Christmas at Twilight by Lori Wilde Page A

safe.
    He hadn’t found her again. He hadn’t snuck into the house as she slept. He hadn’t stolen the children.
    Instead, Captain Brian Hutchinson had come home. That’s why the kids weren’t here. It was why they hadn’t awakened her with requests for breakfast. Why she’d gotten the best sleep she’d had in five years.
    Hutch had returned.
    This was a good thing.
    Why couldn’t she accept that? Relax a little?
    Because Hutch or no Hutch, the sociopathic stalker who’d sworn to kill her in a million horrible ways was still out there. And in spite of the frequent moves and the job changes and the hair dye and the weight loss to change her appearance and the gun in the locked box underneath her bed, she believed him. She knew what that monster was capable of.
    Breathe.
    She took several deep, cleansing breaths, did some yoga stretches to quell her quaking muscles, but her mind couldn’t fully focus until she was one hundred percent certain that the children were okay.
    It was six-forty-five. Normally, she never slept past six, even on the weekends. How and why had she slept so soundly? Not even rousing when the children got out of bed.
    Quickly, she dressed in a clean uniform, and not bothering with makeup or combing her hair, hurried downstairs.
    She heard their laughter before she saw them, Kimmie’s high-pitched girly giggle, Ben’s boyish chuckle, and Hutch.
    Hutch was laughing too. A deeply masculine sound that rolled around throughout the house and immediately lifted Meredith’s spirits. He might not be able to talk, but he could laugh.
    They didn’t see Meredith as she drifted into the kitchen. Hutch was at the stove with two kitchen chairs at either elbow, complete with a four-year-old standing on the seat of each chair. On the noses of all three cooks was a smear of yellow pancake batter, along with twin slashes of batter decorating their cheeks like war paint. All three wore aprons. The aprons were oversized and baggy on the kids. She’d never seen the aprons before and wondered where he’d gotten them.
    Kimmie’s apron read: “Life Is Short. Eat Dessert First.” Ben’s proclaimed: “Real Men Cook.” Red rubber spatula in hand, Hutch dwarfed the navy blue apron tied around his neck. It announced in gold lettering: “My Job Is to Cook, Yours to Eat.”
    Underneath the apron, Hutch wore jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt that gave him a lumberjack appearance. His face was clean-shaven. His eyes bright and clear. Fresh day. Fresh start.
    A platter of crispy bacon cooked to perfection rested on the counter. On a buttered grill, poured in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head, pancakes browned. How had he managed that? It was a mystery on par with the aprons.
    Meredith’s worrywart impulse was to tell the children to get off the chairs and scold Hutch for allowing them to get so close to a hot stove. But they were having so much fun that she bit her tongue, pressed her palms together behind her back in reverse prayer pose, and watched.
    A minute later, Hutch glanced up and met her eyes.
    The way he looked at her singed her panties. She felt like she was bowling pins and he was the bowling ball, ripping down a shiny waxed lane for the perfect strike.
    A vision that was completely unwanted, but there nonetheless, popped into her head. She saw herself taking him by the hand, leading him upstairs to his bedroom, yanking off his clothes to see if he really could cook up something she was eager to eat.
    This was craziness.
    Why wasn’t she afraid of him? After everything she’d been through, she should be terrified of him. She didn’t know exactly what had happened to him, but the fresh scars were clear. He was in a bad place and so was she. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about sex whenever she looked at him? Why did she keep wondering what he tasted like?
    This feeling had nothing to do with his steely jaw,