A Family Homecoming

He cocked one dark eyebrow. “Only when we’re alone? Okay, I can handle that.”

She clenched her hand inside her mitten. “Don’t touch me at all. And don’t give me orders.”

He turned in the drive and parked. Leaning against the door, he observed her for a long moment. “You ordered me out of the library the first time we met. It was time to close, but I wasn’t finished researching old issues of the newspaper for information.”

She stared out the window, wisps of memory floating around in her mind. It had been a day much like this one—cold and cloudy and threatening snow. She had ended up helping him, then walking across the street for coffee, which turned into a late meal, then he’d walked her to her car and driven behind her until she was safely in her small cozy house. He’d been waiting when the library opened the next morning. Her heart had quickened. When they’d married, he had moved from his sparse apartment to her two-bedroom cottage. Those had been the happy days, the star-crossed sun-kissed days.

“There’s no point in remembering.” She climbed out, slammed the pickup door and went into the house, her heart heavy with a mass of confused feelings.

He didn’t come in until he’d made a circuit of the house and the stable in the back that had been converted into a four-car garage. After fighting a battle with her conscience, she had told him he could park there, too.

He’d accepted her offer and was gone a half hour. She figured he was checking out the building. When he returned, a cobweb caught on his hat confirmed her suspicion.

His dark-blue gaze met hers. She was at once aware of the silence that surrounded them. They were alone.

Flames ignited in the depths of his eyes. His gaze roamed over every inch of her as if he were comparing her to his memories the way she found herself constantly doing. Sweet, treacherous yearning blazed over her. Her body answered the question in his eyes with a resounding yes.

Shaken, she looked away. Her heart beat like a trapped bird in a cage. Once they would have rushed into each other’s arms. Endless kisses would have been followed by endless caresses, the merging of their bodies and their souls. No! Don’t even think it.

Stretching her arms to the side, she clutched the edge of the countertop and held on, waiting for her body to follow her mind’s bidding. She gazed at the snow out the window and thought of cold things—winter rain, glaciers…loneliness. Heat radiated over her back.

Kyle’s hands clasped the counter beside hers. His warmth caressed her arms, her back, her thighs. She was trapped. Like a cornered animal, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think—

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

His cheek brushed her hair as he leaned his head near and peered out the window. A tremor raced through her.

“The mountains can help put life into perspective,” he continued on a soft, husky note. “They lift our aspirations above the petty irritations of daily life.”

She stared at the snow-covered peaks, but her thoughts didn’t rise to lofty heights. They dwelt on more mundane matters—the earthly delights of kisses and lovemaking and the sharing of hearts and souls. She pressed her teeth into her lower lip and fought the yearning.

His hands touched hers, then glided up her arms. “When I look at the mountains, I think of you.”

He caressed her shoulders, then slid his fingers into her hair and gathered it into bunches in his fists. Through their reflected images in the windowpane, she saw him bury his face in the thick strands and inhale deeply.

“Why?” she asked, needing to know more, seeking an answer to why he had left her. “Why think of me?”

He lifted his head and met her gaze in the reflection. “Because, like the mountains, you remind me of all the good things in life. You are the good things.”

His gaze didn’t waver, but compelled her to listen, to believe what he said. She wanted to. Heaven help her, but she wanted so desperately to turn and fling herself into his arms and beg him never to leave again.

“Dani,” he whispered.

Her name seemed to echo through the silent house, full of need and a desperation she’d never heard from this man who had never truly needed anyone. His lips touched her temple. His hands gathered her hair and lifted it aside. He kissed the back of her neck.

She closed her eyes, feeling vulnerable and helpless. The way she had when Sara was taken. Helpless. And alone.

“No,” she said. It was hardly a murmur.

“Don’t shut me out.”

She heard the agony, and it stunned her. The man she had known would never express such an emotion. He dipped his head. She felt the touch of his lips against her throat, a butterfly caress that threatened to melt the icy core that had enabled her to survive the past two years. For a moment, she imagined that he had been as lonely as she.

“No,” she said again, stronger this time. “I can’t go back. I’m not that person anymore.” Whirling, she faced him. “I don’t believe in us anymore.”

Silence so deep, so filled with despair she thought she would weep, echoed around them. His features shifted slightly, becoming as unreadable as stone. He dropped his hands and stepped back.

