Return by Karen Kingsbury Read Free Book Online Page A

“And don’t worry. It’s not contagious.”
    Luke watched her go and felt no remorse. He headed for the window once more and stared out. Lately he spent half his time in front of that single sheet of glass, looking at the world outside their apartment, wondering how life had gone mad. What would make a person hijack a plane and fly it into a building full of people? That had been the turning point, really. His life would be forever marked by how it was prior to September 11.…
    And how it was now.
    He leaned his bare arm against the cold glass and tried to focus. Back cramps probably meant it was that time of the month for Lori. PMS was hard on her, though she hated to admit it. Some weeks she would wax on about the virtues of menstruation and how it empowered women. Other times she called it a curse, a challenge men knew nothing about.
    Luke always wanted to laugh when she said that, but he didn’t dare. If anyone knew about PMS it was a guy with four sisters. But Lori wasn’t interested in his opinion—at least not on anything concerning a woman. He shifted and let his other arm rest against the glass. That had to be it, PMS, and maybe she’d been in for a checkup. Not that a checkup would take all day, but if she didn’t want to tell him where she’d been, then so be it.
    Right now, he didn’t care.
    He watched a car pull into the apartment parking lot and drop off a young couple. The two laughed as they waved good-bye and headed toward the front doors. Too bad Lori was sick. It would’ve been a great night to check out the action on campus. A concert, maybe, or a reading at the library. Life was about more than special-interest meetings, no matter what Lori thought.
    Luke’s mind drifted and he closed his eyes.
    Where did Reagan live these days? With her mother in New York, obviously…the place she’d run off to on September 11. But was she happy? Had she enrolled in school and continued her education? Did she work at a café somewhere waiting tables or had she taken time off to mourn the loss of her father?
    His words to his mother flashed in his mind: “You did the right thing. She had to know someday.” Luke gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t call Reagan—definitely not. Not when she knew how he’d changed. Not when she’d been so clear about his mother not telling him about her phone call.
    Why had she called, anyway? Wasn’t it enough that she’d refused his phone calls for months on end? She walked out on their relationship. What right did she have to try to find him now? He studied the sky above Bloomington and felt his anger dissipate. Maybe she needed to tell him something, something urgent. Maybe her mother had been hurt…or her brother.
    He caught his reflection in the glass and realized how long his hair was. He used to wear it short, his style conservative and clean-cut. But Lori told him a man looked better natural, with long hair and a beard, that in the crucial academic years it was important not to stifle any of himself or the power within him.
    So Luke had grown a mustache and a goatee, but he had drawn the line there. Beards bothered him, even if the lack of one left him powerless in his crucial academic years.
    He took a step back and caught more of his reflection. Even now—months after he’d made the decision to become someone else—he had trouble recognizing himself. Wavy hair down to his jaw, the unruly goatee and wispy mustache. The only thing even a little familiar about himself was the look in his eyes, a look that even September 11 hadn’t been able to destroy.
    A look that told him the truth about his feelings. No matter how often he lied to himself, he would always love a girl with long, blonde hair and a heart of gold; a girl who once told him she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him. A girl who would’ve been Reagan Baxter.
    If only things had worked out differently.

CHAPTER FOUR
    A SHLEY PULLED INTO the driveway at Sunset Hills Adult