Читать книгу A Family Homecoming - Laurie Paige - Страница 7

Kyle woke instantly, alert and still. He heard the noise again. The coffeemaker burped, then began a rhythmic gurgling as it heated up. The radio came on. He relaxed.

The announcer detailed the day’s weather. “Cloudy in the morning, perhaps some sun breaking through in the afternoon. Snow flurries again tonight. All roads are open at present. Schools will keep to a regular schedule until further notice.”

Listening to his wife’s quiet movements as she prepared breakfast, he faced the facts of his life. He was thirty-eight years old and he had blown the one perfect thing in his life. He would have to learn to live with that.

Some foolish part of him had hoped that Dani and Sara would rush to him last night and welcome him home. He pushed the thought down into the dark pool along with all his grief.

His own fault. Choices. Everyone made choices. Maybe his had been the wrong one….

He rose and pulled jeans and the blue shirt over his thermals, then padded down the hall to the bathroom. There was only one. He had discovered this after Dani and Sara had gone to bed.

He’d searched the whole house last night until he knew it like the back of his hand. In case of a nasty surprise by the kidnappers, he wanted to know every nook and cranny.

He had also chosen a room for himself across the hall from his wife and daughter. In the attic bedroom, he’d found a usable bed frame that he could move downstairs. The attic had been freezing, as Danielle had noted.

The old house could use a thick layer of insulation. And new windows, he added as the wind shook the panes and puffs of frigid air circulated around him. The foundation and framing were sturdy, but the place needed a major overhaul. It would cost a mint to hire the work done.

He had worked his way through college as a carpenter and was pretty good with his hands. But this wasn’t his house. It wouldn’t be his home. Danielle was right. He had left his family, no matter the reasons, and they no longer trusted him. He had no place in this house.

After a quick shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and proceeded to shave.

Sensing a presence, he looked at the door. It was ajar and a small face peered at him through the crack. He smiled and pushed the door open with his toe. “Sara. How’s it going with you this morning?”

She ran off as if he had growled at her.

The fist squeezed his heart again. If he’d been at home the past two years, would his kid be afraid of him even after her ordeal? He knew the answer was no.

From deep inside, the pool of emotion he hadn’t realized existed until he’d gotten that letter from Danielle shifted and churned bleakly. He finished shaving and went to the room where he’d stored his luggage.

Five minutes later he entered the kitchen. “Good morning,” he said softly.

His wife spun about, fear on her face, determination in the set of her mouth. He watched her take in everything about the situation—him, the distance between them, the threat of danger. She was as edgy as a startled cat.

“Relax,” he advised and pushed a smile on his face with an effort. “Okay if I have a cup of coffee?”

Danielle gestured with her left hand toward the pot. “Help yourself.”

Her right hand, behind her and hidden by an old flannel shirt that he recognized as another of his, dropped to her side. She flexed her fingers as if they were stiff.

“I’m making oatmeal,” she said, turning back to the stove. “Do you want some?”

“Please.”

She nodded without looking at him and busied herself toasting English muffins and stirring a pot. A longing to go over and bury his face against the side of her neck, to breathe her fragrance into his starved body, speared right through him, churning up the dark pool. Regret rose to the surface. He would never have that right again.

“Sara, breakfast,” she called.

He took a drink of coffee, studying his wife as she stood at the stove. The hot need that flooded his body took him by surprise. He fought the urge and conquered it. Control was important. It was all he’d had going for him many times in his life. It would get him through the present.

He had already accepted that his return wasn’t going to result in conjugal bliss, so he’d thought he had the hunger under wraps. His libido was showing him otherwise. He carried the cup to the table and took a seat. His jeans were tight and uncomfortable.

“So, Sara, are you in third grade yet?” he asked his daughter when she entered and perched on her stool in thick pajamas that covered her from neck to toes.

She looked startled. Her glance darted toward her mother, but Danielle was busy elsewhere. Sara shook her head, slowly at first, then more firmly.

“Well, you’re in first grade then,” he teased.

This time she was a bit more self-assertive. She shook her head immediately.

“Oh, of course, you’re still in Tiny Tots.” He nodded as if remembering. “I used to drop you off at Miss Engles’s on the days Mommy had to open the library early. We would have doughnuts for breakfast at the diner and keep it a secret because Mommy thought we should eat cereal.”

“Sara is in kindergarten,” Danielle interjected, bringing their bowls to the table. She frowned at him.

“Kindergarten?” he said as if amazed. “That old? You must be…” He pretended to search for an answer.

Finally Sara held up one hand, palm outward, fingers and thumb splayed. Relief eased the soreness inside. His daughter had responded to him.

“Five. That’s right.” He smiled in approval.

Sara stared at him with an unwavering gaze and no answering smile. Danielle served them without a word. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

“Eat up,” she said. “It’s almost time to go.”

She was speaking to Sara. He felt the chill of her rejection to his bones. Please let me know your thoughts on the divorce as soon as possible, her letter had read.

Always the polite librarian. But she was also his secret delight—his enchanting, passionate lover, the calm center of his being, all the good things in life.

The ache intensified. Maybe he should have handled things differently, but it had been easier to close off that side of his life than think about missing her and Sara. For their safety, he’d been willing to pay the price. He hadn’t realized at the time it would include his soul.

Danielle forced her hands to move, to do the usual morning chores, to act normal when everything about her seemed so totally alien.

