A Time for Home: A Snowberry Creek Novel by Alexis Morgan

stay here with us. A kind of little vacation. It would do you good to get away for a few days.”
    The fact that Callie had been living on her own in cities far more dangerous than Snowberry Creek seemed to have escaped her parents for the moment. “No, Mom, I don’t want you to come back early, and I really don’t have time for a visit right now. While I appreciate both offers, I need to make a decision about what to do with Spence’s house soon, and I can’t do that long-distance.”
    “But what do you know about this man?”
    “Do you remember Spence talking about his two best friends, Nick Jenkins and Leif Brevik? Well, Nick is back from Afghanistan and stopped by to introduce himself. Rather than make him get a motel room, I offered to let him stay over at Spence’s house. I thought that would be easier since Nick has that dog with him that saved Spence’s squad from an attack. He’s hoping I’d like to adopt him. The dog, that is, not Nick.”
    Although her wayward libido might argue that point. She also didn’t mention that her first offer had been to let Nick stay at her parents’ house with her. She could just imagine how well that would have gone over right about now.
    Evidently the fact that Nick was a friend of Spence’s wasn’t enough to reassure her mom.
    “Besides being a friend of Spence’s, what do you really know about this man, Callie? How long does he plan to stay?”
    It was time to put an end to this discussion. “I know he was Spence’s friend, Mom. That’s good enough for me. He offered to stick around a few days longer to finish cleaning up the yard over there as a favor to me. He’s on leave and I suspect feeling a little disconnected. Coming back from a long tour in Afghanistan is a big adjustment.”
    Too wide-awake now to have any hope of going back to sleep, she got out of bed and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Luckily, she’d set the timer on the coffeemaker last night so the coffee was already made. She filled her favorite mug and added cream and sugar while her mom continued talking.
    “How do you know this is even the real Nick?”
    Oh, brother. She was really grasping at straws now. “Because I talked to him when Spence and I were Skyping. I’d also seen pictures of him and Mooch, the dog. Believe me, there aren’t many dogs that look like him.”
    She stuck a stale bagel in the toaster. “Tell Dad I appreciate him worrying about me.” Not. “But he doesn’t need to miss his tee time because of me. I’m fine, and Nick’s one of the good guys.”
    Even if she had a hard time getting a solid read on him sometimes.
    “Okay, if you say so, honey. But if you change your mind about wanting to come down for a few days, all you have to do is call.”
    “Thanks, Mom. Like I said, I appreciate the offer. Now, let Dad get to his golf game, and you go soak up some rays with a good book. And don’t worry. I’m fine.”
    Evidently her mom wasn’t quite ready to hang up, because she changed the subject and began talking about some family friends who’d stopped by to see them recently. As she talked on, Callie noticed a movement in the backyard out of the corner of her eye.
    Sure enough, Nick was headed this way carrying a paper bag and two cups in one of those cardboard carriers. He was dressed in a pair of camouflage pants, a sleeveless T-shirt, and heavy boots. He looked as if he’d already worked up a sweat, his tan skin gleaming in the morning sun. Yum.
    Which reminded her that she looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed, rumpled and with a bad case of bed head.
    “Mom, I hate to cut you off, but there’s a contractor coming this morning. I need to get dressed before he gets here, so we can do a walk-through next door.”
    She disconnected before her mom could do much more than sputter. Although she hated lying to her parents, she wasn’t about to tell her mom that she was going to let Nick in the house dressed as she was in flannel shorts and a