Homecoming at Hickory Ridge

“Not formally.”

Charity jutted out her hand. “Well, let’s fix that. I’m Charity McKinley.” She paused to grip his hand. “That’s my husband, Rick.”

The two men shook hands, and then Rick indicated the baby his wife held. “And this little mess-maker is Grace.”

Kyle studied Grace, who was giving him a stranger once-over. “She looks clean to me.”

“Give her a few minutes,” Charity said with a chuckle. “We tried to introduce ourselves at church on Sunday, but you were gone so fast. You must have been in a hurry.”

The side of his mouth lifted. “Something like that.”

Charity and Rick exchanged a look, but neither said more. Grateful that they didn’t, Julia flitted a look toward the parking lot. Maybe her other guests had decided not to come, after all, and maybe that was just as well. Charity had suggested it might be too soon, and she was probably right.

Rick lifted Grace from his wife’s arms and swung her around until she giggled. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I hate to see all of this food go to waste.”

“Go to waste? Are you kidding?” Kyle gave her a look of pure incredulity with a touch of mirth. “We can’t let that happen, now can we?”

“So let the food frenzy begin,” Julia returned.

Julia could feel herself relaxing for the first time since she’d pulled into the lot of Central Park. Now she would get the chance to enjoy the afternoon—the sunny day, the breeze off the Huron River, the swings inside the playground. Even the company.

She couldn’t help grinning as she watched Kyle, paper plate already in his hand, examine the spread Charity had laid out for them. He fit in so well with her family. He laughed with Rick as if they were old pals. Charity liked Kyle, too, if the way she followed him around the table and plied him with food was any indication. Even Grace had bestowed on him one of her precious smiles, from the safety of her mother’s arms.

She could get used to this, even if she and Kyle were only friends. Even if she would have to keep reminding herself that the rest of the day.

“Hey, Julia,” Rick said in a stage whisper from the corner of the shelter. He mouthed the words “He’s here.”

This time she didn’t even have to look to know which he her brother-in-law was talking about, but she glanced in the direction he indicated, anyway. Her stomach tensed as she caught sight of Brett carrying a covered casserole dish in one arm and a basket of something else in the other. Behind him, Tricia carried Anna, the couple’s seven-month-old baby, her nearly bald head protected by a colorful sun bonnet. Taking up the rear were Lani, Rusty Jr. and Max, Tricia’s children with her late first husband.

Brett grinned when he saw Julia. Max waved, causing him to drop the lawn chair he carried. The family laughed as Lani helped her little brother reclaim his load.

Julia knew the instant Brett recognized Kyle because his laughter died and his smile disappeared. He stopped so quickly that Tricia bumped into the basket he carried and then looked up at him, surprised.

Swallowing with difficulty, Julia glanced sidelong at Kyle. He stood frozen in place, his jaw ticking as if he was clenching and unclenching his teeth. Shock and fury clashed in eyes that he trained on his brother. He let the plate in his hand drop to the table.

The children ran up behind their stepfather and then stopped, looking back and forth between the two men. Julia started to do the same thing, but when she looked back at Kyle, he had turned those angry eyes on her.

“Julia, would you mind telling me what Trooper Lancaster is doing here?”

Chapter Five

Kyle posed the question, but he didn’t bother waiting for the answer. He had a pretty good idea what it was, anyway, and he didn’t want to hear it. He’d only felt set up like this one other time, and he’d had a nice orange jumpsuit and a cell of his own for that one.

But he couldn’t think about that, not now when his brother was standing there, looking as furious to see him as Kyle was to be broadsided by Julia’s meddling. His own anger propelled him toward Brett.

“What are you doing here?” he asked from between gritted teeth.

“Same as you. I was tricked.”

Brett looked different out of uniform—less intimidating—though even in jeans and a T-shirt he still had a rigid bearing.

“No other reason to be within thirty feet of the family embarrassment,” Kyle chided.

Brett shook his head. “Let’s not go into that again.”

“Why not? Because your family’s here to see it? The family you haven’t even bothered to introduce to me though I’ve been in Milford two weeks.”

He stopped and turned to the woman and children standing next to his brother. “Oh, hi, guys, I’m Uncle Kyle.”

No one responded, but Tricia’s three children stared up at him, wide-eyed. The youngest boy’s mouth hung agape. Ashamed, Kyle was grateful that at least he hadn’t referred to himself as Uncle Kyle the Jailbird or something. These kids couldn’t help who their stepfather was, so he shouldn’t have involved them.

Brett stepped forward, putting himself between his family and his younger brother. “You haven’t been beating down my door to see me, either.”

“Why would I? You think I need this abuse?”

“Well, wouldn’t want you to have to put up with any criticism after the perfect life you’ve led. A real example. Just the person I want around my kids.”

“Can’t you see—forget it. You’ll never change.”

“That’s a laugh, coming from you.”

Kyle fisted his hands at his sides, bitterness welling within him. He could have told Brett that he wasn’t the same man who went into prison three years before, that he’d become someone that just maybe even Brett could respect, but now he was too angry to try.

“Glad I could entertain you.”

“Buddy, your antics stopped being funny years ago.”

“Enough.” Tricia stepped in front of her husband, her presence surprisingly commanding despite her petite size. She raised a hand to stop the conversation. “You two have to stop this.”

“Don’t worry. I’m done,” Brett said with a frown. He looked past Kyle to the Sims sisters. “I’m sorry about this. Thank you for inviting us, but I think we’d better leave.”

He stepped to the table, lowered the dishes his family had brought for the picnic and then, lifting the baby from Tricia’s arms, ushered his family to their car. The children kept peeking back, but they didn’t ask questions.

“That didn’t go well,” Julia said as she watched their car pull back out onto Main Street.

“Ya think!” The words came out louder than he planned, but Kyle didn’t care. What she’d done was wrong, and she needed to know it. He closed the distance between them. “What were you thinking inviting Trooper Lancaster here?”

Julia stared at the ground. “I just thought if I got the two of you together—”

“That we’d start up again in front of my brother’s whole family? I’d never even met those people before. Well, I hope you got the show you were looking for.” He gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw ached.

She started to shake her head. “That’s not what I—”

“Intended?” he interrupted her again. “Just what did you intend when you were sticking your nose where it didn’t belong?”

“I was trying to help.”

“No, you were trying to fix my life.”

“I wasn’t,” she began, but she must have thought better of it because she clicked her teeth shut.

He should have stopped there; he realized that. But Julia had started this, and he just couldn’t stop the words from coming. “What I don’t get is why you go around trying to fix other people when you haven’t dealt with your own scars.”

Confusion and maybe hurt registered on her face, but he refused to let it get to him. Without giving her time to ask what he was talking about, he turned to Rick and Charity, who were doing a poor job of pretending not to listen, and thanked them for the picnic.

After a quick thanks to Julia, he turned and strode across the parking lot. His hands kept fisting, so he shoved them in his pockets. That didn’t go well. Julia’s words reverberated through his thoughts. She could say that again. And again.

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