Homecoming at Hickory Ridge. Dana Corbit

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      What’d you think, a breaking and entering or a drive-by shooting? He pushed back his chair and stood. With effort, he calmed his breathing as he’d done so many times on the inside. He lowered his voice and leaned close to the brother he’d once admired.

      “I’m not on a tether. I don’t have to check in.”

      Kyle didn’t expect an apology from his holier-than-thou brother, but Brett’s stiff stance surprised him. Stepping back, Kyle crossed his arms and waited.

      “I called Andrew a few minutes ago, and he said you were here.”

      “And you just drove right over?”

      “I didn’t figure—”

      “What? That I should be here? At a prayer meeting dinner?” Kyle’s eyebrows drew together as he studied his big brother. Though Kyle stood two inches taller than Brett’s five-eleven and outweighed him by fifteen pounds, it was hard not to feel outsized by the ten-gallon hat that Brett wore.

      Brett shook his head, appearing to search for the right words.

      Kyle didn’t give him time to find them. “I don’t get it. You agreed to help me get a job, made a call about my apartment—” As realization dawned, he stopped himself, the stab of pain fresh though he should have been immune.

      He stepped closer to his brother, too angry to be intimidated by the uniform and the badge. He spoke in a low voice. “Oh, I get it now. You’re not upset that I work here, just that I’m here with these people.”

      “You’re not making sense, little brother. And you’re making a scene.”

      “As if you racing in here didn’t make one?”

      Brett gripped Kyle’s shoulder, but Kyle shook off his hand and backed out of his reach.

      “It’s okay for me to live in town as long as I keep my head low. And it was okay for you to give me a recommendation at your church. I could work here as long as I stayed invisible. I don’t know how you expected me to do my job that way, but that’s not the point right now. I went too far by socializing here. You don’t want your ex-con brother anywhere near your friends.”

      Trooper Lancaster’s body became still, but he turned his head from side to side. Dread gripped Kyle’s insides as he glanced at the startled faces around him. He’d forgotten their audience, and from the way everyone scattered and pretended to be involved in their own conversations he realized he’d been overheard.

      Brett turned back to him, his eyes narrowed. “You’re a one-man demolition team. You destroy everything in your path. Just like always.”

      “Maybe there’s a quota. Only one perfect son per family.”

      “You’re not worth it.”

      It was only a frustrated comment that Brett made under his breath, but Kyle didn’t miss it. He lied to himself, saying it didn’t bother him. Brett glanced around once more and then stalked toward the door. In his life, Kyle had never followed his older brother’s example, but it didn’t sound like a bad idea now.

      He took two steps, catching Julia’s image in his peripheral vision. A wave of melancholy filtered over him. It was best that she found out now, before she thought they could be friends or something. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be friends with a guy like him, anyway. The people around her probably had award lists…not rap sheets. None of that mattered. He didn’t need friends. He didn’t need anyone.

      Still, one look at her wouldn’t hurt. He turned his head toward her, hoping to steal a parting glance. He expected her to look away, to begin a conversation with someone else, to busy herself doing something—anything—so she didn’t have to see him. But as his gaze touched her lovely face, she was doing none of those things. She was staring right at him.

      Chapter Two

      Julia stared into Kyle’s wary hazel eyes, and she couldn’t have looked away if a tornado had struck the church, collapsing the roof on all of them. The things Kyle and his brother had said to each other caused a powerful ache to build inside her, as if she had been a target of those hurtful words. Destructive words. Phrases that could never be taken back.

      Kyle must have worn some protective armor to shield him from his brother’s comments. At least it seemed that way since he wasn’t watching the door through which his brother had disappeared but instead continued to stare at her as if daring her to look away. Did he think she was the kind of person who would go screaming in the other direction at the word ex-con?

      Okay, he couldn’t know what kind of person she was, and the term did make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she didn’t long for her running shoes. That Kyle worked at Hickory Ridge Community Church made this new information easier to digest. Reverend Bob and Andrew Westin would never have hired Kyle if his crime made him a possible danger to church members or their children.

      With a silence in the room so profound she could hear her heartbeat in her ears, Julia waited while those eyes continued to study her. Sage eyes that had probably seen far more than she had in her twenty-seven years. He seemed to search inside her for something more than she could give. She wanted to believe she was above judging a person for his past, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

      Still, Kyle looked away first. He glanced at the exit and then strode toward it, his hands striking the handle with a bang as he passed through the doorway. The door fell closed behind him.

      Glancing around her, Julia found other church members watching the door as if they expected Kyle to reemerge through it. She doubted that would happen. He didn’t know many people here. And from the scene they’d all just witnessed, he didn’t even have a decent relationship with his brother, the only person in town he probably did know well.

      Did he feel alone? She knew what that felt like. After her parents’ deaths, despite her faith, she’d felt adrift while the rest of the world appeared solidly anchored. But Charity had been there for her. The half sister she’d barely known had reached out to her, even encouraging her to move to Milford so what remained of their family could be together. Who was there for Kyle? Who would draw him into a circle of friends? The answer was clear: he had no one.

      Before her mind had the chance to rethink her plan, Julia hurried to the door. She didn’t glance back, knowing curious eyes would follow her. Kyle needed somebody, and it didn’t look as if anyone else was volunteering for the job. Even someone as apprehensive as she was had to be better than no one at all.

      Her cross-trainers tripping along the carpeted walkway, Julia reached the outside only to find the parking lot quiet, the cars of families attending the prayer meeting and choir practice filling half the spaces.

      Disappointment filled her. Maybe it was true what her father used to say about her: he’d called her a champion for underdogs, a collector of strays. Injured birds, lost kittens, new kids in town—they all ended up in a warm box inside the door or at their kitchen table.

      This time none of that would be enough. Not enough to help a guy as scarred as Kyle likely was behind his armor. Rubbing her bare arms and wishing she’d remembered to grab her sweater, she started back toward the church entrance.

      Somewhere behind her an ignition turned over, but the vehicle didn’t start. Its driver СКАЧАТЬ