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  “Home Again”

  A Lesbian Romance

  Christine L’Amour

  © 2019

  Christine L’Amour

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18. Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2019.01.16)

  Special thanks to the volunteer readers who helped with proofreading. Thank you so much for your support.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Free Book “Sealed with a Kiss”

  Chapter One

  Stephanie smiled at the empty box in front of her and looked around her new living room. She’d finally emptied the last box and was officially moved in, and the sense of accomplishment she felt was bigger than at any other point in her life. Graduated college? Payed off all her student loans? Got a stable job as an editor? None of them compared.

  There it was, that stupid box, the last one she had still filled after two weeks in the new house, and now she was done. Everything she owned was in its place, and still it was bare. Stephanie was a big city girl through and through; she’d shared a cramped apartment with her family for all twenty-six years of her life and couldn’t hope to fill a huge three bedroom, two story house alone.

  But here she was.

  Steph stood up on shaky legs, numb after having her sit on top of them for so long, and pushed her dirty blond hair away from her face. It was short and curled but growing. Maybe she’d let it grow. It was time to do different things.

  She kicked the box to the corner of the room and sat down on the old couch. Propping her feet up on top of the coffee table she settled her laptop on her lap. It was time to do some work, she’d procrastinated enough already. She opened the file of the latest book she was editing.

  Before she could type a single word, her phone started to ring. Thank God, she thought. This latest book she had to revise was a bore.

  “Hey, Mom,” Steph said. “What’s up? If Dad’s complaining about me not being there to have lunch with him, tell him he’s got more than one daughter.”

  “Hello, Steph,” her mother said, and Steph could hear the eye-roll in her voice. “You know your sister is very busy and can’t visit us often. Anyway. How’s small town life treating you?”

  “It’s been wonderful,” Steph said. She put her phone between her cheek and her shoulder so she could keep typing at her computer and write a few notes to remember later. “The house is so big, Mom. I just emptied the last box! So, I’m now officially moved in!”

  There was a pause.

  “Well, now you’re officially moved in, when are you visiting?” her mother asked.

  “Mom, it’s an eight hour drive.”

  “So? Since you work from home, there’s really no excuse. You’ve never been away from home for more than a few weeks… we miss you.”

  “I know, I miss you too,” Steph said, and contained a sigh. “But I just moved out. You didn’t go asking Suzannah to visit us when she moved away!”

  “Yes, but your sister moved to the other side of the city, not to another state!”

  “I’ve got to work, Mom,” Steph said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll call you and Dad later. I’ll visit, like, next month or something, okay? I know I said I officially moved in, but there’s still a lot of work to be done in the house. My only furniture is what the last guy left behind.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Bye, Mom.”

  Steph threw her phone to the other side of the couch. She very much appreciated how comfortable the cushions were, her cute yellow-cream walls, and the smell of dust and grass that still permeated every room. This was her home now, not the big city she’d always lived in.

  It wasn’t supposed to be just her own, but Pedro was dead and she’d come anyway.

  Steph stared at the screen of her laptop. Her eyes refused to focus on the words of the stupid book that had been sent to her to edit. She let her head fall back to the back of the couch with a groan. She wanted to go back to working on her novel, loved but neglected for what felt like a lifetime now.

  She compromised and did neither, and went to work on her backyard garden.

  ***

  By 3pm, Steph was dirty, sweaty, and hurting, as well as starving. All she’d done was pull out weeds but there’d been so many. Later she’d take a look at the plants, figure out what she could salvage.

  She sat on top of grass and dirt and felt the top of her back and her neck ache with sunburn. She looked around. Her huge backyard was now a mess; it’d grown wild in the last owner’s absence, but now there was dirt thrown everywhere. It didn’t have a fence or anything to separate it from the woods nearby.

  She smiled. Her arms hurt like hell, but she felt very accomplished. She stood up and limped back inside. She saw her phone buzzing on top of the table and picked it up on her way to the kitchen.

  “Hey, Suz,” she said, putting the phone between her cheek and her shoulder as she washed her hands. “You know, I think I’m gonna have a vegetable garden. Fancy that!”

  Suzannah was quiet for a moment, but when she spoke she sounded more amused than not.

  “Remember when we tried to grow tomatoes by our bedroom window and they died within the week?”

  “Don’t curse me like that! So, what’s up? How’s my brother-in-law?”

  “Charlie’s just fine, you know how he is. He misses you like crazy.”

