Read A Family to Come Home To (Saddle Falls) for Free Online

“Well, then, I reckon you’re a pretty lucky little lady, and almost all grown up too, aren’t you, darlin’?” He kissed one of her outstretched fingers.
    “Timmy and Terry said kindergarten isn’t so bad.” Fear clouded the child’s blue eyes and Jesse felt a tug at his heart. “I get to ride on a big yellow bus with all the big kids.” She glanced up at him, her eyes wide. “But Mama doesn’t get to go.” Fiercely she shook her head. “I get to go all by myself ’cuz I’m big now, right, Mama?”
    Hannah’s heart began to ache at the fear shadowed in her daughter’s eyes. Oh how she wished she could just wrap her daughter in her arms and protect her from anything and everything that would ever hurt her or be unpleasant.
    “That’s right, sweetheart,” Hannah said with a smile.
    He pressed another reassuring kiss to one of Riley’s sticky little fingers. “Well now, Miss Riley, I reckon you’re going to have a fine time on that big yellow school bus. Just think of all the new friends you’ll meet. And then when you come home you can tell your mama here all about your adventures each day.”
    “Can I tell you, too, Uncle Jesse?” Riley asked hopefully.
    “Absolutely, darlin’,” Jesse assured her, not wanting to disappoint the child by telling her he probably wouldn’t even be here by the time she started school.
    “You talk funny,” Riley blurted in response.
    “Riley!” Hannah almost groaned, but Jesse merely laughed at her daughter’s antics, plopping his Stetson on her golden head. It drooped down, covering her eyes, until she pushed it back so she could see.
    “Well, darlin’, I guess I do talk funny, but then again, where I come from I imagine they’d think you all talk a bit funny as well,” he said, punctuating his words by tickling her belly and making her giggle.
    “Where do you come from?” Riley asked, wideeyed, and Hannah wanted to groan again, but Jesse smiled indulgently.
    “Texas, honey. I’m from Texas.”
    “I don’t know where that’s at,” Riley said, pushing his Stetson back farther on her head.
    “Is that where you’ve been, Jesse?” Hannah asked quietly. “In Texas?”
    “For as long as I can remember,” he admitted with a shrug and a slow, sexy smile that made her toes curl in the small patch of grass she was standing in.
    “Do you remember anything, Jesse?” she pressed carefully. “Anything about your life here in Saddle Falls?” Her words caused her heart to beat in trepidation. “Before you went to Texas?”
    “You,” he said quietly, letting his gaze meet hers, making her heart tumble over again. “I remember you. And I don’t exactly reckon why.” Confused, he shook his head. “I hadn’t remembered anything until I was driving down the road, and then…” He glanced around, trying to absorb his surroundings. “I remembered this house—something about it…”
    She chuckled softly to hide her nerves. “That’s probably because you spent so much time here. Almost as much time as I spent over at the Ryans’.”
    He was still studying his surroundings, wondering if doing that would jog more memories. “I didn’t know what I remembered about this house. Except that as I drove by, I knew it, knew too that the third step on the back porch used to creak—”
    “Still does,” Hannah admitted with a laugh, surprised that he would remember something so insignificant.
    “And I remembered a little girl named Hannah-Anna,” he said quietly, tilting his head to continue to study her.
    She forced a smile past the sadness that had surfaced. “It’s been twenty years since anyone has called me that, and you, Jesse, were the only one who ever did.” Clearly, he didn’t remember her, not in the same way she remembered him. And it hurt, she realized. Very much.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, not certain he knew what he was sorry about. He only knew her eyes had shadowed at his words and he felt responsible somehow.
    “Oh, Jesse,