A Winchester Homecoming

David gave her a lopsided grin, letting his gaze travel down to her feet and back up again.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Too late, she realized how her remark might have sounded. “It’s hot, and my feet hurt, that’s all.”

“Ah, here’s the Kim we all know and love,” he drawled. “You’ve been so nice to me today that you had me worried. I thought an alien had taken over your body.”

“Better an alien than you.” Instantly she wanted to bite her tongue. “I’m sorry.”

He held up his hand. “No, no. I needed the reality check.”

His wry grin sent shivers through her. More than anything, she wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss that clever mouth. Obviously what she desperately needed after all the enforced togetherness of the last hours was a breather.

Dear Reader,

Breeze into fall with six rejuvenating romances from Silhouette Special Edition! We are happy to feature our READERS’ RING selection, Hard Choices (SE#1561), by favorite author Allison Leigh, who writes, “I wondered about the masks people wear, such as the ‘good’ girl/boy vs. the ‘bad’ girl/boy, and what ultimately hardens or loosens those masks. Annie and Logan have worn masks that don’t fit, and their past actions wouldn’t be considered ideal behavior. I hope readers agree this is a thought-provoking scenario!”

We can’t get enough of Pamela Toth’s WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries as she delivers the next book, A Winchester Homecoming (SE#1562). Here, a world-weary heroine comes home only to find her former flame ready to reignite their passion. MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS returns with Judy Duarte’s latest, Big Sky Baby (SE#1563). In this tale, a Kingsley cousin comes home to find that his best friend is pregnant. All of a sudden, he can’t stop thinking of starting a family…with her!

Victoria Pade brings us an engagement of convenience and a passion of inconvenience, in His Pretend Fiancée (SE#1564), the next book in the MANHATTAN MULTIPLES miniseries. Don’t miss The Bride Wore Blue Jeans (SE#1565), the last in veteran Marie Ferrarella’s miniseries, THE ALASKANS. In this heartwarming love story, a confirmed bachelor flies to Alaska and immediately falls for the woman least likely to marry! In Four Days, Five Nights (SE#1566) by Christine Flynn, two strangers are forced to face a growing attraction when their small plane crashes in the wilds.

These moving romances will foster discussion, escape and lots of daydreaming. Watch for more heart-thumping stories that show the joys and complexities of a woman’s world.

Happy reading!

Karen Taylor Richman,

Senior Editor

A Winchester Homecoming

Pamela Toth

Dedicated to readers everywhere who are separated

from their loved ones, whatever the reason, with the

sincere hope that you find your way home again soon.

PAMELA TOTH

USA TODAY bestselling author Pamela Toth was born in Wisconsin, but grew up in Seattle where she attended the University of Washington and majored in art. Now living on the Puget Sound area’s east side, she has two daughters, Erika and Melody, and two Siamese cats.

Recently she took a lead from one of her romances and married her high school sweetheart, Frank. When she’s not writing, she enjoys traveling with her husband, reading, playing FreeCell on the computer, doing counted cross-stitch and researching new story ideas. She’s been an active member of Romance Writers of America since 1982.

She loves hearing from readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 5845, Bellevue, WA 98006. For a personal reply, a stamped, self-addressed envelope is appreciated.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Prologue

Kim Winchester stood frozen in the open stable doorway, her initial shock turning to disgust as she stared at the couple locked in a passionate embrace between the rows of stalls.

She had never dreamed he could act this way, too caught up in kissing the woman coiled around him like a snake to even care that his betrayal would break Kim’s heart. He had insisted over and over how important she was to him, but right now it was clear he’d forgotten her very existence.

Tears filled Kim’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She felt devastated and sick, but she had no intention of slinking away quietly and pretending she hadn’t seen the two of them.

“Oh, isn’t this just too, too cozy,” she drawled, sauntering into the light as though she didn’t have a care in the world, pleased beneath the hurt as the couple sprang apart. “You two make me want to barf.”

She’d half expected to see a gleam of triumph in Emily’s eyes, but instead the other woman looked totally mortified.

“Kim,” she pleaded, eyes wide.

Kim ignored her entreaty. “I knew you were after him!” She shook an accusing finger in Emily’s face. “I could tell by the way you practically drooled when we saw you in town.” Did Emily think she was blind or just naive?