  Steph snorted.

  “I’m surprised the man even noticed I was gone.”


  Suz sighed. “Steph, seriously. When are you coming home? A month or two? You left but didn’t actually tell us how long you’re staying there, and everybody’s anxious. You know how it is.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Suzannah,” Stephanie said slowly. “I live here now.”

  “…what?”

  “I moved here. I live here. This is not a vacation. I have moved into this house, in this town we’d planned on moving into for years now. You thought…you think I’m here for just a couple of months?”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Suz said, baffled. “You can’t just move out to the middle of nowhere.”

  “I just did,” Stephanie said, clutching her phone so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Apparently, I did it so smoothly you didn’t even realize I’d done it.”

  “You can’t just not come home! You’re just—leaving us? Leaving everyone as if we’re nothing? You didn’t talk to us, and now you—now you live eight hours away in a no-name small town— “

  “You’re saying that as if you don’t know precisely why I came here? Seriously, Suzannah?” Stephanie stood up. “You know what? I have a fucking vegetable garden to plant. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Steph— “

  She hung up. She threw her phone at the counter and it clattered loudly, satisfying. Steph stared at the old weird kitchen cabinets, hers now.

  The crime statistics in town were in the negatives. Steph reminded herself of that even as homesickness started clawing up her throat. She looked very firmly at the wallpaper of her very own kitchen, and thought of all the tomatoes and carrots and lettuce she was going to grow in this damn earth. It was going to be beautiful.

  She sighed and felt her shoulders slump. She was tired and hungry. She didn’t want to think about family anymore. There was a nice restaurant down the street, Steph thought to herself, and she could afford to eat out once like this. She could do with leaving the house, for once.

  ***

  Steph locked the door firmly behind her and couldn’t help smiling at her house. The street was wonderful too, full of big houses with some shops down the road. Some kids were playing around. It was a sunny summer day. Peaceful.

  Steph bounced her shoulders up and down as if shaking off her big city paranoia, letting herself feel comfortable.

  The restaurant was as close as she remembered and as wonderful as she’d thought; it had a few tables outside, making good use of the sun. The entrance was all glass and inside was all dark wood, homey, with paintings of the ocean on the walls. She peered at the price board on the other side of the counter.

  “Hey,” the cashier said.

  “Oh—uh, hi,” Steph said, blinking down at him. “I’ll have the stroganov with some orange juice?”

  He squinted at her. “That a question?”

  “Uh,” she said. “I guess— “

  “Ed, don’t be rude to the costumer,” came a voice, and a heavy hand fell on top of the man’s shoulder.

  Steph looked up at that woman and thought: oh.

  She was easily half a head taller than Steph, with pale skin and black hair in a perfect braid. Her eyes were the lightest thing Steph had ever seen and Steph couldn’t tell if they were blue or green or grey. She wore clothes more formal than Steph had seen in the entire town all together: black slacks, a white shirt with the sleeves folded back. The smile she was giving the cashier was easy and amused, and it made crinkles appear in the corner of her eyes.

  Steph stared at her, which was rude but which she couldn’t help, and she was embarrassed that she hadn’t really bothered to clean up after working at the garden. That woman was gorgeous and Steph was sunburned, dirty-handed, and she was pretty sure there were still leaves in her hair. Stephanie felt a part of her shrivel up and die of embarrassment.

  “Sorry about him, he’s just a grumpy man,” the woman continued, turning toward Steph. She squinted at her. “Hey, you’re new in town, right? You bought the old Sheriff’s house, up the road?”

  “Yes,” Steph’s mouth said without her input. God, those eyes should be illegal. “I’m Stephanie Esperanza, nice to meet you.”

  The woman took her hand from the cashier’s shoulder and reached out for a handshake. Her skin was cool and smooth. Steph took back her hastily-washed hand and shoved it deep in her pocket, ashamed.

  “So, you’re living pretty close by, you can come here a lot,” she said with a grin. “I’m Erika McCall, I’m the owner. This is my twin brother Edward.”

  The cashier waved. The two of them really had the same dark hair and the same light eyes.

  “Nice to meet you,” Steph said, giving them an awkward smile. “I like the restaurant.”

  Erika shrugged. “It’s the family restaurant, so I can’t take much credit for it.” She mirrored Steph and put her hands in her pockets. “It’s your first time here, right? I think I’d have noticed you around.”

  “Yeah, it’s my first time,” Steph said. She hoped her blush wasn’t that apparent. “I hadn’t really left the house at all yet. I’m… not used to a small town.”

