Feels Like Home: A Southerland Family Contemporary Romance Book 1 (2 page)

She had an unusual name. Something with the
seasons. Summer, that was it. She’d been at the funeral, looking
pretty but tired, with her little girl. Both of them shrunk in the
shadow of her beast of a boyfriend. He was physically large, but it
wasn’t just his size that made him menacing.

Jude stood every bit of six feet with broad
shoulders and a strong back he’d earned wrestling in high school
and for a few years in college. He’d also spent most of his life
pounding or being pounded by his four brothers. He wasn’t
intimidated by other men.

There was something nasty about the man made
even more obvious by the contrast to the reserved young woman and
quiet, little girl. They were the only reserved ones in the family.
Given how proper Marion had been, Jude was shocked to see her
assortment of grandchildren and their families. The grandson – he
couldn’t remember his name – scowled through the funeral, at least
the part of his face not hidden behind his dark glasses. His
girlfriend wore a miniskirt better suited to a strip club than a
church and kept sinking into the soft grass of the cemetery on her
hooker heels.

The oldest granddaughter, Lindsey, didn’t
look anything like the pretty, fresh-faced girl he remembered from
high school. She flapped around her husband and obnoxious children
like a hovering bat. Her attempts to keep her brood quiet only
added to the distractions.

The only family member, aside from Summer,
who seemed to actually be mourning Marion was the striking
dark-haired woman who must have been Marion’s Autumn. More than one
appointment had been filled with tales of the young woman who’d
made such a promising future for herself in the city. The woman
with sad, blue eyes, wearing a dress that managed to be both demur
and hug her lush curves in a way Jude found annoyingly distracting,
had to be Autumn. She certainly didn’t get her stylish dress and
shoes from the local Peebles.

She must have loved her grandmother, but what
Jude couldn’t figure out was why, if she cared so much, she’d never
bothered to come home to visit? Not even when everyone, including
Marion herself, knew she was dying.

Max pressed his head on Jude’s lap, nudging
him with his cold, wet nose. Time to take the dog out and get back
to work. Pushing aside thoughts of the shapely dark haired woman
with the sad blue eyes, he rose and headed downstairs to the mess
waiting for him.

Autumn closed her inbox and set down her
phone with a shaking hand. It looked like it was over. She didn’t
have a job to go home to and it was unlikely anyone else would ever
hire her, but at least she wasn’t going to prison. That was
something.

Oh God. How had everything gone so
wrong?

She’d tried so hard to do the right thing.
She worked hard at whatever task she was given, forgoing a social
life and even her family. She’d put off coming to see Gran so she
could work the hardest and longest. So she’d be an exemplary
employee and one her bosses knew they could trust.

When she found the inconsistencies in some of
the firm’s accounts, she’d gone to her supervisor who told her not
to worry about it. She worried anyway. Something wasn’t right, but
every time she tried to fix things, she got shot down by someone
higher up. After a while they made it clear that if she kept asking
questions, she’d no longer have a job.

By that time she didn’t want the job. She
wanted to be successful, needed it to feel like she’d finally made
it out of the hole her mother put them in, but she didn’t want to
be part of anything shady. She started putting out feelers, looking
for a new job. She was the youngest account executive in her field.
She wouldn’t have trouble finding another position.

Before she got another offer, the economy
shifted. The accounts her bosses had leveraged were suddenly
worthless and the whole thing came crashing down like a badly
stacked house of cards, taking her and everyone else at the firm
down with it. The partners with their bonuses and golden parachutes
would be okay, but for a junior account executive, even an
exemplary one, there was no safety net.

She still wasn’t sure what happened. She
found out the firm was imploding when the FTC came to take the
records on her accounts. They seized her computer and boxed her
files. She never saw either again. People started whispering in the
hallways about indictments and white collar crime and all Autumn
could do was wait and see how bad it would get.