It was obvious that the older woman could think of nothing to say in her own defense, but Kim’s feeling of vindication was immediately wiped away when he stepped in front of Emily. Protecting her.

He didn’t look embarrassed. Quite the contrary. His thick brows were bunched into a thunderous frown, and he was glaring at Kim. Bristling with disapproval.

How could he be so mean, siding with this woman he barely knew, against his own daughter?

Chapter One

David Major was headed in the general direction of Denver with classic country cranked up on the stereo and the car windows rolled down to let in the rush of warm air. Idly he glanced at the fields of dried stubble on either side of the road, the barren expanse occasionally broken by a cluster of jutting buildings before it marched to the distant horizon. Each fancy new hotel complex, set well away from the main road and dwarfed by the empty prairie surrounding it, managed to appear as out of place in flat, rural Colorado as satin panties on a sow.

Who would have thought a decade ago when he’d first moved here from noisy, smelly, crowded L.A. that he’d grow to appreciate the open spaces, the distant mountains and the clean, dry air? That he’d find work he enjoyed and a home he loved on a cattle ranch, of all places?

Up ahead of him appeared the jagged line of manmade white peaks that topped the Denver airport terminal. They were supposed to symbolize the Rocky Mountains, but looked instead more like a row of oversize canvas teepees than anything found in nature.

Adam Winchester had broken his leg the day before, so David was here in his stepfather’s place to meet Kim’s plane from Seattle. It was hard to believe that she’d been David’s first real friend in Waterloo, where he’d felt as out of place 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 big one and those two by the skis.”

His dark brows lifted. “Three bags?” He didn’t try to hide his smirk. “Gee, is this all?”

“For now.” Head high, she walked toward the exit, the fingers of one hand wrapped tightly around the strap of her shoulder purse as she left him to struggle with her luggage. Served him right for thinking she was a clotheshorse.

As soon as she’d taken a dozen steps, her burst of bravado was replaced with a new wave of exhaustion. Feeling dizzy, she sank gratefully into an empty chair and let her head fall back.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” David demanded as he caught up with her and dumped her bags to the floor.

Opening her eyes or answering was too much of an effort, as was shaking her head.

“Stay here,” he ordered her in a bossy tone. “Put your head between your knees if you feel nauseated. I’ll find you some water.”

Panic swirled around her. “No!” she finally croaked out, forcing open her eyes. Relieved to focus on his concerned face. “Don’t leave me.”

She hadn’t meant to say that. Biting her lip in self-punishment, she watched his expression change from concern to something more difficult to read. Angry tears over her slip blurred her vision, but she blinked them away and glared up at him.

Immediately he squatted down next to her chair, his gaze level with hers as he took her hand in his larger, stronger one. His warmth was a welcome surprise. She was so cold, always cold.

“Your hand is like ice!” he exclaimed.

She pulled away from his loose grasp. “It must be the air-conditioning in here. They always overdo it.”

“Actually, it’s fairly warm,” he contradicted. “When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”

“On the plane.”

He leaned closer. “Kim, what’s wrong with you?”

She wondered if he realized it was the first time he’d called her by name since she arrived.

“I cut my hair several years ago,” she said, hoping to distract him with a reply to his initial question. “It was just too much of a nuisance, and long hair’s gone out of style on the coast.” It wasn’t really true, but he wouldn’t know that.

She’d hacked it off to pay back Drew for being overly friendly with a short-haired paralegal in his office. He’d been furious and he had, of course, retaliated against Kim’s rebelliousness. Besting him, however briefly, had nearly been worth it, even though she’d never worn the yellow diamond pendant he’d eventually bought her as a peace offering. It had gone into her jewelry drawer, along with several other nice pieces she had acquired under similar circumstances.

Nor had she ever grown her hair long again, despite Drew’s insistence. But of course she didn’t tell David any of that while his unreadable gaze stayed on her like some kind of laser.

“Water would be nice,” she said when he didn’t comment. “Chilled, if you don’t mind, and bottled, not tap water.”

He straightened, a shutter sliding down over his expression, and tugged at his hat brim in a gesture she figured was more mocking than polite. “I’ll be right back. Stay here with the bags.”

