Home At Last. Deborah Raney

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      “Why?”

      “Do I have to have a motive?”

      “Men usually do.”

      “Um, would it be the wrong answer if I said I thought you were really pretty, and I like talking to you?”

      She couldn’t hide the smile that came. Or the surprise. “That would be a good answer, I guess.”

      “That would be the truth.”

      “Well, alrighty then. When were you thinking this date would happen?”

      “Can you do Sunday? I’m working some overtime until after Christmas, so Sunday night’s about the only time I’m free the rest of the year. Unless you want to do an early breakfast.”

      “You mean like three a.m.? Because I have to be down here to work at four.”

      “Oh.” Link’s eyes got big. “Then Sunday’s it, I guess. That work?”

      She frowned. Daddy wasn’t going to like this. At all. “I’ll have to see about a babysitter.”

      “You babysit on Sundays too?”

      She forgot she hadn’t explained the situation. “Portia lives with us. My brother’s . . . not exactly in the picture right now.”

      “Oh. What about Portia’s mother?”

      “Not in the picture either.”

      “Oh. Wow . . . I’m sorry.”

      She shrugged. And considered just telling him everything right off the bat. Let him reject her before he wasted any time or money on a date. But there was something different about him. She wasn’t sure what, but she wasn’t willing to let him go so easily. “It is what it is,” she said finally.

      “We could take her with us—Portia. If that’s okay with you. And if it’s okay with your dad . . . or whoever you have to check with.”

      For some crazy reason, that made her smile. “I have to check with me, myself, and I. I’m pretty much it where Portia’s concerned.” She tilted her head, studying him. “You sure you want to take a five-year-old with us on a date?”

      “Sure. Why not?”

      “I’m not sure you’re counting the cost here. She can be a little feisty.”

      “You haven’t been to a Whitman family dinner yet. Eight little rug rats running around screaming their heads off, coloring on the walls, climbing the curtains, wiping their sticky fingers—and runny noses—on everything”—he made a face—“every Tuesday. I sometimes sit right there at the kids’ table. And live to tell the tale.”

      She laughed. “Okay, okay. You convinced me.” But he’d said yet. You haven’t been to a Whitman family dinner yet. Somehow she couldn’t picture herself and Portia at a table with the Whitman family. Just like she’d never been able to picture herself at a table with her mother’s family. Or wanted to. And for good reason.

      She’d been out to the inn before, delivering baked goods. It was a fancy house. And Mrs. Whitman—Link’s mother—was a fancy lady. The kind that wore makeup and earrings around the house.

      Shayla shook off the comparison. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. If she ever did. She frowned. “You don’t really sit at the kids’ table?”

      He shrugged a shoulder. “Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself someday.”

      Chapter 4

      4

      Link walked backwards to the curb, watching Shayla Michaels move around inside the bakery. When he finally turned and approached his pickup, he caught his reflection in the window in the last inkling of daylight—and realized he was smiling.

      A rare occurrence recently, according to his biggest sister. His smile widened, imagining how Corinne would chide him if he referred to her as “biggest” to her face. “Oldest sister, buddy. Use your words,” she’d say. And then, of course, he’d have to give her a hard time about how ancient she really was at the ripe old age of thirty-three.

      He loved all his sisters, and most of the time he didn’t mind the way they mother-henned him to death. Even Landyn, who was his little sis, somehow managed to boss him around.

      Mom always said—only half joking—that Link’s poor wife would pay for all the damage his sisters had done to him with their coddling. But he wasn’t too concerned.

      What he was concerned about was the fact that he’d somehow ended up asking a girl for a date! A girl with a kid . . . even if it wasn’t her own. And a girl who was about as far as she could possibly be from the list he’d written out when he was sixteen or seventeen: “The Woman I Want to Marry.” The list had been some youth group exercise, if he remembered right. He wasn’t even sure why he’d participated. He couldn’t have cared less about being married back then. All through college even.

      It wasn’t until his two older sisters started settling down with their husbands, and then Tim married Bree, and Link started thinking marriage looked like a pretty good deal. He’d just never met the right woman.

      His sisters accused him of being too picky. He hadn’t gotten any less picky as the years went by, but even so, Shayla wasn’t anything like the elusive—imaginary—woman on his list. Not only because she wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed, but because Shayla had no doubt been raised very differently than he had. A whole ’nother culture.

      He checked the thought. That wasn’t fair. He was making assumptions based mostly on the color of her skin. But he also knew enough after their conversation just now to guess that they might not be on the same page on a lot of things.

      Not that he wanted to end up with a female carbon copy of himself. But if that list—the one that had silently guided him for over a dozen years now—held any weight, Shayla wasn’t even on the radar. Actually, if the list held any weight, he’d be marrying a carbon copy of his sisters.

      He climbed into the pickup and backed out. Slowly, remembering the events of this morning. The ice had melted from the streets, but he knew he’d drive a lot more carefully for a long time to come.

      He thought about Shayla and how different she’d seemed this afternoon compared to this morning when she’d looked like she wanted to kill him. There was something about her that drew him. And had from the first time he’d ever spoken to her. He didn’t think it was his imagination that she felt it too. There was definitely a spark there.

      He pulled into the parking lot at work and tried to shift gears and quit thinking about the events of the day. That was one thing he liked about his job: it required a measure of concentration that kept him from dwelling on any problems he might have.

      Not that he had anything to complain about. He’d had a lot of good things happen in his lifetime, and he’d lived long enough to recognize that not everyone was blessed with the kind of life he enjoyed. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing in his life. Something the rest of his family had because they had families. He СКАЧАТЬ