Safe at Home (Warm Springs Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free

the glass. Sam wiped her wet hand on her shorts and answered. “Hello?”
    “Sam, darling, you bad girl. Why haven’t you called me other than to leave your number?”
    Sam grinned into the phone as her best friend’s familiar voice filled the line.
    “Here I am stranded in Chicago without you, trying to plan the biggest party of the year, almost at wit’s end, and you can’t even call me and see how I’m doing.”
    “Hi, Denise.” Sam laughed. Denise always had a way of checking up on her without acting like that was what she was doing. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, but I’ve been busy renovating my new house.”
    “I was afraid you’d run off with some cowboy in tight jeans and forgotten all about poor me.”
    “Oh, Denise, seriously,” she laughed, “No man could make me forget my best friend.”
    “Well, as long as you’re doing all right, I forgive you.”
    Sam leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She could almost convince herself she was sitting next to Denise getting one of their weekly pedicures. “I’m fine. This little town is beautiful. The people are nice and my house is wonderful. Things are better now than they’ve been in a long time.”
    “I miss you, Sam.” Denise’s voice softened, all teasing gone. “Things aren’t the same without you. You aren’t here to hear the stories of my latest weekend conquests.”
    Sam laughed. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to get you down here to visit.”
    “Oh my God, can’t you just picture it? Me, in the country. What would I wear?” They both laughed at the image.
    “I bet I could tempt you with the promise of cowboys in tight jeans.”
    Denise smacked her lips. “I bet you wouldn’t have to try very hard.”
    After catching up on all the latest news, they said goodbye and Sam made her way back to the dining room to resume painting. She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to Chicago and the way Denise had stood by her through the threats and the police interviews. She would never be able to repay Denise for her support.

 
    Chapter 4
    Sam scrutinized her progress inside the house. She’d finished painting the den and hallway leading to the kitchen, her favorite room in the house, which was nearly complete.
    It seemed a shame to pour all the work into a house that no one but herself would see. Maybe one day she would be able to use it as she had used her condo in Chicago. When she lived in the city, she always had parties and friends over for dinner, but here . . .
    Her gaze wandered to the couch sitting in her living room and she remembered for a moment how it felt snuggling on the couch with Tyler. She sighed and tried to hold onto her memories. Just long enough to try to recapture how his body had felt against hers. His warmth.
    She clapped her paint splattered hands together to snap out of her dream before sadness ruined her day, then crossed the kitchen to look out over her backyard. The sky was clear, the sun bright, and a slight breeze rustled the leaves. The outdoors beckoned to her like a siren. An assortment of flowers sat waiting for her on the grass.
    She stepped outside, crossed to where her tray of flowers lay, and knelt in the dirt. The damp smell of earth filled her nose. Spencer had cleared the area and cut the grass, jobs she’d seen him do through her kitchen window, but the space needed some color.
    As she pressed her fingers into the dirt she noticed the silence. In her old home, dogs barked and car horns honked at all hours from the street below her window. City sounds. She missed them, but she found herself beginning to enjoy the sounds of the country, too. The hum of bugs flitting through the air, the train whistling down the tracks, and the cows mooing in the distance were all beginning to feel familiar.
    She tamped dirt around the last group of flowers and stood. Her muscles were sore from hunching over, but the reward was worth the effort and slight discomfort. She brushed the dirt off her