The Road to Reunion. GINA WILKINS

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      The place probably looked stark and primitive to this hothouse flower. Good. Maybe she wouldn’t be tempted to stay beyond her allotted time.

      Though he didn’t invite her to sit, she settled onto the battered, secondhand, brown leather couch, anyway. Much too conscious of her gaze on him, he made an effort to control his limp as he moved to the nearest of two brown-and-tan plaid recliners and sank into it.

      “Let me save you a little time. You want to extend an invitation for me to attend a surprise anniversary party for Jared and Cassie Walker next week. All their former foster boys are invited. Shane and Molly are putting the whole thing together and little Molly will be very disappointed if I don’t make an appearance. Has that pretty well summed up what you were planning to say?”

      She laid one arm across the back of the couch, looking as comfortable as if she were a regular visitor to his home. “You’ve stated it pretty well.”

      “I’ve heard the pitch a couple of times before.”

      “I know.”

      “Molly and Shane are persistent, I’ll give them that. I’ve never been so aggressively ’invited’ to a party before.” “You were special to the family, and they’ve missed you. It would mean a great deal to them for you to be there.”

      “The Walkers have had a whole string of foster boys at the ranch. They won’t miss one at their reunion.”

      “Everyone will have a good time even if you don’t come,” she conceded. “But it will be even better if you’re there.”

      “I’m sorry, that isn’t possible.”

      She studied his face a moment, then sighed lightly. “Then you’re right. We should leave you alone.” Finally. He nodded curtly. “I appreciate it.”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