Free A Family Homecoming by Laurie Paige Page B

determination—maybe even ruthlessness—within him to do whatever he thought was right. But there was also that exquisite gentleness, a tenderness so true and deep it melted all sorrows and made the world right. Her world…he’d made her world right.
    In a few minutes she heard his steps in the hall. When he came into the kitchen, she saw he had changed to blue sweats that enhanced the blue of his eyes and the sultry darkness of his hair. He was the handsomest man she had ever met, with a grace of movement in every line of his lean body. He smiled when he saw her watching him.
    â€œSara’s foot pajamas reminded me of when we were first married. Remember how I told you there ought to be a disclosure law so that you have to tell the other person before you marry if your feet are going to be like two blocks of ice all winter?”
    â€œWould you have refused to marry me if you’d known?” she demanded, falling into their former teasing ways without realizing.
    â€œNo,” he said softly. “Nothing would have stopped me from that.”
    She managed a laugh, but wouldn’t look at him. “My dad used to complain about the same thing. My mom told him it was a husband’s job to warm his wife’s feet.”
    Kyle didn’t reply.
    When she glanced at him, she saw his eyes roaming the lines of her fleecy robe. He paused at her slippers, which were really thick socks with soles. A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, then flickered out. His face became still, but his eyes, oh, his eyes…
    She turned from the despair she sensed inside him. She had grieved, too. Changing to a more neutral subject, she said, “I’m hungry. Would you like to join me for milk and cookies?”
    â€œYes.” He moved away, over to the table. “You’ve lost weight. Was that recent?”
    She brought the treat to the table. “Yes, after Sara was taken, I couldn’t eat. I kept imagining her hungry and frightened. I didn’t know if they were taking proper care of her.”
    He reached across the table and touched her arm. “It’s okay now. She’s going to be fine.”
    â€œIs she?” Danielle demanded, her anger rising as she recalled those terrifying fourteen days and nights when no one had been able to find her child.
    â€œYes, I think so. She let me read to her and tuck her in.”
    â€œShe kissed you nighty-night,” Danielle added. “You’ve only been here a week, but she seems to trust you.”
    â€œI’m her father,” he said in a harder voice. “I waspart of her life for three years. She couldn’t have forgotten me completely in the time I’ve been away.”
    Danielle ate a cookie, then picked up another. Many thoughts, accusations really, passed through her mind, but she didn’t say them.
    â€œNeither have you,” he added softly.
    The air became electrified. She couldn’t breathe, or think. Gulping down the cookie with the help of the milk, she finished the snack and took her glass to the sink.
    She gazed at the moonlight on the snowy lot next to the house. Across the way, the neighboring home was dark. The retired couple who lived there were already in bed.
    Behind her, she was aware of every movement in the room. She knew when Kyle pushed back from the table, when he crossed the room, when he stood behind her. She moved aside.
    He rinsed his glass and set it beside hers in the sink, then he turned toward her. His eyes gleamed dark-blue and mysterious as he watched her intently.
    â€œIt’s time for bed,” she said. “I mean, it’s late. Sara will be up early. And we have to go to church.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” he said. “You go to your bed and I go to mine. That’s the rule, isn’t it?”
    She hesitated, then finding no hidden meanings in the statement, nodded briskly.
    â€œYou said in your letter that you wanted to get on