Home Free - Fern Michaels [104]
Tick sighed, leaned back against the headrest, but didn’t close his eyes because, if he did, he’d go to sleep. He’d worked a double shift because Joe Rollins had a ruptured appendix, and he’d filled in for him. He couldn’t wait to get home to Sally and the kids, take a shower, maybe eat something Sally had kept warm for him, and go to sleep with her spooning into his back. When he felt his eyelids start to droop, he turned the key, and, miracle of miracles, Lulu turned over. He was on his way to his family, whom he loved more than anything on earth. He loved them more than he loved his job, and he dearly loved his job. There were days when he hated the job, but the love always won out. He truly believed he made a difference. Where his family was concerned, there was no doubt, he loved them twenty-four/seven, unconditionally.
When he worked the late shift, he always let his thoughts go to his wonderful little family as a way of unwinding on his way home. He’d met Sally in the seventh grade, when she transferred from out of state. He fell in love with her that day when she stood in front of the class and said, “My name is Sally, and I’m new today.” He’d seen the sparkle of tears in her eyes and knew instinctively that she was afraid. Afraid the kids wouldn’t like her, afraid she’d make a mistake, and they’d laugh. He never did figure out where or how he’d known that, he’d just known it. Then, when he found out she had moved one street over from his own street, and they’d be walking to school at the same time, he’d almost done cartwheels. Later, Sally said she didn’t fall in love with him till they were in the eighth grade. He’d been heartbroken at that news but had covered it up well. She loved him, and that was all that mattered.
Married for fifteen years now, and he loved her as much as he did that day in the seventh grade when she introduced herself. He hoped and prayed nightly that his two children would find mates as wonderful as their mother when it was their time.
Sally Pritchard Kelly was the wind beneath his wings. She was the reason he got up in the morning, the reason he was still sane considering the fact that he was a homicide detective. Because of Sally and the kids, he didn’t carry his work home with him. When he walked in the front door of his mortgaged-to-the-hilt house, he was in another world. Worn, comfortable furniture waited for him. Sally always waited at the door for him, a smile on her face and smelling of a summer day. Always. He couldn’t remember a single day in all the years they were married that she hadn’t greeted him with a smile and a kiss on the lips. A real kiss that said she loved him, missed him, and now things were the way they should be because he was home. There would always be a warm meal in the oven if he was late. Didn’t matter how late he was. Sally would curl up on the couch and wait. Sally was the constant in his life.
Prettier than a picture, he always said. He loved the freckles that danced across her nose, loved the crooked eyetooth she refused to have straightened. There wasn’t one thing he didn’t love about his wife, because in his eyes, she was perfect. At this point in his reverie, even if he was so tired he couldn’t think straight, his eyes always misted up. He’d just curl up and die if anything ever happened to his beloved Sally. Well, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon; they had at least another fifty years to look forward to. Both he and Sally came from families where longevity was the rule.
Tick could feel his eyes start to droop again, so he pressed the stereo unit and turned up the volume. His and Sally’s favorite song was burned on every inch of the CD so he could play it over and over. “Mustang Sally.” He started to sing along with Wilson Pickett at the top of his lungs, Ride, Sally, ride!
He was two streets away from where he lived on David Court when he