THE HOMECOMING

by Maggie Shayne

  "How do you know that?" Luke asked.

  "My wholesome wife, my wholesome sister, my wholesome sisters-in-law—they're not beneath snooping. And it's a small town, so snooping ain't all that difficult. If anyone else were planning to bid on this old place at that tax auction, we'd know about it by now. They aren't."

  Sighing deeply, Luke looked at his rig, all shine and polish, in the dirt driveway. She gleamed under the bright Texas sunshine like a gem in a spotlight. "Hell, I can't say I won't miss her," he said. "But I got a hell of an offer on her."

  "You gonna take it?"

  "Already did," Luke said. "The buyer will be here this afternoon to pick her up. He's paying me enough to buy this place outright."

  "It'll take a lot of fixing up, you know." Garrett gripped the old iron railing on the flagstone steps, gave it a shake. It wobbled loosely back and forth.

  "Like I could have rented this place for three months and not figured that one out?"

  Garrett shrugged. "It's solid, though, at the heart of it. Just needs some surface work done."

  "Of course it's solid—it's made of brick. This is the one that even the Big Bad Wolf couldn't blow down." He slid his gaze over the faded red brick, the thick green vines twisting up the sides, with huge pink blossoms trumpeting every few inches. Both floors were lined with arched, stone-silled windows, the bricks around them turned lengthwise in fancy fan patterns. "They don't build them like this anymore."

  "And don't forget the best part," Garrett said. "It's right next door to the Texas Brand."

  "Key selling point," Luke said, and they both laughed.

  Garrett's smile faded, and a sincere expression took its place. "I'm glad you came to us, Luke. And even more glad that you're staying."

  Lowering his head, Luke shook it slowly. "You all made me feel like family right from the first. That's something I've never had. Never thought I could have."

  "You are family. Don't forget that. In a family where family comes first, that means a whole lot." Garrett grinned. "Now I'm gonna head home before I wax any more sappy than I already have. See you for dinner, right?"

  "Depends. Whose turn is it to cook?"

  "Mine," Garrett said. "I'm barbequing ribs. You don't want to miss that."

  "Trust me, I won't."

  Garrett smiled from ear to ear and turned to go, his long strides eating up the distance to his oversize pickup nearby.

  Luke stood there a moment on the porch of his new home, the place where he'd come to find his roots, to start over, to make something of his own. He walked slowly to the rig, where she sat in the driveway. "Well, old girl, I guess this is just about it. We've come to a fork in the road. You're goin' one way, and I'm goin' the other." He took off his duck-billed bulldog hat, opened the truck door and gently set it on the seat. Closing the door again, he headed back to the house, up the stone stairway, across the porch. He took another hat from the rack just inside the door. The Stetson of dark brown felt, with the leather hatband around it. He put it on.

  He'd been switching hats for a while now. One day thinking of staying here and wearing the cowboy hat. The next day, aching for the open road and wearing his Mack hat. But today he knew he'd made a decision. He adjusted the Stetson on his head. And it felt right.

  "This is it, baby," Jasmine said softly.

  Baxter stirred beside her. He'd fallen asleep miles and miles ago. For a while Jasmine hadn't been at all sure that she would ever find this place, tucked out here, in the middle of nowhere. But now she knew she had. She looked at the photo that had been in the package addressed to Jenny Lee Walker. Her beautiful, gentle Rosebud. The big old brick house her headlights picked out of the dark Texas night was identical, right down to the vines clinging to one side. And the directions the lawyer had included in the package had been pretty close, too. She'd only gotten lost twice.

  Rosebud's mother had left her this place. And Rosebud had no one else but Jasmine. She had been like a sister to Jasmine—like a second mom to Baxter, and Jasmine knew Rosebud had loved them as much as she could love anyone. She would have wanted it this way. And with the way things had happened—well, it almost seemed predestined. Rosebud was dead. Jasmine was on the run with Rosebud's bag—her ID, credit cards and driver's license—and that big envelope from the lawyer containing directions to the old house that belonged to Rosebud now, all in her back seat. Well, with all of that, it was easy to believe that maybe this was the way it was supposed to happen. It seemed way beyond the realm of coincidence.

