"Nowhere."
"You must live somewhere."
"Nowhere in particular," he repeated.
"Where do you get your mail?" Don't play coy with me, cowboy. I can badger a witness with the best of them.
"A service in Kansas City forwards it to me."
"So then you live in Kansas City."
"I didn't say that."
"But that's where you said you get your mail."
"Because it's convenient," he said. "Kansas City's in the middle of the country. It's a good place to begin."
"You have one of those mailbox services?"
"Bingo."
"And I suppose you think that's more efficient?"
He grinned. "Now you're getting it, Zaslow."
The whole idea gave her the creeps. "Where do you keep your clothes? As far as I know they haven't invented a rent-a-closet yet."
He gestured toward the back of the car. "In the trunk."
"I'm being serious, McKendrick. Your clothes, your books, your papers -- you have to stow them some place."
"I don't own any more than I can carry."
She leaned back against the seat and stared at him. "I've heard of people like you but I never thought I'd actually meet one."
"Life doesn't have to be complicated," he said, meeting her eyes. "I travel light."
She glanced at the huge leather tote bag on her lap. "I can't even travel light to the mini-mart."
"It's not for everyone."
She nodded, thinking of her kids, her house, her pets, and of how empty her life would be without them. The last things on earth she ever thought she'd have and they meant everything to her. "Of course you really do have a home," she said, trying to make sense of the whole thing, "even if you don't live there now. Your family...where you grew up--"
"No."
"No?"
The sportscar surged forward. McKendrick's attention was focused on the road. He'd made it perfectly obvious the conversation had come to an end but Cat couldn't let it alone.
She was certain he was exaggerating. There had to be someone out there. An ex-wife. Children. A second cousin twice removed who sent him a Christmas card every year and birthday presents that made him wince. It was bad enough that he lived out of his suitcase, but at least that was his choice. Nobody chose to be alone in the world, to be without people who loved you. People you loved in return. Not even men as tough as Riley McKendrick.
David hadn't been tough at all. When she met her late husband he'd been a widower with four small kids, a regular kind of guy you wouldn't look at twice on the street. She'd been sitting at a crowded lunch counter, nursing a diet soda and a tuna sandwich, when David walked in and sat down next to her. He'd asked her to pass the salt. She'd asked him for the pepper. They'd talked, then laughed, and made a date for dinner later that night.
She'd been a reporter at Newsweek , committed to her career, determined to rise to the top. Marriage wasn't on her horizon. Children were creatures who belonged to other people. She knew what she wanted and how to get it and all of her plans went flying out the window when she fell in love with a man who only had a year to live. There'd been something about him, some indefinable quality that had touched Cat's heart, and changed her life forever. And it had nothing to do with pity and everything to do with love.
It still hurt to think that David hadn't lived to meet Sarah, the daughter who was born six months after his death.
It seemed like yesterday. "You don't have to do this," the attorney had said after the reading of the will. "You're having your own baby. We'll find foster homes for the rest of them."
"We're a family," she'd stated in no uncertain terms, even though she was scared to death. "We're going to stay a family." She hadn't fallen in love only with David; she'd fallen in love with his children, as well.
And she'd never once regretted her decision. Raising those kids was the toughest thing she'd ever done--and the most rewarding--and every night she offered up a prayer of thanks that unexpected blessings often turned out to be the finest blessings of