When Love Comes Home

Her plan would save him over an hour all told, but he just couldn’t handle the thought of her being out on the road alone at that hour.

“I’ll pick you up here,” he insisted.

She blinked, then she smiled. “I guess I’ll see you here at three in the morning.”

Only then did it occur to him that he might have explained his reasoning instead of just growling at her. Confounded, he snapped the papers inside his briefcase once more and got to his feet, muttering that he had to go.

She popped up next to him, asking, “How can I thank you?” Then next thing he knew, she’d thrown her arms around him in a hug.

“N-no need,” he rumbled, his face hot enough to incinerate.

“Please thank your brother for me, too,” she went on, tucking her hands behind her and skittering toward the door.

Grady had heard the term “dancing on air” all his life; this was the first time he’d actually witnessed it.

He ducked his head in a nod and stuffed one arm down a sleeve, groping for his briefcase. Getting a grip on the handle, he headed for the door, still trying to find the other armhole of his coat.

“Mr. Jones,” called a rusty voice behind him.

He froze, looking back warily over one shoulder, his coat trailing on the floor. Matthias Porter stood next to the stove, beaming, his eyes suspiciously moist. Grady lifted his eyebrows in query.

“I’ll see she gets some rest,” the old man promised. “Don’t you worry none about that.”

“Very good,” Grady muttered.

Paige opened the door, and he charged out onto the porch. The dog pushed itself up on to all fours and assaulted his eardrums with howling, multioctave barks, the top end of which ought to have shattered glass.

“Howler, hush up!” Matthias Porter bawled from inside the house, and the fat black thing dropped back down onto its belly as if it had been felled with a hammer.

“Thank you again!” Paige called. “Try to get some rest.”

Grady scrambled for his car in silence, desperate to get away, but once he was behind the wheel and headed back down the rutted drive, he found that the day was not so gray as it had seemed before. He thought of the happy glow that had all but pulsed from Paige Ellis’s serene eyes, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself.

He suspected that he’d never again think of Thanksgiving as merely a turkey dinner and a football game.

Chapter Two

Paige sighed with pure delight and settled comfortably onto the leather seat of the Mercedes. She couldn’t stop smiling. She suspected, in fact, that she’d smiled in her sleep, what little of it she’d managed to get.

Matthias had insisted that she retire to her bed immediately after dinner, and she had done so simply to humor him. Surprisingly, she’d actually slept a few hours. When the alarm had gone off in the dead of night, she’d awakened instantly to dress in a tailored, olive-green knit pantsuit, her excitement quietly but steadily building.

Her parting with Matthias, who had insisted on getting up to see her off, had been predictably unemotional. He, more than anyone else, knew what this meant to her, but his pride didn’t allow for overt displays. Paige understood completely. For a man with nothing and no one, pride was a valuable thing, a last, dear possession.

When they’d heard the vehicle pull up in the yard, Matthias had practically shoved her out the door, rasping that she’d better call if she was going to be returning later than expected. After almost falling over Howler, Paige had climbed into Grady’s sumptuous car, where a welcome warmth blew gently from the air vents.

Excitement percolating in her veins, Paige unbuttoned her yellow-gold wool coat and removed her polyester scarf before securing her seat belt. Grady Jones had been right to insist that she not drive herself to his office. She was much too anxious to manage it safely.

“Coffee?” Grady offered as he got them moving. He nodded toward a tall foam cup in the drink holder nearest her.

His voice and manner were gruff, but she didn’t mind. Even if it had been a decent hour and she hadn’t been on her way—at last!—to her son, Matthias had taught her that gruff was often just a protective mannerism. Besides, it had been thoughtful of Grady to provide the coffee, so even though she rarely drank the stuff, she put on her sweetest smile and thanked him.

“There’s sugar and cream in the bag,” he said, indicating the white paper sack between them.

“Black’s fine,” she assured him, unwilling to risk trying to add anything to a cup of hot coffee in a moving vehicle. Saluting him with the drink, she bade him a happy Thanksgiving.

He inclined his head but said nothing, concentrating on his driving. She noticed that his drink holder contained a metal travel cup emblazoned with the logo of a Texas hockey team. She’d seen the same logo on a framed pennant in Dan Jones’s office. The brothers apparently shared an interest in the game. They seemed to share little else, other than their occupation.

Besides the obvious physical differences, Dan was friendly and chatty with a quick, open smile, while Grady struck her as the strong, silent type. She felt oddly comfortable with him, safe, though she sensed that he did not feel the same ease in her company. Perhaps he was a loner, then, but a capable one judging by the way he handled the car, and a thoughtful one, too. He’d brought her coffee, after all.

Smiling, she sipped carefully from her cup and found that the beverage was much less bitter than Matthias’s brew. Then again, what could possibly be bitter on this most thankful of Thanksgivings?

They traveled for some time in silence while she nursed her coffee and stared out the window. Unsurprisingly, she looked fresh and eager, her big, tilted eyes glowing. That just made Grady feel even more worn and rumpled than usual and did nothing to improve his mood. He knew he ought to say something, but as usual he couldn’t think of anything that seemed to make sense.

Somewhere along the turnpike southwest of Siloam Springs, she pointed out across the dark hills and valleys, exclaiming, “Oh, look! Christmas lights.”

Grady turned his head and saw a two-story house outlined in brilliant red. “Little early,” he rumbled without thinking.

“It is,” she agreed, “but aren’t they pretty?”

He didn’t say anything. Red lights were red lights, so far as he was concerned. He suggested that she might want to get some sleep. “It’s still an hour or more to Tulsa.”

“I’ll sleep once my son’s tucked in his own bed again,” she commented softly, and they fell back into silence.

After a few minutes, he reached for his coffee and was surprised when she said, “So you’re a hockey fan?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s on your travel mug.”

He glanced at the item in question, drank and set the travel cup aside. “Right. Yeah, I like most sports.”

“Me, too.”

That surprised him. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh, I’m really hopeful about the Hogs’s basketball season, aren’t you?”

Surprised again. “Football’s more my thing.”

“Oh, that’s right. You played corner for the Hogs football team, didn’t you?”

Surprised didn’t cover it this time. “How did you know?”

“I looked you up on the computer right after my first appointment with your brother.”

“You looked me—” His gaping mouth must have appeared comical, for she laughed, and the sound of it brightened the interior of the night-darkened car.

“I have a propensity for trivia, sports trivia in particular. The name sounded familiar to me, so I looked it up.”