"Could be it's time for me to do the same thing." "Could be," she said.

Katherine was thinking very much in the present, about how she would like to kiss Vic now, a gentle kiss to give comfort to them both, if only there weren't so many people in the room. Before she could decide whether she might forget about audience and act on that thought anyway, the doorbell rang. Megan went to answer it, and her squeal a moment later could not have been mistaken for anything but joy.

"It's a miracle," Megan trilled from the foyer.

A tall, very distinguished-looking man appeared in the archway to the living room. His hand was firmly in the clutch of none other than little Sprite Bellaway.

"I brought her back to you, son," the tall man said to Vic.

"It is the very least I could do."

THE HOUR that followed was as miraculous as the sweet child's return had been.

Gabriel Maltese revealed his role in Sprite's rescue. The kidnapper was a man named Barricuda Tail, sometimes referred to as Cuda. He and Leta Hatcher, alias Lacey Harbison, had siphoned off a considerable amount of gambling-operations money from some people even more dangerous than themselves then tried to cover up the theft by killing the bookkeeper, Gilford Vogel, who found the discrepancy. Mr. Maltese's contacts from his former life had tracked Cuda down during the night. Gabriel himself had persuaded the pair to turn themselves in, rather than face the much harsher judgment of their criminal colleagues.

An even more startling revelation came when Vic's mother arrived and told everyone, over her husband's protests, that the Secret Santa who'd made the huge donation to the Most Needy Cases Fund had been none other than Gabriel Maltese. As Vic had said earlier, Mr. Maltese kept close tabs on everything his son was doing, including this program at the Arbor Hill Center. That, and how deeply Gabriel's heart had been touched by Katherine's interviews in the Chronicle, had moved him to make the generous gift. At that news, Vic reached out to embrace his father.

Katherine was at Vic's side all the while, tears coming to her eyes, joy filling her heart. She knew it would take more than money for Mr. Maltese to earn his way back into Vic's life. She also knew the journey had begun.

They would be a real family some day, and soon. She could feel it.

The people in the room were a family alreadya"Katherine, Vic, his mother and father, Coyote and Sprite, their mother, Megan and Tooley, too.

Katherine and Vic stood watching the excited crowd in his living room. He wrapped an arm around her to move her a few steps to the archway into the hall.

"Were you serious when you told Tooley you wanted Coyote and Sprite to come live here?" she asked.

"More serious than I've ever been, with one exception," he told her, looking deep into her eyes.

"But I won't do it alone," he added in a voice so calm and certain, she knew what his words implied.

"No, you won't do it alone," she echoed, answering his unspoken question.

He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer to him, They moved back into the living room as Vic's father lifted Sprite up to hang a sparkling gla.s.s angel, which Mrs. Maltese had brought from another tree in Loudonville, on one of the highest branches.

Coyote reached for Katherine's hand.

"Way to go, Sprite," he cried out more happily than Katherine had ever heard him sound.

Just for an instant, as the angel came to rest against the fragrant bough, Katherine imagined she heard Daniel's precious voice. Her heart soared at the joy in his tone as he said, "Cherish the love you find in one another at this blessed time of year, and forevermore."