She retreated to the small office off her bedroom and turned on the computer. Her hands shook. By sheer willpower, she forced her thoughts to the task at hand. She had a job to do. She had to support herself and Sara. She wouldn’t depend on anyone else. She couldn’t go back.

Bending her head over her notes, she began the task of checking actual library inventory against what the files said they were supposed to have. The inventory and updating of the files for the whole county library system had provided a much needed job and distraction from Kyle’s disappearance when she had first arrived in Whitehorn. She worked twenty hours a week on a schedule that suited her.

She was building a life here. She didn’t need anything else, or anyone other than her child.

A short while later Kyle appeared in the doorway. His face was devoid of expression other than the sternly disciplined remoteness he assumed when working on a case. “Rafe Rawlings and Shane McBride are here. You want to join us?”

She nodded, saved her data on the computer and followed him out to the kitchen. The two men were at the table, coffee mugs in hand. Kyle had made a fresh pot.

Make yourself at home. She sent the thought to her errant husband and couldn’t decide if she was angry or not, or if she should be or not. A husband who wasn’t a husband was a very confusing proposition. She avoided meeting his eyes. Therein lay danger, but she couldn’t say what kind.

“Good morning, gentlemen. Please, keep your seats,” she said, putting on her best hostess smile.

She flicked on the oven and prepared a pan of frozen cinnamon rolls, which would bake in ten minutes. She joined the men at the table in the meantime.

“Start at the beginning,” Kyle requested of the men.

Shane McBride told Kyle about the day Angela had come to interview for a teacher’s position and had been roughed up in the parking lot outside the school. Sara and Jenny had taken a shortcut through there on their way to rehearsal for the Christmas pageant and had witnessed the incident and started screaming. One of the men had chased after them and grabbed Sara, who, as the girls often did, had exchanged coats with Jenny McCallum. Jenny’s name was sewn into her jacket and the two men believed they had the heiress to the Kincaid fortune.

“That’s why they thought they could get a million dollars in ransom,” Shane added.

“The McCallums got the money together to pay the ransom even though it wasn’t their daughter,” Danielle said. “I’ll never forget that.”

“No,” Kyle agreed.

Their eyes met. They shared a second of complete accord that warmed some part of Danielle that had been cold for a long time. She looked away, remembering that her friends had been there for her while her husband had been working on the case that had demanded all his time and attention.

“Why were the kidnappers after the woman in the parking lot?” Kyle asked the detective.

“Well, it could have something to do with Angela’s first husband. He was killed in an auto accident, but there were bad feelings between him and his partner, who disappeared after that. The business went bankrupt and Angela was left nearly penniless. And pregnant.”

“Angela and Shane were recently wed,” Danielle told Kyle. “Just before Christmas.”

One dark eyebrow rose, but Kyle said nothing other than a congratulatory murmur to Shane, who nodded, a red tinge coming into his cheeks. Shane apparently had fallen hard and fast for the widow. Angela had had amnesia after the thugs had knocked her out. Upon recovering, she still hadn’t been able to give the police any information. But Shane had taken her under his protection—and into his heart.

Danielle’s eyes stung. Shane was gentle and protective with his wife. There had been a rash of marriages in Whitehorn recently. Dr. Winters, who had found Sara running down the road when she escaped, had married Leah Nighthawk shortly after the holidays. Lynn, Sara’s kindergarten teacher and Danielle’s good friend, had eloped with local attorney Ross Garrison after a whirlwind courtship.

Danielle brought her attention back to the discussion at hand. Kyle asked about the holly berries discovered in Sara’s hair when she was found.

“We tried to trace her tracks but couldn’t. The problem is, the hills where that particular holly grows are full of caves and old mining sites,” Shane continued. “We looked over the general area.”

“Did you take Sara there?” Kyle glanced at Danielle.

She shook her head. “Carey—she’s Sara’s pediatrician—didn’t think we should. The trauma was too recent.”

Kyle nodded, a dangerous expression in his eyes.

She realized he hated the men who had frightened their daughter as much as she did. If he ever got his hands on their hides, well, she could almost feel sorry for them.

Kyle sipped the coffee while he thought. “I’d like to explore the area myself. If you wouldn’t mind.” He glanced at Rafe, the senior lawman on the case.

Rafe nodded his agreement.

