Home to Eden Read Online Free PDF Page B

out, the name would probably stick, so she gave it a more elegant twist and started referring to it as Spider's Walk."
    Kate smiled. "It's unique."
    She loaded the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, closed the door and turned the machine on, then looked around for something else to do. The kitchen was immaculate and, for a moment, she found herself bitterly resentful of Mrs. Pickle's efficiency. Why couldn't the woman have left splatters on the stove or a few fingerprints on the refrigerator?
    "Are you sure nothing's wrong?" Gareth asked.
    The question forced her to look at him. The concern in his expression made her eyes sting with emotion. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never understand what she'd done to deserve Gareth Blackthorne. He was such a good man, kind and caring. The fact that he loved her seemed little short of miraculous.
    "Nothing's wrong," she told him, and was pleased to hear the evenness of her response. "I'm just a little tired, that's all."
    "Hard day in the jungles?" he asked.
    His crooked grin was one of the things she liked best about him. It always seemed to hold an endearing hint of mischief. Tonight, Kate couldn't help but think that, when he smiled, the resemblance between him and his younger brother was striking. She pushed the thought away as she went into his arms. She didn't want to think about Nick anymore.
    She rested her head on Gareth's shoulder and wished with all her heart that Nick hadn't come home. Everything had been so perfect.
    "Sorry to interrupt." The words made Kate start. She pulled away from Gareth abruptly and then cursed her guilty reaction when she caught his startled look. "There's a phone call for you," Nick told his brother. "Mom says it's the station house."
    Gareth sighed. "Kenny probably locked himself out of his squad car again."
    Nick's brows rose. ''One of your better officers?"
    ''Usually, but he has this mental block about keys. He can't seem to hang onto them." Gareth glanced at Kate. "I'll be right back."
    She forced a thin smile as she nodded. "Fighting crime takes precedence."
    "Yeah." There was a friendly hint of malice in the smile Nick gave his brother. "Wouldn't want to leave one of Eden's finest stranded without wheels. You never know when a crime wave might hit."
    "Smart ass," Gareth said, but he was smiling as he went to answer the phone.
    He left behind a sharp-edged silence. Nick knew that Kate was hoping he'd follow Gareth out. A wiser man would have done just that. There were things that needed to be said between them, but this was not exactly the best time or place. He was tired, his throat hurt, his head ached and, though he'd only been home a few hours, he could already feel the walls starting to close in on him. He'd expected this homecoming to be difficult. What he hadn't expected was to find his brother engaged to a woman he'd once slept with. A woman he'd never quite managed to forget.
    She looked different, he thought. The girl he'd met five years ago had worn her streaky blond hair tumbling onto her shoulders, and her blue eyes had held a loneliness that had drawn him more than the gentle prettiness of her features. The woman standing in the middle of his mother's kitchen looking as if she'd rather be anywhere else was older, of course, but there were other changes. Her hair was still an intriguing mix of pale gold and honey, but it was confined in a neat twist at the base of her neck. And her eyes were the same smoky blue he remembered, but the vulnerability that had found its way through the wall of pain that had surrounded him then was gone. There was a reserve about her—a control—that hadn't been there five years ago. He wondered if it was just a result of maturity or if something had happened to change her.
    "Fancy meeting you here," he said.
    Kate lifted her chin and looked directly at him for the first time since that initial moment of shocked recognition. ''Obviously, I didn't know you were Gareth's