That was three months ago. She’d spent the
interim looking for a job and running through her savings. When she
found out Gran was sick, she’d wanted to come home desperately, but
she knew she couldn’t lie to her about what was going on. She
didn’t want her to worry. She was the only one of her siblings Gran
never had to worry about. Autumn couldn’t let that change,
especially not when Gran was fighting her own battle.

And now it was too late. Gran was gone and
Autumn had come home anyway, unemployed and almost broke. She took
a swallow of her cold coffee and grimaced. She’d been sitting in
the diner booth longer than she realized. She tucked a five dollar
bill under her mug and rose, smiling at the row of curious locals
watching her from the counter.

She slipped on her sunglasses and walked out
into the bright noon sun. She needed to see the lawyer about Gran’s
estate, but first she wanted to thank the doctor who’d taken care
of her until the end. When she called home, Gran had gone on and on
about that “nice Southerland boy,” how smart he was and
handsome.

Autumn had gone to school with Travis
Southerland. She thought she’d heard he was in the service now, but
he’d been a handsome jock from one of the founding families – very
respectable, very upper middle class. Nice enough if completely out
of her league. She didn’t know Jude. He must have graduated before
she started high school.

She stepped off the curb and into the blare
of a car horn. The driver of the Jag glared at her from behind the
windshield. Autumn raised her hands and mouthed “Sorry, sorry.” The
driver glared on, shaking his head in disgust.

Okay, walking out into the street without
paying attention wasn’t her best move, but she’d been distracted.
No one was hurt. He didn’t need to keep staring at her like he
thought she was too stupid to live. When he didn’t move on, she
held up her hands and arched her eyebrows in the uniform gesture of
“What?”

That got him moving. Unfortunately, instead
pulling the car forward, he opened the door and climbed out. He was
tall with broad shoulders and narrow hips. His sandy-brown hair was
barber shop short and his chiseled jaw clean shaven. He was an
impressive specimen of male beauty. Under other circumstances she
might have found him attractive, but right now his hazel eyes
flashed with anger as he walked towards her.

She pasted her best helpful and trustworthy
smile on her face. “Nice car.”

“
Are you
insane?”

She couldn’t be sure, but she was willing to
bet he looked crazier than she did. He practically vibrated as he
stared down at her. She wished for higher heels instead of the pale
pink ballet slippers she’d put on with her flower print dress.
She’d like to be closer to looking him in the eye rather than
straining her neck up to meet his angry gaze. At least she could
hide behind the sunglasses.

“
You walked out into
traffic.”

“
I know,” she said, calmly
like she was explaining something to a small child instead of a
raging Viking. “It wasn’t very smart of me. I’m sorry, I was a
little distracted.”

“
Distracted! You walked in
front of my car. I could have killed you.” The look on his face
suggested he might have reconsidered not running her
down.

“
But you didn’t. I’m fine.”
Without thinking, she laid a reassuring hand on his arm and fought
the flutter in her stomach at the feel of his muscles bunching
through the thin cotton. It had been too long since she’d touched a
man even casually.

“
That’s not the point,” he
said, looking down at her hand.

“
It kind of is. Especially
to me.” She ramped up the wattage of her smile. “You better move
your car. You’re blocking the road.”

He looked from her face to his car stopped in
the middle of the road and then shook his head before turning to
go. “Be more careful,” he tossed back at her as he got in the car
and drove away.

“
Well, alright.”It was her
turn to shake her head. “Have a nice day!” she called to the
receding tail lights.

When she got to the doctor’s office, the
pretty, slightly harried nurse told her the doctor would be out for
several hours. Autumn thanked the woman both for the information
and for helping with her grandmother and told her she’d come back
later to see Dr. Southerland.

She’d started to rethink her decision to walk
to the lawyer’s office when she finally made it to the grand old
house in the center of downtown which housed Coles, Esquire. She
climbed the steps to the porch and paused to catch her breath
before opening the front door.

“
May I help you?” asked the
older woman behind the desk. The reception area was in what once
must have been the parlor with its long narrow windows and
beautiful molding. Whoever refurbished the home obviously
appreciated older buildings.

