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"I don't have any animals if you're looking for one." |
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She jumped and let out a little squeak. "Ah, no. I was justjust looking around. This place is wonderful. You said it's your family home: Do your parents live here too?" |
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Chris's face tightened at the mention of his parents. People who knew him avoided the subject, conscious of how the past upset him. But D.J. didn't know him. Not at all. |
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"My parents are dead." He turned and left her standing in the middle of the room. |
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Chris went to the kitchen and sat down in the window seat of the bay window, overlooking the garden. Why, after eighteen years without them, could the mention of his parents still cause such pain? |
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His mother had loved this house, lavishing care and affection on every room with graceful abandon. She had planted the wildflower garden the summer Chris turned six, and he had tended it faithfully every year since her death. Dad, a gentle, quiet man who loved his wife and child with his entire heart, had enjoyed being a lawyer, but the true joy in his life had been his family. Chris wanted the same type of family life for himself. He wanted a soul mate to share his days and nights forever. Sometimes the loneliness became almost too strong to bear, but he would settle for nothing less than what his parents had shown him. Life with the one right person could be heaven. |
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"Hey, McCall. Are you okay?" |
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D.J.'s voice drifted down the hallway from the liv- |
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