Finding His Way Home. Barbara Gale

sent him, no question! Her sister was trying to interfere with her life again. The last time, two years before, she had invited Mellie to come visit. It was summer vacation; Alexis would take her to Disneyland. Not trusting her sister, Valetta had politely declined. All she had to do was recall the time Alexis had offered to send Mellie to boarding school if they would only move back West… Alexis arguing that a girl with Mellie’s background—and future—should have only the best. Valetta had laughed, but it hadn’t taken long before they were enmeshed in another full-blown squabble. They didn’t talk for at least a year after that little skirmish! Their relationship was colored with many such eruptions, but Valetta wanted Mellie’s childhood to remain untainted by her birthright, which, as far as she was concerned, Mellie was going to be kept ignorant of for as long as possible.

      But Alexis wanted Mellie. That was the crux of the matter, as Valetta saw it. With no children of her own, her sister was scheming to get her hands on Valetta’s daughter. No doubt Alexis wanted to groom the heir to the Keane Empire, but Valetta was determined to keep Mellie’s childhood simple. Foolish Alexis, sending Lincoln Cameron to do her dirty work! Well, he was welcome to try, but Valetta was wise to their tricks. Tonight, after Mellie was sleeping, she would hear Lincoln out, smile politely and send him on his way.

      Lincoln stood at the window and watched as Valetta and Mellie drove off. He stood even longer, in a brown study as he watched the gathering clouds. Scanning the leaden, gray sky, he guessed it was going to snow. Although the ground was an icy patch of white, he didn’t think he had actually seen a snowfall in some years. True, he was a sportsman, but his idea of fun was lying on a lounge chair by a pool, after a rough game of tennis. Skiing wasn’t high on his list—hell, it wasn’t even on his list!—unless it was over blue water. Alexis liked to say it addressed his holier-than-thou desire to walk on water. Nevertheless, he shied away from the Alps and had never even been to Switzerland, except to dine—once—in Zurich, on business.

      Still, as he scanned the woods just beyond the narrow driveway, Lincoln allowed that it might not be such a bad thing to spend some time in New England. It might even be rather quaint to sip some cocoa and watch—from the safety of Valetta’s snug little house, of course—the lacy, fat snowflakes catch in the tall pines or drift down to turn the lumpy, brown ground into a smooth, white blanket. Mellie probably adored the snow. Cute kid. No doubt she owned at least a half a dozen sleds, and he’d bet his last dollar Vallie was a pretty mean sledder, herself.

      Vallie. She’d winced when he called her that. She probably hated to be reminded that she had any past beyond Longacre, much less one that included him. But she did, and he would claim it, even in the simple calling of her name.

      And damned if she didn’t have a past he was ignorant of!

       A child!

      A husband. Dead for years, if he understood Mellie correctly, in a terrible accident. But even so.

      And Alexis had never said a word! Not a single blessed word in all the years Valetta had been gone— not a word about Valetta’s marriage or the birth of her child, much less the death of her husband. How could Alexis have allowed her own sister to have borne such grief alone? As coldhearted as Lincoln could be, he would never have been so callous. He would have flown to her side, had he known.

      And to allow Valetta to live in such squalor, he mused, as he studied the shabby kitchen while Mellie’s cats jumped up on the counter and studied him. Well, not precisely squalor, Lincoln chided himself with a short laugh. But there was no hiding the fact that the once-rustic oak kitchen cabinets were battered, that the Formica table where they had shared their morning coffee was badly chipped, and the shiny vinyl-covered chairs were dull from overuse. And a certain little girl seemed very capable of adding to the disorder, if the crayons, coloring books, sticky tape and glitter bottles strewn across the kitchen counter were any indication. Beyond that, though, he had to admit that the place did seem clean. The appliances might be dented but they did shine. And if the floor tiles were faded, nonetheless they seemed to have been recently waxed. No doubt kids were messy, he thought, as he left the kitchen, amused when Mellie’s dog, Yellow, followed on his heels. Okay, you mangy dog, he thought with a smile. We can be friends for today. But you really do need a bath.

      Lincoln knew it was a violation of every canon of good manners, but his curiosity was so strong that nothing was going to stop him. He couldn’t resist—he wouldn’t be human if he had—the opportunity to explore, if not the nooks and crannies of Valetta’s home, the corners of her life. He’d been relieved by her invitation to stay in her home. He was on a hunt, not to ferret out the secrets hidden away in her bureau drawers—he wasn’t dishonorable—but the display readily available to the observant eye, the treasures she had accrued that gave her life meaning, the mementos that defined her. He wanted a glimpse of her keepsakes and trophies and the pictures she had framed so that he could grasp the construct of her life.

      The living room was in a similar state of shabbiness. Recently painted, but not quite finished, it was furnished with the green couch with which he was already familiar, a love seat he’d missed the first time, and a worn but colorful ottoman that had never matched the sofa in the first place. Dried flowers of no distinct bouquet filled a huge, dusty vase, an indifferent attempt at a potpourri. He suspected they were flora plucked during a long-forgotten country walk. Bookshelves filled to overflowing with dust-laden murder mysteries made the room seem more untidy than it was. Scatter rugs were just that—scattered, with no rhyme or reason—over an old pine floor that had unfortunately been painted. One rug seemed a dull gray, with a bit of brown thrown in for highlight, and the other a dull brown with a bit of red for color. Valetta’s talents evidently did not run to decorating, he decided. It never occurred to him that Valetta’s lack of free time could factor in.