Almost Home. Debbie Macomber

of who I am? For years I had wanted to crawl in a hole with the worms and wiggle my way farther into the dirt, I was so ashamed. “I’m glad that kids like my books.” That was true. If one kid, one place on Earth, learned something from my books, learned to read better … Well, that was more than good enough for me.

      “They love your books, but you didn’t answer the question. Aren’t you proud of yourself?”

      Proud of myself. No. I didn’t even really understand what “proud of myself” would entail. “Want some more coffee?” I stood up. Aiden didn’t stand. He leaned back in my plush blue-striped chair and linked his hands behind his head.

      Why did he have to ooze such masculinity in my pretty messy family room?

      “Nice try, Chalese. Why are you dodging the question? And for the third time, can I help you get the glass out of your hair? It’s making me nervous. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt again. You could step on it later and cut your foot ….”

      “I’m not dodging it, and stay out of my hair. Why would I let a stranger paw through the glass in my hair anyhow?” I felt the vague zip of a caffeine headache. “I want coffee. I am going to perish without it. In fact, I want to take these clothes off and get in the shower and wash my hair because it’s a wreck.” Oh, hell. Had I said that? Had I said “take these clothes off”? I stalked to the kitchen, my black leather boots thumping on the wood floor.

      Aiden said something. I was tempted to keep marching, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What?”

      “I said your hair is fine to me.”

      My face grew hot, so did my neck, and my forehead broke out in beads of sweat. Hot flash. Oh, why? Why now? I grabbed the coffee pot and shoved it under the faucet, then fumbled for a bag of coffee beans. I attempted to pour the beans into the grinder, but the beans spilled all over the floor. I grabbed a broom. Aiden grabbed the dustpan. “You don’t have to help.”

      “I want to help. I’m drinking the coffee, right?”

      When that was cleaned up, I tried to pour the beans into the grinder with my trembling hands again. Same experience. Beans everywhere. My internal thermometer shot up eight hundred degrees, and I sweated.

      I wanted to cry. I stopped, gripped the counter, and turned away.

      “Hey,” Aiden said, his voice quiet, reassuring. “It’s all right, Chalese. It’s nothing.”

      “It’s not nothing.” I squished my eyes shut and wiped my forehead. It wasn’t nothing.

      “Chalese, I’m not trying to wreck your privacy. To be honest with you, if I don’t write the story, someone else will at this point.”

      I put my cool, wet hands to my flaming face. That was true. That award was gonna rip me out into the open like a hunting target.

      I turned away from him and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “Can you write the article without using my real name?”

      “Use your pen name, Annabelle Purples, instead?”

      “Yes.”

      “No. I can’t.”

      “Why not?’

      “Because it’s not your real name, Chalese.”

      Chalese Hamilton isn’t my real name, either. The need to cry ballooned up again. So unusual for me. I’ve been burying my tears forever.

      I felt the inside of me crumbling. I made a muffled sound against my hand.

      “Chalese, please,” Aiden said, his voice soft and warm. “I’m sorry. I am. Let me take you out to breakfast—”

      Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by the doorbell.

      Sniffling, I hurried over to the door, glad for the reprieve. Perhaps it was a Martian and I could go to Saturn with him and be used for alien experiments.

      The second I opened the door to a human, not an alien, I wished I hadn’t.

      I wished I’d skipped out the back door, toward the fields, or to the ocean. Or to my boat at the dock, always waiting to take me on a little jaunt with the whales that circle our islands on their migration journeys.

      “Chief O’Connaghey,” I squeaked, dread filling my stomach. “What a pleasant surprise.”

      “Hello, Chalese!” He grinned at me, almost proudly. “It seems we have a problem again. Yep. Another problem.” He whistled. “This one is a doozer, sugar. Where’s your co-conspirator? She here?”

      Chapter Three

      Chief O’Connaghey was about sixty years old. He and his wife, Indira, who was from India, were friends of my mother’s. He was ultrasmart. Had been a trader in New York City for decades before completely changing his line of work. His wife had threatened to divorce him because she was sick of him working all the time, and that was that.

      Two weeks later they were out on Whale Island, where her family lived, and he was training to be a police officer on the mainland. Two years later, he was police chief on the island. He was kind and compassionate, the president of the Whale Island Garden Society, and ran his department with a steel hand. “No crime permitted on the island”—that was his first motto. His second motto was “No crime and we’ll all have a good time.”

      “Chalese, do you want to tell me something?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

      I hung my head. I felt sick. Utterly ill. We hadn’t meant to crack the skylight. Anyway, it was being fixed …. I had had too many daiquiris …. Brenda always got me into trouble …. Sheesh. I could explain. Couldn’t I? No, probably not. Guilty as charged. I exhaled. Dear me, my breath should be incinerated. I heard Aiden walking up behind my smelly self.

      “Chalese?” the chief prodded.

      “Aiden, how about if you go out on my back deck for a sec? Count birds. Make a daisy crown for your head. Nap.”

      Aiden returned my pointed stare, smiled, then stuck a hand out to the chief. “Aiden Bridger.”

      “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bridger. I’m Chief O’Connaghey. Who are you to Chalese here? I know I haven’t met you before.”

      I tilted my head up toward Aiden, beseeched him with my eyes. Pleaded with him. Not yet, don’t tell anybody yet about me, about the article. I saw something flash in those green sex pits.

      “I’m a friend of Chalese’s,” he declared.

      “Ah. A friend of Chalese’s.” The chief rocked back on his heels. “Where do you live?”

      “I live in Seattle.”

      “Hmmm. Well, pleased to meet you. Now, Chalese, why don’t we have a little chat, shall we?”

      “Good idea.” I scooted out the front door and turned to shut it behind me as quick as I could. Aiden was having none of it. He put his hand on the door and ambled on out. In the distance I heard a low, purring growl.

      That would be Brenda in her zippy sports convertible, the top down.

      “Well, now!” the chief declared in triumph. “The co-conspirator is coming to turn herself in.”

      “I … uh … hmmm …” Darn that snaky stiff, Stephen with the flabby bottom. I thought we’d had an agreement.

      Aiden was clearly amused.

      “Aiden, please go to my back deck and try to catch butterflies or something.”

      “I think I’ll stay.”

      “This isn’t your business.”

      “I think it is.” He grinned. My heart leaped. “Maybe this will explain the leather outfit and those kick-butt boots.”

      The car door slammed, and Brenda,