The Road to Reunion

Molly’s chatty, no-one-could-doubt-that-we’re-just-buddies attitude was beginning to get on his nerves. Sure, it was the safest strategy—but she was starting to carry it too far.

“I doubt your brother or your parents would like us spending this much time together in a motel room.”

“Don’t be silly. Daddy and Shane wouldn’t care. After all, you’re—”

If she called him “like family” one more time, he was liable to do something incredibly stupid. Like shut her up with his own mouth….

Dear Reader,

Well, if there were ever a month that screamed for a good love story—make that six!—February would be it. So here are our Valentine’s Day gifts to you from Silhouette Special Edition. Let’s start with The Road to Reunion by Gina Wilkins, next up in her FAMILY FOUND series. When the beautiful daughter of the couple who raised him tries to get a taciturn cowboy to come home for a family reunion, Kyle Reeves is determined to turn her down. But try getting Molly Walker to take no for an answer! In Marie Ferrarella’s Husbands and Other Strangers, a woman in a boating accident finds her head injury left her with no permanent effects—except for the fact that she can’t seem to recall her husband. In the next installment of our FAMILY BUSINESS continuity, The Boss and Miss Baxter by Wendy Warren, an unemployed single mother is offered a job—not to mention a place to live for her and her children—with the grumpy, if gorgeous, man who fired her!

“Who’s Your Daddy?” is a question that takes on new meaning when a young woman learns that a rock star is her biological father, that her mother is really in love with his brother—and that she herself can’t resist her new father’s protégé. Read all about it in It Runs in the Family by Patricia Kay, the second in her CALLIE’S CORNER CAFÉ miniseries. Vermont Valentine, the conclusion to Kristin Hardy’s HOLIDAY HEARTS miniseries, tells the story of the last single Trask brother, Jacob—he’s been alone for thirty-six years. But that’s about to change, courtesy of the beautiful scientist now doing research on his property. And in Teresa Hill’s A Little Bit Engaged, a woman who’s been a bride-to-be for five years yet never saw fit to actually set a wedding date finds true love where she least expects it—with a pastor.

So keep warm, stay romantic, and we’ll see you next month….

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

The Road to Reunion

Gina Wilkins

GINA WILKINS

is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy books for Harlequin and Silhouette. Ms. Wilkins has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKclub.

It’s Jared and Cassie Walker’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and you are cordially invited to the biggest bash in Texas!

After decades of caring and support for their friends and family, we want to honor these two lovebirds. So, come one, come all to celebrate on the Walker Ranch, Saturday, October 15!

RSVP with Molly and Shane Walker

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

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Prologue

“Molly, give it up. Kyle isn’t coming.”

Molly Walker crossed her arms and glared at her half brother. “I want to try one more time to convince him.”

Shane swept his Stetson off his head and wiped his dripping forehead with a bandana he had pulled from the back pocket of his well-worn jeans. Even at the end of September, it was still blistering hot in central Texas, and he had been working all day on the ranch he owned with their father, Jared Walker. Molly had caught him just as he was putting away the last of his gear for the day. She knew he was eager to join his wife, Kelly, and their two young daughters for dinner, but he was patient, as always, with his younger sister.

“You’ve sent two representatives to talk to him since we located him in late July. He sent them both back to you with a very clear message that he wants to be left alone. I know taking hints isn’t one of your strong points, Molly, but even you can get that message.”

“I’m just not sure he understands exactly what I’m trying to do for Mom and Dad. Having all their former foster boys together for a surprise silver anniversary party would mean so much to them. I know there are a few who can’t make it, but we’ve got nearly everyone. Kyle’s presence would make the party almost perfect.”

“Not if he doesn’t want to be here.”

“Why wouldn’t he? I know he was wounded over seas, but all the reports are that he seems to be almost fully recovered now, so that shouldn’t be a problem. He was close to Mom and Dad, especially Mom. They were very fond of him. They went to his high school graduation. Mom sent cookies when he went to boot camp, for Pete’s sake. He was a member of our family.”

