Welcome Home, Bobby Winslow. Christyne Butler
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throw for her.
Of course, tonight she had plans to meet up with Maggie and Racy at the Blue Creek Saloon, for her official “turning the page” party. Seeing how the next chapter in her life was nothing but a blank slate, Leeann didn’t really feel like celebrating.
She wasn’t worried about her lack of income despite the devastating loss of her inheritance and model earnings thanks to a Ponzi scheme a couple of years ago.
She still had enough money in the bank thanks to the sale of the land to pay the bills for a while, but her aunt’s last round of cancer treatments had eaten up most of it. Thankfully, Ursula’s latest medical checkup had come back negative and she was already back to work at her hair salon, but that still didn’t explain the restlessness Leeann had been feeling for the past week.
Heck, for the past month. The past few months.
A restlessness that came to fruition this morning when—for the first time in a long time—she’d awakened without a plan.
Leeann always had a plan.
Most times in writing, sometimes only in her head. Knowing how her day was laid out—hour by hour, step by step—helped her to maintain balance and purpose for her life.
The last time she’d been without a plan had been thanks to a police investigation that came to an abrupt end with the decision there hadn’t been enough evidence to go forward.
A decision that had reduced her to being a prisoner in her penthouse apartment in the heart of Manhattan. Rarely bothering to shower or get out of her pajamas, she’d had all her food delivered to her front door, her only contact with the outside world via her computer.
She hadn’t even answered her cell phone, blessedly silent for weeks thanks to the press of a button. Not that she’d let that stop her from smashing it into a million confettilike pieces one night with a hammer—
“Stop!”
She jerked upright, her voice echoing in the quiet morning, bouncing off the water and causing her to blink.
She’d almost done it. She’d almost gotten sucked back into the nightmare that had been her life six years ago. A nightmare she hadn’t thought about for a very long time.
No, that’s not true.
Three months ago she, Racy and Maggie had gone away for a girls’ weekend at a spa in Jackson Hole. After a day filled with massages, facials and body wraps and a couple shared bottles of wine later by the fire, she’d finally disclosed to her best friends in the world her deepest secret.
Telling them hadn’t been as hard as she’d thought it would be. They were very sweet and supportive, and Leeann now realized the restlessness she’d been feeling had started after that trip, despite her believing she’d truly moved on from the past.
Until last night.
Until Bobby had come back to town.
“Don’t blame him. Your thoughts are your own. Your actions are your own.” She spoke aloud her familiar mantra while dropping into a deep lunging stretch. Planting her hands midthigh, she lowered her forehead to her knee. “Your decisions are you own.”
“Words to live by.”
Chapter Three
The male voice caused Leeann to jerk upright; the sudden movement sent her stumbling backward. She lost her balance and ended up on her backside in the damp grass.
“Jeez, me and my big mouth.” Bobby made his way toward her, leaning heavily on a cane. “Here, let me help—”
“Stop.” Leeann scrambled to her feet, holding out one hand. “I’m up. I’m fine. I don’t need your help.”
Bobby slowed but continued walking. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t.”
Conscious of her bare arms and abs thanks to the cropped tank top she wore that was nothing more than a fancy sports bra, Leeann moved past him to grab her jacket and yank it on. “What are you doing down here?”
He faced her. “I could ask you the same thing.”
She righted her ball cap without removing it, but still met his gaze. “I own this land.”
“And I own the road you used to get to this land.”
Leeann tried not to stare as Bobby leaned slightly to his left, obviously favoring one leg as he gripped the carved head of his cane. Something he hadn’t used yesterday when she’d ordered him out of his camper. “How did you even know I was—wait, you have a security system.”
“Does that surprise you?”
No, it didn’t. Not with the multimillion-dollar home he had built on the land adjacent to hers.
“There isn’t an access road from the main highway to the pond,” she explained. “I used your driveway, but I turned off just before the gate.”
“Yeah, I saw the images.”
This had to have been less than fifteen minutes ago.
Then he’d come here, using the path only the two of them had known about, the path she’d used all those years ago when she’d lived in a big house up on that same hill.
Memories of the times the two of them spent here together rushed back to her. Times they shrieked with laughter while splashing around in the icy water on a hot summer day, when she’d helped him understand the complexity of calculus, or the many times he’d held her close as she cried over yet another fight with her mother.
The time they’d fumbled through the unknown yet passion-filled moments of making love for the first time in a sleeping bag beneath a star-filled sky.
Leeann forced herself back to the present. She and Bobby were strangers to each other now.
“What are you thinking about?” He leaned forward, his gaze roaming from her head to her toes.
Just like he’d done yesterday. And like yesterday, her body responded with a heated flush she quickly blamed on her run.
“What—nothing.” She took another step backward, an automatic reaction she had drilled into her head whenever anyone invaded her physical space.
“You do realize your face still gives away your thoughts?”
Only with him.
She’d learned over the years, first with her parents and then in New York, how to put on a false face, to pretend an emotion that didn’t exist. Then later, she’d used that same skill at the police academy to prove to her instructors and fellow cadets she was more than just her looks.
Even here in Destiny among her former coworkers and friends, she worked hard to earn a reputation for having unflappable composure.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pulled the brim of her cap lower over her eyes and turned away, her gaze on the still waters of her pond.
“Why’d you cut your hair?”
His simple question had her spinning back to look at him. The sun on his face made it hard for her to see his eyes. Was he laughing at her?
“I think that’s why it took me so long to recognize you yesterday, that and the uniform.” Bobby switched his cane from one hand to the other. “You always vowed you’d never cut your hair. Was it because of your job?”
“Huh?”
“Were you required to cut it when you became a cop?”
Dull kitchen scissors. Piles of knotted and tangled unwashed hair littering her lap and the gleaming hardwood floor beneath her. Frantic pounding on the door. Loud clicks of the locks releasing. The shock on her aunt’s face when she found her sitting there—
Years