She’d spent a restless night—that was nothing new—but a new element had been added. She had listened to the sounds of Kyle prowling the house and wondered what he was thinking…feeling…if he was remembering…

Had he missed her at all during those two years? If he asked, she could tell about missing him and about the loneliness of being abandoned and wondering why. Why? she wondered again now. Because of the danger? He’d told her of that possibility before they were married. She’d accepted it and determined to live with it. He’d worked on other dangerous cases. There were other ways to protect agents’ families without leaving them. She would have done anything to keep their family together. All he’d had to do was ask.

Shutting off the useless thoughts, she buried herself in the trivia of day-to-day living. “Shoes,” she told Sara after the child was dressed in plaid flannel pants and a red turtleneck. “Hurry.”

She put on her insulated boots and heavy coat after helping Sarah with her hat and mittens. They were ready to go. Kyle was at the door, dressed in the parka and black hat he’d worn last night.

“I’ll take you in the truck,” he said.

His tone indicated he was in no mood to argue. Giving him a hard look to let him know she would go because she thought it best, not because she was obeying his orders, she followed him to his pickup. She didn’t want him doing things for them. She didn’t want to learn to need him and then be deserted all over again.

Before she could do more than open the pickup door, he was there, scooping Sara up and depositing her on the seat, then his strong hands were at her waist and she found herself lifted as effortlessly as a doll and put firmly on the passenger seat.

“I could have gotten in by myself,” she rebuked after he’d gotten in, put the truck in gear and backed carefully out of the drive. He gave her a glance and said nothing.

Her neighbor’s son had plowed the drive before she’d gotten up that morning and the county road department had already done the street, so they arrived without mishap at the school. Danielle wasn’t surprised when Kyle went in with her and checked the room out.

“Introduce me to the teacher,” he requested.

Resentment flared in her, but she did as he ordered. Lynn was one of her best friends as well as Sara’s teacher. “Lynn, this is Sara’s father, Kyle Mitchell. Lynn Taylor, I mean, Garrison.”

Laughing, Lynn stepped forward. “I was recently married,” she explained, holding out her hand.

As Danielle watched the lovely blonde smile and talk to Kyle, a funny feeling came over her. Not that she was jealous. Kyle meant nothing to her. But she couldn’t help remembering that once he’d brought her such joy.

However, she obviously meant nothing to him. A two-year absence without a letter or phone call proved that. She had accepted it, grieved over it and gotten on with life.

But she still felt funny watching him talk to her friend, even one recently wed and obviously in love with her very new husband. For a birthday present, she had given Lynn a makeover at the Whitehorn Beauty Salon. The results had been startling as Lynn’s natural beauty had surfaced.

Danielle, stifling the odd feelings, helped Sara with her coat and spoke to Jenny and her mother, Jessica. The girls ran to their table and took their seats, Jenny talking a mile a minute while Sara nodded or shook her head. Danielle’s heart ached. She hoped their friendship lasted their whole lives—

“Sterling says there are no clues,” Jessica told her and sighed resignedly. “We’re afraid to let Jenny out of our sight for a minute.”

“I know what you mean,” Danielle commiserated.

“The Kincaid fortune,” Jessica murmured, speaking of the legacy that had been left to her daughter when Wayne Kincaid and Clint Calloway, Jenny’s half brothers, had given up their share of the Kincaid legacy. Both men had decided to put the estate in trust for Jenny. Neither man wanted anything their father, Jeremiah, had left them. Now Jessica understood why. “I agree with Wayne. The Kincaid name is nothing but a curse.” After all, Jenny’s life was in danger simply because those kidnappers knew what she had to inherit.

Wayne Kincaid had unexpectedly returned to Whitehorn after years of being away. Everyone had thought he had been killed in Vietnam, so the story went, but he returned under an assumed name to check out the town and the Kincaid ranch.

He had helped nab some men who were trying to destroy the ranch so they could buy it for a song, then, his identity exposed, he’d stayed on. He had married Carey Hall, the pediatrician who took care of Sara and Jenny. The couple had just been blessed with their first child together at Christmas, and seven-year-old Sophie, Carey’s daughter from her first marriage, was delighted to have a baby brother.

“I didn’t know your husband had returned,” Jessica continued, looking over Danielle’s shoulder.

“Yes, for a while. A couple of months,” she added so that no one, including herself, would think it was a permanent arrangement.

Jessica cast her a quizzical glance but didn’t ask any questions. Danielle was grateful.

She glanced across the room. The teacher was explaining the security in place for the girls to Kyle. Rafe Rawlings, who had recently been promoted to the town sheriff, had taken on the case himself and would be within a few feet of them at all times while they were at school. Lynn pointed out the window to a man dressed as a custodian.

“Sterling said Shane McBride was coming out to do a security check on your house this morning,” Jessica continued after a thoughtful moment.

“Oh, good,” Danielle said distractedly. Shane was the deputy sheriff and was working with Rafe on the case.

She felt she knew and had dealt with every law enforcement officer in the county during the past month. All except the one she’d needed so desperately—her husband.

Kyle strode toward her. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.” She introduced him to Jessica. “Sterling McCallum is a special investigator with the sheriff’s office—”

“I know who he is.” Taking her arm, Kyle nodded to Jessica and ushered them out of the building.

On the way home, Danielle went over several opening statements in her mind and discarded them all. “Don’t manhandle me in front of my friends,” she finally said.

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.