“No, honey. He just lived with us for a couple of years when he was a kid. Things change. Kyle changed. Maybe it was the war, or maybe just the passage of time, but he stopped calling, answering letters, making any attempt to stay in touch. Mom was disappointed, but she knew she had to let him go. Just as you have to do now.”

She felt her lower lip start to protrude, and she made a deliberate effort to draw it back in. She would be twenty-four in just over a month. It wasn’t particularly becoming for a twenty-four-year-old woman to pout. “I can’t believe Kyle never wants to see us again. I just want to ask him one more time.”

“So write him a letter.”

“I’m not sure a letter would work. But he admired you, Shane. Maybe if you—”

“I can’t go to East Tennessee to browbeat Kyle right now.” He spoke gently, but firmly, his tanned face set into implacable lines that made him look very much like their father. “Dad and Cassie are leaving Friday for that cruise, and they’ll be gone for three weeks. I’ve got more than I can handle here.”

She sighed and nodded reluctantly. Shane would be extremely busy with Jared and Cassie gone for that long. It had been hard enough to talk Jared into taking his first long vacation with his wife. Only the knowledge that Shane would be here to keep the ranch running had made him finally agree.

“Send Kyle a letter, Molly.” Shane squeezed her shoulder. “Tell him how much it would mean to you— and to Mom and Dad. But if he still chooses not to come, you’re going to have to accept his decision. Don’t let it ruin your pleasure in the party. You’ve already done so much. Dad and Cassie are going to be so surprised, and so pleased to see everyone you’ve found all together.”

Molly wished she could be content with what she had accomplished in the past few months. But she couldn’t get past the feeling that something was still unfinished. Something she was obviously going to have to handle personally—though she knew better than to express that sentiment to her overprotective and notoriously bossy older brother.

Chapter One

“Sixteen…ow…seventeen…damn it…eighteen…hell.”

The weights clattered against the concrete floor when Kyle Reeves dropped his legs and let the bar fall. He had increased the resistance today and the pain was too intense to go any further. The result was that he was now in a very bad mood—not that there was anything new about that. This particular bad mood had lasted eight months, three weeks and four days—give or take a couple of hours.

A clap of thunder rattled the windows, followed by another ominous rumbling that seemed to echo his disposition. Rain had started to fall, not very heavily yet, but steadily. It was supposed to storm this evening, and storms were always dramatic in the mountains. He rather enjoyed them.

Pushing himself off the weight bench, he limped across the stark, white-walled room and stepped into a short hallway with oak plank floors and unadorned walls, also painted white. His cabin in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains wasn’t large—two bedrooms, one of which served as his exercise room, one bath, a small living room and an eat-in kitchen. The furnishings were minimal, the decor Spartan, luxuries nonexistent.

The place needed some work—a few boards on the front porch had rotted, and cold air poured through numerous cracks around doors and windows—but the roof didn’t leak, and the view from the redwood deck attached to the back of the house was spectacular. And best of all, as far as Kyle was concerned, there were no neighbors within sight.

Reaching the kitchen, he picked up a bottle of prescription pain pills, glanced at it, then tossed it back onto the butcher-block countertop. He shook two ibuprofen into his palm instead, popped them into his mouth and washed them down with a few swallows of bottled water.

He pushed a hand through his sweaty brown hair, leaving it standing in spikes. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the shiny door of the refrigerator when he put away the water. In addition to his messy hair, he had a four-day beard growth, which didn’t quite conceal the scar that ran down his left jawline. His sweat-stained gray T-shirt was paired with black knit shorts that bagged on his too-thin frame. No socks, but he wore a good pair of athletic shoes because he needed the support. He looked like hell—but since there was no one around to see him, he didn’t really care.

