The Road to Reunion

by Gina Wilkins

  “Is there a message you would like to send to the family—other than to leave you alone?”

  He found himself looking at her mouth. If she was particularly chagrined that she hadn’t coaxed a commitment out of him, she wasn’t letting it show. Her luscious lips curved into a slight smile as she gazed at him through those thick, dark lashes. A jolt of awareness shot through him, reminding him of the first moment when he had seen her and had been body-slammed by unexpected attraction.

  He mentally shook his head and tried to concentrate on something other than how much time had passed since he’d been with a woman. “A message? I guess you can tell them happy anniversary for me. And you can tell Molly I’m sorry she went to so much trouble on my behalf.”

  One slender eyebrow arched in question. Her smile widened. “Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

  “I don’t—” He eyed her expression. “Oh hell. Surely you’re not—”

  “You never asked my name,” she reminded him. “Have I really changed so much?”

  He felt himself sink more deeply into his chair. An uncharacteristic warmth flowed up his neck and onto his face. Kyle wasn’t often embarrassed—and he was even more rarely taken completely by surprise—but she had just accomplished both. “You’re Molly?”

  She ran her fingers through her curtain of hair, never taking her gaze off him. “I believe you called me ’little Molly’ earlier. Did you think time had stopped since you left the ranch almost a dozen years ago, Kyle?”

  “How old are you?”

  She seemed more amused than offended by the ques tion. “I’ll be twenty-four in a few weeks.”

  Twenty-four. He shook his head slowly in disbelief. Maybe he had thought time had stopped. On the rare occasion when he had pictured Molly, he’d remembered a freckle-faced carrottop with gaps in her teeth and dirt on her face. She had been a bundle of energy, chattering a mile a minute, tagging at her father’s heels whenever he would let her—which was often, since Jared had been able to deny little to his only daughter.

  Having no experience with gregarious little girls, Kyle had been rather intimidated by her then. He willingly admitted that she terrified him now. Talk about trouble in a nicely wrapped package….

  “You’re twenty-nine,” she murmured. “You were almost seventeen when you came to us. You stayed a couple of months after your eighteenth birthday to finish high school, and then you left for boot camp. I was twelve when you went away. I was heartbroken, you know. It always broke my heart when anyone left us.”

  “I remember you cried your eyes out when the kid before me left not long after I got there. His name was Daniel, wasn’t it?”

  “Daniel Castillo—though he uses the last name Andreas now.” Her smile turned radiant. “He’s back in the family now. He recently married my cousin B.J.”

  “No kidding.” He tried to focus on the conversation rather than the way her smile pushed tiny dimples into the corner of her mouth. “I remember her. Her name was Brittany, but she wanted everyone to use her initials, instead.”

  “Everyone pretty much does now—except her mother, who still insists on calling her Brittany.”

  “So she married Daniel.”

  Molly nodded. “It was a whirlwind courtship, and I think it’s fantastic. They’re perfect together—they always were, even when they were teenagers.”

  Kyle suddenly scowled, wondering what the hell he was doing sitting here listening to family gossip from Molly Walker—no longer “little” Molly Walker. If they kept this up, he would find himself all duded up for a silver anniversary party he’d had no intention of attending.

  He shifted in his chair, and pain shot through his left leg and up into his back. The feeling was so familiar, he was able to hide his reactions from Molly—or at least, he thought he had, though her sharp green eyes had suddenly narrowed speculatively.

  “Your five minutes are over,” he reminded her, his bad mood returning with a vengeance.

  Molly thought she had done a pretty credible job of hiding her shock at Kyle’s appearance. She couldn’t help comparing the man in front of her to the photograph that sat in a place of honor in her parents’ living room, along with photos of the other foster sons Jared and Cassie had nurtured during their marriage.

  Kyle’s portrait had been taken at his high school graduation. Wearing a black cap and gown, a gold tassel dangling at one side of his tanned face, he had looked young and healthy. His thick brown hair had been freshly cut, and his amber-brown eyes gleamed with satisfaction. During her teen years, even as her memories of Kyle faded, Molly had found herself studying that photograph occasionally, wondering about Kyle, thinking that of all the nice-looking boys who had passed through her family home, his face had intrigued her the most.

  Had she not known who he was when he had opened his door to her this afternoon, she might never have recognized him as the same person in the photograph. He was almost painfully thin, and he walked with a pronounced limp. The tan had been replaced by a rather scruffy pallor. His day-old beard did little to conceal the uneven scar that now marred his left cheek along the jawline. His hair was disheveled, and needed a good shampooing and styling.

  For just a few moments he had seemed to relax a little with her, and she’d hoped that he was becoming more open to the possibility of attending the party. But then she had seen him flinch, as if in pain, and his expression had abruptly closed.

  “I had hoped you would extend that five-minute deadline a bit once you figured out who I am,” she admitted with a wry smile.

  He didn’t smile back at her. “I’m not trying to be rude, but you really should go before—”

  A shatteringly loud clap of thunder drowned out his words, followed by a deluge of rain that hammered on the roof and rattled the windows.

