Home at Last by Laurie Campbell

Author:Laurie Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2001-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

“So we’re staying here tonight,” Kirsten told her friend Cheri, stretching the kitchen phone as far as she could to see where J.D. was depositing his travel bag, “and the kids will be back tomorrow morning. Have you heard anything from Brad or my folks?”

“A few people called back yesterday, but nobody had any ideas where to look,” Cheri reported. “That’s great that you found them already.”

Actually, it was J.D. who’d found them, and right now—she stretched a little farther—he was dropping his gear in the nearest bedroom. Which, assuming this villa followed the usual layout, meant he’d assigned her to the master bedroom in the back.

“I can’t wait to see them,” she said, turning away from the hall. It was silly to care who slept where tonight, but for the first time she could understand J.D.’s uneasiness about spending the night under her roof in Tucson.

He must have known, even then, that some spark still lingered between them…and now, amidst the relief of her knowing her children would be home tomorrow, the spark was harder to ignore.

Still, he doesn’t want anything to do with family.

“Tell me where you’re staying,” Cheri requested, “and if I hear from your parents I’ll give them the number. Want me to change the answering-machine message to your ex while I’m at it? Oh, and the art store is delivering Eric’s cabinet first thing tomorrow, so I’ll stay until they’re done.”

Even while she tried to concentrate on payment instructions, Kirsten could hear J.D. coming toward the front of the villa. It might have been a mistake, asking him to stay—after all, he had another life to get back to—but perhaps the quickness of his agreement showed that he, like her, dreaded the thought of saying goodbye.

They would have to say goodbye, though, because she and her children didn’t belong in J.D.’s life any more than he belonged in theirs. Which was probably why, Kirsten realized as she saw him open the front door, he was taking the cell phone outside for his police call. Neither of them needed to listen to each other’s conversations.

She kept reminding herself of that while she and Cheri meandered through a discussion of paint colors for Eric’s new cabinet, and again while she emptied her travel bag into the master bedroom dresser. The fact that J.D. was probably out there discussing drug-fighting business with the same passion she reserved for her family was all the more proof that they couldn’t have any kind of a future together.

And her belief that they could, back in high school, was just one more mistake she’d made during her life. Like the mistake, Kirsten realized as she looked at the scarcity of clothes in her drawer, of not packing enough for another day on the road.

Well, at least that was easy to deal with. She’d either have to find a laundry room or someplace that sold basic clothing, and shopping was always a more enjoyable choice.

And now that she was finally free of the

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