The Homecoming Read Online Free PDF

toward him, arms folded beneath pert breasts she sure as hell hadn’t had back in high school. The badge winked in the light, reminding Sax that Kara wasn’t some SEAL groupie looking to pass time, but a law enforcement officer. Along with being a single mom who, from what he could tell, didn’t exactly appear to be a merry widow.
    She sighed. Dragged a hand through that shiny hair in a gesture he remembered well. “Look, I don’t mean to sound unappreciative of your offering to let my son visit your dog. But I’ve got a lot on my plate these days, so free time’s more a fantasy than reality. Besides, thanks to this”—she raised the bag—“we may find ourselves involved in a case. So any interpersonal interaction, no matter how innocent, wouldn’t be appropriate.”
    Because he knew she was as serious as a heart attack, and also, dammit, probably right, Sax managed, just barely, to keep the smile off his face. “Wouldn’t want folks talkin’.”
    “People always talk. What I wouldn’t want is to risk some defense attorney using any relationship we might have—past or present—against me in court.”
    “Wow.” He rocked back on his heels. “And here I’d thought SEALs were the champs of thinking through possible outcomes of any situation.”
    “You’re laughing at me.”
    “Never.” He decided, What the hell . “You were always a pretty girl, Kara, but you’ve definitely grown into one fine-looking woman. And since you brought up fantasies—”
    “Not that kind.”
    “Since you brought them up,” he repeated, “a man would have to be dead both between the ears and below the waist not to enjoy himself a few fantasies while looking at you.”
    He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue again. “But when I invited you to dinner, the invitation to your son was absolutely legit. And while I’m being honest here, worrying about losing a hypothetical case because you might have shared a pot of gumbo with someone even remotely connected to that case, especially here in Shelter Bay, where you’d be hard-pressed to find even two degrees of separation between folks, seems a bit of a hard line to take.”
    He paused. “Unless you’re considering me a suspect.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “Of course not. It’s just that things are, well, complicated.”
    “Life’s complicated. Which is what keeps it interesting.”
    “I’m beginning to remember why no girl ever said no to you.”
    He’d bet his left nut she would have, if he’d followed his teenage body’s demands back then and asked. Which no way would’ve happened. And not just because Jared and Cole would’ve whaled the tar out of him. Because some things a guy, even one with the rep he’d had back then, just didn’t do. And poaching another man’s woman was up there at the top of the list.
    She’d been forbidden fruit.
    Which had probably been part of what had made her all the tastier.
    “That’s an exaggeration,” he answered her accusation. Admittedly not by much. Sax had always enjoyed women. Who, fortunately, had always seemed to enjoy him right back. Even better, the ones he tended to hook up with hadn’t been into forever-afters any more than he was. “Besides, times change. People change.”
    “Do you honestly believe that?”
    “Sure. Look at me. A guy who was voted most likely to miss his tenth high school class reunion because he’d be in prison is about to be given a big parade down Main Street.”
    “You were also voted most likely member of our class to be a rock star,” she remembered.
    “I guess I missed my chance at that when I turned down the Navy’s offer to put me in their band.”
    “Cole told me you’d become a SEAL.”
    Which didn’t sound as if it had surprised her as much as it probably had the rest of the town. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
    A not uncomfortable silence settled over them. Utilizing a patience that had been drilled into him during BUD/S training, Sax