As if in response to that thought, someone knocked on his front door.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was hardly expecting company, and he doubted that his only real friend in the area, Mack McDooley, would have ventured up the mountain in an approaching storm on this Thursday afternoon. He was even more surprised that he hadn’t heard a car engine, but he blamed that on the noise of the worsening weather.

The knocking came again. Sighing heavily, he limped into the living room and jerked open the door without bothering to see who was on the other side. “What?”

He’d have been hard-pressed to guess who looked more surprised at that moment. His visitor, in response to his curt greeting, or himself, at his first sight of the woman on his doorstep.

Even in the deepening darkness of the rainy afternoon, he could tell that she was stunning. Masses of red hair, dotted with moisture, tumbled past her shoulders to the middle of her back. Dark lashes surrounded large green eyes emphasized by smudgy eyeliner. Her perfect nose was decorated with a smattering of golden freckles, and her mouth was full and glossy. She was of average height, with a slender figure packaged in a snug green pullover and dark jeans that made her legs look a mile long.

He couldn’t imagine what a woman like this was doing on his doorstep. “Are you lost?”

She eyed him speculatively before responding, and he had the uncomfortable suspicion that she didn’t miss one detail of his grubby appearance. Not that he cared, of course. She would be on her way as soon as he gave her directions to wherever she was supposed to be.

But she shook her head, causing gold highlights to glimmer in her hair. “I’m not lost—at least, I don’t think I am. I mean…are you Kyle Reeves?”

Hearing his name spoken in a distinctly Texan accent drew his frown even deeper. “Look, I’ve tried to be polite with you people, but you’re carrying it too far. Tell Shane and Molly that it was nice of them to think of me, but I won’t be attending their reunion thing. Make it clear this time that I won’t be changing my mind—and I don’t want to have to repeat the message again.”

Though he’d spoken tersely, he could have been a lot less polite about it—and he was fully prepared to be, if she started getting pushy, regardless of her killer eyes and delectable mouth. It was only his lingering fondness for the Walker family and his reluctance to hurt little Molly’s feelings that kept his temper in check—though he couldn’t guarantee he could control it much longer.

Enough was enough.

Planting her hands on her hips, the woman cocked her head to study him more closely. Something about that gesture looked vaguely familiar to him, but before he could pin it down, she spoke again. “Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes? I didn’t expect it to be so chilly here, and to be honest, I’m sort of cold.”

Her three-quarter-sleeve shirt and jeans would probably have been plenty warm enough back in Dallas in early October, but on a rainy day at this altitude, a light jacket would have been appropriate. Still… “You don’t need to come in. Go back to Texas where it’s warm, and give Shane and Molly my regrets. It’s that simple.”

Lightning lit the purple sky behind her, flashing behind the distant mountains and making her damp hair seem to come alive for just a moment. And then the sky dimmed, leaving her in shadows again. “All I want is five minutes of your time. Surely you can spare that much, Mr. Reeves.”

If he were really as hard-hearted as he was trying to be, he wouldn’t be in the least affected by the slight tremor in her voice. He didn’t know whether it was caused by cold or nerves, but it got to him. He wavered a few moments more, then mentally cursed himself for being a fool and stepped out of the doorway.

“You’ve got five minutes. Say your piece, but you might as well know I won’t be changing my mind. At the end of your spiel, I’ll expect you to leave and make sure that no one else bothers me about this.”

“Thank you.”

He noticed her taking in every detail of his living room, which was neat, if a bit dusty, and equipped with only the most basic of furniture, other than his treasured big-screen TV. A big fireplace dominated one wall, but he hadn’t started any fires yet this season, so it was dark and empty behind the functional black screen.

The place probably looked stark and primitive to this hothouse flower. Good. Maybe she wouldn’t be tempted to stay beyond her allotted time.

Though he didn’t invite her to sit, she settled onto the battered, secondhand, brown leather couch, anyway. Much too conscious of her gaze on him, he made an effort to control his limp as he moved to the nearest of two brown-and-tan plaid recliners and sank into it.

