A Family Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    â€œThere’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 battlewith 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—
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œThe 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.
    â€œWhy?” 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.
    â€œDani,” 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 lipstouched 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.
    â€œNo,” she said. It was hardly a murmur.
    â€œDon’t shut me out.”
    She heard the agony, and it stunned her. The man she had known would never