A Mother's Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page B

into an opportunity. If she couldn’t make amends for what she’d put him through, she could at least ease his mind, assure him she didn’t have anynefarious agenda.
Grant me the courage.
“Look. Nick.”
    He flinched, no less affected than she’d been when he said her name.
    â€œI’m not staying. I have to see my aunt and uncle today, but then I’ll be moving on.” That’s all she’d wanted for years, to be able to move forward, instead of uselessly spinning her wheels and looping in the same self-destructive cycle. She needed to let go of her past and build a new life with healthy habits and achievable, short-term goals.
    Right now, her most pressing goal was to survive this conversation.
    â€œI see.” Finally he broke eye contact, and Pam’s lungs remembered how to expand.
    She took a much needed breath, assuming he would go now.
    But instead he took a challenging half step toward her, his voice a blade. “So your plan is to run away. Again.”
    W ITH THE ELEMENT OF surprise on his side, Nick Shepard had believed he was prepared to see her—until she’d opened the door. Shards of the past cut into him like slivers into the tender spot of a foot, an excruciatingly sharp wound that doesn’t even start bleeding immediately, as if the skin is still trying to process what the hell just happened. Dozens of disjointed memories sliced at him, most involving Pamela Jo, some more recent—such as a conversation he’d had with his daughter about impulse control and making good choices.
    Where had his impulse control been just now? What on earth had possessed him to blurt that jab about her running away? It was what he
wanted,
for her to get asfar away from Mimosa as geographically possible and never return. But he’d made it sound almost as if … he were daring her to stay.
    She looked as perplexed as he felt, her eyes narrowed in confusion.
    Faith had her mother’s eyes, but that meant something different on any given day, the changeable hazel reflecting various amounts of gold, brown or green depending on her mood and what she wore.
    For instance, Pamela Jo’s eyes were a particularly vivid green because of that damn T-shirt. He’d been battling throughout their conversation to somehow
un-
notice that she was braless beneath that flimsy material. She was almost too thin, but certain curves had not diminished with time. And what kind of woman answered the door with no pants? He stubbornly ignored the fantasies he used to harbor about this exact woman opening doors to him wearing even less.
    That had been a different reality. He was a single father now, not a horny teenager.
    â€œSo are you angry that I’m here,” she asked cautiously, “or angry because I’m leaving?”
    Both. Neither.
    If someone had broached the subject of Pamela Jo two days ago, before he’d learned she was in town, he would have said his long dormant anger had faded away. She no longer meant anything to him; so long as he was with his daughter, everything had worked out for the best. The swell of fury he’d experienced when Pamela Jo had met his gaze had knocked him off balance.
    He shoved a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want you here—
don’t
want you here—but it’s a small town. There’s a chance that …” It was more difficult than he could have imagined to say their daughter’s name, asif a superstitious part of him worried that by mentioning Faith, he was somehow putting her at risk. “People know you’re in Mimosa, and people gossip. It’s likely that Faith will find out you’re here, and I don’t know how she’ll react.”
    Pamela Jo’s eyes were wide. “I wouldn’t have … I thought you … Damn it, why aren’t you in North Carolina?”
    As if he owed her any explanations? Like hell. Still, the words tumbled out. “I moved