“Let me save you a little time. You want to extend an invitation for me to attend a surprise anniversary party for Jared and Cassie Walker next week. All their former foster boys are invited. Shane and Molly are putting the whole thing together and little Molly will be very disappointed if I don’t make an appearance. Has that pretty well summed up what you were planning to say?”

She laid one arm across the back of the couch, looking as comfortable as if she were a regular visitor to his home. “You’ve stated it pretty well.”

“I’ve heard the pitch a couple of times before.”

“I know.”

“Molly and Shane are persistent, I’ll give them that. I’ve never been so aggressively ’invited’ to a party before.” “You were special to the family, and they’ve missed you. It would mean a great deal to them for you to be there.”

“The Walkers have had a whole string of foster boys at the ranch. They won’t miss one at their reunion.”

“Everyone will have a good time even if you don’t come,” she conceded. “But it will be even better if you’re there.”

“I’m sorry, that isn’t possible.”

She studied his face a moment, then sighed lightly. “Then you’re right. We should leave you alone.” Finally. He nodded curtly. “I appreciate it.”

“Is there a message you would like to send to the family—other than to leave you alone?”

He found himself looking at her mouth. If she was particularly chagrined that she hadn’t coaxed a commitment out of him, she wasn’t letting it show. Her luscious lips curved into a slight smile as she gazed at him through those thick, dark lashes. A jolt of awareness shot through him, reminding him of the first moment when he had seen her and had been body-slammed by unexpected attraction.

He mentally shook his head and tried to concentrate on something other than how much time had passed since he’d been with a woman. “A message? I guess you can tell them happy anniversary for me. And you can tell Molly I’m sorry she went to so much trouble on my behalf.”

One slender eyebrow arched in question. Her smile widened. “Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

“I don’t—” He eyed her expression. “Oh hell. Surely you’re not—”

“You never asked my name,” she reminded him. “Have I really changed so much?”

He felt himself sink more deeply into his chair. An uncharacteristic warmth flowed up his neck and onto his face. Kyle wasn’t often embarrassed—and he was even more rarely taken completely by surprise—but she had just accomplished both. “You’re Molly?”

She ran her fingers through her curtain of hair, never taking her gaze off him. “I believe you called me ’little Molly’ earlier. Did you think time had stopped since you left the ranch almost a dozen years ago, Kyle?”

“How old are you?”

She seemed more amused than offended by the ques tion. “I’ll be twenty-four in a few weeks.”

Twenty-four. He shook his head slowly in disbelief. Maybe he had thought time had stopped. On the rare occasion when he had pictured Molly, he’d remembered a freckle-faced carrottop with gaps in her teeth and dirt on her face. She had been a bundle of energy, chattering a mile a minute, tagging at her father’s heels whenever he would let her—which was often, since Jared had been able to deny little to his only daughter.

Having no experience with gregarious little girls, Kyle had been rather intimidated by her then. He willingly admitted that she terrified him now. Talk about trouble in a nicely wrapped package….

“You’re twenty-nine,” she murmured. “You were almost seventeen when you came to us. You stayed a couple of months after your eighteenth birthday to finish high school, and then you left for boot camp. I was twelve when you went away. I was heartbroken, you know. It always broke my heart when anyone left us.”

“I remember you cried your eyes out when the kid before me left not long after I got there. His name was Daniel, wasn’t it?”

“Daniel Castillo—though he uses the last name Andreas now.” Her smile turned radiant. “He’s back in the family now. He recently married my cousin B.J.”

“No kidding.” He tried to focus on the conversation rather than the way her smile pushed tiny dimples into the corner of her mouth. “I remember her. Her name was Brittany, but she wanted everyone to use her initials, instead.”

“Everyone pretty much does now—except her mother, who still insists on calling her Brittany.”

“So she married Daniel.”

Molly nodded. “It was a whirlwind courtship, and I think it’s fantastic. They’re perfect together—they always were, even when they were teenagers.”

