A Winchester Homecoming. Pamela Toth
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red hair, the green thumb and the angelic voice, then Aunt Robin, a diminutive and dark-haired veterinarian from Chicago. For the first time, Kim realized that all three Winchester brothers had chosen brides from other states.
Kim waited for the inevitable questions: Why are you home? Where’s your husband? How long are you staying? When are you going to start a family of your own?
Aunt Rory, the mail-order bride from the Bronx who had come out to see Uncle Charlie and married Uncle Travis instead, came forward with a big smile and open arms.
“Hi, sweetie. Welcome back.”
“Thank you,” Kim murmured, taking comfort in Aunt Rory’s enveloping embrace and the familiar scent of her perfume. As a teenager, Kim had spent many hours baby-sitting Rory’s kids.
After a final squeeze, Rory released her so she could greet Robin, the aunt she barely knew. While Rory’s height dwarfed her, Robin made Kim feel oversize and gangly.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Robin said. Her midnight-black hair was cut as short as Kim’s and her smile was a little shy.
“Thanks,” Kim replied, feeling awkward. “Where’s Amanda?”
At the mention of her baby, Robin’s elfin face brightened. “Charlie’s got her. He hardly lets her out of his sight.”
“Well, he’s always been a bit of a ladies’ man,” Rory reminded her with a wink.
“Listen to you,” Emily exclaimed, waving hands that were encased in flowered oven mitts. “As if Travis hasn’t taken to fatherhood like a kitten to cream.”
“Winchester men,” Rory replied with a grin. “You gotta love ’em.”
Watching the interplay between the other three women, all friends and all happily married, stirred a mixed brew of feelings in Kim—envy, resentment and a dash of self-pity. It wasn’t fair. She had tried so hard to do everything right, so why had it all turned out so badly?
Dismissing the silent question, she turned to the woman she had blamed for a long time for usurping her own place in her father’s life and heart.
“Anything I can do to help?” Kim asked.
The counter was lined with bowls of salads—pasta, potato, mixed greens and shimmery jello for the kids. Next to a large platter of fried chicken on the center island was a bowl of baked beans.
“Everything’s ready, so you could start carrying the dishes outside,” Emily replied with a sweep of one hand. “Rory, would you tell your hubby to get the kids settled? Robin, why don’t you help Kim with the food?”
“And just what are you going to be doing while we’re all slaving away?” Rory returned with a mock glare.
She had married Travis when Kim was ten, an alien goddess from New York who worked briefly as the bunkhouse cook. Now she sang at Charlie’s dinner club in town when she wasn’t raising children and flowers.
Robin had moved to Waterloo and married Uncle Charlie five years ago. She seemed to be as quiet as he was outgoing. Maybe opposites did sometimes mesh, rather than grinding against each other until only one was left whole.
Pushing her blond hair off her forehead, Emily made a sweeping gesture toward the open French doors. “I think I’ll go mingle with all that prime male Winchester beef waiting outside.” She added a shimmy of her hips for emphasis.
“In that case, dab some salad dressing behind your ears and take this with you,” Rory drawled, thrusting a bowl of greens at her as the others hooted with laughter. Even Kim had to grin at their antics.
“Jake, quit picking on Chuckie!” Adam called out as David dug a cold soda from the cooler.
As Jake looked up at his father, his chubby redheaded cousin took the opportunity to push him.
“Hey!” Travis shouted at his younger son. “Any more of that and you’re benched.” He grinned over at his own older brother. “Tough little suckers. Probably future football stars.” He looked back at the two boys, who were now both scowling fiercely. “Play nice.”
“Yeah, like your dads never did,” Charlie added with a sly wink at David. Charlie was holding his two-month-old baby in the crook of his arm. Oblivious to the sounds around her, Amanda slept soundly.
Even though David wasn’t really into babies, she was pretty cute with her tiny fist tucked under her pointy chin. It was plain to see that his uncle, the former sheriff, was a cream puff when it came to his firstborn.
“When are you going to tie the knot and raise a passel of little Winchesters?” Travis asked him jokingly.
“He’s not a Winchester!”
The heads of all four men seated around the picnic table swiveled to look at Kim, who was standing in the doorway with a platter of chicken. David couldn’t tell if the color on her cheeks was caused by annoyance or merely embarrassment from suddenly finding herself the center of attention.
David got to his feet as Adam broke the awkward silence.
“But David is family just the same,” he said firmly, his gaze steady on his daughter’s.
Kim’s knuckles were nearly as white as the platter she gripped so tightly. Somehow that tiny bit of vulnerability spurred David forward, that and the memory of a younger, gentler Kim pushing through a crowd of students to ask his name.
“Let me help you with that,” he offered, reaching for the platter. “It’s got to be heavy.”
Her gaze clashed with his and he thought she was going to refuse.
“Rory makes the best fried chicken in the state,” he added. “I’d eat it off the floor if I had to, but I’d sooner not.”
“Oh, Lord, don’t drop my wife’s chicken, Kimmie, or I’ll never hear the end of it!” Travis exclaimed dramatically. “Somebody set that plate down.”
His comment broke the tension. Kim blinked and then she thrust the platter at David. When their hands touched, he could feel her tremble.
“Thanks.” Her voice was husky. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I was just stating a fact.”
“No problem,” David replied. Adam didn’t deserve whatever resentment she felt, but that was for the two of them to work out. David had no intention of getting in the middle.
Kim flapped her hand in the direction of the kitchen. “There are some more things I need to get.” She turned abruptly, barely avoiding a collision with Rory, who was bringing the potato salad.
“Hey, kid, would you make yourself useful and help me move the tables?” Charlie asked, distracting him.
Adam reached for Amanda, his normally stern expression replaced by a goofy grin as he cuddled her. Like the Pied Piper, Travis had already led the other kids inside the house to wash up.
“What do you think is going on with Kim?” Charlie asked David after the two of them had put two tables together. “She sure seems tense.”
Charlie grabbed his beer. His observation didn’t surprise David as much as it might have if it had come from some other big macho guy. When he had served his term as the town sheriff, he would have had to be able to read people and to be observant. Not much got past him. David remembered that a few of his buddies had found that out the hard way.
He wasn’t about to admit that he’d even given Kim a thought. He no longer had any idea of what made her tick, and perhaps he never had.
“Who knows,” he replied carelessly. “Maybe it’s jet lag.”
“It’s a three-hour flight from Seattle,” Charlie pointed out dryly. “You’d think she would have recovered by now.”
David shrugged. The aroma from the chicken was making his stomach growl as more