Almost Home. Debbie Macomber

could no more have refused Aiden’s invitation than I could have invited a boa constrictor to give my neck a good squeeze.

      In fact, I hadn’t said no a single time as we’d laughed, talked, and danced our way through the last four days. Plus, I was beginning to think about using paintbrushes as weaponry, so I knew I needed a break.

      “I’m going back to Seattle tomorrow. I’ve been here much longer than I intended so I could hang out with you and your smile. I’m going to write the story, Chalese, it’s going to print, and then I’m coming back. We’ll work through the fallout together, and I’ll be here to hold your hand. I promise.”

      I had two raging emotions battling for space in my head. One: dead panic. And two: liquid, swirling, joyous joy. Aiden wanted to come back and see me!

      “I don’t want to invade your life.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “I don’t want to pressure you. I haven’t asked you to marry me, so there’s no need for you to feel suffocated, but you’re too good of a fisherwoman for me to let you go.” He winked at me. So intimate, so sweet.

      The wind whipped our hair back as I giggled. We’d gone fishing two days ago and ended up kissing in a rowboat I borrowed from Gina. The rowboat capsized. It was one of the funniest things that had ever happened to me. The fish we caught had been lost.

      “I can’t be anything but honest here. The first time I saw you, scratched up from the skylight adventure, dressed in leather, grouchy, I felt this … I don’t even know how to say it. It was as if I was seeing my future. You are the most unique woman I’ve ever met. You live your life so fully, with courage and caring. You’re independent and talented and a heckuva lot of fun.”

      “Even when I’m struggling back onto a rowboat?”

      “Especially then. You walk your dogs at odd hours, you have a thing for your pajamas, you dance well in the sand, you laugh from your heart, and you’re dedicated to four-legged creatures.”

      He wrapped our linked hands behind my back.

      “And you’re sexier than hell. Every bit of you.”

      I thought of my burgeoning bottom and my hot flashes.

      Oh, well. If he thought they were sexy, who was I to argue? “So when we went biking through the mud and I crashed into you, that didn’t appear to be a warning that I wasn’t the right one?”

      He laughed. “No, not at all.”

      “And when we hiked to Constitution Point and it started to pour down rain and I suggested we do a waltz, that also wasn’t a bad sign?”

      “Not at all. Kissing you in the rain was one of the best things that has happened to me in years.”

      “They were wet kisses,” I commented.

      “True. I’m going to come back, and I want to see you again for more wet kisses. Many times. Please, Chalese. Say yes.”

      For an answer, I leaned in, stood on tiptoe, and kissed his neck. Once, twice, three times. “Whatever you say, Reporter Man.” Pain rippled through my body. I hoped that this would not be the last time I would kiss this man.

      The ferry captain tooted the horn, a long, low screech. I jumped out of Aiden’s arms at the noise. Up in the captain’s booth, my friend Jonathan Solberg waved.

      I kissed Aiden again, right on the mouth, and he kissed me back, taking control of that kiss, which was sexier than all get-out.

      I would remember that kiss, I knew it. When I was old and gray and leaning on a walker, that windy kiss on the ferryboat would make me smile.

      I worked until three o’clock in the morning.

      I drew my strutting rooster and my busy-body chickens. I drew the blue ocean in back of them. I drew Gordon, the anxiety-ridden horse. I drew my barn. And I wrote the dialogue between the animals as they figured out who would be president of the farm.

      Goose couldn’t simply take over because she wanted to, and Fox couldn’t be president, because he was threatening to eat the chickens unless they voted for him. Donkey couldn’t be president, because he had been bribing the other animals, telling the pigs he would bring them donuts if they voted for him.

      Next I wrote the speech that presidential candidate Cassy Cat gave to her fellow animals. Cassy Cat is a smart, calm cat who wants everyone to have a voice in her government, even the old horses, the weird new goat from a farm with a name no one can pronounce, and the duck with the green feathers who is different from all the other ducks.

      I drew and wrote until I couldn’t see straight.

      I turned off the light, but dancing before my eyes was Aiden Bridger, with his full lips, knowing green eyes, fishing pole in hand. Next to him was a giant newspaper article, my real name all over it next to my books, along with all the old photos, the old scandal, and my latest arrest for the skylight-busting incident.

      I trusted Aiden. But after this, he would probably never trust me.

      I conked my head on my table.

      For the next five days, I worked fiendishly. Hardly moved except to go and help Christie, who was crying because she didn’t know why she was crying. I made her pancakes with applesauce and crushed potato chips, as she requested, then put her to bed, as she was the size of a house. She smelled like baby powder and roses, as always.

      “Mommy has some big, fat babies in her tummy,” Wendi Jo, her daughter, whispered.

      “Yeah. I felt the babies in there,” Jeremiah said. He’s four. “One kick my hand. He wearing soccer cleats. I felt ’em.”

      “How they gonna come out?” Rosie Mae asked, three years old. “She got a zipper in her tummy?”

      Chapter Eight

      “You lied.”

      I sank into my Adirondack chair on my front porch as Aiden stalked up the steps after slamming the door of his truck. He was not happy. “You lied, Chalese. You lied by omission.”

      My lifeless fingers dropped my coffee cup which smashed on the porch. I stood up, my anger rising. I did not exactly appreciate being called a liar. “I was not required to tell you the full truth about myself, Aiden, or my past, when you were writing a story about me for a huge newspaper, one I didn’t want written in the first place. Why should I make your job easier? Why should I provide information that I didn’t want out there? Because you kissed me? Sorry, Aiden, I’m not that easy.”

      “You had to know that I would find out.” He put his palms up in the air, exasperated. “You knew it.”

      “Yeah, Aiden, I thought there was a pretty good probability that you would find out. But I was hoping, hoping against hope, that you wouldn’t dig that deep, and if you did, that you’d let it go.”

      His glare about seared me in half. “Maybe you thought if I was turned upside down by my feelings about you I wouldn’t do my job? I’d let it slide, let details slide, not do the research I always do?” His green eyes flashed with all his pent-up anger, the betrayal I knew he felt.

      “Maybe. I hoped.” He stood two feet from me. I could smell him—island air, mint, aftershave, and him. If he wasn’t mad at me, I’d want to kiss that man until my lips fell off. He was drop-dead sexy when he was ticked.

      “I know you aren’t who you say you are. I know your real name is Jennifer Piermont, your father is Richard Piermont III, your mother is Rebecca Piermont, and your sister Christie is actually Holly Piermont.”

      I swallowed real hard. Hearing his name made me feel like I was eating rocks.

      “You’re from New York City. Your father, a private investor, was arrested when you were fourteen for defrauding his clients of millions and millions of dollars. It was a huge scandal at the time because of who he was—a pillar of New York society, on all the right boards, went to all