Linda Lael Miller - At Home in Stone Creek

A shley OBallivan dropped the last string of Christmas lights into a plastic storage container, resisting an uncharacteristic urge to kick the thing into the corner of the attic instead of stacking it with the others. For her, the holidays had been anything but merry and bright; in fact, the whole year had basically sucked. But for her brother, Brad, and sister Olivia, it qualified as a personal bestboth of them were happily married. Even her workaholic twin, Melissa, had had a date for New Years Eve.

Ashley, on the other hand, had spent the night alone, sipping nonalcoholic wine in front of the portable TV set in her study, waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square.

How lame was that?

It was worse than lameit was pathetic .

She wasnt even thirty yet, and she was well on her way to old age.

With a sigh, Ashley turned from the dusty hodgepodge surrounding hershe went all out, at the Mountain View Bed and Breakfast, for every red-letter day on the calendarand headed for the attic stairs. As she reached the bottom, stepping into the corridor just off the kitchen, a familiar car horn sounded from the driveway in front of the detached garage. It could only be Olivias ancient Suburban.

Ashley had mixed feelings as she hoisted the ladder-steep steps back up into the ceiling. She loved her older sister dearly and was delighted that Olivia had found true love with Tanner Quinn, but since their mothers funeral a few months before, there had been a strain between them.

Neither Brad nor Olivia nor Melissa had shed a single tear for Delia OBallivannot during the church service or the graveside ceremony or the wake. Okay, so there wasnt a greeting card category for the kind of mother Delia had beenshed deserted the family long ago, and gradually destroyed herself through a long series of tragically bad choices. For all that, shed still been the woman who had given birth to them all.

Didnt that count for something?

A rap sounded at the back door, as distinctive as the car horn, and Olivias glowing, pregnancy-rounded face filled one of the frost-trimmed panes in the window.

Oddly self-conscious in her jeans and T-shirt and an ancient flannel shirt from the back of her closet, Ashley mouthed, Its not locked.

Beaming, Olivia opened the door and waddled across the threshold. She was due to deliver her and Tanners first child in a matter of days, if not hours, and from the looks of her, Ashley surmised she was carrying either quadruplets or a Sumo wrestler.

You know you dont have to knock, Ashley said, keeping her distance.

Olivia smiled, a bit wistfully it seemed to Ashley, and opened their grandfather Big Johns old barn coat to reveal a small white cat with one blue eye and one green one.

Oh, no you dont, Ashley bristled.

Olivia, a veterinarian as well as Stone Creek, Arizonas one and only real-deal animal communicator, bent awkwardly to set the kitten on Ashleys immaculate kitchen floor, where it meowed pitifully and turned in a little circle, pursuing its fluffy tail. Every stray dog, cat or bird in the county seemed to find its way to Olivia eventually, like immigrants gravitating toward the Statue of Liberty.

Two years ago, at Christmas, shed even been approached by a reindeer named Rodney.