Home At Last - Laurie Campbell

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      “I can’t do this.”

      Kirsten gulped, wiping the back of her wrist against her eyes. “I can’t lean on you.”

      “You damn well can.” J.D. was right behind her, resting his arm around her shoulders, and she wrenched herself away.

      “Not for long,” Kirsten protested. He obviously had no problem offering her a shoulder to cry on, but she couldn’t let herself take refuge in his arms. “I can’t go through that again.”

      “What?”

      “You leaving,” she whispered, not even caring about hiding the old wound.

      “Kirsten—”

      “I…I thought we had a…a future together,” she blurted out before realizing how idiotic that must sound. “I know it was stupid,” she continued. “You’d never said you wanted me—”

      “My God,” J.D. interrupted, staring at her in disbelief. “I never wanted anybody like I wanted you.”

      Dear Reader,

      While every romance holds the promise of sweeping readers away with a rugged alpha male or a charismatic cowboy, this month we want to take a closer look at the women who fall in love with our favorite heroes.

      “Heroines need to be strong,” says Sherryl Woods, author of more than fifty novels. “Readers look for a woman who can stand up to the hero—and stand up to life.” Sherryl’s book A Love Beyond Words features a special heroine who lost her hearing but became stronger because of it. “A heroine needs to triumph over fear or adversity.”

      Kate Stockwell faces the fear of knowing she cannot bear her own child in Allison Leigh’s Her Unforgettable Fiancé, the next installment in the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS miniseries. And an accident forces Josie Scott, Susan Mallery’s LONE STAR CANYON heroine in Wife in Disguise, to take stock of her life and find a second chance….

      In Peggy Webb’s Standing Bear’s Surrender, Sarah Sloan must choose between loyalty and true love! In Separate Bedrooms…? by Carole Halston, Cara LaCroix is faced with fulfilling her grandmother’s final wish—marriage! And Kirsten Laurence needs the help of the man who broke her heart years ago in Laurie Campbell’s Home at Last.

      “A heroine is a real role model,” Sherryl says. And in Special Edition, we aim for every heroine to be a woman we can all admire. Here’s to strong women and many more emotionally satisfying reads from Silhouette Special Edition!

      Karen Taylor Richman

      Senior Editor

      Home at Last

      Laurie Campbell

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For my sister, Lisa,

       who’s shared a lifetime of creating characters we love

      LAURIE CAMPBELL

      spends her weekdays writing brochures, videos and commercial scripts for an advertising agency. At five o’clock she turns off her computer, waits thirty seconds, turns it on again and starts writing romance. Her other favorite activities include playing with her husband and son, teaching catechism class, counseling at a Phoenix mental health clinic and working with other writers. “People ask me how I find the time to do all that,” Laurie says, “and I tell them it’s easy. I never clean my house!”

      Contents

      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 One

      “Where are my children?”

      “I don’t know,” the airport clerk repeated, and Kirsten Laurence fought back a flare of panic. “All I know is, they’re not on this flight. If they were, we’d have the Un-accompanied Minor paperwork.”

      But what if Brad had forgotten to fill it out? Or the airline had lost it someplace? Maybe she was grasping at straws, but the possibility of not seeing Lindsay, Adam and Eric as soon as the plane arrived was making her stomach twist with horror.

      “Unless they look older than their ages,” the clerk offered, evidently seeing her stricken expression. “Once in a while, we’ll get a teenager who can pass for—”

      “My daughter is seven,” Kirsten interrupted, clenching her fists in the folds of her flowered shirt—Lindsay’s favorite, which was why she’d worn it today. “And the twins are five. They’ve been visiting their dad for two weeks, and I’m picking them up this morning!”

      “Well, we have another Seattle-to-Tucson flight coming in at three-fifteen, and the first one landed two hours ago….”

      Dear God, could she possibly have missed them? It was impossible, but she couldn’t find any better explanation.

      Worse ones, yes. Like Brad forgetting the date. Or losing track of time, except that surely by now he would have called her. Maybe a car accident on the way to the airport. A trip to the emergency room. Brad knocked unconscious, her children not knowing the phone number of their brand-new house….

      No, she was being silly. Overprotective. It was probably something simple, like a flat tire. Or Brad deciding right before they boarded that another airline had better first-class seats. She could easily imagine him buying new tickets on the spot, discarding the original ones without a thought for the cost.

      That had to be it, Kirsten told herself, trying to steady her breathing while she headed toward the cluster of pay phones to call Seattle. That would be typical of her ex-husband.

      All she needed to do was phone and ask him which plane to meet.

      She couldn’t stop her fingers from shaking, though, while she punched in her calling-card number. There had to be someone on hand to answer. Her daughter and sons were somewhere out there, and she had no idea where—there had to be an answer.

      There was. As soon as she heard the phone being picked up, Kirsten felt a wave of relief crest over the apprehension rising inside her. Then, when Brad’s recorded message began, the fear circled higher.

      “Hey, sorry I missed you,” came his cheerful voice. He sounded as carefree and friendly as ever, confirming her long-held belief that Brad Laurence was a terrific person as long as you weren’t married to him. “You know the routine, right? Leave your name, I’ll call your machine, you call mine again, and one of these days we’ll get it together. Okay?” Then a beep.

      “Brad,” she choked. “Listen, I need to know where the kids are! Because the airline says they’re not on this flight, and—”

      “Hello?” another voice interrupted. “Mrs. Laurence? This is Rena, the cleaning lady. I just heard you on the machine, so I thought I’d pick up.”

      “Oh, thank you.” The cleaning lady would be fine as long as she knew where to reach him. “I’m so glad you’re there. Brad is sending the children home this morning, and I need to know what plane they’re on.”

      There was a pause. Then Rena cleared her throat.

      “Uh, Mrs. Laurence? I think maybe there was a mistake. Because

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