A Family Homecoming by Laurie Paige

with your life. Is there a man in your future? Have you met someone here?”
    His eyes were burning her. She felt the sheen of moisture break out all over her body. His body heat engulfed her. She should move away.
    â€œIs there?” His tone was harsher.
    She shook her head.
    â€œHas the cat got your tongue, too?” he asked softly.
    Again she shook her head, then realized what she was doing. “No, of course not.”
    He traced a line down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “You seem a trifle warm.” His gaze lingered on her eyes, her lips. “So am I.”
    Her mouth went dry as longing seared through her—that terrible, terrible need to lean into him, to rest and refresh herself in the pure warmth of him. Once she had thought it endless, the great well of love they shared.
    Tremors ran over her like cold rivulets of melting snow. “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want you here. I had accepted everything.”
    He dropped his hand to her shoulder. His thumb burned her skin where he rubbed it across her collarbone, even with the robe and gown between them.
    â€œI need you,” he murmured. “I did from the first moment we met. That scared me then. It scares me now.”
    She pushed his hand away. He curled it into her hair.
    â€œYou don’t need anyone. Home…Sara and I…we were just a convenient place to stop between cases. A clean house, food, a warm bed—” She bit the words off too late.
    â€œWith a willing lover in it,” he added.
    â€œYou could have found a woman. There were several at the office who would have welcomed you.”
    His fingers were sending tingles through her scalpas he toyed with her unruly curls. His hand stilled as he studied her face. She refused to meet his gaze and stared out the window instead.
    The snow, she thought, the deep cold snow. She and Kyle had married in winter. He had left them in winter.
    And now the snow covered her heart. The only warmth inside her came from Sara. She drew a shaky breath.
    â€œI never got mixed up with any woman,” he said, almost as if musing aloud to himself. “I never meant to. But then I met you. All my good intentions fizzled with one look into those green eyes. There’s never been anyone but you.”
    She couldn’t believe him. She didn’t dare. She had learned to live with the loneliness and the grief of rejection. She wouldn’t go through that again.
    â€œThat can’t be true,” she protested in disbelief, her voice as shaky as she felt inside. “You can’t have gone two years…you can’t mean…there must have been women around. The molls—”
    â€œThe what?” He clasped her upper arms and leaned down slightly to peer into her eyes, his puzzled.
    â€œMolls. The women that hang around gangsters.”
    Incredibly his face softened. He grinned. “Only a librarian would know some word like that. Molls.”
    He shook his head in amusement. Danielle was insulted by his attitude. She had imagined him in a variety of relationships during the past two years. She had even been afraid he’d left them for another woman, but Luke had told her rather impatientlywhen she’d called that Kyle was on an important case. She’d had to accept that explanation.
    Gazing at her again, his smile died. “There’s never been another woman in my life or in my bed from the moment I met you. Not one.”
    â€œNot even as part of your cover? Didn’t the other men think you were a little odd?”
    â€œI told them a woman had once betrayed me and that they were fools to trust any of them. I maintained that pose for two solid years.”
    Her heart went through a major contraction, then expanded until there wasn’t room for it and lungs, too, in her chest. She couldn’t breathe for a minute.
    â€œEach time I was contemptuous of a woman,” he continued, “I apologized to