Homecoming (15 page)

Leaving the bag with Dana’s clothes on a table in the entryway, he slowly made his way up the staircase. The soft golden glow from a table lamp at the far end of the second-story hallway illuminated the space. He smiled, weariness etched into the lines ringing his nose and mouth as he made his way down the hallway to his bedroom. Dana had left a light on for him. Peering into the bedroom, he made out the outline of her body under a sheet.

He decided to use the bathroom in one of the other bedrooms to shower and brush his teeth, not wishing to wake or startle her. Fifteen minutes later his eyelids were drooping when he walked into the master bedroom,
lifted the sheet, and slid into bed next to the woman who’d captured his heart with only a glance.

Dana felt the heat and the arm thrown over her hip. She stirred restlessly, turning toward the source of heat. Her eyelids fluttered wildly as a whisper of warm breath caressed her forehead.

“Tyler?” Her voice was heavy with sleep.

“Go back to sleep, baby. We’ll talk later.”

Snuggling against his heat and strength, she complied, returning to the comforting arms of Morpheus.

Thirteen

Dana rubbed the tip of her nose, hoping to swat away whatever it was tickling her. She loathed opening her eyes to get up. Something brushed against her nose again, and this time she opened her eyes, encountering the dark amused gaze belonging to Tyler Cole.

Gasping, she inched away from him, but was thwarted from putting space between their bodies as he tightened his grip on her waist. Her face had been pressed against his hair-covered chest.

Streams of bright sunlight filtering through the pale gray panels lining the windows provided enough light for her to see the stubble of black hair on Tyler’s lean jaw. Smiling, he shifted, bringing her belly into direct contact with his groin. He had come to bed naked!

Pulling back her hips as naturally as she could, she smiled up at him. “Good morning.”

Tyler returned her smile with a dimpled one. “That it is, beautiful, especially if I can wake up with you in my bed every morning.” Lowering his chin, he dropped a light kiss on the top of her mussed hair.

Dana glanced up at him through her lashes. The dark smudges under his eyes indicated fatigue, but rather than detracting, they enhanced the large, intense, deep-set eyes framed by long black lashes. She found his gaze hypnotic.

“At what time did you get in?”

“A little before four.” It was now after eight.

“How bad is it?”

Sighing, Tyler released her, shifted, and folded a muscular arm under his head. He stared up at the ceiling. “There’s a lot of property damage.”

Rising on an elbow, Dana studied his grim expression. “Any fatalities?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Closing her eyes, she rested her cheek on his solid shoulder and said a silent prayer. Both of them were silent, each lost in their private thoughts.

“There were a lot of broken bones and lacerations from flying glass,” Tyler continued slowly, choosing his words carefully. “There was also a birth. A tiny little boy who weighed in at a little over two pounds.”

Dana sat up, smiling. “A preemie?”

Turning his head, he looked at her. “Three months premature.”

“Do you think he’ll make it?”

“The next few weeks are very critical. If he gains weight, then we are hopeful he can make it. Of course there’s still the problem of his underdeveloped lungs. The doctors in the neonatal unit will monitor his progress very closely. I’m certain they’re going to recommend transferring him to a hospital in Jackson.”

“Why move him at all?”

“There’s a hospital there that specializes in treating low birth weight babies.” He knew he would be the one to break the news to Connellys, hoping they wouldn’t balk in giving their approval to move their newborn to a more qualified facility.

“Why don’t we have a similar unit at our county hospital?”

Lowering his arm, Tyler gently pulled Dana against his body, her hips pressed to his groin. He smiled.
She’d said
our
instead of
the
county hospital. Could he hope she was beginning to regard Hillsboro as her home?

“Maybe that will change in the future.”

Dana held her breath when she felt the flesh between Tyler’s legs stir against her buttocks. She didn’t know if she was ready for him, unlike the day before in the tunnel. Fear and desperation had replaced common sense when she’d begged Tyler to make love to her. But now in the bright sunlight, in the warm, protective grasp of his arms, she felt shy.

