Free The Winding Road Home by Sally John Page A

know him?”
    â€œHe operated on my mom about eight years ago. She had breast cancer.”
    â€œIs she…” He hesitated. So much death accompanied his father. Sidney Carlucci had the touch of death. It was unavoidable baggage with his professional life. In his personal life…well, suffice it to say that too reeked of it.
    â€œShe’s doing great. She liked your dad a lot.”
    Patients. What did they know?
    â€œTanner?”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œYour eyes are at half-mast. Where’d you go?”
    He gave her a cockeyed smile. “You don’t want to know.”

    Graham followed Adele into her house. On the drive home from the restaurant she had invited him to come in for tea, and he had accepted without hesitation. Even if no extenuating circumstances tied their destinies together, if he had simply met her on the street…still he would have said yes. From the first three minutes in her office, the woman had captivated him.
    Which was why he should have declined.
    Not to mention those extenuating circumstances would most likely work against them, reason enough to not even be making eye contact, let alone—
    â€œGraham.” She hung her coat on a hall tree beside the door, twirled a half circle, and headed through an arched doorway. Avoiding eye contact herself?
    Waving a hand toward the right, she called over her shoulder, “Go on into the living room and make yourself at home. I’ll be right there.”
    He concluded she was avoiding eye contact. She was quite obviously flustered.
    Which was the basis for reason number three. He had no business being in her home.
    Shrugging out of his coat, he looked around. It was an old house. The small entryway opened to arched doorways on the left and right, leading to the dining room and living room. Straight ahead was an enclosed staircase.
    He hung up his coat and went into the living room, doing as he was told.
    Reason number four…
    The furnishings were old and worn, but everything appeared tidy and clean. That and a comfortably warm temperature after the frigid winter night created a cozy atmosphere. A scent of spiced apples permeated the air.
    The décor was of the homegrown variety. Candles. Pottery. Healthy green plants. Photos of Chelsea and other young people. None of what’s-his-name.
    Graham sat in an armchair. He heard kitchen clanging noises. There was a fireplace, too clean to have contained burning wood in recent history.
    What was going on? She had caught him completely by surprise. The plan had simply been to fulfill the wishes of old Rand: check him into the home and wait for God to finish things.
    In whatever way He wants.
    Hadn’t Graham learned that truth yet? Why did he still insist on reaching for the reins, wanting to do it his way?
    Adele entered the room, carrying a wooden tray. “I hope you like peppermint?”
    He did. He also liked watching her move. There was a fluidity in her motions that only women confident in their own skin possessed. She was of medium height and build, not tall the way his wife had been.
    She poured tea from a ceramic pot and handed him a mug. Brief eye contact, fingertips brushing.
    â€œThank you. Where were we?”
    Adele slipped her stockinged feet out of her clogs and sat on the couch, tucking her legs underneath herself. “My sordid past.”
    â€œIt gets sordid?”
    She smiled. “Graham, we only got to high school graduation from a Connecticut boarding school.”
    â€œAnd your decision to quit college after a semester.”
    â€œI was rebelling against my dad. He directed everything. He was a large man, tall, two hundred and fifty pounds. Overbearing. Loud, gruff voice. It wasn’t easy to disagree with him face-to-face. I followed his decree that I study business, but one semester of that and no art was all I could handle. He allowed me to go to Italy for the January term. I didn’t come home. I had enough money