Shane spoke up. “You know who might be able to help? Homer Gilmore. He knows these hills better than anyone. He’s prospected them for years.”

“Where do I find him?” Kyle asked, sitting forward.

“That’s hard to say. His daughter is married to a doctor here in town and manages his office. You could stop by and ask if she’s seen Homer lately.”

“I’ll do that. What’s the doctor’s name?”

By the time the meeting broke up, Danielle felt they might be getting somewhere. Today was the first time anyone had mentioned the Gilmore person. After the two lawmen left, she turned to Kyle, excitement stirring inside so that she kept getting little odd pangs in her chest. “I want to go with you.”

He gave her a puzzled stare. “Where?”

“To search the woods. Sara’s pediatrician is married to Wayne Kincaid. They own part of the old Baxter ranch—”

Kyle held up a hand. “Slow down. What does the Baxter ranch have to do with anything?”

“It joins the Kincaid spread. That’s where Sara was held, where the holly berries came from. She’d stuck twigs in her hair like she does when she played dress-up with her dolls. I want to help you look for clues.”

“You used to do that,” he said slowly.

“What?” She tried to think what she had done.

“Get excited about planning activities together. Your words would rush all over each other and your cheeks would glow. Like now.”

He reached out and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. Heat rushed to the spot. His eyes darkened.

Memory and passion reawakened in her in an instant explosion of hunger and need. She had been alone so long, had been frightened and uncertain and helpless all the days Sara was gone. At times, while comforting Sara, she had longed for comforting, too.

She folded her arms and pulled herself inward where nothing could hurt her. “I needed you,” she whispered. “I was so afraid. Our baby…our little girl. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. I didn’t know if they had hurt her…if she was crying in pain….”

Tears filled her throat and she couldn’t speak.

Arms enclosed her. His hands stroked her hair, and he spoke in a low soothing murmur. “I know.”

For a second, she let the warmth flow around her, almost let it reach her heart. But this was fantasy and she had learned, oh, yes, she had learned, to deal with reality. She jerked away.

“You don’t,” she accused, her eyes burning, her chest hurting. “You weren’t there. You didn’t know. You didn’t care—”

In one stride, he was in her face. “I cared,” he uttered in a menacing snarl. “Don’t ever say I didn’t care. Because you don’t know about that. You don’t know what I had to give up—” He stopped abruptly.

She didn’t flinch from the harsh stare. “What? What? Tell me. Did you spend scary nights in a strange town where you didn’t know a soul? Did days go by while you waited for some word, for a call, a postcard, anything, that says the person you love is alive and remembers he has a family? And did worry give way to despair as you tried to answer a little girl’s questions about her father and finally hear the child quit asking God to bless her daddy?”

“Dani,” he whispered hoarsely.

She shook her head, the tears close, so close. “Did you place frantic calls, only to be told nothing, except the person you needed with your whole heart and soul couldn’t be reached, not even for an emergency? Let’s compare notes. We can talk about the loneliness that tears the nights to shreds. We can discuss the fears that eat a person alive from the inside out. Then we’ll consider what was given up and what was lost and what was thrown away—”

She choked on the words, unable to go on.

Not a muscle moved as he stared into her eyes. They stood as if frozen for all time.

Finally, a ripple passed over his face. “I can’t,” he said softly, sadly. “Talk is pointless. There’s no going back, is there?” He walked out of the kitchen, put on his coat and boots in the mudroom and left the house.

Part of her wanted to apologize. She wanted to wipe out the blackness that had permeated his gaze while he listened to the torrent of accusations. She wanted him to explain the sadness she had seen for a terrible second before he turned from her. She wanted to know if he really had suffered or if he’d just forgotten about them until it was convenient to come back.

She placed a hand against her chest and wondered if she was having a heart attack and if she wasn’t, then how could the pain be so great. She thought again of the sad expression in his eyes. She sniffed twice and pulled herself together with an effort.

Maybe someone needed to invent a Richter scale to measure who suffered the most in marriage.

She couldn’t find a laugh, not even a cynical one, anywhere inside her at the thought. Sighing shakily, she wondered why he hadn’t explained or at least tried to defend himself during her tirade.

Because there was no defense for abandoning your family. It was a thing beyond understanding, beyond forgiving. But there was an answer: Because he hadn’t cared enough to stay. If he had loved her…

She pressed both hands to her chest and waited for the ache to subside.

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