A Family Homecoming (9 page)

Forgetting he was standing on a loose sheet of plywood, he spun on one foot. The plywood flew up as his weight shifted and he windmilled wildly before stepping back to catch himself. That was a serious mistake. His foot came down between the rafters and landed on the gypsum board of the ceiling…then
went right on through into the room below. He dangled there, one leg out of sight, one hung over a rafter. He gingerly pulled himself up and peered down through the hole.

Danielle stood in the kitchen, staring up at him, her mouth agape. “Uh, are you all right?”

He grinned. “Sure. That's the way I always exit the attic. Quicker than stairs.”

After another second, a smile grew on her face, then she started laughing. She clamped her hands across her stomach and bent over, then collapsed on the floor.

“It wasn't that funny,” he called down.

With a wry grin, he went down to the kitchen to survey the damage. His daughter, her friend Jenny and Jessica McCallum stared at him with varying expressions of disbelief and suppressed amusement.

“I'll be able to patch it with no trouble,” he assured his wife, who was still laughing like a hyena but trying valiantly to stop.

“When I saw your foot come through, then your whole leg,” she began, then had to stop while she whooped again. “I didn't know whether to try to catch you—” another choked spat of cackling “—or run for my life.” She managed to finish with only a snort or two breaking up the words.

The girls looked from one adult to another, uncertain about the situation. Jessica had turned her head, a hand over her mouth.

Kyle tried to give Danielle a severe frown, but it was hopeless. He looked at the hole. A chortle pushed past the frown. It became a chuckle. Then a guffaw.

Dani gave up holding back and joined in. So did
Jessica. The two girls stared at the hole, then at the adults in puzzlement. “Come on, let's go play Barbies,” Jenny suggested, giving up on the parents.

For the rest of the evening, the kitchen rang with merriment each time he and Danielle glanced at the hole or caught the eye of the other. Sara, still puzzled about what was so funny—after all, a hole in the ceiling was a pretty serious offense—giggled, too. Kyle realized it had been a long time since he'd truly laughed. It felt right.

 

“Hey, I understand you're pretty handy around the house,” Rafe remarked to Kyle with a grin. “I have some ceiling work that needs to be done—”

“You can't afford me,” Kyle interjected.

“Too bad. Several of the guys in the department had wondered exactly what you Feebs do. We hadn't thought about home improvements, though, as a sideline. Did congress cut your budget again?”

Kyle had been hearing jokes since his arrival in town that morning. He'd done some research into Willie Sparks's past record and looked at his mug shots again so he would recognize the man if they ever met up.

He and Rafe were having lunch at the Hip Hop Café. Danielle, Sara and Lynn, the kindergarten teacher, were eating at another table and planning a shower for somebody who had or was planning on getting married. He wasn't sure on the latter point.

“Did you follow up on those tracks?” he asked.

The smile disappeared as Rafe nodded. “You were right. There were two men who unloaded the snowmobile from the back of a pickup. We followed the
tracks to the main road, but the plow had come through and wiped the road clean.”

“It probably didn't matter,” Kyle told him. “The traffic, with everyone needing to get to town after the storm, would have wiped them out anyway.”

“Wish we knew for sure who they were.”

“You talked to the apartment owner and other renters?”

“Yeah, early this week. No one remembered seeing Willie since before Christmas.” He shook his head. “It probably doesn't mean anything. People are busy during the holidays, or they leave town to visit relatives. Willie has his rent paid up through the end of January. I don't have any concrete reason for a search, so I haven't asked for a warrant from the judge.”

“Yeah, since Sara didn't definitely identify him. But someone in those mug shots frightened her.”

Rafe exhaled sharply. “Something will give soon. They'll make a mistake, and then we'll have them. Hey, there's Winona Cobbs. Maybe she can help.” He waved at a woman who had just come in.

“Who's Winona Cobbs?”

“She runs the Stop 'n Swap, a sort of glorified junkyard, out on Highway 17. She's a psychic.”

Kyle snorted. “Great. Now we're going to consult the stars or tea leaves for clues.”

Rafe's expression was serious. “You'd be surprised at how often Winona knows something is wrong before we do. She gets vibes or something like that. Never had them myself, so I'm not sure of the fine points.”

The psychic was a short, plump gray-haired woman in her sixties, maybe seventies. Her hair was in a sin
gle braid at the back of her head. She wore a long skirt with an Indian print shirt and a man's heavy mackinaw jacket. A string of crystals hung around her neck. She looked like a leftover hippie as she made her way to their table.

