Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page A

myself.”
    Arnufo swung the baby high in the air, crooning a littlesong in Spanish and earning a sweet chortle from her. The old guy was a natural when it came to Amber. The father of five grown daughters and a herd of grandchildren, he reveled in kids of any age.
    Dusty smiled to himself as he worked at the computer terminal, yet he felt a vague stirring of unease. Arnufo was so comfortable with the baby. Dusty wasn’t a natural when it came to kids. He loved his daughter, and perhaps the bond was even stronger because of what had happened to Karen, but that didn’t mean he knew the first thing to do with Amber. The truth was, he handled her awkwardly, loved her awkwardly. He could read a German instrument panel, a Chinese flight manual or an aberrant weather pattern. He could compute climb and descent times and fuel burn in his head. But he could not read his daughter’s face.
    Arnufo watched him work in silence for a while. Dusty logged in to the weather and flight planning site and went through the drill. A seventy-one degree course, 192.2 nautical miles. Rhumb lines spidered across the screen, and the printer hissed out a chart.
    â€œTake la princesa. ” Arnufo held out the baby. “I will get you packed for the flight.”
    â€œI need to call the tower and get clearance over the Air Force base, then I’ll be ready.” Holding the baby, Dusty followed Arnufo outside. Sunset covered the lake in a blanket of gold. Amber made a sound of displeasure as Arnufo headed for the house, but she didn’t cry as she sometimes did. Pico de Gallo came racing across the yard, distracting her and cheering her up. The dog was insane, but entertaining; Amber was nuts for him. She shifted in Dusty’s arms, her sharp little elbows and knees poking into him. She smelled like flowers and sunshine and yeasty warm milk.
    The baby made a gurgling sound and waved a star-shapedhand at the lake. The woman was a black silhouette now against the sinking light. When she tipped back her head to take a sip of wine, she looked like an antique French ad poster.
    â€œPapacito Arnufo thinks I should’ve introduced myself to her,” Dusty confessed to his daughter.
    â€œDa,” said Amber.
    He perked up. “What’s that?”
    â€œBa.”
    â€œNo shit.”
    The purple sky, pricked by early stars, deepened to indigo. A clear night for flying. Across the way, the stranger on the dock stood and walked away.
    Well, he was taking Ian Benning over to Huntsville tonight. Maybe he’d ask him a thing or two about the woman.

CHAPTER 6
    God, thought Lila Benning, putting her hands over her tortured ears, what a stupid-ass lame family. Even with the stereo turned up as loud as she dared, she could still hear the Three Stooges in the next room, revving up for another night of being morons. Tonight’s entertainment sounded like an armpit-farting contest. Lila dove for the bed, burying her head in a mound of pillows and stuffed animals.
    Predictably, a shout from below created a momentary silence. “Pipe down up there.”
    Her father punctuated the command by thumping the wall with a fist, and the morons subsided. Then the inevitable whispers started up, like the munchkins in Oz peeping out from under their flower petals, the volume increasing until bunk beds rattled and giggles crescendoed with idiotic exuberance.
    â€œDon’t make me come up there.”
    Her dad’s next command was followed by an even briefer silence and then an even louder song because, as everyoneknew from the start, that was the whole point. To get Dad out from behind his paperwork and up the stairs.
    His Timberland work boots thudded on the stairs with ominous slowness. “Fee fi fo fum…” With each step, he growled out a syllable. She heard him burst into the kids’ room with a roar, followed by a chorus of porcine squeals and the rusty creak of bed springs as he wrestled the boys into