Kyle suddenly scowled, wondering what the hell he was doing sitting here listening to family gossip from Molly Walker—no longer “little” Molly Walker. If they kept this up, he would find himself all duded up for a silver anniversary party he’d had no intention of attending.

He shifted in his chair, and pain shot through his left leg and up into his back. The feeling was so familiar, he was able to hide his reactions from Molly—or at least, he thought he had, though her sharp green eyes had suddenly narrowed speculatively.

“Your five minutes are over,” he reminded her, his bad mood returning with a vengeance.

Molly thought she had done a pretty credible job of hiding her shock at Kyle’s appearance. She couldn’t help comparing the man in front of her to the photograph that sat in a place of honor in her parents’ living room, along with photos of the other foster sons Jared and Cassie had nurtured during their marriage.

Kyle’s portrait had been taken at his high school graduation. Wearing a black cap and gown, a gold tassel dangling at one side of his tanned face, he had looked young and healthy. His thick brown hair had been freshly cut, and his amber-brown eyes gleamed with satisfaction. During her teen years, even as her memories of Kyle faded, Molly had found herself studying that photograph occasionally, wondering about Kyle, thinking that of all the nice-looking boys who had passed through her family home, his face had intrigued her the most.

Had she not known who he was when he had opened his door to her this afternoon, she might never have recognized him as the same person in the photograph. He was almost painfully thin, and he walked with a pronounced limp. The tan had been replaced by a rather scruffy pallor. His day-old beard did little to conceal the uneven scar that now marred his left cheek along the jawline. His hair was disheveled, and needed a good shampooing and styling.

For just a few moments he had seemed to relax a little with her, and she’d hoped that he was becoming more open to the possibility of attending the party. But then she had seen him flinch, as if in pain, and his expression had abruptly closed.

“I had hoped you would extend that five-minute deadline a bit once you figured out who I am,” she admitted with a wry smile.

He didn’t smile back at her. “I’m not trying to be rude, but you really should go before—”

A shatteringly loud clap of thunder drowned out his words, followed by a deluge of rain that hammered on the roof and rattled the windows.

“—before the storm gets worse,” Kyle finished with a sigh.

Molly stood and walked to the window, rather surprised by the violence of the downpour. “Wow. It’s a real gully-washer out there, isn’t it?”

“To say the least. This is what remains of the tropical storm that hit the coast of South Carolina a couple of days ago. Haven’t you been listening to the weather forecasts?”

She turned away from the window. “Actually, no. The radio is broken in my car, so I listened to CDs during the drive.”

Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, his frown deepened. “You didn’t drive here from Dallas?”

“Well—yes, I did,” she admitted. “It’s about a sixteen-hour drive, so I left at noon yesterday, spent the night in Memphis, then started out again this morning.”

“Alone?”

She shrugged. “It was a pleasant drive. The weather’s been nice, at least until I reached Gatlinburg, and I don’t often have a chance to spend time by myself just to think and listen to my favorite music. And the scenery in this area is breathtaking.”

“I can’t believe your parents allowed you to make a drive like that by yourself.”

Now it was her turn to frown. “First, I’m almost twenty-four years old, and I no longer have to ask my parents’ permission to leave home for a few days. Second, I wouldn’t have asked them, anyway, because I’m planning a surprise party for them and I don’t want them to know I’m here. And finally, they left almost two weeks ago for a three-week Mediterranean cruise to celebrate their anniversary.”

“Your brother didn’t have a problem with you coming here?”

She cleared her throat, resisting an impulse to shuffle her feet like a kid caught in a fib. “I don’t have to answer to Shane, either—but he thinks I’m spending a few days shopping in Houston with a friend from college.”

“So he wouldn’t approve.”

“He didn’t want me to pester you about coming to the party after you’d already declined a couple of times. And, no, he probably wouldn’t like the idea of me driving so far by myself—but Shane tends to be overprotective.”