Season Of Wonder. RaeAnne Thayne

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      “Wow. That’s exciting.” Ruben smiled down at Will Montgomery, his boss’s stepson and just about the most adorable kid he knew. “When is the play?”

      “The Wednesday before Christmas at eleven.” Will’s mother, Andie Bailey—married to the sheriff and Ruben’s boss, Marshall Bailey—sat in the visitor chair at his desk, waiting for Marsh to get off the phone so the sheriff could take her and their children to lunch on his break.

      “Are you sure you don’t want to join us for lunch?” she asked.

      “Yeah,” Will said. “You could sit by me and I could tell you all about my part.”

      “I hate to miss that kind invitation but I have some paperwork to finish.”

      The sheriff’s department wasn’t always a good place for kids, but Andie and the children had brought some shortbread cookies they had made that day to hand out to the other deputies in the office. Ruben had quickly secreted his plate in a desk drawer where everybody else better keep their hands off, if they knew what was good for them.

      He loved seeing Will, his sister, Chloe, and their mother, Andie, together with Marshall. The four of them, along with Marshall’s son Christopher made a solid, loving unit.

      At the same time, his interactions with the family always left him a little...hollow. Not sad, precisely, only more aware than usual of his solitary state.

      Ruben never thought he would be thirty-three and alone. He had always wanted a family, always imagined by this point in his life he would have a bunch of kids, a mortgage, a boat in the driveway and a kind, caring wife like Andie.

      He had the boat and the mortgage, but not the rest.

      “You might like my school program, too.” Chloe gave him her sweetest smile, that one that always stole his heart. She was a few years older than Will but considerably more mature. Some of that had to do with her personality, though some might have been from the tough circumstances of a few summers ago, before her mother married Marshall.

      “Are you a candy cane, too?”

      “Ruben,” she said in an exasperated voice. “We don’t have candy canes in the sixth grade program. That’s for the little kids. I’m in the choir.”

      “Let me know when it is and I’ll see if I can arrange my schedule.”

      He had a nephew in her grade at Haven Point Elementary School, so would definitely try to make it.

      “It’s right after Will’s class program.”

      “Easy enough. I’ll add it to my schedule.” Maybe that was his destiny, to always be the kindly uncle and friend.

      He pushed away that depressing thought as Marshall finished his phone call and came out.

      “Did I hear talk that somebody brought cookies?”

      Will giggled. “We did! We’ve got some for you, too, Dad.”

      That was a new thing, the kids calling Marshall dad. Ruben had noticed it the last time he saw them all together. Their own father had been a police officer killed in the line of duty. Marshall had stepped up to take care of all of them and it was obvious the kids loved him.

      He could tell Marshall was touched by the word. “Bring them in here before somebody else eats them,” he said gruffly.

      Will and Chloe grabbed one of their remaining covered plates and charged into their stepfather’s office, leaving Ruben with Andie.

      “Those two,” she said, shaking her head.

      “They’re wonderful.”

      “I can’t argue with that. I’m enjoying them at this age, but who knows what trouble they’ll bring me in about five years or so. Which reminds me, Marshall tells me you had some excitement at your place last night. Some vandalism on your beautiful new boat. How is The Wonder?”

      He found himself reluctant to discuss Dani and her daughter with Andie, almost protectively so, which he knew was completely ridiculous.

      “It was just kids messing around.”

      “I understand you caught one of them in the act. The new veterinarian’s daughter, the one with the cool hair and the unusual name.”

      “Yes. But please don’t spread that around.” He really hoped the identity of his vandal wasn’t common knowledge. He knew Andie would be discreet. She wasn’t going to talk, not even to her friends at the Haven Point Helping Hands, a service and social organization in town.

      “I won’t,” she assured him.

      “Silver wasn’t the only one involved, but she was the only one I caught. She won’t tell me who else was there.”

      “Snitches get stitches,” Andie said.

      “Funny. She said the same thing.”

      “I understand her reticence to implicate others. She’s probably worried about retribution. She’s, what, thirteen? That’s a hard age to start at a new school.”

      Andie could be a good source of information, he realized. The kids were busy helping Marshall shred some papers in his office so he decided now was as good a time as any to dig a little into his intriguing neighbors.

      “What’s their story? Dani and her kids? Do you know her at all?”

      “She seems very nice and she’s a good veterinarian. Right after she came to town, we went to her when Sadie got a bad bee sting in her eye.”

      “Ouch.”

      “Right? I would say Dani has a more abrupt bedside manner than your dad, but seemed very kind and caring.”

      “What about socially? Have you interacted much outside the veterinary clinic?”

      Andie shrugged, though she looked intrigued at his line of questioning. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. He didn’t need his friend’s wife matchmaking.

      “Not really. She seems very...private is I guess the word I would use. She came to a few social events when they first moved to town. Again, she seemed nice enough but I’m afraid maybe we overwhelmed her. When McKenzie asked if she wanted to join the Helping Hands, she said no, that she was too busy with her girls and settling into a new town, starting a practice. Same thing when we asked her to join the book club.”

      “That’s fair. Not everybody is a joiner.”

      “I get it, believe me. The women of this town can be intimidating for even the toughest constitution.”

      “There are so many of you and you always travel in packs.”

      “Not always,” she protested with a laugh.

      “Most of the time, then.”

      Before she could answer, Marshall came out with the kids and Andie’s face completely lit up.

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