A Family Homecoming

Given a tiny twist of fate, that family could have been his. Dani and Sara. It was an image that haunted him in the depths of long, long, lonely nights.

A shiver snaked down his spine. He reached for the handle of the old-fashioned bell on the front door.

Danielle heard Sara’s running steps cross the living room, the formal dining room that they used for a family room, and on the linoleum of the old-fashioned eat-in kitchen—the quaint, cozy kitchen being one of the reasons she’d bought the drafty old house that needed more repairs than a demolition derby junk heap. She laid the stirring spoon aside and knelt just as Sara rushed to her.

“There, darling, it’s all right. Nothing is going to hurt you,” she crooned.

She held her daughter tightly, every fiber of her being ready to fight or soothe or do whatever was necessary to protect her daughter from harm or fear or anything that bothered the five-year-old.

For a second she marveled at the ferocity of feelings that swamped her. She had rarely felt this intensity of emotion, not even in the heady weeks after meeting Kyle, not even during their first year of marriage when she had thought nothing could be more exciting than her dark-haired, blue-eyed FBI agent husband. Fear had put a different spin on the nature of her feelings for her child.

For a moment the loneliness and loss of something—perhaps her expectations that life would be good, that it would be fair—threatened her emotional control. This past month had come close to being too much—

Pushing the thought firmly behind her, she snuggled Sara close until the child’s tremors subsided. Drawing back, she studied the frightened face of the five-year-old.

Blue eyes. Like her father’s. Blond hair, thick like her own auburn curls, but wispy fine as children’s hair often was and so hard to keep contained in barrettes or ponytail bands. At present, hair straggled over Sara’s forehead and tear-reddened cheeks.

Fury crimped the corners of Danielle’s soothing smile. If she ever got her hands on the men who had put fear into Sara’s soul, replacing the trust and bighearted goodness of childhood with the terror of being kidnapped and held for ransom someplace up in the mountains…

“Here, let’s get you fixed up,” she said lightly, putting a brightness she was far from feeling into her voice and smile. She, too, knew fear. Terror was no stranger to her heart. Her nights had been filled with it for weeks.

When her child had been kidnapped and forced to rely on her own quick thinking to escape, Danielle’s view of the world had also changed. The two men who had taken her daughter, thinking she was Jenny McCallum, heiress to the Kincaid fortune, were still on the loose.

The police hadn’t been able to find them after the men grabbed her daughter from the school parking lot. They hadn’t been able to find them after Sara escaped from their lair, even though the authorities knew the general area where the men had held Sara because of the holly berries found in her hair.

December fourth to December eighteenth. Fourteen days of the most awful fear she’d ever known.

Then Dr. Winters had found her child running coatless down the county road, her pixie face streaked with tears.

Anger seared down Danielle’s spine like a hot poker. She hated those men for what they had done to her child. At times during the past month, she had hated the police for not preventing the abduction and for not finding her baby.

Sometimes she hated the FBI who hadn’t answered her call for help after she had gotten Sara back and realized her child was still in mortal danger. Sara was the only one who could identify the men.

And Sara’s father? Did she also hate the supercool FBI undercover agent who had deserted them, who hadn’t answered her frantic calls for help?

She pressed her face into Sara’s sweet baby flesh and fought a need to cry as loudly and painfully as her daughter. With an effort she pulled herself together. There was no point in thinking about it. That was the painful past. She had the terrifying present to contend with now that she and Sara were on their own. They had been staying with Sterling and Jessica McCallum since Sara had been found. Sterling was a special investigator with the Sheriff’s office and he had offered Danielle and Sara the protection of his home. Though Sara had enjoyed staying with the McCallums, who were the parents of her best friend, Jenny, Danielle knew her daughter needed to return to her normal home life sometime and so they’d come home after the New Year.

Taking a deep breath, she fixed the smile more firmly on her face. “Where’s your pony band? Ah, here it is, dangling by a hair.”

No answering smile appeared on Sara’s trembling lips.

Danielle finger-combed the wisps of hair into place and replaced the band around the left ponytail, then did the same for the right side. “There.”

Sara sniffed. She looked worried.

Danielle had consulted the pediatrician about the trauma and how to handle it, especially the fact that Sara hadn’t spoken a word since she had been found. Studying her daughter, Danielle decided this wasn’t a case of Sara’s realizing she’d wandered into a room alone and rushing back to her mother or teacher.

Dear God, what more did she and young Sara have to face? How long could terror last?

“What is it? Can you tell me? What frightened you?” She spoke confidently. As if she could handle everything that life dishes out. Sometimes she wondered how close the breaking point was.

Sara stared at her mutely.

Danielle fought the anger and despair. “Show me, then. Did you see something? Or someone?”

Her heart lurched. She felt the reassuring weight of the semiautomatic pistol tucked into the back waistband of her jeans and covered by a flannel shirt worn over her T-shirt. She didn’t know if she could aim it at a person and deliberately shoot him.

Do not give warning. Point and fire. Keep shooting until they stop coming.

The police training program played through her mind. If someone broke in the house, she was to go into the self-defense mode.

Assume they mean you harm. Because they do.

“Show me, love,” she encouraged with a show of bravado. She would do whatever necessary to protect her child.

Taking Sara’s hand, she gently urged her into the family room, then through the glass-paned doors into the big, drafty living room they never used in winter. Her eyes darted left and right as she tried to see everywhere at once. She didn’t want to be surprised and not have time to use her gun.

Don’t give warning.

The living room was empty of strangers as well as furniture. She couldn’t afford to fill every room in the old house. “I don’t see anything,” she announced, the tension easing out of her neck and shoulders somewhat. “Perhaps you saw your shadow on the wall.”

Sara shook her head vehemently. Curls escaped the hair bands and sprung out around her temples.

Danielle frowned as she checked her daughter’s set face, her fear-filled eyes. “You have to tell me—”

The harsh ring-ring-ring of the old manual doorbell tore a gasp from her and froze the words in her throat.

She and Sara stood as if suspended in the shadowy world of late afternoon, caught on the cusp of winter’s darkness and unable to return to the bright warm world of the kitchen where dinner bubbled in the pot.

The noise grated across her nerves as the bell rang again. Whoever it was, was impatient.

Still she hesitated. Would the kidnappers come to the front door and ring the bell? Maybe pretending to be from the electric company or something? The lights had been flickering ominously all afternoon and a blizzard was churning up outside.

Sara tugged at her hand.

Danielle put on a brave smile and went to the door. She edged the window blind away from the etched glass panes of the oak door and peered outside, her heart going like a frenzied trip-hammer.

An unfamiliar shape stood in the dark shadows of the porch. Definitely masculine. Tall. Lean. His black Stetson wore a rim of snow on top and around the brim. His dark-blue parka was zipped up to his chin. She couldn’t make out the details of his face.

Fear ate at her. Letting go of Sara, she put her right hand behind her and clasped the handle of the .38.

Point and fire.

“Yes?” she said into the crack between the blind and the etched panes. “Who is it?”

A voice from the past spoke to her. “Kyle.”

It was shocking, like meeting someone you knew to be dead and buried right on the street, alive and walking. “Kyle?” she repeated as if she’d never heard of him.