A Winchester Homecoming. Pamela Toth

bursting into tears and embarrassing herself even more than she already had.

      “You’d better go help Daddy before he gets tired of waiting and falls down the stairs.” Wasn’t one patient enough for the woman to flutter over?

      If Emily was offended by the abrupt dismissal, she didn’t show it. Instead she smiled patiently.

      “Eat your soup before it gets cold and then have some rest. I’ll check on you again later to see if you need anything else.”

      Before Emily had reached the doorway, Kim was already spooning up the soup. It was the first time she could remember being hungry in a long while.

      From the landing at the base of the staircase, David watched Adam’s slow, careful descent. David itched to help him, but the rancher’s thunderous glare was a good indication that any offer of assistance would be forcefully rejected.

      “I’m here to break his fall,” David’s mom joked, her hand on the curved wood banister as she reached the landing ahead of him. She must have realized that trying to keep him downstairs after Kim’s collapse would have been a waste of her breath, because she hadn’t objected when he’d gone up earlier.

      She was the only person David knew who was completely unfazed by the force of Adam’s personality. He didn’t lose his temper often, but his intimidating stare was enough to make anyone who was thinking about crossing him reconsider immediately.

      Anyone except his wife. Once, he’d stated dryly that the reason he laid down the law was so she would have something to step on.

      “If you think you’re going to cushion me, you’d better put on some weight pretty damn quick,” he growled now in response to her comment about breaking his fall.

      “Thank you, sweetie.” Her voice was teasing as he thumped down the stairs next to her. “You always know just what to say.”

      Dressed in light-green shorts and a sleeveless print blouse, she was still as slim and pretty as she’d been when she’d relocated her newly divorced self and her hostile, defensive son from L.A.

      To David she’d always been the most beautiful mom in the world, even when he was angry over being dragged away from everything that was familiar. Despite a few gray strands mixed in with the honey blond, and faint smile lines bracketing her mouth, she was still gorgeous. Adam must think so, too, from the way he was ogling her. Although the awareness between them still made David uncomfortable, he envied what they had found together.

      His biological father, a hotshot entertainment attorney, had made a big mistake in trading his mom in for a younger model. That marriage hadn’t lasted very long, despite the early arrival of David’s half brother, Zane. Its demise had been quickly followed by wife number three, who was only a few years older than David. By now she, too, had probably joined the ex-wives’ club. Not that he would know, since he had finally stopped returning his father’s infrequent calls.

      “How’s the princess doing?” David asked after Adam braced himself with one hand on the newel post.

      “Who really knows?” He shrugged, nearly losing one of his crutches.

      David figured the only way his mom was going to get Adam off his bum leg would be if David went home.

      “I’ve got animals to tend to, so I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

      Technically, Adam was his boss. Over the years they had developed an easy working relationship that usually started with coffee at the bunkhouse with the other men. Since Adam’s little accident, David had been dropping by here instead.

      “Did you want to say goodbye?” His mother glanced upward. “She’s probably still awake.”

      “No, that’s okay.” He’d had enough of Kim’s company for one day. “I’m sure I’ll run into her again soon.”

      Too soon.

      “Thanks again for going to the airport for me,” Adam told him.

      “No problem.” Excusing himself, David followed his mother toward the back of the house where he’d parked his truck.

      “Call me if you need anything,” he told her when they got to the kitchen.

      “Let me give you some of the casserole,” she replied. “I made extra.”

      “You always do.” He leaned against the granite counter while she dished up a generous portion into a plastic container. When she added four homemade dinner rolls and a big piece of apple pie, he didn’t protest. Eating his own cooking was one of the many prices of “baching it” that he willingly paid in exchange for having his own place, but he wasn’t about to turn down a meal he didn’t have to cook.

      “Was Kim very talkative when you picked her up today?” she asked innocently as she loaded the food into a small box.

      David straightened away from the counter and helped himself to one of the sourdough rolls. “Not really. I already told you she nearly keeled over while we were going to the car, though.” Devouring the roll in two bites, he took the box out of his mother’s hands. “What exactly did you think she might say?”

      She held open the screen door for him. “Oh, nothing. I was just curious.”

      He didn’t push it, partly because he wasn’t all that interested and partly because he didn’t want to risk her taking back the pie. Instead he leaned down to kiss her cheek.

      “I’ll be working on the bathroom, but I’ll hear the phone if you need to call.” Since he had decided to remodel the master bath in the old rambler, he was eager to get the room finished and put back together.

      She waited on the deck while he backed the truck around, and then she gave him a final wave. He glanced up at Kim’s room, but all he could see was the lacy curtains blowing in the open window. He wondered how she felt about being home again after so long.

      A few moments later David drove his one big splurge out the front gate. The house he shared with a dog and a one-eyed cat was only five minutes down the main road. As much as David loved every member of his extended family-by-marriage, living by himself gave him the breathing space he’d realized he needed when he’d come back after graduation from Colorado State.

      The old rambler where he had lived for the past few years had been well built by the original owner. Updating it was a work in progress that often seemed to David like more work than progress, since he was doing most of it himself.

      His mother had bought the property without realizing that it nearly bisected the neighboring cattle ranch, which just happened to belong to Adam and his two younger brothers. After she had married him, the little rambler sat empty until David reclaimed it.

      As he drove slowly down his driveway, Lulu came running out to meet him. Because of his Aunt Robin’s weakness for strays, he owned what had to be one of the ugliest dogs in all of Colorado. Lulu was part Airedale, part Lab, and the rest was anyone’s guess.

      Good thing she had big brown eyes and a great personality.

      “Hey, Lulu.” He got out of the truck, holding the box of food and the mail he had stopped to collect out of her reach with one hand as he patted her head with the other.

      Her short coat was an unfortunate mixture of wiry black and brown waves, like a perm and dye job gone wrong, but her eyes brimmed with intelligence, and her loyalty was as solid as the hand-hewed beams of his house.

      Thrilled to have him home, Lulu followed him up the steps to the wide front porch. The boards he’d used to replace those weakened by time and weather felt solid beneath his booted feet. Calvin, his cat, sat on the new railing and washed one orange paw, ignoring the arrival of his master as only a cat could.

      “Hello to you, too,” David said in passing.

      Just to annoy Calvin, the dog poked her muzzle against his fur and blew out a noisy breath, then barely managed to dodge the retaliatory swipe of claws as Calvin