  At any rate, she was here now. At Rosebud's house. Jenny Lee's. She had to remember to call herself Jenny Lee. This wasn't Chicago. It wasn't a city, and the women here didn't use stage names. A Jenny Lee could blend in here, hide for a while in this haven while she decided what to do. A Rosebud would stand out.

  She shut the car off in the driveway and removed the keys. The headlights went out, plunging the house into darkness. God, it was dark here. A thousand stars dotted the sky, but there was no moon tonight. Not a streetlight to be found. Jasmine opened the car door and heard the chirping, humming insects. She took a breath and smelled the sweetest smell on the wind. Flowers, maybe the ones on those vines that clung to the house.

  Dark here, she mused, wasn't as scary as dark in Chicago. Dark here smelled good, and it had a musical backup that didn't include honking horns and screaming sirens. She was overcome suddenly with the feeling that she had done the right thing. Baxter would be safe here.

  She shouldered Rosebud's bag—her bag now—scooped her sleepy son up into her arms and pushed the car door closed with her hip. "Look, baby," she said softly. "See this nice house? Hmm? It's far, far away from everything bad, Baxter. It's safe here. And it's just gonna be you and me from here on in. No one will ever hurt you, or scare you like that ever again. Okay?"

  "But … but, Mom, whose house is this?" He tugged his glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.

  She sniffed. "It's your Aunt Rosebud's, baby. She only found out about it the other day. She wants us to stay here, to be safe."

  "So those bad men won't find us?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  He nodded, squirmed out of her arms and stood on his feet, holding her hand in one of his, rubbing his eyes with the other. Jasmine started forward. Baxter planted his feet.

  "What is it, baby?" she asked, looking down at him.

  "Are you sure they can't find us here?" He looked up at her, so trusting, so frightened. "I'm sure, Baxter."

  "They found Aunt Rosebud, didn't they, Mom?"

  She closed her eyes.

  "I saw," Baxter said softly. "You told me to stay down on the floor, but I didn't, Mom. I saw those men taking somebody away in an ambulance. It was Aunt Rosebud, wasn't it? That's why we didn't go pick her up and bring her with us … isn't it, Mom?"

  Sniffling, Jasmine nodded. "Yeah, baby. But I don't want you to worry about your Aunt Rosebud anymore. She's with the angels now."

  Baxter looked at the sky. A giant tear rolled down his face, from beneath his glasses, over his cheek. "I'm gonna miss you, Aunt Rosebud."

  Closing her eyes to prevent her own tears from spilling over, Jasmine scooped Bax up again, into her arms. He wrapped his legs around her waist and his arms around her neck like a little spider monkey, and she carried him across the worn driveway and up the wide flagstone steps to the porch. There had been a key in that packet from the lawyer. She held the key in her hand now. But when she braced the screen open with her hip and gripped the doorknob with a free hand, she found it turned freely. The place wasn't even locked. That was odd.

  She pushed the door open and stepped inside, into darkness. Her hands groped for a light switch. She really didn't expect much of a result when she snapped it on. But the room flooded with light anyway.

  Blinking, she looked around, not understanding what she was seeing. The place was clean, neat, furnished. A brick fireplace faced her like a centerpiece, a few items resting on its stone hearth. A tacky red ceramic bull.
A silver candle holder with no candles in it. A framed photograph of a semi truck. What the hell? To the left a huge archway led to another room, and a dark stairway led to the second floor. To the right were tall narrow windows, hung with dark green drapes. The furniture was mismatched. An overstuffed chair with a leafy green print. A dark brown corduroy recliner that listed a bit to the right. A blue floral camel back sofa with what looked like a wool horse blanket thrown over the back. The blanket was striped, brown, black, gray and white, with fringe on the ends. A big oval braided rug covered most of the floor, but she could see the hardwood underneath around the edges. There was an odd-shaped coffee table that looked like a slice straight out of a giant redwood, with legs attached. The thing gleamed under layers of shellac and still had bark around the outer edges. And on that table was a coffee cup. With a tiny bit of dark brew still in the bottom. She turned to look back at the door she'd just entered. A cowboy hat hung from a peg beside it.