“Pretty out this morning,” she said, taking a seat before the men got halfway out of theirs. “You're the FBI agent,” she continued, looking him over with a keen gaze. “Little Sara's father.”

Kyle met her eyes and sensed she saw much more than he would have wished. For a second, he had a sensation of his soul laid bare. He shook his head slightly at the odd idea.

“You'll get the men, both of them,” she stated. “Sara knows who they are and she's told you as much—”

“Sara doesn't speak,” Kyle muttered, the bitterness of not being there to protect his daughter riding over his heart like a herd of wild ponies.

“There are other ways to communicate,” the psychic murmured, “if we will but listen…and look.”

He nodded, feeling chastised and unable to say why. Sara had reacted in fear twice, but the police couldn't arrest someone without real evidence. Besides, they didn't know where Willie Sparks and Dillon Pierce were. Or if they were in cahoots. Or anything else.”

“You been getting vibes on this?” Rafe asked, leaning forward and speaking in a low confidential tone.

She smiled. “Sometimes a person just knows things without knowing how they know.”

Rafe nodded as if this explained everything. Kyle
stifled impatience at the seriousness of their manner. He didn't need vibes. He needed to nab the men who threatened his family. He needed them in hand—

“It will happen,” Winona told him just as if he'd voiced the thought aloud.

“What?” he asked harshly.

“What you were thinking.” She ordered the plate lunch special when the waitress stopped by, bringing the woman a cup of tea without asking. “There are other desires of the heart,” she added when the waitress left. “But you must solve the conflict inside before they will be given.”

“Can you give that to me straight?” He didn't bother to hide the cynical edge.

“You can win your wife back, but you must be willing to share your heart with her.” Winona gave him a level perusal.

He was floored at the blunt statement and embarrassed that he wanted to ask her more. He remembered Danielle's reluctance to let him into her home.

He tried to explain. “A person makes choices, for the best of reasons. Maybe they are or maybe they aren't, maybe there were other, better choices, but once the road is taken, there's no pathway back.”

Rafe looked from one to the other, questions in his eyes, but he stayed silent.

Winona nodded. “It's hard,” she agreed. “But the spark is still there, isn't it?”

Kyle shifted restlessly. Was she talking about sex? Yeah, there was a spark. Danielle felt it the same as he did. But she had made it clear she wasn't going to give in to passion, that she didn't consider it a start
toward a new life together. He had given up his life with her—

“Don't let it go out,” the psychic advised.

“How?”

Her smile was kind. “In any way you can. You start with the tools at hand…just like with home repairs.” Her eyes twinkled as she added this last.

Kyle groaned. “No one is ever going to let me forget sticking my foot through the ceiling.”

“It's a small town,” she conceded. “Memory is long here. Your Danielle is making a place for herself. There will be an opening for a new FBI field agent soon.”

How the heck, he wondered, had she known that?

“No vibes. I saw Shane McBride yesterday. He mentioned you would be a good man for the job when the other agent retires later on.”

The door of the café opened again. This time it was Lily Mae Wheeler. She took one look around the place then homed in on their table.

“Looks like we got another guest,” Rafe muttered. “Better keep anything you don't want known under your hat.”

Kyle prepared for more ribbing about his remodeling expertise. The town gossip would have for sure heard about it if the psychic had.

“Well,” Lily Mae said, pulling out a chair. “I understand you'll be the new district field agent for the FBI.” Her heavily mascaraed eyes flew open when the other three laughed heartily at her announcement.

“It has been mentioned to me that he's retiring,” was all Kyle would admit.

“I hope you do better at your job than you do in
the home improvement field,” she teased, leaning close to him so that he got a whiff of her perfume. The snowflake crystals that dangled on gold chains from her earrings twinkled merrily at him.

“Those are gorgeous earrings,” Winona interjected. “Where did you get them? I might need a pair like that.”

Kyle made it through the meal with the stoic patience he'd learned from years of FBI work. He didn't miss the amused glances he got from some townsfolk and the speculative ones he got from others.

On the way home—no, not home, not for him—he mulled over Winona's odd advice. It was almost as if the woman really did know of his past and had advised him on the future. He glanced over at Danielle.

Her face was composed as she watched the passing scenery. The aura of peace that surrounded her reached out to him as it had the first moment they met. The sun reflected off the snow brilliantly, and she squinted slightly against the glare. To him, she was beautiful.

