Coming Home by Leslie Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

Because, intentionally or not, his grandfather had cost him the most important thing in his life.
    Her.
     
    Two hours later, Nicole felt sweaty, dirty and thoroughly happy to be back to work. She wasn't used to inactivity, and the last several days spent in hospital waiting rooms had taken their toll. Surprisingly enough, she and Wyatt had fallen into a comfortable camaraderie while they worked. Ignoring the past seemed to have lifted the tense, angry wall between them.
    "You have some beautiful animals here,” she told him. “My mother would be green with envy if she could see Sultan's Daughter."
    "That I'd like to see," he said with an unpleasant chuckle. "I don't imagine your mother's ever wanted something she didn't find some way to get."
    Nicole heard the bitterness in his voice. She didn't understand it, since Wyatt had never met her mother. Perhaps he had picked up some prejudices in his friendship with her father. Dad was never nasty, but he definitely had a sarcastic streak when it came to Mother. "She's not so bad."
    He stared at her, hard. Nicole felt herself squirming under his glance.
    "She's not?" he finally asked. "Tell me, Nicole, has she ever let you out from under her thumb? Did you go more than fifty miles from home to go to college? Have you lived anywhere but at her estate, other than those summers with your father?"
    She flushed and replied, "I am an adult, Wyatt. Yes, I live on Mother's estate, not because she demands it, but because she's done a great deal for me. She helped me with some very difficult times in my life. But beyond that..."
    "Yes?"
    "She needs me," Nicole replied, almost defying him to disagree with her.
    "She needs you," he repeated slowly, drawing out each word. "That woman's never needed anyone in her life."
    "How would you know? You've never even laid eyes on her."
    Wyatt sucked in his breath. Nicole didn't know. Her mother had never told her about their one and only meeting.
    He’d never considered that, but now, looking back, it made sense. He’d been furious when he left the rich Baltimore estate where Nicole had been raised. But her mother wouldn’t have taken any chances that the two of them might end up getting back together, even without the baby to entwine their lives. So of course she’d have kept his visit a secret.
    "Right," he finally muttered. "You know her much better than I do."
    It probably didn’t matter that Nicole had never found out he’d come for her. By the time he'd shown up in Maryland, she had already made her decisions about her future. The baby was gone, Nicole off in college. Wyatt had been raw with emotion and anger. So it probably wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference.
    "My mother has no one else in her life, Wyatt.”
    “There’s a surprise…”
    “It’s very sad,” Nicole insisted. “Her parents died when I was a baby, her marriage to my father was short-lived and miserable. She married again and that lasted less than a year. She's a wealthy woman who's led a lonely life. I'm her only child. Isn't it natural that she'd want to keep me close?"
    Wyatt listened as she tried to explain. How typical for Nicole to come to the defense of someone she loved. She was intensely loyal, even to those who didn't deserve such loyalty.
    For many years Wyatt had forced himself to picture Nicole growing more and more like her mother. When he let his thoughts dwell on the past, he found their faces overlapping until he practically remembered them as one person. And the anger—no, rage—he’d felt toward the older woman had somehow transferred onto the daughter.
    But seeing her again had forced him to acknowledge the truth—Nicole was far more like her good-natured father than her spiteful mother. When he'd known her, Nicole Ross had been a sweet, gentle girl who wanted nothing more than to please the people she loved: her parents, and Wyatt. From what he'd seen the past few days, she hadn't changed much.
    It had taken a while, but Wyatt had