  Okay. Okay, so maybe she should have read all the papers in that envelope of Rosebud's before heading down here. But damn, she'd been driving for two days, almost nonstop. And there had been sheaves of documents in that envelope. There just hadn't been time. She'd wanted to get away, far away, from men who fired guns at innocent little boys.

  She shouldn't have expected it to be easy. "I'm so tired, Mom."

  Sighing, she hugged Baxter tight, then laid him down on the sofa and pulled the striped blanket over him. "You go on to sleep now, Bax. Everything's gonna be just fine. You'll see. Just go to sleep."

  He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side, snuggling under the covers. Jasmine pulled off his glasses and set them on the coffee table. She stayed beside Baxter, stroking his head gently, until he was sound asleep. Then, with a sigh, she got up, went to the door and turned the locks. She checked every window in the living room, making sure their locks were fastened, as well.

  Someone was living here. No doubt about that. But whoever it was, they were obviously not home right now. The place was pitch-dark, and no vehicle had been in the driveway. Maybe by the time they got back she would have figured out exactly what Rosebud's legal rights were here.

  She took the shoulder bag, her smaller handbag tucked deep inside it, and stepped through the archway. Finding a light switch, she flicked it on and stared into a giant of a room. A counter separated the dining room part from the kitchen part. She spotted the back door at the far end of the kitchen, made sure it was locked, and checked the windows in this portion of the house, as well. And then, finally feeling relatively safe, she hauled the big envelope out of Rosebud's bag and emptied its contents onto the table. She needed to figure out exactly what the situation was here. She'd expected to find an empty, abandoned house awaiting her, not one that was obviously being lived in. Rosebud's mother had been in a nursing home for the past two years, as far as Jasmine knew. So who'd been staying in her house? Thank goodness, she'd arrived while they were away. At least she'd caught one lucky break.

  Her eyes felt dry and heavy as she sat at the dining room table and started reading through the documents in front of her. She wondered vaguely if whoever had been here had left any of that coffee around and decided to find out.

  Luke heard something downstairs but dismissed it, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. He still wasn't used to sleeping in a big bed in the middle of an even bigger bedroom. He'd thought his sleeper unit had plenty of room. But even with the double king-size model, it had been like a closet compared to this. So much space around him. Hell, he'd barely slept at all for the first few weeks. And he hadn't been used to the noise, either. Oh, he heard noises all night long when he slept in his rig off an exit or in a rest area. But not these kinds of noises. He was used to horns, traffic, slamming doors, radios blasting. The noises out here were different. Crickets singing nonstop. Night birds calling soft and sad. Coyotes crying like they'd lost their best friend. The wind moaning sometimes, as it moved on past. The house creaking.

  It smelled different here, too. Instead of diesel fumes and the exhaust of truck-stop fryers, the scent of honeysuckle drifted through the open window on a breeze, mingling with the sweet smells of lush meadow grasses and wildflowers. And fresh-brewed coffee.

  Luke's eyes opened wide. Coffee? Wait a minute, that wasn't right.

  He came more fully awake and sniffed the air. Yes, that was definitely a coffee aroma floating up the stairs to tickle his senses. Sitting up slowly, frowning, he glanced at the glowing green numbers on his bedside clock and wondered who the heck would have come creeping into his house at three in the morning to make coffee.

  One of his cousins, he thought, flinging back the covers. Maybe someone was in some kind of trouble. Wait a minute! Maybe one of the babies was coming! Wes's wife, Taylor, was expecting her first baby any day now, as was Esmeralda, Elliot's strange young bride. Maybe one of the newest members of his long-lost family was in the process of arriving!

  Luke got to his feet with a little surge of excitement building in his chest. He pulled on his jeans and thrust his arms into the long sleeves of a western shirt he didn't bother snapping up. Barefoot, he headed down the stairs of the home that would be his the second the formality of the auction was over, a week from now.

  Light spilled from the dining room, so he stepped out there, then he blinked and rubbed his eyes and looked again.