“Do you have to go back to the hospital today?”

“No. However, I’m still on call for the next thirty-six hours.” He covered her smooth legs with one of his. “Would you mind if we stay in bed a little longer?”

She gave him a long, penetrating look over her shoulder, her heart turning over when she saw the longing in his gaze. “No, Tyler, I don’t mind.” At that moment she did want to stay with him, in his arms, in his bed for a long, long time.

His left hand feathered up her thigh and under the T-shirt, fingers splaying over her hip. His hand burned her sensitive flesh through the delicate fabric of her silken panties.

Tyler buried his nose in the gold-streaked strands flowing over the pillow next to his, inhaling the very essence that was Dana Nichols. They lay together, wrapped in a cocoon of gentle intimacy almost as satisfying as the aftermath of a passionate coupling. He hadn’t made love to her, yet felt satiated. What he was experiencing with Dana he’d never shared with any other woman.

Women who’d shared his bed in the past were usually interested in one thing: sex. One or two had wanted more, but he had never been able to commit—not when his research projects had garnered so much
of his time. Most of his time had been spent at the laboratory entering and analyzing the data he’d spent thousands of hours gathering. He and the members of the research teams had studied the effects of differing drugs, enzymes, and chemical changes in pregnant women. He was one of the lead doctors on a study of endometriosis, GTN—abnormal pregnancies with a cystic growth of the placenta, and IUGR—the inadequate growth of a fetus during the last stage of pregnancy.

He woke up each morning thinking of the work he’d done the night before. It was only when the labs closed for holiday vacations that he permitted himself to step away from his world of research. He always returned to Florida the last two weeks of the year to reconnect with his family. In West Palm Beach he was Tyler Simmons Cole, son of Martin and Parris, brother to Regina Cole Spencer and Arianna Cole Kadir, and uncle to Clayborne and Eden Spencer. As Tyler, he interacted with his grandmother, brother-in-law, aunts, uncles, and numerous cousins.

He and his unmarried cousins, who usually visited trendy nightclubs, returned home with the sunrise, slept late, frolicked in heated pools, played tennis, and often engaged in spirited competitive basketball games. It was also the time to bet good-naturedly on professional and college football teams. The wagers were always done in secret, because the family matriarch forbade gambling in any form.

Dana felt some of her uneasiness dissipating as she lay in Tyler’s protective embrace, marveling that he hadn’t attempted to make love to her even though his hardness throbbing against her hips indicated he was fully aroused. She had to admit that the surging heat
and size of his prodigious sex was definitely a turn-on, and there was no doubt Tyler Cole was a virile man in the prime of his life.

As a young girl she remembered knocking on the door to her parents’ room, waiting for them to acknowledge her presence. She’d race into their bedroom, jump on the bed, and lay atop the sheets between them. There were occasions when her mother’s face was flushed with excitement, and it wasn’t until years later that she realized her mother’s expression reflected a satiated woman who’d experienced what it meant to be born female. It was a time when one could conclude with a single glance that Harry and Alicia had been very much in love with each other.

Was that how it had been between them before doubt, distrust, and deception destroyed their marriage? Dana recalled the sensual glances, the surreptitious caresses, and the endearments her parents had exchanged whenever they thought her attention elsewhere. She’d thought her parents and their marriage perfect.

“Were you home the night your mother died?”

The peace Dana felt fled, strange disquieting memories taking its place with Tyler’s query. She inhaled, and then let her breath out slowly. If she planned to become involved with Tyler, then he had a right to know who she was, what she’d become because of a single act of violence.

“Yes, but I’d slept through it.”

Her voice was soft, calming, as she told Tyler everything: Alicia and Harry’s argument, his decision to divorce his wife, and his threat to seek sole custody of his daughter.

She told him about the fire, which had destroyed all evidence connected with Alicia’s murder, Harry’s
arrest, and the judge’s decision to deny bail. Pausing, she related the pain she encountered when her grandmother would not permit her to visit her father while he awaited trial.

