Home At Last

You see what happens when you lose control?

She should have known better, especially where her children were concerned. She had vowed two years ago, when Brad had shattered their marriage, that never again would she let someone else control her life. First her parents, then her husband, had shaped her into exactly what they wanted…and always with her silent cooperation. But as of age twenty-four, Kirsten had decided, she was finally going to take charge of her own and her children’s lives.

And she’d done it for the past two years. She’d maintained her independence, shielded her daughter and sons from seeing their father’s breezy irresponsibility, and spent virtually every waking moment creating the kind of world they deserved. But for the past two weeks, hoping Brad’s recent interest in family would grow stronger without her interference, she’d forgone the phone calls that would have alerted her to his latest impulse…and now her children were paying the price.

“I really, really hope,” she said, tucking her peach linen shirt more neatly into her khaki slacks, “we’ll find them right away.”

“Yeah, so do I.” The gruff intensity in J.D.’s voice touched her—it was sweet of him to care so much about Lindsay and Adam and Eric—until she realized that he had his own reasons for wanting to finish the search quickly. After all, he had another life to get back to.

She needed to remember that.

“When do you leave for Chicago?” she asked him, adjusting her sun visor against the early-morning glare.

“Soon as my assignment comes through.” He braked for a red light, his work-roughened hands at rest on the steering wheel. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

She couldn’t think of many people who would enjoy battling a whole new city full of drug dealers, but this man wasn’t like anyone else she knew. “And you’re excited about it,” Kirsten said.

“Yeah.” With the edgy light of anticipation in his eyes, he looked suddenly younger. “It’s a brand-new task force, a whole different setup. Getting things done without a bunch of layers to work through… I like that kind of freedom.”

“Freedom,” she repeated slowly, gazing at the road ahead and wondering why the word sounded so lyrical coming from him. “I know. That’s always mattered to you.”

When it came to such things as freedom, J.D. Ryder had never made any secret of his ambition to “get the hell out of Tubac.” Everyone in town had known he planned to enlist in the army as soon as he turned eighteen, same as they’d known that Kirsten would become a kindergarten teacher and that Brad would tour the east Coast with his parents to select the college he preferred.

Both the boys’ ambitions had come to pass, exactly as Kirsten had expected. What she hadn’t expected was that on the night before Brad left for his college tour, he would ask her to return his class ring. “We’ve had a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong,” he’d told her in the driveway outside her house. “But we’re both moving on, and neither one of us ought to be tied down.” Shaken, she had given him back the ring she’d worn all year and spent the next few days at her new summer job wondering why the breakup had damaged her pride more than her heart.

Her parents and her girlfriends, all of whom wholeheartedly approved of Brad, had offered as much sympathy as anyone could want…but she moved through the first week of vacation feeling curiously detached from their efforts at consolation. Detached from the whole world, in fact, no matter how hard she concentrated on the new job—she had the sensation that all the while she was learning to make coffee, ringing up orders and counting out packets of raspberry jam, her real life was somewhere beyond reach. It wasn’t until J.D. stopped by the Snack-n-Go for bagels one morning that she felt herself flickering back to a state of awareness.

No point in remembering that now.

“Looks like we’ve got time to spare,” J.D. observed, turning into the airport parking lane and—to her relief—opting for short-term rather than long-term parking. It was reassuring that he seemed so confident, Kirsten thought as they moved swiftly through the routine of checking in, boarding the plane and settling down for the four-hour flight to Seattle.

It went faster than she’d expected, and the conversation was remarkably easy. In spite of his admitted indifference to the pleasures of family life, J.D. seemed to enjoy her stories about the children. Their first day of soccer practice, Lindsay’s beloved panda, the twins’ upcoming birthday party…. And when she saved the morning’s first packet of airline peanuts for Adam and Eric, he contributed his own as well.

“For a good cause, right?” he teased as she slid the bright blue packages into her purse.

“Right,” she agreed, tucking the peanuts beside Lindsay’s favorite bubble gum. “Now the boys won’t start arguing over who gets first pick. I used to hate it when Brad would bring home two different-size robots and expect them to work it out.”

“Your kids are building robots?”

He sounded so impressed, she hated to admit that they were only playing with them under the dining-room table. “Building robots shouldn’t impress somebody like you, though,” Kirsten told him. “You’ve always done mechanical-type things.”

He gave her a rueful grin. “Not anymore. I got enough of that at Manny’s.”

Manny’s Garage had hired him part-time during their junior year, and he’d started working there full-time the day after graduation. She hadn’t known that until the morning he came by the Snack-n-Go with an order from the entire crew, and she still remembered the jolt of recognition that had shot through her the moment she saw him across the counter.

J.D. hadn’t looked surprised at seeing her, but then, she’d started bragging about her summer job long before graduation. The chance to practice her independence before starting her freshman year at the University of Arizona—thanks to her friend Debbie, who’d gotten them matching shifts at the Snack-n-Go—had filled Kirsten with a wonderfully grown-up pride.

