His dark hair fell over one eye and he brushed it away, his gaze set on her. “You’re always a mess. It’s one of my favorite things about you.” He kissed her again.

“That’s what my mother always said.”

“You’re a beautiful mess then,” Philippe said as sunlight fell through the large windows forming a spotlight on the hardwood floor between them.

“Philippe, I have to go home tomorrow.”

“And I didn’t even know you had one.”

Colleen looked at him and she laughed despite herself. “I don’t have one, really. Home. That’s a misnomer at best.”

In a swift motion, Philippe picked up the magazine from the counter, flipped to her article and read out loud. “‘Number ten: When you return home, take with you everything you’ve seen and learned.’”

Colleen stared at Philippe, aware of the obvious: she didn’t know what or where home was anymore.

“What happened,” he asked, “that you can write about going home and yet never do it?”

About the Author

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include The House at Water's End, The Idea of Love, The Stories We Tell, And Then I Found You, Coming Up for Air, The Perfect Love Song, Driftwood Summer, The Art of Keeping Secrets, Between the Tides, When Light Breaks, Where the River Runs, and Losing the Moon. Short-listed for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and nominated multiple times for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for Fiction, Patti is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. She lives with her husband and three children in Mountain Brook, Alabama, and is working on her next novel.

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