  “—before the storm gets worse,” Kyle finished with a sigh.

  Molly stood and walked to the window, rather surprised by the violence of the downpour. “Wow. It’s a real gully-washer out there, isn’t it?”

  “To say the least. This is what remains of the tropical storm that hit the coast of South Carolina a couple of days ago. Haven’t you been listening to the weather forecasts?”

  She turned away from the window. “Actually, no. The radio is broken in my car, so I listened to CDs during the drive.”

  Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, his frown deepened. “You didn’t drive here from Dallas?”

  “Well—yes, I did,” she admitted. “It’s about a sixteen-hour drive, so I left at noon yesterday, spent the night in Memphis, then started out again this morning.”

  “Alone?”

  She shrugged. “It was a pleasant drive. The weather’s been nice, at least until I reached Gatlinburg, and I don’t often have a chance to spend time by myself just to think and listen to my favorite music. And the scenery in this area is breathtaking.”

  “I can’t believe your parents allowed you to make a drive like that by yourself.”

  Now it was her turn to frown. “First, I’m almost twenty-four years old, and I no longer have to ask my parents’ permission to leave home for a few days. Second, I wouldn’t have asked them, anyway, because I’m planning a surprise party for them and I don’t want them to know I’m here. And finally, they left almost two weeks ago for a three-week Mediterranean cruise to celebrate their anniversary.”

  “Your brother didn’t have a problem with you coming here?”

  She cleared her throat, resisting an impulse to shuffle her feet like a kid caught in a fib. “I don’t have to answer to Shane, either—but he thinks I’m spending a few days shopping in Houston with a friend from college.”

  “So he wouldn’t approve.”

  “He didn’t want me to pester you about coming to the party after you’d already declined a couple of times. And, no, he probably wouldn’t like the idea of me driving so far by myself—but Shane tends to be overprotective.”

  “He always was when it came to you—and he didn�
��t hold a candle to your father. I have a feeling Jared would pop a vein if he knew what you’ve done.”

  Molly was getting seriously defensive now. She had been trying for the past few years to convince her family that she was no longer a little girl to be indulged and watched over, but a competent young woman who could make her own decisions. She certainly hadn’t expected to have that same battle with Kyle Reeves.

  “I’ll worry about my family’s reactions,” she informed him a bit curtly. “Obviously, I thought it was worth the effort for the chance to talk to you about the party.”

  “I’m sorry you wasted the trip. If you had accepted the answer I sent back by way of your representatives, you would have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t take no for an answer very easily.”

  His mouth quirked in what might have been the merest hint of a smile, though there seemed to be little humor in it. “From what I remember, you never did.”

  She waited through another rumble of thunder, which seemed to echo her annoyance that he still thought of her as the little girl he had known more than eleven years ago. “My parents were very fond of you, Kyle. Your senior picture still sits in the living room, and Mom mentions you every so often with such wistfulness in her voice. It would mean a lot to them if you would come to their party.”

  “I’m really just not a party kind of guy.”

  She didn’t doubt that, especially now that she had seen the isolated cabin where he lived without even a telephone to connect him to the outside world. “I can understand that you might not like large groups of people—even though this will be a casual, no-pressure party where everyone will be welcome and should be comfortable. I think you might even have a good time there, if you would let yourself. But if you can’t make it to the party, at least think about coming to visit Mom and Dad sometime, will you? It’s important to them to know that their boys turned out all right.”

  An odd expression briefly crossed his face, as if it had startled him to be referred to as one of “their boys.” He masked it swiftly as he stood and crossed to the window to look out at the worsening storm. She thought he walked with extra care, perhaps trying to control his limp.

  For several long minutes, neither of them spoke, so that the storm seemed even louder inside the quiet room. It was obvious that she hadn’t gotten through to Kyle at all; he had made it clear that he wanted to be left alone to brood about whatever had happened to him. She was beginning to feel guilty for having come at all, invading the privacy he seemed to value so greatly, ignoring the messages he had already sent.

  She could almost hear her brother saying, “I told you so.” She was sure she would hear those words as soon as she returned to the ranch and told him what she had done. “Maybe I’d better be going. It doesn’t look as though the rain is going to let up anytime soon.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t leave just yet.” He looked glum as he made the announcement in a resigned voice. “You don’t know how dangerous these roads can be in storms like this. Rain falling this hard and this heavily overfills the creeks that run next to the roads, causing them to wash over the pavement. The rushing water can sweep you right off the mountain if you don’t know what you’re doing—or even if you do, in some cases.”

  Molly looked at the window again, which was being pounded by windswept rain so hard it looked as if it were falling horizontally. She couldn’t even see her car now. “Do you think it will last long?”

  His silence was an answer in itself. She bit her lip and wondered how long she was going to be stuck here with a man who wished she were anywhere else.

  Chapter Two

  Resisting an impulse to curse, Kyle pushed away from the window. “I’ve been working out and I’m sweaty. I’ll take a shower and then we’ll decide what to do.”

