Finding His Way Home

скачать книгу бесплатно


Lincoln knew it was a violation of every canon of good manners, but his curiosity was so strong that nothing was going to stop him. He couldn’t resist—he wouldn’t be human if he had—the opportunity to explore, if not the nooks and crannies of Valetta’s home, the corners of her life. He’d been relieved by her invitation to stay in her home. He was on a hunt, not to ferret out the secrets hidden away in her bureau drawers—he wasn’t dishonorable—but the display readily available to the observant eye, the treasures she had accrued that gave her life meaning, the mementos that defined her. He wanted a glimpse of her keepsakes and trophies and the pictures she had framed so that he could grasp the construct of her life.

The living room was in a similar state of shabbiness. Recently painted, but not quite finished, it was furnished with the green couch with which he was already familiar, a love seat he’d missed the first time, and a worn but colorful ottoman that had never matched the sofa in the first place. Dried flowers of no distinct bouquet filled a huge, dusty vase, an indifferent attempt at a potpourri. He suspected they were flora plucked during a long-forgotten country walk. Bookshelves filled to overflowing with dust-laden murder mysteries made the room seem more untidy than it was. Scatter rugs were just that—scattered, with no rhyme or reason—over an old pine floor that had unfortunately been painted. One rug seemed a dull gray, with a bit of brown thrown in for highlight, and the other a dull brown with a bit of red for color. Valetta’s talents evidently did not run to decorating, he decided. It never occurred to him that Valetta’s lack of free time could factor in.