She watched him walk through the crowd, his long strides eating up the distance to the nearest vendor, as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

Well, why should he be any different? she asked herself silently on another trembling note of self-pity. What was there about Kim Winchester Sterling for anyone to like or admire?

As usual, not one thing came to her tired mind.

After Kim had gulped down the chilled bottled water David brought her and surprised him by stepping out of her ice-princess role long enough to thank him, he escorted her out to the car. She had spurned his suggestion of a wheelchair and he, in turn, had refused her offer to help with her bags. As he stacked two of them and hiked the strap of the third on his shoulder, she dug sunglasses out from her purse and slipped them on like a shield to hide behind.

“I’ll bet the weather seems different from what you’re used to,” he said conversationally as he wheeled the largest bags behind them.

“I grew up here, remember?” She pressed her lips together and turned away, as if she regretted her comment.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he replied. He might have said more, but instead he let the silence hang between them for a moment. When she didn’t lift her head, he shifted the bag on his shoulder and kept walking.

On the drive back to the ranch, he thought she might ask about her father or their mutual half brother, Jake, who was nine, and sister, Cheyenne, eight, or the rest of her extended family, but she didn’t.

“The old church on Dammer Road burned down,” he volunteered, his gaze on the road ahead. “They’re rebuilding already, brick instead of wood this time.”

Her response was a noncommittal hum in her throat as she looked out the window. Frustrated, David fell silent. She had grown up in Elbert County, but if she wanted news, she would have to ask.

Traffic wasn’t especially heavy and the road didn’t demand much of his attention, which left him free to speculate about the reason for Kim’s visit, her first in several years, and to wonder about the absence of a wedding ring. Perhaps she had lost it or was having it repaired or just didn’t wear one. Unlike some women with successful husbands, she wasn’t flashing a lot of fancy jewelry.

Back in school she had been a pretty girl with a warm smile and a budding figure. Now her face was all cheekbones and angles, big green eyes behind the tinted lenses and a scar she kept touching with her fingertip. Slim tan pants and a long-sleeved pink shirt made her look thinner. Her short hair bared her neck and ears.

He’d stuck his tongue in her ear once, but she had squealed and pulled away, embarrassing them both. He liked to think his technique had improved since then.

She’d had issues when he’d known her before, rebelliousness against her father’s strictness, possessiveness of the only parent she’d known up till then and jealousy of David’s mother. He had figured Kim found what she had needed in Seattle, but now he wondered.

For a woman who had it all, she seemed more brittle than content, and she looked tired. Remembering how she had once bothered to search behind his own prickly shell, he tried again.

“Did you know that Cornell Hobbs and Bonnie Gill finally tied the knot?” he asked. “They’ve been together since high school, so it was no surprise.”

When she didn’t answer, he glanced in her direction, expecting to see her staring out the side window with a bored expression. Instead her head had tipped forward. Her eyes were closed, her full lips slightly parted, and the rise and fall of her breasts was slow and regular.

Apparently, his fascinating conversation had lulled her right to sleep.

The gentle bumping of the car across the cattle guard at the entrance to Winchester land woke Kim from a jumble of dreams. She took a deep breath and sneaked a glance at David, but he was looking at the Appaloosas grazing in the near pasture. Whenever she saw a horse with the breed’s distinctive markings, she thought of her father and the ranch.

“You okay?” David asked as he slowed to allow a Jeep to pass from the other direction and returned the driver’s wave.

Her first reply was a rusty croak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for meeting my plane.”

“No problem.”

They passed a traditional two-story farmhouse, painted light blue with fresh white trim. The backyard jungle gym was new, as was the weather vane on the roof. The familiar riot of brightly blooming pots and hanging baskets on the wide front porch was a testament to Aunt Rory’s green thumb, but the driveway in front of the matching garage was empty.

Kim was relieved that they didn’t have to stop and say hello to Uncle Travis and his brood. There would be time enough to visit later, after she had reassured herself that her father was really all right except for his leg.

She couldn’t wrap her mind around the image of him on crutches. He was too powerful for that, too strong, just like the large immovable boulder in the northeast section of the range.

“Mom’s cleaned your old room for you,” David added as he took the fork in the road that would lead them to the big house where Kim had grown up. “She and Adam are looking forward to seeing you.”