Not classically beautiful, or movie star glamorous—her mouth was a little wide, her chin was a little sharp, but her skin was porcelain fair and as smooth as Sara's and her eyes…her eyes let you right into her soul…

She was all the good things in life, the things he'd had to give up while he lived in the gutters of society.

But the spark was there. He wondered, if he pushed it, if she would respond, if she'd be able to hold herself back from the passion that could bloom like a desert of wild flowers after a storm. Her passion…

In accepting him as her lover, in taking him as her husband, she had healed something in him that had made him think he was unworthy of a woman's love. And he, for all the loneliness of a lifetime of yearning, he wouldn't, couldn't, settle for any other once he'd met her.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her lick her lips and shift in the seat. Heat kindled from some internal hearth and slowly spread out to his limbs. He'd thought he had to give her up, even if it meant for all time, but the psychic had said otherwise.

And he wanted her. He needed her warmth, the laughter they had shared over the ceiling, the kindness that was so much a part of her that she had never understood when he had tried to tell her how special she was.

Without her, he felt empty. Sometime during their years together, she had become necessary. Only she could wash the blackness from his soul when he returned from the hell he found on the streets and in other people.

She made him remember why he fought for justice. She healed the disillusionment of dealing with the underside of life and brought the shine back to his soul. What had he given her but worry and grief and an absence even she couldn't forgive?

She was his reason for living, but he had no right to her, none at all.

“It seems your skills around the house are known all around the town,” she said when he turned into the driveway.

He glanced her way. She was smiling. There was genuine mirth in her eyes. “I'd fall through a hundred ceilings just to hear you laugh again,” he said without feeling the least bit sappy about it.

D
anielle saved the data on the screen, then turned off the computer. She was through with that batch. She stretched and yawned before heading for the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee. Monday, February first. Standing at the kitchen window, she wished with all her might that the beginning of the month might bring with it the beginning of the end of this nightmare she and Sara had been living in.

January had been filled with danger and complications that she hadn't had time to sort through and figure out. Now it was February, a new month—

What was that?

She leaned closer to the kitchen window and peered at the stand of evergreens that lined the driveway. Had she seen someone out there?

She watched intently for a few minutes, but saw
nothing more. Probably a deer. They came right into the yard to eat the flowers she planted. She and Sara loved watching them.

Nature. That was the difference between the city and a small town. Deer, squirrels, rabbits, even an occasional moose or, once, a bear, and another time, a bobcat, had all paraded through the area.

Her heart lurched as movement caught her eye. No, it was nothing, just snow falling in a great cloud from a couple of pine trees, probably dislodged by the wind or a bird, maybe. Cardinals and jay birds wintered here.

The telephone rang, startling her. “Hello?”

“Hey, Danielle, how's it going? This is Luke Mason. Is Kyle available?”

“He's outside. In the garage, actually,” she corrected. “I'll run down and—”

“Don't bother. Just tell him to call me at the office when he gets back to the house, will you?”

“Of course.”

After hanging up, she went to the mudroom and slipped on her insulated boots. Draping a fleece jacket over her blue sweats, she dashed out the back door toward the old stables. Kyle had said he would be there if she needed him. He was probably changing the oil in his truck or something.

She entered by the side door and stopped dead still, wary of a strange noise.

Blat. Blat. Blat-blat.

She eased around the pickup and stopped again.

Kyle was there. Dressed in the bottoms of navy-blue sweatpants. Wearing sparring gloves. Using a bale of hay strung from a rafter as a boxing bag. He
shifted effortlessly on the balls of his feet, dancing lightly around the bale, hitting it in lightning punches, then a low left to the middle….

Her breath caught as she watched, spellbound by his masculine beauty. He had worked up a sweat. His face and arms and torso glistened with it. The muscles rippled under skin that was smooth and still tan from summer.

He had been outside without a shirt, in spite of her cautions about ultraviolet light—

She broke the thought. His welfare was not her concern. He would do as he wished…just as he always had.

The strange, helpless need to cry rushed over her as it had several times since his return. She didn't understand herself anymore. Past thinking, she took a step forward, the need to touch him stronger than any she had felt this past month. His flesh would be hot to her cold hands, his skin slippery to her palms as she caressed him. He would warm all the cold places inside her—

No.

“Kyle.” Her voice quavered. She cleared it and spoke again, stronger this time. “Kyle.”

