Homecoming by Rochelle Alers

The elderly woman had taken the money Silas had given her and moved with an unmarried daughter to Louisiana.
    Taking a step, Tyler leaned over and kissed Dana’s cheek. “Good night.”
    She shivered despite the lingering heat. She knew her house would feel like a sauna when compared to Tyler’s climate-controlled one. “Good night.”
    Waiting until she’d closed and locked the door behind her, he walked back to his truck and drove back his own empty house.
    And for the first time since relocating to Hillsboro, Dr. Tyler Simmons Cole did not want to go to bed—alone.

Six
    Dana woke up feeling as if she’d just closed her eyes. After Tyler drove her back home, she’d sat out on the porch on a swing rocker, staring out into the darkened countryside. The heat, the smell of the parched earth, the intermittent croaking of frogs, and the incessant chirping of crickets had lulled her into a hypnotic trance as she recalled the happier times she’d shared with her parents and widowed grandmother.
    She hadn’t remembered her grandfather, who’d been killed in an accident the year she turned two. Daniel Sutton, who had worked for the railroad as a track worker, lost his life after a coupling between two freight cars broke loose, crushing him to death. The railroad compensated Georgia Sutton for her husband’s death, but grieving the loss of her first and only love, she vowed she would never remarry or take up with another man. Waiting a year, the socially acceptable time limit for mourning the loss of a spouse, men began calling on what most considered a handsome widow woman. Dana remembered her grandmother glaring at the men standing on her doorstep, before sending them away with a curt reply that she did not want to be bothered.
    Dana had also recalled the Sunday dinners with her grandmother. After church services concluded, Alicia and Georgia would retreat to the kitchen, where they’dprepare enough food to last until the next Sunday dinner. It was only during the winter months that the two women cooked every day. Turning on the stove and ovens had helped to filter warmth throughout the house.
    She could count the times Alicia cooked in her own kitchen: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. She only used the kitchen at Raven’s Crest for major family holidays.
    Dana had sat up thinking about her family because she did not want to think about Tyler Cole. Seeing him was visually shocking, and interacting with him had short-circuited her nervous system. He was a man who was certain to become an enticing distraction. And she did not need any distractions—especially from someone who looked like him.
    She’d finally left the porch to go to bed, and as soon as her head touched her pillow she’d begun dreaming—dreaming about a tall man with sun-browned olive skin, large penetrating black eyes, and a voice soft and sensual enough to send shivers up and down her spine every time he opened his mouth to speak.
    If you’re talking about a wife and children, I have none
. His statement was branded in her mind. He was a bachelor, yet he had built a home with enough space for a large family. He may not have had a wife, but that did not mean there wasn’t a woman to whom Tyler had pledged his life and his future. It was after three when Dana finally fell asleep, shutting out the haunting image of the man who unknowingly had snared her in a web of desire.
    Bright sunlight poured through the sheers at the tall windows. It was going to be another day without rain. Rolling over, she sat up, her bare feet dangling over the side of a four-poster mahogany bed standing more than a foot off the floor. Her toes touched amatching stool as she climbed down. The bare wood floor was warm under the soles of her feet.
    It was imperative she go to the supermarket to stock the refrigerator and pantry. But first she had to find a plastic covering for her gauze-covered hand before showering.
    It took more than an hour for Dana to brush her teeth,