mother. "Well, they're not finished yet. I don't know…"

"Christmas cookies!" Tony's hand hovered over the cookies cooling on the dish towel. He selected a reindeer and gave Karen a look that would have melted a Scrooge's heart. "Please?"

Karen managed a laugh and a grudging, "Oh, all right, if you must. But just wait until you see them all decorated. We make the prettiest Christmas cookies in the world. And the best tasting, too."

"Hmm," Tony muttered with his eyes twinkling and his mouth full. "And she's modest, too."

"Oh, it's true," Karen said simply. "Everyone always says so. My grandmother and I always made them when I was a child." She smiled, remembering. "All my cousins would come to help with the decorating-nobody wanted to be left out-but I was her special helper, because I lived with her."

"How come?"

She glanced at him and shrugged, keeping it light and offhand, because she didn't want him to think she considered herself unfortunate to have been raised by warm, loving grandparents. "My mother died when I was a baby, and… I never knew my father."

Tony's eyes were dark and intent. "No brothers and sisters?"

"No," Karen said, "just me." She smiled and added softly, "Now it's just Andrew and me."

"Hmm." Frowning, Tony popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and brushed crumbs from his fingers. "Speaking of the kid, where is he?"

"I sent him outside for some fresh air. He should be… " Karen leaned over the sink to look out the window. "Yes, there he is… Oh, look, there's Mr. Clausen. I wonder what they're doing?"

"Mr. Clausen?"

"My neighbor," Karen said, and caught her breath as Tony brushed against her, reaching past her to twitch the curtain out of the way. "He lives upstairs."

Tony's laugh gusted warmly past her ear and teased the wisps of hair on her temple. "Looks just like Santa Claus, doesn't he?"

Karen snorted. "That's what Andrew says." But when she turned to give Tony an exasperated look, she found that his face was closer to hers than she'd expected. And suddenly it was hard to be exasperated about anything… or even to think clearly. She frowned in concentration and whispered, "I'm… a little concerned about him."

"Why?" It was a soft, warm sound that barely altered the shape of his mouth.

"Because… " His mouth… so close to hers. "He still believes in Santa Claus."

A smile hovered, just a breath away. "Don't you?"

"Don't I… believe in Santa-" She blinked, straightened and turned blindly back to the window, her heart beating in a crazy, uneven rhythm. "He doesn't get outside enough, that's the problem. He reads too much. He needs to play with other children more. I wish-"

"Careful… " His hands turned her; his finger touched her lips, lightly, as it had the night before. "Don't forget, it's the season for wishes." The smile on his lips faltered, then tilted wryly. "Hey, don't wish for something unless you know what you're getting into. Believe me, having a bunch of kids around all the time isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Karen whispered, "You sound as if you know." His hands were on her shoulders; she could feel the energy in them, like a force field that shut out the rest of the world and pulled her into his orbit.

"I know," he said harshly. "I'm one of seven kids, remember? Four sisters, two brothers. Hey, if your son likes to read, maybe it's because he was born that way. Maybe he's glad he's got space to call his own, and peace and quiet when he wants it, and privacy. Some kids need those things, you know?"

His eyes were dark, intent… and filled with a certain wistfulness. Karen's heart filled up and turned right over; understanding and insight made a lovely star burst inside her. "Some kids," she said softly, touching his face with her fingertips. "Like… you?"

Of course… A shy, private child in a noisy, gregarious household-was that why he'd taken to Andrew? Did he see himself in her quiet, reserved, bookish little boy?

All through her, in every part of her, emotions were burgeoning. She held very still, feeling the smooth, hard edge of Tony's jaw in her hand, the moist warmth of his breath on her thumb… and smiled as she listened to the chaos inside herself, the tinkling, shimmering sound of a miracle-in-progress.

Tony's lips formed a kiss on the sensitive pad of her thumb; his hands moved inward to the base of her neck, his thumbs describing tender circles on her throat, stroking upward toward the soft underside of her chin. She held her breath and watched his eyes come closer…

"Mom!" The front door crashed back on its hinges. "Mom," Andrew shouted, "guess what-it's snowing!"

Chapter Five

Tony's hands shifted back to her shoulders, then lifted. She let her hand drop away from his face, touched the center of his chest briefly, then took a step away from him, and in a carefully neutral voice called, "In here, sweetheart." She felt shaky, as if she'd been too abruptly awakened from a deep sleep. She felt cold and isolated, as if she were a lost traveler and Tony's arms were a safe warm haven, just beyond reach.