Homecoming Day

Homecoming Day
Holly Jacobs

Laura Watson thinks she'll never get over the pain of losing the man she loved. But when her son is born, Lieutenant Seth Keller is right there with her. The widowed Erie cop has his own reasons to grieve, but he's made up his mind to move on with his life.Seth can accept being friends. Bonded-by-baby, on-the-verge-of-something-more friends. For now. And when the time comes, he wants to be the one Laura turns to. Can depend on. Maybe even love.But sooner or later, Laura has to decide. The past or the future? Because life has given them a second chance at love. Possibly a love that can heal them both…a love that feels like coming home.

“Seth, what exactly is our relationship?”

Laura looked at him, trying to get an answer. “I mean, for the last month I’ve seen you almost every day. I don’t know—”

He cut off her sentence by kissing her. Not some platonic buss on the cheek, or even a friendly kiss on the lips.

This one spoke of attraction and a hunger that Laura suddenly felt keenly. Or maybe it wasn’t that sudden.

Maybe she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that she’d felt something more than friendship for Seth for a while. It had been so long since she’d been held like this. Her lips pressing his. Soon it wasn’t a tentative exploration, but a deeply passionate awakening….

Dear Reader,

I have always been a reader. I tell people that I was raised by Tolkien, Lewis, Heinlein and McCaffrey, and I’m only half kidding. Their stories—along with so many others—have taught me so much about acceptance and faith…about love. Living my life without reading? I’d miss so much.

That’s why my character JT’s functional illiteracy was so compelling to me. According to the National Right to Read Foundation, “42 million American adults can’t read at all and 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.” As a writer, I find these figures tragic; as a lifelong reader, I think they are a crime. And eHarlequin.com feels the same way. They have a book challenge on their website that benefits the National Center for Family Literacy. I’m thrilled to work with a publisher that promotes literacy in such a concrete way.

Despite that heavy subject, the real theme of the story is that life gives second chances…and sometimes so does love.

The last thing Laura Watson is looking for is love. She’s lost her fiancé, had his baby…she just wants peace. But when Seth Keller comes into her life, she finds love. So does he, and he’s not looking for it either. But finding love and embracing it are two different things. It takes a certain strength. And that’s the question for both Laura and Seth. Are they strong enough to take a chance on love again?

I hope you enjoy their journey!

Holly Jacobs

Homecoming Day

Holly Jacobs

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 2000 Holly Jacobs sold her first book to Harlequin Enterprises. She’s since sold more than twenty-five novels to the publisher. Her romances have won numerous awards and made the Waldenbooks bestseller list. In 2005 Holly won a prestigious Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. In her nonwriting life Holly is married to a police captain, and together they have four children. Visit Holly at www.HollyJacobs.com, or you can snail-mail her at P.O. Box 11102, Erie, PA 16514-1102.

To all my friends on the eHarlequin Boards,

Twitter and Facebook…you all give me glee!

And a special thanks to Lisa,

forwarder of nice reviews and great French translations!

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

LAURA WATSON WATCHED the monitor.

The staff had long since turned down the volume, but she could still see the numbers rise and fall on the screen over Jay’s head. Blood pressure. Heart rate. Those numbers should have been comforting. They meant Jay was still here with her.

But she knew those numbers were a lie. Despite the fact that Jay’s heart was beating, he was gone.

His mother and father stood on the other side of the bed, their faces as ashen as Laura suspected her own was. His mother clutched his unmoving hand.

“We need to honor…” Laura’s voice broke. She took a moment and tried again. “We need to honor Jay’s wishes.”

They were the hardest words that Laura had ever said. But she knew it was the right thing to do. It was what Jay would have wanted. It was what he made her promise.

Not that he’d planned this.

Jay was a cop and even in a small city like Erie, Pennsylvania, there was always a chance that he’d end up here in a hospital and this decision would be on her shoulders.

As they’d planned their future, planned their wedding, they’d discussed everything, including this possibility. Jay didn’t want to linger, held to this life by machines.

But, despite all their conversations about the future, they hadn’t envisioned this, because it wasn’t a bullet that put Jay here. It was bacterial meningitis. Jay wasn’t laid low in the line of duty, but by a tiny bacterium.