Free Coming Home by Marie Force Page A

couple of years ago. I was helping a friend replace a window at his house when a piece of the broken one caught me just so.”
    “Ouch. Did you need stitches?”
    “Three.”
    Kate brought him down close to her and pressed three kisses to the scar, making him smile.
    “You’ve been ill,” he said, tracing his finger over the dark circles under her eyes.
    “Pneumonia. Hit me hard.”
    “I read about what happened in Oklahoma City.”
    “That was pretty scary.”
    “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
    “I don’t have anything else to do. My work is my life.”
    “Ah, Kate… I’ve learned the hard way there’s so much more to life than work.” He shifted off her and propped himself up on an elbow.
    Filled with questions she was dying to ask him, Kate turned to face him. The questions, she decided, were more important than the passion. “Do you miss your work?”
    “Not at all. I do exactly what I want all day, every day. I get asked to consult on a lot of what goes on around here. If I feel like it, I do. If I don’t, I say no. I’ve overseen the building of affordable housing here, which is very rewarding. It’s a heck of a lot more fun than working twenty hours a day, that’s for sure.”
    “Don’t you ever get bored?”
    “Nope. There’s so much to do. I love to sail and scuba dive and fish. Fishing is so relaxing. I had no idea.”
    “I haven’t been fishing since I lived at home.”
    “Did you like it back then?”
    “I did. I was kinda good at it, too.”
    “You should do it again sometime. I also like to mess around with old abandoned boats, like the one I was working on today.”
    “What do you do with them after you fix them up?”
    “I give them to local kids, who use them to fish.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I used to dream of the life I have now, you know? I’d be flying off to Chattanooga or Memphis or Knoxville to check on jobs, and all the way there I’d dream about living in the islands in a small place on the beach with nothing to do all day other than what I felt like doing.”
    “You worked hard for a long time to be able to do this.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “My life is in Nashville,” she reminded him.
    “When you’re home.”
    “When I’m home.”
    “How’s Thunder?”
    The mention of the beloved horse he’d give her after they broke up made her smile. “Wonderful—and human—as always. I swear he understands me better than most of the people in my life do.”
    “He always did get you, right from the very beginning, remember?”
    “I remember everything. I remember every single minute we spent together, because I’ve relived every one of them a million times. The night you took me riding in the snow… I’ve never done anything more amazing.”
    “I think about that night a lot, too. It was so perfect.” He continued to twirl the lock of hair around his finger, again and again. “That was the night you gave me the song you wrote for me.”
    “‘I Thought I Knew,’ still my biggest hit. I end every show with it.”
    “I know.”
    “How do you know?”
    Half his face lifted into a small smile that lit his eyes.
    “Oh God, have you been to my shows?”
    “Maybe. Once or twice. Four times, actually,” he said with a sheepish grin.
    “Oh, Reid! Why didn’t you ask to see me?”
    “I didn’t think I’d be welcome after the way we left things.”
    Kate closed her eyes and let go with a deep, pained sigh. “It was all my fault.”
    “No, it wasn’t. We made a mess of things together, and we can both take a share of the blame. Something you said to me that last day has stayed with me all this time.”
    She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “What?”
    “You said everyone thought I was too old for you and how funny it was that you’d been the adult in our relationship.”
    Kate grimaced at the reminder of that hurtful comment. “And I acted like such an adult that day.”
    “You were right, though. You very