“
I have an appointment to
see Mr. Coles.” She glanced at her watch. “I think I’m a little
early. Autumn Maddox.”

“
Yes, Miss Maddox. He’s
expecting you.” The older woman’s face softened. “I’m so sorry for
your loss, dear. I’ve known your grandmother for years. I was very
fond of her. I’ll miss her.”

Autumn blinked at the tears stinging her
eyes. The woman’s kind words held none of the judgment she’d felt
from some of the other women who had expressed their sympathy.
“Thank you, Mrs.?”

“
Mayhew, dear.”

“
Thank you, Mrs. Mayhew. I
appreciate hearing that. I miss her, too.” She willed away the
tears, threatening to spill. She didn’t want to cry – not
here.

The older woman smiled sadly and patted her
arm. “I know you do, child. Marion was so proud of you.”

Again, there was no judgment, none of the
recrimination she’d felt from so many of the others for why she
hadn’t been able to make it home before now. “I wanted to make her
proud.”

“
You did.” Mrs. Mayhew
reached for a box of tissues on her desk and handed one to Autumn
before taking one for herself. “Now,” she said, dabbing at her
eyes. “Go on back before I turn into a puddle.” She shooed Autumn
down the hall to a closed door at the end.

As Autumn got closer she heard male voices
coming from behind the door. Two male voices. She walked back to
the reception area.

“
Mrs. Mayhew, I think he
has someone in with him already.”

“
He does, dear, but it’s a
friend not business. Go ahead. Go on in. Otherwise the two of them
will forget they both have work to do.”

The words sounded harsh, but her tone and the
twinkle in her eyes let Autumn know Mrs. Mayhew liked the two
men.

She wrapped softly on the closed door and
heard the conversation on the other side stop.

“
Come on in,” a rich male
voice like melted caramel called from the other side.

Autumn pushed open the door in time to see
the attorney, Mr. Coles, rise from behind his desk. He was tall and
broad with none of the softness around the middle she’d seen on so
many of the men around town. He towered over her, but his smile was
warm and friendly.

“
You must be Miss Maddox.”
He extended his hand, capturing hers with his strong warm fingers.
He held her hand in both of his. “It’s nice to finally meet you in
person. Although I wish it was under more pleasant
circumstances.”

Autumn smiled up at his handsome face. That
was two very attractive men in one morning, but unlike the surly
man in the Jag, Mr. Coles was a civilized attorney. She put a
little more energy into her smile. She wasn’t interested in
starting anything with anyone – at least not until she got the rest
of her life sorted – but she’d forgotten how feminine a Southern
man could make a woman feel. The attention was a balm to her
bruised ego. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. Coles. Please, call
me Autumn.” Without conscious effort on her part, the drawl her
time in the city had worn away deepened.

“
And I’m Andrew. Mr. Coles
is my father. Where are my manners? Forgive me.” The charming
Andrew Coles directed her attention to a man standing beside one of
the chairs in front of the desk. “Autumn Maddox, this is Dr. Jude
Southerland.”

Autumn turned her smile to the man who her
gran had been so enamored with and found herself staring up at the
Viking with the Jag.

He could have kicked himself for not
recognizing Autumn Maddox. He knew she looked familiar, but he’d
been so shaken by almost running her over. He hadn’t connected the
pretty, flighty woman with her riot of curls with the polished
woman in the stylish black dress and pulled back hair from the
funeral. Stupid. It’s not like the town was full of dark haired
strangers. But her huge sunglasses hid her piercing blue eyes. He
would have known her instantly if he could have seen her eyes.

The eyes that twinkled for Andrew looked at
him like he was an escaped mental patient. He could almost hear her
thinking to herself “Don’t startle the crazy man.”

Great. Just great.

“
We’ve met already. I
almost ran Miss Maddox over with my car.” He smiled down at her,
trying to project competence and calm.