The Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page B

waited her out.
    “I’m living with my mother.”
    “So you said.”
    “I guess my son inherited some of his father’s genes, because he’s been after me to let him sign up for a Pop Warner team this coming fall. But neither his grandmother nor I know anything about playing football.”
    “I was more into baseball, myself. But Jared and Cole used to use me as a tackling dummy, so I learned a few moves I could maybe pass on to him. Enough that at least he’d have some confidence when they start picking teams.”
    “Jared told you to watch out after me, didn’t he?” she asked in that straight-talking way he remembered. The woman had never been one to play coy or beat around the bush. If she was thinking something, she told you. Flat-out. “Back then,” she qualified. “After he and Cole left town and joined the Marines.”
    Not knowing what she’d been told, Sax decided not to lie. “Watching you was no hardship, Kara.”
    “I suspected it at the time,” she said. “And now you feel responsible for watching out for his son.”
    “You can look at it that way, if that’s what’ll get you to cross that line you’re trying to draw between us in the sand.”
    Another silence.
    “I’ll think about it,” she said finally as a lonely fog-horn sounded somewhere in the night. Then she turned around again and climbed into the cruiser.
    Although covering that very fine ass in such an ugly pair of pants was a crime in itself, Sax decided that the scenery around Shelter Bay had definitely improved.

4
    Dr. Faith Hart Blanchard was waiting up at the kitchen table when Kara slipped into the house from the garage. Despite the late hour, not a blond hair was out of place in her mother’s chin-length bob, and her subtly applied makeup looked as fresh as it had when she’d left the house early this morning.
    “I thought you might enjoy some tea,” her mother said in greeting.
    What she’d enjoy was falling into bed and sleeping for the next three days. But Kara forced a smile. “Tea sounds terrific.”
    “I kept the water hot after you called saying you’d been delayed.” Faith took the kettle from the range top and poured it into a blue china teapot.
    “I also told you not to wait up.”
    “A mother worries.” She brought the pot and two flowered cups over to the table. Along with cloth napkins and sterling silver spoons Kara knew had been a wedding gift from the Hart side of the family. “Especially when she doesn’t know the nature of the emergency call.”
    “I’m sorry.” Damn . She should’ve called once she arrived on the scene. Didn’t she know, better than most, how a cop’s often routine work could turn deadly? “I didn’t have any details when dispatch called. By the time I got out to the Douchett house, I didn’t want to risk waking you up to let you know what was happening. In case you had surgery in the morning.”
    “Well, I don’t. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep.”
    The tone was familiar. Kara couldn’t count how many times she’d heard it back in high school when she’d tried to sneak into the house after curfew.
    “Besides,” Faith said, “I’ve been dying of curiosity about what that Douchett boy’s got himself into now.”
    “He’s not a boy anymore, Mama.”
    During his time away from Shelter Bay, Sax Douchett had definitely turned into a man. Since she hadn’t yet made a decision about whether or not to get personally involved with him by taking Trey over to play with the dog she’d yet to see, Kara decided not to share his invitation with her mother.
    Nor did she want to even get into the possibility that the town’s former bad boy might actually have a date in mind. An idea that proved even more terrifying than facing off against a gang of drug dealers armed with automatic weapons.
    She’d started falling in love with Jared when they’d met on the playground when she was eight years old. A childhood friendship had slipped into