  He didn’t give Molly a chance to respond. Making an effort to control his limp, he crossed the room toward the hallway. Maybe he’d feel more in control of this situation once he had showered and taken a few minutes to recover from the surprise of finding little Molly Walker all grown up on his doorstep.

  It was just his luck that she had arrived right in the middle of a storm. As much as he wished he could send her on her way, he couldn’t allow her to head out in this weather. The steep, winding roads around here were tricky enough, but the risk of flash flooding was very real under these circumstances. He wished she hadn’t come, but since she had, it looked as though he was going to have to play reluctant host for a few hours.

  At least, he hoped that was all it would take until the roads were safe again. Unfortunately, it was late afternoon, and wet asphalt in the dark wouldn’t exactly be ideal traveling conditions, either.

  Though he was well aware that he was procrastinating, he took his time showering, shaving and dressing in a clean gray T-shirt and comfortably faded jeans. He even ran a comb through his wet hair—not because it mattered particularly how he looked, he assured himself. But being caught off guard had put him at a disadvantage earlier, and he wanted to regain the upper hand in this situation as quickly as possible.

  Finally reassured that he looked presentable, he headed back down the hallway. He was having little success controlling his limp now. He had probably overdone the workout that afternoon. Had Molly not been here, he might have pulled out his cane for the rest of the evening, just to give the leg a rest. Needless to say, her presence meant that wasn’t going to happen.

  Molly wasn’t in the living room. Since he knew she wasn’t in the back of the cabin, that left only the kitchen. But the kitchen, too, was unoccupied and he felt his stomach tighten with nerves. If she had tried to leave, driving down the mountain in this storm…

  The back door was ajar. Muttering a curse, he moved toward it, jerked it open and stepped outside. Protected from the downpour by the overhang that shaded half the deck, Molly stood with her arms crossed, watching the rain sweeping over the cloud-draped mountains. Dark, heavy clouds hid the afternoon sun, turning the landscape into a gray, impressionist scene that seemed to fascinate her.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said, though he hadn’t realized until then that she’d heard him step out beside her.

  He was tempted to agree with her. But because he was all too aware that he wouldn’t have been talking about the scenery, he scowled and motioned toward the door. “Go back inside. You’re so cold your lips are blue.”

  He wasn’t exaggerating much. He could see the goose bumps on her arms, and the tip of her nose was pinkened by the damp, chilly air.

  She gave him a look that told him she didn’t like being given orders now anymore than she had when she was a spunky kid. “I’m fine.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Maybe she felt as though she had made her point. Molly was only a few steps behind him when he walked into the kitchen. Kyle set the teakettle on a burner and pulled two mugs out of a cabinet. “I don’t drink caffeine, but I have several blends of herbal tea,” he said, waving a hand toward the assortment of boxes arranged for easy access. “Pick what you like.”

  He tossed an orange spice tea bag into a mug for himself, then stood aside so Molly could make her own selection. She debated for what he considered to be an absurdly long time over the six selections available to her before finally choosing cinnamon apple. By that time, the kettle was whistling.

  Kyle carried his steaming mug into the living room, leaving Molly to follow if she wanted. She did—and her next comment indicated she had been watching him more closely than he liked.

  “What happened to you, Kyle? How were you injured?”

  “A close encounter with a bomb in the Middle East,” he answered shortly. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Eight months.” And three weeks, and four days. And counting.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.

  He shrugged with practiced nonchalance. “Don’t be. I was luckier than the three guys who wer
e with me and didn’t make it back.”

  It had taken him a while to come to that conclusion, and there were still days when he wondered if his friends had been the lucky ones. He had learned very soon after the attack to hide those feelings, which always drew far too much attention from the military shrinks.

  “Is that why you don’t want to come to the party? Because you were hurt?”

  “No.”

  She seemed completely undaunted by his curt tone.

  “Because if you’re worried that anyone there will think less of you or pity you or anything like that, that would just be silly.”

  Kyle set his mug down with a thump and glowered at his uninvited guest. “Either you like living dangerously, or you’re totally oblivious when it comes to taking hints.”

  Molly sighed and spread her free hand, cradling her tea mug in the other. “It’s the latter, I’m afraid. Shane always says it takes a two-by-four upside the head for me to recognize a hint. He jokes, of course, but he’s not exaggerating by much.”

  “Then let me put it in short, simple words you’ll be sure to understand—I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Molly blinked at him for a moment, then absolutely floored him by smiling broadly. “You sounded just like Daddy when he’s in one of his grumpy moods. Maybe he rubbed off on you more than you realize.”

  Kyle was rendered almost speechless by that artless observation. Grown men had been known to pale when he had spoken to them the way he’d just snarled at Molly. And she just grinned and compared him to her daddy?

  He wondered grimly how much longer it would be before the rain stopped and he could send her safely on her way.

  The visit with Kyle was not going as well as Molly had hoped. She supposed she had been rather arrogant in thinking she could charm him into changing his mind about attending her party. She had thought a little friendly reminiscing, accompanied by a couple of soulful looks and maybe a few winsome smiles would accomplish exactly what she wanted.