Home At Last

She said it so simply, so certainly, that he felt as if she’d just touched him. Touched his face, his hands, his heart, with the same achingly graceful innocence he remembered from their last and only summer together. “Well…thanks,” he mumbled. If she was willing to give him the gift of such trust, there was no way he could refuse it. “But I’ll call you from the photo place before I come back here, because I can always stay at the Hyatt. Stock up on those little shampoos.”

Looking both amused and impatient, Kirsten straightened her shoulders. “We’re going to be traveling together, anyway,” she told him. “And your staying here is no different than us staying at the same hotel.”

Caught by surprise at her practical turn of thought, he nodded in acceptance. “Okay, good point.” He’d never worried about sharing a roof with anyone else on a job, and Kirsten obviously saw this as nothing but a business arrangement. Which proved he’d made the right decision eight years ago. “See you in about an hour.”

He still hadn’t opened the door before she interrupted with another offer. “I can have some dinner ready by the time you’re finished with the pictures.”

“No, that’s okay,” J.D. said. He couldn’t expect her to take him in and cook dinner besides, as if he were an invited guest. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Oh, well, if you ate on the way down here…” she conceded, as if there could be no other reason for his refusal. “I just didn’t want you going hungry.”

The mixture of embarrassment and concern in her voice struck him with vivid clarity. He’d heard that tone before, eight years ago, nine, ten…. In spite of all the polish Kirsten had acquired, all the trappings of a custom home and vacations with Brad in Europe, she was still a nurturer at heart. And even though he didn’t need it, had never needed it, the realization touched him.

“You’re still looking out for me,” he said softly. “Aren’t you?”

“I guess so,” she admitted, looking a little shy. Then, with a glance at the keys in his hand, she gave him a flicker of the teasing smile he remembered. “And you’re still looking out for me, too. Some things never change.”

He supposed that was true, although—except for his last, silent sacrifice—she’d done far more of the nurturing than he had. Even back in tenth grade, he and Brad had recognized that Kirsten took pleasure in helping them with their English essays, their forgotten lunches or whatever else she could offer.

“Well, of course,” she’d said when Brad had commented on it. “I like helping people. And you guys are my best friends.”

It had amazed J.D. the way she and Brad had seemed to take their trio’s friendship for granted. The easy connection, the genuine interest, the kind of caring he’d never before witnessed firsthand, were nothing extraordinary to either one of them.

But then, they both came from a world he’d never imagined could exist in real life. He’d heard of things like birthday cards, Thanksgiving dinners and invitations from grandparents…but those were the stuff of TV shows, which everyone knew were created by the same writers who created space aliens. To know people who took such traditions for granted was startling, intriguing and—to his shame—irresistible.

He suspected, though, that no one had ever resisted an offer of friendship from Brad Laurence. Even at age fifteen, the future class president had possessed a gift for drawing people into his high-spirited vision of good times for all. It was Brad who had nicknamed the three of them Tubac’s Terrific Trio, back on the first day of tenth grade when they’d shared a lengthy bus ride. “Everybody else lives a lot closer to town,” the football captain had announced upon boarding the school bus and seeing J.D. alone in the back. “Except Kirsten Taylor—she’s only a few minutes from here. You’re new, right? Where you from?”

By the time Kirsten joined them, Brad had decided that the three of them were a team, and the curious friendship had endured…in spite of the innumerable differences between an outgoing prom king, a sheltered princess and a loner who knew they would never comprehend his gritty kind of life. But J.D. had been accepted as part of their team with an ease that baffled him…and had gladly contributed his skill in math toward the task of getting them all through school, while Kirsten contributed the caretaking and Brad the exuberant sense of adventure that labeled everyone he met a lifetime friend.

They had been friends, all three of them, and they’d stayed friends even after Brad and Kirsten started dating in their senior year. J.D. had known he couldn’t expect anything different, not with the two of them so well matched—even he could see, in spite of his fantasies that someday Kirsten would look at him with new eyes, like those two belonged together.

Together in a world he would never fit into. Which was why, when he’d run into Brad shortly after returning from his tour of duty, he’d resolutely refused his buddy’s repeated invitations to “stop by the house, see Kirsten and the kids” and confined their infrequent meetings to sports bars.

But those meetings had cost him. They’d kept him asking about Kirsten with the same perverse sensation he would get from exploring a sore tooth with his tongue. He’d spent eight years wondering about her, hoping he’d made the right decision, and knowing all the while that he couldn’t have done anything else. Even though Brad had been completely wrong in pursuing Miss Scottsdale, J.D. knew that his friend—with his shining heritage of family traditions and love—came from the only kind of world Kirsten deserved.

Which reminded him of something he should have told her before now.

“By the way,” he said, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Brad.”

She looked a little embarrassed, but gave him a polite smile. “Thank you.”

No, he needed to explain it better than that. To let her know he was on her side, in spite of the fact that he’d let her down so badly. “I was gonna call you when Brad said you were getting divorced,” J.D. continued. “Just to let you know…well…I mean, he and I stayed in touch, but I always thought you—” There was no good way of saying this, but he had to make sure she knew where his loyalties lay. “What Brad did was wrong, okay? I don’t want you thinking I’d ever take his side over yours.”

Although by convincing himself there was no reason to call her, back in January, he’d done exactly that.

“You mean, when it comes to finding the kids?” Even though she still looked embarrassed, her smile grew warmer. “I never thought that.”

He could look at her smile for weeks, J.D. realized, feeling a clutch of uneasiness in his chest. “Just so you know….”

