Page 52 of Tracking Safety

Luke opened the door, and voices sounded from somewhere deeper in the house.

Then . . . a child’s laugh. The sound was high and bright and completely unguarded.

Her heart squeezed.

Cora. That had to be Cora.

Luke led Jenna through the kitchen and into the main room.

Nerves rippled through her, and her lungs tightened.

You can do this. You can do this, she repeated to herself.

She quickly scanned the room. Caleb stood near the fireplace. Naomi sat on the couch with a baby asleep against her shoulder. Luke’s mother stood near the stairway.

A husky lifted its head from the rug and came to investigate her, followed by a golden retriever that pushed its nose into her hand like they were old friends. Jenna gave them an absent pat, her attention already somewhere else.

Off near the corner, a chocolate Lab watched from a distance. She didn’t come closer. She just held those pale amber eyes on Jenna, measuring her.

Jenna’s eyes moved past all of them, searching out the people she’d really wanted to see.

Her children. They were here. In the living room.

Looking as normal as normal could be.

Liam sat on the couch with a book open in front of him. He looked up when they walked in. Then his eyes found her face.

He went completely still, and his book slid sideways in his lap.

Cora sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace with a drawing spread out before her, a crayon still in her hand. She looked up a half second after Liam did, following his gaze. Then she saw Jenna, and her mouth dropped open.

Jonah sat on the floor beside Cora, a small wooden truck in his hand. He looked at his mom with open, curious—and slightly confused—eyes.

No one moved for a long moment.

Then Cora dropped the crayon. “Mama?”

She scrambled to her feet and crossed the room at a dead run. Jenna barely had time to crouch before Cora’s arms were around her neck, fierce and certain.

Jenna embraced her daughter and held on. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“I knew you’d come back,” Cora murmured. “I knew it!”

Liam’s book hit the cushion. His footsteps pattered across the room, and he paused beside her. He didn’t reach for her.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “You can hug me when you’re ready to hug me.”

He stared at her another moment but remained where he was, questions—maybe even accusations—in his gaze.

Her heart ached at his reaction, but she understood. She’d hurt him, and forgiveness took time.

Then small footsteps sounded. A second pair of arms wrapped around her neck.

Jonah.

She couldn’t speak. She didn’t try.

Tears streamed down her face and dropped into Cora’s hair, into the silence of the room, into the warmth of the children who’d found their way back into her arms.