He stopped punching. His gaze jerked to where she skulked in the protective shadow of the truck. She moved forward at the same time he did.

She came to a halt in the middle of the sparring area. He didn't stop until he stood no more than a step away from her. “What is it?” he asked, tossing the gloves aside.

His voice floated down into the center of her being and she remembered his singing to her once after they
had made love. “Annie's Song.” By John Denver. The information entered her consciousness in bits and pieces, as if her thinking had become disjointed and random.

Tears stung her eyes. Kyle had filled her senses and her life with passion and joy. It had been a long time since she had felt either.

“Dani?” he questioned.

“Uh, Luke Mason said to call him when you got back to the house. He didn't sound urgent.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She nodded, but didn't, couldn't, move. His chest lifted in deep breaths from his recent workout. She watched a drop of perspiration wind its way down his chest until it was absorbed in the waistband of the sweatpants. Other drops were suspended in the thick patch of black curling hairs on his chest.

Opening her mouth, she took a careful breath. Then another. She sighed shakily. It came out in an audible swoosh of pain, longing, despair.

“Dani?”

She shook her head, but she wasn't sure if she was denying the hunger that ran through her or admitting the hopelessness she felt inside. Against all common sense, she reached out.

Laying her hand in the middle of his chest, she let his heat and moisture soak into her, felt it flow along her arm and down her chest and into the deep, dark hidden place where passion and need lurked, ready to ambush wisdom.

With an effort, she lifted her gaze and looked into his eyes, his blue-as-the-sea eyes, fathoms-deep eyes, hungry eyes….

With a moan and a curse, he closed the gap between them. As he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against him, she was helpless to resist, although she knew she should.

She closed her eyes as their heat met, mingled and grew to an inferno. She heard the roar of it in her ears and knew she would be consumed by their fire. It didn't matter.

Lifting her arms, she clung to his broad shoulders, let herself touch and explore and caress. His hands did the same to her, sliding over her back, along her sides, under her sweatshirt and back up. The cold air of the garage caused her to shiver. He pulled her tighter into his embrace.

Against her abdomen, she felt him spring to life with a suddenness that shattered any reserves of caution she might have. She had forgotten how quickly he had always responded to the slightest overture from her.

A heady sense of satisfaction spread like warm syrup through her veins. They had always communicated on this level, her need matching his. Partners in this. Equals.

But not in everything.

She shut the disturbing thought out. This moment…she would take this moment and never mind tomorrow.

“Dani.”

He breathed her name into her ear, then planted kisses along the side of her face until he reached her jaw. He followed it to her chin, her mouth.

The kiss was long and deep and intimate—tongue and lips and teeth, searching, probing, demanding. A
tremor coursed over her. His arms tightened convulsively.

He lifted his head and glanced around. She murmured a protest, then rained kisses along his collarbone and down his chest. She teased his nipple with her lips and felt it contract into a small hard nub. The salty taste of his perspiration lingered on her tongue.

“Come,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her into an old stall that remained after the stable was converted to a garage. Bales of straw were stored there, covered with a piece of tarpaulin. The last owner had kept a horse….

He laid her on the rough bed and eased his body over hers, his legs nestled between her thighs. She gasped as heat seared through her. Her body became pliant, moist, ready for his complete touch.

His gaze locked with hers. He moved, sliding slowly, intently against her. Even through their clothing, curls of desire, like vapor off a boiling kettle, wafted upward from the hot center of her being. Feverish, she clung to him.

He kissed her again, all over her face and down her throat. His hand delved beneath her top and found her breast. She wore no bra. There was nothing to impede the touch of flesh on flesh. He explored and teased until her nipples ached and spirals of electricity darted off into the interstices between every atom of her body.

How could she have lived so long without this, she wondered as desperation washed over her. She needed him, all of him, in her. Now.

She moved impatiently beneath him, arching upward against his hard shaft.

“Easy, darling,” he murmured, a slight smile settling at the corners of his mouth.

“I want you,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut.

“If it's half as much as I want you, then you're hurting.”

“I am. I ache…inside.”

“Yes. Like that,” he agreed.

But he made no move to come to her. His hands, roaming and stroking and exciting her beyond reason, moved over her as he kissed her again. He nestled their bodies into a joint union of passionate bliss, his body stroking intimately against hers, driving her higher and higher.

Her breath became labored. So did his. She matched his movements, rocking to the rhythm that he used to guide their passion. Her blood ran fast, hot. She gasped as desire raced out of control.