Although she hadn’t sounded all that grown-up when she greeted J.D., she remembered. Yet he hadn’t seemed to mind her lack of poise. Instead he’d given her the slow smile that Debbie always said “would make anybody weak who wasn’t dating Mr. Perfect weak in the knees” and asked what she’d heard from Brad lately.

“Nothing,” Kirsten had stammered. “He and I…we…”

“They broke up,” Debbie announced over her shoulder while filling the orange juice machine. “Where’ve you been, J.D.? I thought everyone in town knew.”

He hadn’t seemed to notice Debbie at all. His dark eyes stayed fixed on Kirsten’s, and then he said very softly, “Hey. I’m sorry, Kirs.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, feeling strangely shy. She should have called J.D. with the news, but once the school bus rides ended there had been little chance for contact. “Anyway, I’m working here until the middle of August, unless my uncle invites us to his house in Mexico. So what can I get you?”

He’d placed his order with no further conversation, but he’d come again the next morning, and the next, and it seemed his visits always coincided with her time at the take-out counter. It seemed, too, that it took longer each day for his order to be filled…so that by Friday, when Debbie had to work late, it felt perfectly natural for J.D. to offer Kirsten a ride home.

She’d accepted without hesitation, even though her parents had told her to phone them if ever Debbie couldn’t drive her. J.D. was a friend, he was going her way, and there was really no reason she couldn’t ride on the back of his motorcycle. It was only common sense to suggest that he drop her off a short distance from home, just in case her mother might start lecturing about the importance of choosing the right friends…and although J.D. protested that he didn’t mind taking her right to her door, he didn’t press the point.

Which relieved her, because she didn’t want to explain her parents’ belief that there was a world of difference between Kirsten’s two closest friends. Brad had been welcome at her house anytime, always greeted with genuine warmth. By contrast, while J.D. was never turned away, it was understood that the Taylors would prefer not to see much of him.

Still, they’d never specifically told her to avoid him…and it was silly to take Debbie or her parents out of their way when J.D. was heading home right when she got off work.

She explained that to Debbie the next day, and although her friend raised her eyebrows she agreed that Kirsten might as well “enjoy it, since Mr. Rebel’s going your way.” So the ride home became a daily pattern, which she found herself looking forward to more and more.

It got so the trip lasted longer each day, as their afternoon conversations moved from friendly chat to intriguing discussion to something more thoughtful, more intimate and more appealing. She had never spent this kind of time alone with J.D. before, and she had the feeling they were both discovering unexplored depths within each other…even though they still would have defined themselves, if anyone had asked, as nothing more than friends.

Friendship, though, didn’t quite explain how the feel of his body stayed with her for hours after he dropped her off at the side street near her house. How the sound of his voice and the memory of his silences stayed with her, keeping her awake late at night. How the evocative scent of him reached her with such vivid clarity that, no matter what she was busy with when he walked into the Snack-n-Go, she would know within an instant that J.D. had arrived.

She couldn’t tell him that—J.D. probably heard such things all the time, from girls far more experienced than herself—but she couldn’t help wondering if those other girls had ever felt the kind of tantalizing awareness she felt growing between them as they shared more and more stories, more and more closeness, more and more time together. And after the third week of rides home, when she reminded him not to wait for her tomorrow because that was her day off, he looked at her for a long moment and said slowly, “I’m off, too. Want to do something together?”

Yes! was her first thought, but she’d already arranged to go shopping in Tucson with her mother. “I wish I could,” Kirsten told him, handing him back the motorcycle helmet he always insisted she wear. “I really wish I could. Only Mom’s been planning to do this college-wardrobe thing for a long time.”

“Ah.” He gazed at her for a moment longer, then clicked into first gear. “Well, have a good time.”

But she wouldn’t, Kirsten knew. Not when she’d spend the whole day missing J.D. Ryder. “Thanks,” she replied. “But I’d rather be with you.”

For one pulsing instant he stared at her, as if frozen in astonishment. Then, with what looked like a single, effortless move, he cut the ignition, hit the kickstand and drew her into his arms.

There was no time to think, and nothing to think about. All she knew was instinct, feeling, heat…the warmth of his embrace, of his hands caressing her face, his lips on hers—

Oh, yes.

Yes! J.D. felt so much hotter, so much stronger than she ever would have guessed. Their rides, no matter how tightly her arms encircled his waist, how sweetly his touch had lingered when he helped her astride the bike, hadn’t prepared her for the intensity of his body against hers, for the sheer, shivering passion of his kiss—

But already he was pulling away from her, taking a step back, staring at her with a mixture of apology and ancient, primal possession.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered.

Shouldn’t have done that? “But—”

He shook his head, looking so confused and yet so determined that she felt a tremor of fear. He couldn’t mean to back away from her now, could he?

“You’re just so…” he faltered, still gazing at her as if he’d never seen anyone he wanted more. “You’re—ah, Kirs.” With a muffled groan, he pulled her back against him and lifted her face to his kiss.

This one was headier, richer, more vivid than the first, and she gloried in the sheer, wild rightness of it. This was what she wanted, this was what she’d never experienced with anyone until now. Until J.D.