“I do know,” she murmured, meeting his gaze with such luminous intensity that he instinctively tightened his grip on his keys to keep himself from reaching for her. “J.D….thank you.”

This was business, Kirsten reminded herself the next morning, pinning her French braid into place with the gold-colored hairpins Lindsay loved. All her uneasiness about phoning J.D. Ryder yesterday had been completely pointless…because this was business, and nothing more.

He’d made that very clear last night, when he returned from the photo place with a take-out bag of burgers and fries and offered her a choice of regular or diet soda. “I thought you’d already had dinner!” she protested, setting a woven placemat on the kitchen table where she’d choked down a carton of yogurt half an hour ago. “J.D., I would’ve been happy to make you something.”

“I know you would’ve,” he answered, putting the bag on the granite-topped counter and fixing her with a steady, steely gaze. “But that’s not your job, Kirsten. Your job is to help me find the kids…and that’s all.”

He couldn’t have made it any clearer if he’d drawn a line across the table between them, she thought now, dropping some extra hairpins into her travel bag and zipping it shut as the last step toward departure. And it was silly of her to feel hurt by his deliberate distance, since she didn’t need an old friend searching for her children. She needed a professional.

But it seemed the long-ago wound still hadn’t healed as well as she’d like. Not that she had ever noticed it before, not when she’d been so wrapped up in caring for her family. It was only seeing J.D. Ryder again, only the realization of how he hadn’t changed at all, that was making her wish things had ended differently.

If they’d ended differently, though, you wouldn’t have the family you’ve got.

She needed to remember that, Kirsten told herself, taking her travel bag down the hall toward the kitchen, where she’d laid out coffee and whole wheat bagels shortly after dawn. All she cared about was finding her children, and a detective who knew Brad’s way of thinking would be her best possible choice for such a mission. As long as they both stayed focused on the task, there would be no worry about old memories getting in the way.

But when she found J.D. studying her refrigerator-door snapshots and cradling a stoneware mug in the palm of his left hand, exactly the way he’d done eight years ago with the Snack-n-Go cups, she felt a visceral flood of memory rising so swiftly that she had to tilt her head back against the tide of warmth in her chest.

“Morning,” he greeted her, glancing away from the photos of Halloween costumes, the twins’ soccer party and Lindsay’s graduation from kindergarten…photos she should have removed yesterday, even though he evidently hadn’t noticed anything worth commenting on. Maybe because such scenes were completely foreign to him. He’d mentioned last night, while describing his new job in Chicago, that he’d never come close to—or even wanted—a family life of his own. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“I’ve had mine,” she said hastily, trying not to notice the fit of his well-worn jeans and slate-blue polo shirt any more than she’d notice her tax accountant’s wardrobe. “We can leave anytime…unless you were waiting for raspberry jam on the bagels.”

J.D. gave her a startled glance, as if wondering how she knew what he used to order at the Snack-n-Go. “You remembered that?”

She remembered virtually everything about that summer, but she wasn’t about to tell him so. She wasn’t even going to think that way, not with all the risks involved. Instead she said lightly, in the tone of voice she’d perfected during her years with Brad, “It’s funny, the things that stick with you.”

“Yeah…funny.” From the edge in his voice, it appeared he didn’t want to discuss old memories any more than she did. “Anything you need to take care of before we leave? Mail pickup, someone to water the plants, changing the phone message?”

She’d recorded a new answering-machine message last night, hoping the phone company would fix her call-forwarding system before another week passed. It was a long shot, Kirsten knew, but if either Brad or the children phoned they would hear her plea for a swift return.

If only she’d taught them the new number before they’d left….

“Everything’s taken care of,” she told J.D., cutting off the self-reproach before she could start choking up again. Crying wouldn’t do the children any good, and she needed to stay in control of herself all the more with this man so close. “My friend Cheri’s coming around eight, and she offered to house-sit until we get back. So if Brad shows up with the kids, there’ll be somebody here.”

“Okay, then.” Moving with his usual quick, controlled grace, he dumped the last of his coffee down the sink, deposited the mug in the empty dishwasher, then picked up her travel bag as well as his own from beside the kitchen door. “Shampoo all packed? Let’s get going.”

He hadn’t lost the knack, she realized, of throwing out those little side comments that always made her smile. Usually after he’d turned away, because J.D. never waited to see whether anyone reacted to his remarks. But she found herself smiling, anyway, as she locked the door behind her and slid the key for Cheri under a terracotta pot.

When she turned to watch him stowing their bags in the back seat, Kirsten noticed with a flicker of fascination that, at least on the surface, this man’s car was a lot like him. A dark exterior, windows that revealed nothing of the inside, any damage carefully hidden—and probably capable of meeting any demand that might arise.

Yes, she had been right in calling J.D. Ryder.

“I know you can’t say how long it’ll take us to find Lindsay and the boys,” she told him as they drove to the airport, “but I’m hoping it’s a good sign that you didn’t bring a week’s worth of clothes.”

He gave her a slight smile, and in the early morning light she saw the faint relaxing of his hard shoulders. “With any luck,” he said, “we’ll have them back today.”

Please, God…

“I hope so.” While there was no excuse for having allowed this disaster to happen, she could forgive herself more easily if all it cost the children was one more day of junk food, indifferent supervision and unbrushed teeth. One more day for Lindsay to fall asleep without her bedtime story, for Adam and Eric to be called by each other’s names, for them to wake up in a strange place not knowing—