Free Finding Home by Ann Vaughn Page A

didn’t want her
to think he was some sex obsessed Neanderthal, but she felt so good.  And
he knew that was no excuse.
    With a groan, he pulled back. 
Sarah was looking up at him and the look on her face nearly melted him. 
Total trust shone in her eyes. 
    “Don’t stop,” she whispered.
    “Baby,” he started, but she leaned up
and captured his mouth.  He held her tight and returned her kiss and
determined to let her drive what would happen next.  He had no doubt she
would have given him everything had her doorbell not rung just then.
    “Ignore it,” she said when he pulled
back.
    He started to lean back down to her
but stopped when they heard a kid’s voice calling for her.  Sarah
stiffened, eyes wide and then scrambled up from under him.  Adjusting her
clothes, she scrambled to the door, yanking it open.
    “Evan?  What’s wrong?”
    He gave her a funny look she couldn’t
quite place.  “There’s a truck in your driveway,” he stated.
    She raked her fingers through her
hair.  “Yes, I have company.”
    Evan’s face changed and she knew that
Colt must have walked up behind her, and that the boy recognized him.  She
saw Evan’s eyes dart to her then back over her shoulder to take in all that was
Colt.
    “You must be Evan,” Colt said,
extending his hand to the pre-teen.  “I’m Colt.  You pitched a good
game a couple of weekends ago.”
    “Thanks,” Evan said, shaking Colt’s
hand.  “I didn’t know you knew Sarah.”
    “We met a few weeks ago,” Sarah told
him.  “Did you need anything, Evan?”
    “Huh?  Oh, no, I just wanted to
check on you and see if you were coming to my game later today.”
    Sarah smiled at him, touched at his
sweetness.  She knew he considered her to be like a big sister to him and
it meant something to her that he was checking up on her.
    “I will be there,” she promised him.
    “OK, cool.  I guess I’ll see you
later then.”
    “See ya,” she echoed, then shut the
door.  She turned to face Colt, seeing that he’d put his shirt back on,
though had only done up a few of the buttons, so that his tattoo was
showing. 
    “So, the tattoo.  What does it
symbolize?”
    “It’s a Samoan tribal design, with
some Aztec symbols worked in here and there,” he replied.
    “Any particular meaning behind it?”
    He shrugged.  “Some.  I
guess the most prevalent one would be Strength.”
    She stepped closer to him, her hands
going to his buttons.  “May I see it up close?”
    “Be my guest,” he answered.
    She bit her lip and opened his shirt,
smoothing it off his shoulder.  The design took up his entire left
pectoral, encompassed his shoulder and upper arm and continued on down his
shoulder blade in the back.  To be honest, she’d never really cared much
one way or the other about tattoos, but looking at his now, she decided his was
really freaking hot!  But then, she conceded, she thought everything about
Colt was hot.
    “It’s really cool,” she said, tracing
her hand over his muscles.  “I don’t think I could ever sit still long
enough for something like that…especially not where needles are involved.”
    A dimple appeared in his cheek. 
“You get used to it.”
    As she circled around him, letting
her hand slide along his tattoo, she felt puckered flesh under her fingers and
then noticed where the smoothness of the swirls in the design were
distorted.  She felt his muscles tense as she traced the scar then slowly
moved back around to his front, looking up at him in question.
    “What happened?” she asked quietly,
surprised she hadn’t noticed it when she had her hands on him last night.
    “Got shot,” he replied.
    “In the Army?”  He nodded. 
“But, I thought you guys wore Kevlar.”
    “This one got under it.  Shot
came in from an angle.”
    “Was it life-threatening?”
    “Not really.  It was toward the
end of the fight and I got treatment not too long after receiving it, so I was
OK.”
    Overcome, she stood on her