Excerpt

Jason A. Adams:

Who needs cops when you have The Amazing Super Cats?

And if Cal didn't hustle his butt on back to the Big House with this ridiculously heavy bag of kibble, his toes might freeze before his arms fell off, and the Super Cats would take their cruel, horrible revenge.

They'd yowl and cry like the nigh-starveling refugees they were, squeezing their guts between his legs and falling to the floor in their fainting weakness.

The evening rated a slow stroll instead of full bustle, though. Wentworth Avenue was dolled up just perfectly for the big Boxing Day celebration at Wentworth House.

He walked through the historic district, past Wentworth Haberdashery, Wentworth Millinery, Wentworth Carriage Repair.

This last was partly interpretational, partly a working carriage house used to repair the estate's classic vehicles. Cal had spent every free minute he could drag away from directing operations at the big house hanging around the place. And the smithy down the alley where they worked metal black, white, and red.

That reminded him. He needed to do a few more reps on the curling bar with his left arm. His right was getting a little too out of whack from the hammer.

He slowed down by Wentworth Cakes and Ale. They'd locked up early, of course. Everyone would be at the Boxing Day shindig. But he could still catch a whiff of apple pie, peach tart, and candied walnuts sneaking out through the door jamb.

Good thing he walked most of his shopping. The C&A had a siren's song he couldn't resist.

The lovely antique (ish) wrought-iron (looking) streetlamps cast a soft, buttery glow from their triple globes. Through the ribbed and leaded glass (plexi), the clusters of colored LED bulbs stayed dutifully tuned to that warm, olden light.

Later on in the week, they'd be set to a rotating rainbow of color, washing the street in that good ol' holiday cheer for the rest of the Twelve Days.

A light snow had fallen that morning, covering the little mountain town of Sabre Creek in five inches of gorgeous fluff. A nice warmish snow, too, so all the trees and hedges wore their coats of white like so many frosted mini-wheats.

Or like camouflaged soldiers of the 10th Light Infantry, preparing to scale the Reisa Pass during Operation…

Cal shook his head. No matter what else might change, he'd never stop being a nerd. Which was fine and dandy. He might be Calvin Isaiah Wentworth V, but these days the family patriarch preferred multi-faceted dice, a good comic, and an excellent treatise on military structures of the Gallic Wars to anything as mundane as running the family's namesake textile mills.

Not that any of the Wentworth Mills were in Wentworth hands anymore. Not since CW3 and his penchant for buying dodgy stocks and too much brandy in the years before the crash of '29.

Grandma Irene had to sell just about everything after CW3 lost his mills and gave a double-barrel to a piece of his mind, but she'd found enough help to let her stay in the old house until she passed away just after midnight on New Year's Day, 2000. The old gal was an interesting piece of work, but she'd made it into her third century, and how many people got to say that?

Kari Kilgore:

What should have been an unusual Thanksgiving seemed oddly traditional, almost normal, until Lucy spotted the strange thing in the refrigerator.

The formal dining room of the house she'd grown up in positively glowed with harvest feast cheer. The sturdy oak table that had almost always been round while she was a kid sported all three leaves, transforming it from a table for four into a long table for twelve.

A broad rusty-orange runner down the middle was new but welcome. With the heavy fabric embellished with acorns and autumn oak leaves and bundles of crimson cranberries, it made the old table feel brand new.

A line of stout golden candles marched down the middle of the runner with little wreaths of leaves around the bottoms. None of them were lit yet, but Lucy thought the candlelight would be lovely against the rippled glass in the big china cabinets.

Those cabinets—passed down through her father's family for generations—mostly stood empty today. Twelve places were set with tan plates accented with a raised green vine all around the edges, another new touch Lucy quite enjoyed. The first kids' table they'd needed for many years had a similar festive air adjusted for the under-eighteen crowd.

Turned out her mother had been happy to leave the massive cabinets behind, but she wasn't about to leave her own mother's white china with gold edging. The cabinets remained here in St. Louis, while Lucy's mother, her china, and not all that many other things had made the trip up to Chicago about eight years ago.

Out in the living room, an overwhelming number of people gathered around the brick fireplace Lucy remembered and loved so. Not watching football, not yet. That would wait until after what promised to be a belt-and-pants-loosening dinner.

Instead the crowd was actually talking (a modern holiday miracle), with phones only in use to show off photos of vacations, pets, and family members who weren't there for their first blended Thanksgiving. Sharing the tart and delicious cranberry spritzers that her father's new wife Tina had made after Lucy suggested leaving alcohol off the menu.

Tina, who'd married Lucy's father back in the spring, had done amazingly well at the hard task of fitting into Lucy's tight-knit family, as well as into her childhood home. Today's test of the first major holiday together was a tough one that showed promise of going well.

Lucy only hoped the day continued to go well when her brother Jacob finally arrived.

Tina and her oldest son Greg had brought out cute trays of sliced fruit, vegetables, and cheese. Enough to keep everyone happily getting to know each other without getting hangry, but light enough that the main event would still be appreciated. A plate of tiny little slices of pumpernickel bread harkened back to Lucy's Seventies and Eighties childhood, while the whole-grain crackers kept everything grounded in the present.

Tina had confided to Lucy that she'd bought it all pre-sliced to save time and cut down on stress, a big party approach Lucy heartily approved of.

Lucy's wife Jana was currently settled in with their new nieces and nephews, showing off photos of the dogs and cats they'd boarded back in Atlanta. The idea of having four-legged cousins had tickled the kids from the first time they'd met, and the demand to see pictures always followed close behind the greeting hugs.

Lucy had spent the last hour happily engaged with their herd of new step-brothers, exchanging childhood exploits they were willing to talk about in front of their parents. Lucy understood perfectly that even well into your thirties and forties, some of the questionable activities of youth were better left unsaid.