He caught both her hands and held them over her head, his face just above hers, his eyes on hers. His face was chiseled into that intense mask of passion she had once known so intimately. She pulled her hands free and slid them down his back and beneath the waistband of his sweats, wanting them out of the way.

“I don't have protection,” he murmured. “Do I need it?”

The question forced her to think. With that came a return to reality. All the problems, outside and inside their marriage, came rushing back. They had to stop this madness. When she removed her hands, she saw the knowledge of her refusal enter his eyes.

“Please, let me go,” she said.

Without a word, he rolled off her and laid his arm across his face. The cold encircled her at once. “I'm sorry. It's just that—”

“Go to the house,” he said. “I'll be in…after a while.”

His voice was so utterly bereft, as if he'd come a long way and all his effort had been for nothing. She wanted to comfort him, but how?

Confused by the torrent of emotions, she fled the old stables and ran to the house as if Satan himself were on her heels. A man stepped from behind the line of pine trees before she reached the back door. She didn't think, she just reacted. Throwing her hands defensively before her, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

 

Kyle tensed in every muscle in his body at Danielle's startled cry. He grabbed his gun from its holster and ran to the door. He burst out, going down to his knees, his gun raised, ready to fire at whatever danger presented itself.

Danielle rushed toward him. He stood in time for her to fling herself against him. “A man,” she said. “Be careful.”

“Where?” His eyes raked the yard but he saw nothing.

“In the trees.”

He put her behind him. “Get inside the garage,” he ordered. “I'll check it out.”

At that moment a white shape moved, separating itself from the snow-clad trees. The person walked
toward them. He was covered in snow and looked like the abominable snowman, come to life.

“Halt,” Kyle called out. “FBI. Put your hands over your head and don't move.”

The man shuffled to a stop. Kyle realized it was an old man with a beard down to his chest, bundled up to his chin in a parka that was too big and totally covered in snow. He held something in his right hand. It looked like a jacket.

“Toss the jacket to the side. Carefully.”

The old man did so, then raised his hands above his head. He was visibly trembling, whether from age, cold or fright, Kyle didn't know. He walked forward cautiously, keeping the gun trained on the man.

“Who are you?” he demanded when he was close enough to get a good look at the man, who looked ancient.

“Homer Gilmore,” the man said.

The name rang a bell, but Kyle couldn't place it. At any rate, it wasn't the name of one of the kidnappers, nor did the doddery old man appear to pose a threat.

“The prospector that Rafe mentioned,” Danielle said right behind him.

Kyle frowned. She hadn't followed his orders worth a damn. He'd have something to say to her about that later on. “Okay,” he said to the man, motioning toward the house with the muzzle of the gun, “let's go in and see if we can figure this out.”

Homer pointed toward the jacket tossed in the snow. “That belongs to your daughter. I was bringing it back.”

“Jenny's coat,” Danielle said. “Sara was wearing it when she was taken.”

“That's right.” Homer nodded his head vigorously. Snow fell in a shower around him.

“Were you under the trees earlier?” Danielle asked, moving around Kyle and up the path to the house.

Kyle gritted his teeth. She was between him and his line of fire. She knew better—

“Come on in,” she called out. “Here, let's brush this snow off. I thought you were some kind of apparition when I first saw you.”

Homer chuckled. “I was waiting for you to come back to the house. Didn't figure you'd be at the stable long in this weather.”

Danielle cast him a glance as a blush mounted her cheeks. Kyle suddenly recalled that he had no shirt or coat on and that the snow, higher than his sneakers, was freezing his ankles. The temperature was around twenty degrees, but there was no wind blowing, thank heavens.

“Yeah, let's get inside,” he echoed. He picked up the jacket from where Homer had tossed it and followed the other two into the house.

Danielle brushed the old man off and hung up his coat and wool hunting hat with its padded ear flaps. Homer didn't look much more presentable in his regular clothing than he had covered in snow. He wore several layers that made him appear bulkier than his sunken cheeks and skinny fingers indicated. His gray hair was thin and scraggly and hung to his collar.

“You look like you could use a warm drink and something to eat. I have some rolls I'll just pop in the
oven,” Danielle said after tossing her fleece jacket on a peg. She pulled her boots off and set them in their usual corner of the mudroom.

Homer did the same before trailing after her into the kitchen. Kyle kicked off his sneakers and headed for the bathroom. He needed a shower before he interrogated the prospector about the coat.