A Time To Come Home

He didn’t know the half of it, she thought. “I’m looking for 276 Farragut.”

“You’re in front of it.”

“Then Tyler Benton lives here?”

“You’re looking for Ty?” Interest bloomed on his face, but he merely pointed down the street. “You must have transposed the numbers. He lives at 267. Four doors down on the left. The only Cape Cod in the neighborhood. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” She rolled up the window, not taking a chance that curiosity would get the better of him, and drove on.

She soon spotted a pale yellow house with blue-shuttered windows, a wide, inviting porch, a spacious lawn and lots of charm. Exactly the kind of place she’d choose if she could afford to buy a single-family house.

Two people stood on the porch, one with wheat-colored hair she instantly recognized as Tyler. She braked, her palms growing slick on the steering wheel. Taller and broader than he’d been at seventeen, he towered over the woman whose hand lightly touched his chest. Her face tilted up to his, her long, black hair cascading down her back.

They both wore sunglasses and casual clothes, as though heading for a picnic or perhaps a day on the water. Tyler’s parents, she remembered, had kept a motor boat docked at a marina on the Potomac River.

With the backs of her eyes stinging, Diana pressed her foot down on the accelerator. Now, obviously, was not the time to approach Tyler. Especially considering the woman might be his wife. She could have discovered his marital status easily enough on line, but she hadn’t thought to check.

Diana blinked rapidly a few times until her eyes felt normal again. She couldn’t let whether or not Tyler was married matter. Not when she’d given up her foolish dreams of a future with him when she was sixteen.

In retrospect, it had been naive to expect Tyler to seek her out after she’d taken refuge at her aunt’s house. Still, she’d envisioned him getting wind of her pregnancy and showing up at the front door. She’d imagined him claiming to know in his heart that he was her baby’s father.

But Tyler never came. He never even called.

She supposed his silence had been understandable. What high school boy sought to be saddled with a baby—or the stupid girl who’d dreamed of becoming his wife?

But she hadn’t considered Tyler to be a typical teenage boy. She’d thought he was… special.

She pushed aside the long-ago hurt and tried to view the new development dispassionately. She needed to think about whether the possibility of Tyler being married impacted her decision to tell him about Jaye. She supposed not. He was either the kind of man who’d seek to develop a relationship with his daughter—or he wasn’t.

She knew from experience that not all men made good fathers, whatever the circumstances. She’d spent most of her formative years in a traditional household with two parents, and she’d never been close to her own father.

Denny Smith had been a good provider, but he’d focused most of his attention on ensuring that J.D.—the second of his three children—developed his amazing physical gifts.

Her mother had explained that Denny had passed on his dreams of playing pro football to his son. Unlike his father, J.D. had a spectacular arm, superior coordination and good speed. Armed with a full scholarship to Penn State, J.D. had also had an excellent chance of making his pro-football dream come true.

Diana didn’t remember resenting J.D. for being the favorite or her father for favoring J.D. That’s just the way it was. In his own way, she knew, her father loved her. When Diana had lived with her aunt during the first years of Jaye’s life, her father had regularly mailed checks to help with baby expenses.

He still wanted to send her money. She’d called him on a lark yesterday, expecting to be grilled about her ten years of silence. Instead he’d talked her ear off about his pregnant second wife and the athletic accomplishments of his young son. Then he’d asked what amount he should fill in on a check she’d had too much pride to accept.

She expected Tyler to be more involved in Jaye’s life than her father had been in hers, but she’d misjudged Tyler before.

She drove on auto pilot, reaching the edge of town before it registered that her fuel gauge light shined at her like a beacon. She sighed, the high cost of gas doing nothing to improve her spirits.

She pulled into the gas station, selected the cheapest grade of fuel, then put the gas pump on automatic. As she watched the dollar amount on the display head quickly upward, a man called her name.

“Diana Smith. Is that really you?”

She glanced up to see a man striding away from a car she assumed was his. About her age with extremely short dark hair and eyes that hinted at his mother’s Asian heritage, she would have known him anywhere.

“Oh, my gosh. Chris Coleman,” she cried.

He met her halfway, picking her up and swinging her around as though she weighed almost nothing. She giggled, feeling like a kid again. After the three-sixty, he set her down but still held her by the shoulders.

“What happened to your hair?” she asked, wondering if she’d ever had such a clear view of his distinctive cheekbones, long straight nose and straight brows. His hair had hung down to his shoulders in high school, with much of it falling into his face.

“I decided to get a clearer view of life,” he said.

She laughed.

“You look good.” His friendly gaze roamed over her, perhaps comparing her to the emotional wreck she’d been when she left town. He hadn’t been in much better shape, his sorrow heightened because he and J.D. had drifted apart in the months before her brother’s death. “With your mom still living in Bentonsville, I hoped I’d run into you one of these days. And today’s the day.”

She didn’t correct his mistaken impression, loath to explain, even to Chris, why she was really in Bentonsville.

“So you never left town?” she asked him.

“I left to go to college in Pennsylvania, a small school called East Stroudsburg.”

“On a football scholarship. I remember you and J.D. talking about it,” she commented as it came back to her. Chris and J.D. had been the only two players on the Bentonsville High team good enough to play at the next level.

“My scholarship paled next to J.D.’s.” Chris fell silent, possibly thinking the same thing as Diana. That J.D. had never played football at Penn State. Or ever again.

“So you returned to Bentonsville after college?”

“Yeah, which is ironic since my parents retired to Florida. I majored in social work. When it came time to look for a job, I found out I was a Maryland boy at heart. How about you? Where have you been all these years, Diana Smith?”

“In Tennessee, mostly,” she answered evasively.

She heard the click of the gas pump turning off and automatically glanced toward her car.

“No way,” he said, sensing the direction her thoughts had taken. “I was heading out of town to spend the weekend with friends, but they’re not expecting me at any specific time. So you’re not getting away until I find out what you were doing in Tennessee. There’s a Starbucks around the corner.”

“A Starbucks? In Bentonsville?”

“Things have changed,” he said. “So how about a cup of joe?”

Why not? she thought. Not only had she always enjoyed Chris’s company, but he’d know exactly how much things had changed since she’d left Bentonsville. Not only with the town, but with Tyler Benton.

CHAPTER TWO

DIANA SIPPED from her caramel-flavored frappuccino, nearly shutting her eyes in delight. She’d managed to rid herself of most of her vices over the years, but not her love of coffee.

With its rich wood-themed interior and strong scent of brewing coffee, the shop resembled any of a hundred other branches of Starbucks. But as Diana settled into a slat-backed chair across from Chris at a table for two, the setting seemed unreal because it was within the borders of her hometown. A place to which she thought she’d never have the guts to return.

She glanced around at the half-dozen or so other patrons, relieved not to recognize any of them. Maybe she was still lacking in the guts department.

Chris leaned back in the chair that looked too small for his frame, grinned and asked, “So what have you been doing with yourself, Tag-Along?”

It had been so long since anyone had used the nickname, she’d forgotten about it. Chris and J.D. had come up with it when they were high school freshmen and Diana was a mere eighth grader. Nothing had seemed cooler than hanging out with the two boys and their friends.