A Winchester Homecoming. Pamela Toth

at the rural school as a sports car at a tractor pull, or to remember that at sixteen he’d been on the brink of a hormone-driven adolescent crush. She had looked beyond his dyed hair and bizarre clothes, much to her father’s initial horror, and befriended him.

      Their bond had been broken when she’d left a few months later without saying goodbye, to live with the mother she barely knew. Since her father had married David’s mother, Kim was technically his stepsister, but he’d only seen her a couple of times over the years. The woman he was meeting today was a stranger. He just hoped her flight was on time.

      He followed the sign directing him to visitor parking and speculated on how her appearance might have changed in the five years since he’d seen her. Did her dark hair still fall past her shoulders? Was her figure still slim? Not that he cared, except that picking her out of a crowd would be easier if she hadn’t colored her hair or put on a lot of weight.

      He parked the car, which he’d borrowed from Adam instead of driving his own pickup truck, and headed for the terminal and baggage claim. Would she be disappointed to see him waiting for her instead of her father? Of course she would, even though her visits home had been few and she’d always come without her husband, the overworked preppy attorney.

      David wondered why she was here now, and traveling alone once more. He hadn’t asked Adam how long she was staying. Not his business.

      Following a young family through the doors into the slightly cooler main terminal, he allowed himself one bit of curiosity. Would Kim treat him like an old friend or the stranger she’d made sure he had become?

      Kim doubted that she had ever been so tired in her life. It seemed as though she’d been exhausted ever since she and Drew had first separated over three months before. She went to bed tired, but she didn’t sleep all that long or well, so she woke up tired, too. Just getting through the day wore her out, even though she didn’t do much. She supposed that she would have to find a job when she got home, but she hadn’t even started looking. Maybe the clean, dry air of Colorado would revitalize her, restore her spirit.

      Heal her.

      She hadn’t yet told her father that she’d left Drew, which she had convinced herself wasn’t the kind of news you gave over the phone or in an e-mail. Of course it also relieved her of having to make explanations. Between her husband and his family, she’d already had enough drama to last for a lifetime. When she’d called to ask her father if she could come home for a while, he hadn’t even wanted to know why.

      If he’d been curious, he’d kept it under wraps, just as he always had hidden his feelings behind a stern mask. After Kim’s mother left, he had been a single parent to Kim. When she became a teenager he still treated her like a child, so they had frequently butted heads. Since his marriage to David’s mother, Emily, he had started opening up, but for Kim it had been too little, too late.

      She would have to admit, at least to herself, though, that he was always there for her when she needed him. Until now she just hadn’t allowed herself to need him.

      She smothered a yawn behind her hand as she marched up the toasty warmth of the jet way and headed toward the baggage area. For once she actually looked forward to her father’s reticence, if it meant that he wouldn’t pelt her with questions all the way home.

      Tears misted her eyes as she walked. To be fair, his quiet strength was just what she needed.

      For the first fifteen years of her life, he had been her entire world. Then she’d walked in on him with Emily. Jealousy and betrayal had sent Kim running to the mother she hardly knew. Pride and obligation kept her there until she broke away and married Drew.

      Absently Kim touched the scar on her cheekbone. She had paid for her choices, but part of her still felt guilty for hurting her father. On her wedding day, he had unbent enough to say he loved her, but he hadn’t said he was proud of her. At least now she had outgrown the need for anyone’s stamp of approval, but it was still nice to be home.

      Stopping to hunt for a tissue in her shoulder bag, she didn’t immediately scan the waiting crowd for her father’s tall figure, perhaps topped by the Reba cap Kim sent him last Christmas.

      “You cut your hair.”

      The voice at her elbow made her jump. Her head jerked up, snapping her teeth together. She stared into a pair of familiar brown eyes as her fingers strayed to the short hair at her neck.

      “Where’s Daddy?” Exhaustion and disappointment combined to make Kim’s tone sharper than she had intended, but she didn’t try to soften it. As she looked past David Major, he shifted his weight from one hip to the other and pushed back the brim of his Stetson. His smug expression made her bristle. How long had he been watching her search the crowd for her father?

      Cowboy wannabe, she thought with a mental curl of her lip.

      “Adam couldn’t make it,” David drawled, rocking back on the heels of his boots and tucking his thumbs into his belt. The buckle, she noticed, was a flashy silver oval, probably something he’d won at a local rodeo. At least it didn’t have his initial outlined in turquoise stones.

      Since she knew darned well David had spent his formative years in southern California, she wanted to ask where the drawl had come from. Before she could, his words registered and a band of fear closed around her throat like a hangman’s noose.

      Her father wouldn’t have disappointed her, not if he had a choice.

      “What do you mean, he couldn’t ‘make it’?” she mimicked, hiding her concern. If there was anything she’d learned over the past few years, it was the wisdom of keeping her emotions hidden. She must not have been entirely successful, because David’s cool expression relaxed slightly and he touched her shoulder with his hand. Before she could prevent herself, she stiffened and pulled away.

      Immediately his expression hardened again.

      “Don’t worry,” he said gruffly. “Adam broke his leg yesterday, that’s all. The doc says it’s clean, just a hairline fracture, but he didn’t think the ride here would help any.” For a moment, a grin tugged at David’s mouth. “Not that Adam didn’t do his damnedest to change Doc’s mind, but he didn’t stand a chance once Mom got involved.”

      Part of Kim’s mind resented his proprietary comment about her father. David wasn’t even related, except by his mother’s marriage into the Winchester family. Was he trying to show Kim that she didn’t belong here anymore?

      “How did he break it?” She ignored his smile. “And don’t tell me Daddy was thrown from a horse. I wouldn’t believe that if I’d been away for a hundred years.” The horse that could unseat Adam Winchester hadn’t yet been foaled.

      By unspoken consent, she and David had both started walking toward the baggage carousel that was already spitting out a steady stream of luggage, cardboard cartons girded with tape and various pieces of sporting equipment.

      “It was actually one of the new ranch hands who got thrown,” David explained. “He managed to land square on Adam and knock him down. The rest, as they say, is history.”

      She stopped to gape at David. “Daddy must have been furious.”

      “Livid. Turned the air blue.” David’s gaze was on the carousel, his chiseled profile a sharp reminder of how much he had changed. The cute boy had become a ruggedly attractive man, and this was the longest conversation she’d had with him in years. Good thing she was immune.

      “Which one is yours?” he asked without bothering to glance her way.

      His disinterest reminded her that she, too, had changed. Besides her chopped-off hair, she’d lost weight. Not a bad thing, since Drew had been telling her she was getting too fat, but now her slacks and top hung on her and there were probably circles under her eyes, right next to the fairly recent scar on her cheek.

      Lovely. Not that she cared what David thought, anyway.

      Kim searched the carousel and then she pointed. “That