When Love Comes Home. Arlene James

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СКАЧАТЬ that he’d never again think of Thanksgiving as merely a turkey dinner and a football game.

      Chapter Two

      Paige sighed with pure delight and settled comfortably onto the leather seat of the Mercedes. She couldn’t stop smiling. She suspected, in fact, that she’d smiled in her sleep, what little of it she’d managed to get.

      Matthias had insisted that she retire to her bed immediately after dinner, and she had done so simply to humor him. Surprisingly, she’d actually slept a few hours. When the alarm had gone off in the dead of night, she’d awakened instantly to dress in a tailored, olive-green knit pantsuit, her excitement quietly but steadily building.

      Her parting with Matthias, who had insisted on getting up to see her off, had been predictably unemotional. He, more than anyone else, knew what this meant to her, but his pride didn’t allow for overt displays. Paige understood completely. For a man with nothing and no one, pride was a valuable thing, a last, dear possession.

      When they’d heard the vehicle pull up in the yard, Matthias had practically shoved her out the door, rasping that she’d better call if she was going to be returning later than expected. After almost falling over Howler, Paige had climbed into Grady’s sumptuous car, where a welcome warmth blew gently from the air vents.

      Excitement percolating in her veins, Paige unbuttoned her yellow-gold wool coat and removed her polyester scarf before securing her seat belt. Grady Jones had been right to insist that she not drive herself to his office. She was much too anxious to manage it safely.

      “Coffee?” Grady offered as he got them moving. He nodded toward a tall foam cup in the drink holder nearest her.

      His voice and manner were gruff, but she didn’t mind. Even if it had been a decent hour and she hadn’t been on her way—at last!—to her son, Matthias had taught her that gruff was often just a protective mannerism. Besides, it had been thoughtful of Grady to provide the coffee, so even though she rarely drank the stuff, she put on her sweetest smile and thanked him.

      “There’s sugar and cream in the bag,” he said, indicating the white paper sack between them.

      “Black’s fine,” she assured him, unwilling to risk trying to add anything to a cup of hot coffee in a moving vehicle. Saluting him with the drink, she bade him a happy Thanksgiving.

      He inclined his head but said nothing, concentrating on his driving. She noticed that his drink holder contained a metal travel cup emblazoned with the logo of a Texas hockey team. She’d seen the same logo on a framed pennant in Dan Jones’s office. The brothers apparently shared an interest in the game. They seemed to share little else, other than their occupation.

      Besides the obvious physical differences, Dan was friendly and chatty with a quick, open smile, while Grady struck her as the strong, silent type. She felt oddly comfortable with him, safe, though she sensed that he did not feel the same ease in her company. Perhaps he was a loner, then, but a capable one judging by the way he handled the car, and a thoughtful one, too. He’d brought her coffee, after all.

      Smiling, she sipped carefully from her cup and found that the beverage was much less bitter than Matthias’s brew. Then again, what could possibly be bitter on this most thankful of Thanksgivings?

      They traveled for some time in silence while she nursed her coffee and stared out the window. Unsurprisingly, she looked fresh and eager, her big, tilted eyes glowing. That just made Grady feel even more worn and rumpled than usual and did nothing to improve his mood. He knew he ought to say something, but as usual he couldn’t think of anything that seemed to make sense.

      Somewhere along the turnpike southwest of Siloam Springs, she pointed out across the dark hills and valleys, exclaiming, “Oh, look! Christmas lights.”

      Grady turned his head and saw a two-story house outlined in brilliant red. “Little early,” he rumbled without thinking.

      “It is,” she agreed, “but aren’t they pretty?”

      He didn’t say anything. Red lights were red lights, so far as he was concerned. He suggested that she might want to get some sleep. “It’s still an hour or more to Tulsa.”

      “I’ll sleep once my son’s tucked in his own bed again,” she commented softly, and they fell back into silence.

      After a few minutes, he reached for his coffee and was surprised when she said, “So you’re a hockey fan?”

      “Hmm?”

      “It’s on your travel mug.”

      He glanced at the item in question, drank and set the travel cup aside. “Right. Yeah, I like most sports.”

      “Me, too.”

      That surprised him. “Yeah?”

      “Uh-huh, I’m really hopeful about the Hogs’s basketball season, aren’t you?”

      Surprised again. “Football’s more my thing.”

      “Oh, that’s right. You played corner for the Hogs football team, didn’t you?”

      Surprised didn’t cover it this time. “How did you know?”

      “I looked you up on the computer right after my first appointment with your brother.”

      “You looked me—” His gaping mouth must have appeared comical, for she laughed, and the sound of it brightened the interior of the night-darkened car.

      “I have a propensity for trivia, sports trivia in particular. The name sounded familiar to me, so I looked it up.”

      Grady worked at shutting his mouth before he could mutter, “I don’t think that’s ever happened before.”

      “Oh, you might be surprised,” she told him. “There are some big sports fans around. My father was one of them, you see, and having only daughters, he literally pined for someone to discuss statistics with. My older sister, Carol, wasn’t interested. She lives in Colorado now.”

      “And you were? Interested, I mean.”

      “Very. I much preferred sitting in the living room with Dad discussing RBIs and pass completion rates to washing dishes with Mom in the kitchen.” She laughed again.

      “So it was more an attempt to get out of your chores than a real interest in sports,” he surmised.

      She shook her head. “No one got out of chores in our household. I just like knowing things. Information is powerful, don’t you think?”

      Did he ever. “Key to my success as an attorney,” he heard himself say, and then when she asked him to explain that, he did. She asked a question, which he answered, and before he knew what was happening they were in Tulsa.

      He quickly became consumed with finding a parking spot in the crowded terminal lot. As a consequence, it didn’t hit him until he was dragging his briefcase out of the backseat of his car that he’d just spent over an hour in conversation with a woman talking mostly about himself—and he had enjoyed it!

      The thought literally froze him in place for a moment. Then Paige Ellis tossed her plaid scarf around her neck СКАЧАТЬ