  “You come from a big city? I know the feeling. I’ve been back for a few months, too.”

  “But our whole family’s here,” Edward piped up. “Anyway. stroganov and juice?”

  “On the house, for our new neighbor,” Erika added, leaning forward toward Steph. “Stop by tomorrow too? I’ll be around. I can’t promise a second free meal, though I do recommend the special!”

  “That’s, um,” Steph tried, and the words failed to come out. Goddamn, she couldn’t be in the presence of a beautiful woman without embarrassing herself. “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  “I’ll see you,” Erika said with a grin. “I gotta go now. Ed, hold the fort for a while, ok?”

  “You’re gonna trust me to hold the fort?” her brother asked, sardonic.

  Erika clapped him on the back and walked out after another wave.

  “So what juice was that again? Apple?”

  But Steph didn’t hear him, too busy staring at Erika’s retreating back.

  ***

  “Dude, you have to move here,” Steph hissed to her phone, hunched over her table and over her plate of food. Jesus Christ, it was such good food. She’d eaten nothing but pizza and frozen meals for two weeks now. Who’d made this? Forget the hot owner, Steph was going to marry the cook.

  “Aw, don’t shove it in my face!” Don answered, though he sounded amused. “I can’t quit my job yet. We’ll move there in, like, a year at best.”

  “We? I didn’t invite your damn girlfriend.”

  “I was talking about Eddie, the dog. Obviously. But yeah, Steph. It sounds great.”

  Steph sighed. She let her head fall to the arm she had curled over the table.

  “It is. The house is huge.”

  “So, you been robbed yet?”

  Steph laughed. “Donald, you silly idiot. People don’t get robbed in this town. Have you seen the crime statistics? The statistics are like, in the negatives. There have been resurrections instead of murders, that’s how it is. Remember why we wanted to move to here?”

  Don was quiet for a moment.

  “Yeah,” he said, voice low. “I miss him too.”

  Steph felt herself deflate like a balloon someone had poked with a needle. She looked at her plate full of food. She thought about her big house, and her porches, and the yard space she had.

  The plan had been for the three of them to leave together.

  “Pedro would have loved it here,” she said. “I mean, of course. He chose the damn house.”

  “I swear I’m coming soon as I can,” Don promised. “Okay? I gotta go now, lunch break is over. But I’m coming home. I’m gonna escape this stupid, dangerous place too.”

  Chapter Two

  “I can’t believe you ran this restaurant for three years and don’t know this,” Erika said, sending her brother a look. “You have a business degree!”

  “Yeah, well
, apparently, I didn’t learn enough even with my expensive business degree,” Edward said without looking up at her. He clicked a button on the register too forcefully. Erika looked away.

  Don’t joke with brother about his failure with the restaurant, she reminded herself.

  “Anyway, we should hire a couple of waiters for the night shift,” Erika commented, leaning her hip against the counter. “We’re a bit understaffed, with how the restaurant’s been filling up for dinner.”

  Ed hummed in agreement but didn’t say anything. Erika resisted a sigh, turning around to look at the family restaurant. It didn’t feel like hers, but she’d worked on it and was now watching it grow, and that was satisfying, even if the thought of having to run this place in with her brother for years and years to come made her heart constrict.

  She tried not to think about that. Edward had promised he’d search for a proper job somewhere else; they’d all move on. The restaurant was nearly empty, only a few people lingering over their plates.

  This meant that it was very silent, and it was impossible for anyone to miss the sound of the bell when the front door was opened. Erika and Edward both looked at the door.

  Erika nearly felt her heart skip a beat when she saw it was the woman from yesterday—Stephanie, who was so short, who had tanned skin, wild blond hair, and smelled like upturned earth. She was beautiful, and today she was wearing frayed shorts and an enormous shirt with a faded print.

  She’d passed by after all.

  “Stephanie!” Erika said with a grin. “I thought you wouldn’t pass by anymore, it’s already almost three?”

  “Oh, um, I—” Stephanie started, face red, stumbling in her way in. Apparently, she was shy, which was the cutest thing. “I was working on my backyard and got distracted! It’s okay if you’re not serving anymore, I know it’s late—”

  “It’s okay,” Erika rushed to reassure, leaning more comfortable against the counter. She gave Stephanie an easy smile, tried to be open and friendly. The other woman was so drawn in on herself, eyes flitting around the room.