  A woman was standing at his counter, her back to him, pouring freshly brewed coffee into his favorite mug. She had big hair. Big black glossy hair that fell in riots of curls clear to the middle of her back. She wore skintight leggings that hugged her round butt so tightly that it looked as if she wore a thin coat of black paint instead of pants. They were just as tight down her thighs, and then down to the spike-heeled boots on her feet. There was an inch of toned flesh between where the pants ended and where the shirt began—if it could be called a shirt. It was made of metallic mesh so he could see right through to the bra or whatever she wore underneath. Right now it was merely a thin black strip across her back, beneath the silver mesh of the blouse.

  "Excuse me?" he said, when he could find his voice.

  The woman whirled so fast her coffee sloshed over the sides of the cup and her big dangling earrings jangled like bells. Her eyes were as wide as saucers—huge dark eyes, lined in black, darkly shadowed lashes so thick they had to be fake. Lips so plump and red they looked like juicy ripe berries. He didn't think he'd ever seen so much makeup on one face before—'cept maybe on the dancing girls in Vegas. She didn't say anything, just took a step backward and reached for something. He heard rattling.

  "Didn't mean to startle you, ma'am." He held up both hands, starting toward her. "I mean, I'm not gonna call the police or anything. Just curious as to what you're doing in my house in the middle of the night. Besides making coffee, I mean." He moved still closer.

  She lifted a butcher knife. He saw it, went still and noticed her long, long nails, the bright red polish and the little glittery stones affixed to each one. "You're, uh … not from around here, are you?" he asked her.

  "Who are you?" she asked him. "What do you want?"

  "What do I want?" He shook his head, his humor fading fast. "Put the knife down."

  She only lifted it higher.

  "Okay, fine, I'll start. And I'll talk over the knife." He glanced sideways at the phone. Wondered what his chances were of dialing Garrett's place before she could sink that blade into his back deep enough to kill him. Wondered why the hell she would want to. "I'm Luke Brand. And this is my place."

  She shook her head fast. "You're lying. Roseau—my mother left me this house in her will. It's mine, not yours, and I want to know what you're doing trespassing."

  "Whoa, whoa, just a minute. Okay, it isn't my place … yet. But I do live here." He followed her gaze to the papers strewn all over the table. "You see, this place is about to be auctioned for back taxes. You've made some kind of mistake. Now, I'm not gonna hold a grudge. You just put the knife down and gather up your papers a
nd be on your way."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  He took another step toward her, and she brandished the knife, slashing with it, though he was pretty sure she didn't have any intention of cutting him. Still, it pissed him off. "Hell, that's about all of that I can take," he said. His hand shot out, capturing hers at the wrist. She punched him in the belly with her free hand, so he snapped his arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him, holding her empty arm pinned between his body and hers. Her knife-wielding hand was still in his grip.

  She stared up at him, wide-eyed, panting. "Let me go," she whispered.

  He stared right back down at her. "Drop the knife."

  "Never."

  Luke shrugged. "Fine. I can hold you like this all night." But the words made him uncomfortably aware of her body there against his. Firm, tight little body, he thought. She felt like an athlete in his arms.

  "Drop the knife," he said again.

  "Go to hell," she replied.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  The man was long and tall and hard all over. Lean, and strong. Not soft and fleshy like the men she was used to fending off after hours at The Catwalk. She wouldn't be able to best him in a fight. But she wasn't going to surrender her only weapon, either, leaving Baxter defenseless in the next room.

  The man held her for a long time. He was warm and clean. He smelled like the air here. Fresh and sweet, but with a subtle musky scent underlying all that—man scent. With his shirt open and his chest bare, it would be impossible not to notice. Especially since, at the moment, he was holding her pretty firmly against that bare chest. Her nose was almost touching it, her lips only a breath away.

  Finally, with a sigh, he said, "I'm gonna be mad as hell if you slice me with my own knife, lady."

  "I won't cut you unless you give me reason," she said.

  "I won't give you reason. Hell, I like women."

  She swallowed hard, certain he was up to something. "How stupid would I have to be to put the knife down?" she said. "I'm a woman, alone in the house with a man I don't know. So just let me go."