Read Online Homecoming by Janet Wellington - Free Book Online Page A

were over.”
    “What was she like then?”
    “Amazing. And I never missed that she had no television or no phone. We were always busy making things, going on little trips to the lake—here, look at this.”
    Jake handed her a sketchbook. She opened it to find pencil drawings of birds and flowers, and Tillie’s house drawn from the perspective of above it—from a tree, maybe? Then she flipped a few pages and stopped at a pretty decent drawing of a kitten, filled in with colored pencils. A long-haired orange kitten. “Max?”
    “Not bad, huh?”
    “How old were you when you drew this?”
    “Seventeen.”
    “That would make Max pushing twenty. I knew he was old, but I had no idea...” She found more drawings of cats and some landscapes and seascapes. The last drawing in the book was a charcoal of a young man’s face—but obviously not Jake’s. “Did you do this one?” She held up the drawing for him to see.
    “No, I don’t remember ever seeing that one. Maybe Tillie did it. She’s the one who taught me to draw.”
    Cory ran her finger tip along the young man’s darkened hair. There was something in his eyes that seemed haunted, maybe a little bit lonely. She’d take the drawing to town with her later, maybe find a mat and a frame for it. There was a space on the wall in the parlor that needed a little something.
    She looked up to see Jake flipping through another box of photos. “You were lucky to have Tillie in your life.”
    “I know.”
    “You never mentioned her to me...when we knew each other...before.”
    “And I don’t know why. She was this sort of secret part of my life back then, the only good part. I was so used to hiding my visits to her from my old man, I think I just got used to hiding it from everyone.”
    “You were pretty reserved about personal stuff. I used to wonder what your charm might be hiding from me.”
    Jake looked up and held up his high school annual, and out of it he pulled an 8x10 photo—her senior picture.
    “Give me that—” Cory leaned forward to reach for the photo and he pulled it away at the last second so that she toppled against him, her open hand landing on his chest. He reached up with his free hand to encircle her wrist, holding it gently against him. His blue eyes searched her face as though he were reaching into her thoughts.
    Then his face split into a wide grin. “Aw, you were cute ,” he teased, still holding the photo out of reach.
    Cory regained her footing and reached for his wrist, holding it so she could get the picture. When she stepped away from him to sit back on the stool, she was breathless from the playful struggle, and breathless from the smell of him; a clean, soapy smell with a hint of citrus cologne. She forced her attention to the photo.
    Her hairstyle then was soft curls all over her head; she remembered conditioning it for an hour to try to get it tamed down before she went to the photo shoot. It looked acceptable, she decided, just so different. She hardly remembered even being the girl whose serious eyes looked back at her.
    “I liked it then,” he said, “but the way you wear it now seems to suit you too.”
    “What?” She looked up at him.
    “Your hair.”
    She unconsciously reached a hand up to smooth away a strand that tickled her forehead. “We’ve switched,” she added. “I liked yours long.”
    “Not corporate enough.”
    “So, what is it that keeps you busy in Chicago?” She kept the question vague, wondering if he would talk about his personal life, or take the safe route and talk about his professional life. She’d bet the latter.
    “I work for a company called Think Tank—they’re a big advertising agency downtown. I’m competing for the vice-president position.”
    “I can see you in that environment. Your brain works so fast; you’re a natural for thinking ‘outside the box’ and all that. You were always good at it in school. Remember when you came up with that crazy idea for our last project