Each time she faltered, waiting to regain her composure, Tyler pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. He made no attempt to interrupt her, and she was grateful for this, because his presence had become more valuable than words of comfort.

She told him everything, leaving nothing out about her forced exile. “After my father took his life by hanging himself in his jail cell, my grandmother took me north to live with her sister. I cried for weeks because I missed my home. I hated my new school, and the students. There were only three black families living the area. Two were childless, and one had two sons. I’d opted not to go to the senior prom because neither of them asked me to be their date. It was in college that I was exposed to black men for the first time. They fascinated me with their regal arrogance and confidence as men. I dated, but refused to commit.”

Tyler closed his eyes, enjoying the haunting sound of Dana’s voice pulling him into a tightening web of seduction. He was content to lie in bed all day listening to her. She’d revealed her joy, fear, pain, and disappointment, eliciting a desperate need in him to protect her.

A wry smile curved his mouth at the same time he opened his eyes. He was forty-one years old, and for the first time in his life he’d clandestinely assumed responsibility for protecting someone other than himself: Dana Nichols.

Dana sat on the porch, staring at the oak trees shading the backyard. The ban on non-official vehicular
traffic was lifted twenty-four hours after it had been imposed, and she was back home.

A letter Georgia Sutton had written to her, but hadn’t mailed, dated three years before, lay on her lap. The feeling of security that had lingered with her after she’d shared most of Sunday with Tyler was missing. They’d stayed in bed until late morning, talking while holding hands. She’d found it so easy to talk to him because he listened intently without interrupting her or interjecting what he thought she wanted to hear.

He, in turn, had proudly revealed the professional and personal accomplishments of his mother and sisters. When she’d asked him about his father, he’d said he was a retired businessman.

They finally got up, completed their morning ablutions, she using the bathroom in the master suite, Tyler the one next to it. He slipped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and the stubble of an emerging beard on his lean jaw made his face less perfect—more rugged.

She assisted him preparing breakfast, but neither had much of an appetite because their focus was not on food but on a television screen in a niche in the large kitchen. The news of the destructive tornado had preempted regular programming. The governor had declared Calico and four miles of Washington County a disaster area, requesting federal aid from the president. Repeated footage of the arrival of representatives from FEMA and the Red Cross, and the governor talking directly to the interior secretary, buoyed the sagging spirits of those who had lost everything except their lives and the clothes on their backs.

The dispossessed were put up in school buildings in Hillsboro to wait for trailers, which were to be set up as temporary housing before the rebuilding would begin. The call for clothes, shoes, and money to aid families in the burial of their loved ones brought forth an
outpouring of goodwill and compassion from Mississippians all over the state. Dana had packed up several cartons containing clothes and shoes her grandmother had worn, labeling the boxes with their contents.

Eugene Payton had come as promised at ten o’clock that morning, cradling a leather case with legal documents that would change her and her life—forever. It had only taken Mr. Payton ten minutes to answer twenty years of questions—those spoken and unspoken. However, it wasn’t the will that had unnerved Dana. It was the sealed envelope containing the letter from Georgia that had rendered her mute, unable to move.

She had become the beneficiary of her grandmother’s life insurance, home, and its contents. A provision had indicated she could sell the house a year following Georgia’s death.

Dana unknowingly had also been Harry Nichols’s beneficiary. Her grandmother, as legal guardian, had used the money to purchase treasury bonds, and at maturity the result was a modest six-figure sum. The monthly allotment from the Social Security Administration for survivor’s benefits for Dana had been forwarded directly to Georgia’s sister in New York.

Dana had been orphaned a second time when her maiden Aunt Fanny died during her college junior year. She’d considered returning to Hillsboro to complete her studies at Mississippi State, but Georgia forbade her to come back. Adhering to her grandmother’s wishes, she’d earned an undergraduate degree at Ithaca College.

Picking up the letter, she read it again, analyzing every word: