Homeward Bound

“Yep.”

Luke stopped inside the barn doors. “You ain’t said how she was?”

“She’s fine.” Royce searched through the junk in the corner for a bushel basket. Fine didn’t come close to describing Heather. She was more than fine. She was beautiful, full of energy and life, and she possessed a new self-confidence that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her.

“Just fine, huh?”

“Yep.” He knew he was being an ass. But he couldn’t seem to find the words to tell Luke about Heather’s desire to work with children. About how right she’d looked sprawled on the floor buried under a pile of preschoolers. He couldn’t tell Luke that it had almost physically hurt to watch her wrestle with the kids.

Luke had been the one to find Royce lying unconscious alongside the road. Royce had awakened from surgery and the doctor had given him the bad news. In his own way, Luke had grieved along with Royce. And when the time had come to stop grieving and move on, Luke had been the one to plant his boot heel in Royce’s backside and force him out of his depression, and back into the world of the living.

Compelled to say more, Royce added, “Heather seemed excited about getting her degree at the end of the summer.”

“What kind of degree?”

“In counseling, psychology to be exact. She plans to work with disadvantaged kids.”

Bandit barked somewhere outside the barn and Luke hollered at him to hush. “What about the funeral?”

“There isn’t going to be a funeral.”

“Why not?”

“Heather doesn’t want one.”

“Can’t blame the poor gal.”

“I spoke with Pastor Gates, and he’s agreed to say a few words about Henderson during the service on Sunday.”

“Don’t deserve much more.”

No argument there. Melvin Henderson had been a first-class loser. He hadn’t had a nice word for anyone the whole time he’d been alive.

A stream of tobacco juice sailed past Royce’s face.

“How long ago did that gal start college?” asked Luke.

“Seven years.”

The geezer made a whistling sound as he sucked in air through the gap between his front teeth. “Least she didn’t up and quit on you.”

Pride surged through Royce. When Heather had chosen college over juvenile detention, he’d never expected her to last more than a semester or two. “You’re right. She might have taken her sweet time, but she didn’t quit.” He shoved aside several wooden crates, until he found a dented basket; then he carried it to the other side of the barn, where the freshly picked garden vegetables were stored.

Switching the ball of chew to his other cheek, Luke motioned to the loaded pickup. “I thought you was ridin’ fence today.”

“Change of plans. I’m meeting with a Realtor to put the feed store on the market.”

“Ain’t that Heather’s business?”

Should be. Heather might have done some growing up since going away to college, but she still ran the opposite direction when faced with the big R—responsibility. “She doesn’t want anything to do with the store.”

“Don’t seem right.”

Where Heather was concerned, nothing was ever as it seemed. If Royce were honest with himself—something he tried to avoid at all costs in order to keep his sanity—he’d admit Heather had left a void in his life when she’d gone off to college. Prior to that, his weeks had been filled with chasing after her, righting her wrongs, fixing her mistakes. When she’d graduated high school and moved to College Station his life had become…well, dull.

“It’s her decision, Luke.”

“Since when did you ever give that gal a say-so?”

“She’s had plenty of say-so’s.” Like the damn fool major she’d ended up in. Psychology. How the heck a person who’d made a mess of her own life thought she could help straighten out someone else’s baffled him.

“So you’re tyin’ up all the loose ends for her?”

“Haven’t I always kept her life tight and tidy?” Royce rubbed a hand down his face, regretting the testy remark. Heather hadn’t asked for his help; he’d offered. Now, if he could only figure out why he was so all-fired pissed off about it.

“You think she’s gonna look for a job ’round here after graduatin’?”

God, he hoped not. For the sake of his heart he prayed Heather would find a job far, far away from Nowhere. “She didn’t say.”

“What about the car?”

He glanced at the yellow Mustang sitting under a tarp at the back of the barn. His chest tightened when he thought of how he’d helped her purchase the vehicle after she’d worked her tail off to pay for the thing. He hadn’t even had to convince her to leave the Mustang behind when she left for college. She’d known the car was safer in the barn than on campus.

“Luke, I don’t have time to worry about Heather and her plans. I’ve got enough troubles with the town’s sewer system deteriorating as we speak.”

“Heard anything from the governor?”

“His aide called.” Royce carried the bushel of vegetables out of the barn, opened the tailgate and set them in the truck bed next to the hay bales. He pulled a bandana from his back pocket and mopped his brow. At ten in the morning, the temperature hovered near eighty degrees. The above-normal temperature for late May promised a long, hot Texas summer. “To a certain extent the governor is sympathetic.”

“Sympathetic how?”

“If Nowhere turns in a sizable campaign donation, the governor may be able to pull some strings and move us up on the list for government funding for a new sewer.”

“Aw, let him blow it out his ear. There ain’t enough money in this town to build a meetin’ hall, let alone throw away on a politician who don’t give a rat’s turd about our little map dot.”

“Amen. I refuse to use our five hundred and fifteen citizens’ tax dollars to finance the governor’s reelection campaign, when I can’t stand the guy in the first place.” Royce shut the tailgate.

His face puckering like a withered apple, Luke asked, “What’ll you do ’bout the sewer?”

Royce wished that every business in town had its own septic system. But during the 1940s the federal government had laid down sewer pipe as part of a work program to improve the quality of life in rural areas. As far as Royce was concerned, his town’s quality of life was disappearing faster than the water flushed down the toilets. “With a little luck, the system should hold out another year.”

He hopped into the truck, then shut the door before his foreman decided to ride along. “By next spring, I’ll figure out something.” And he would. He’d never before let down the citizens of Nowhere. One way or another he’d find the money to at least repair the sewer. He turned the key and gunned the motor. “Don’t expect me back anytime soon. After I meet with the Realtor, I plan to drop off the hay and vegetables at the Wilkinsons’ place.”

Another brown glob of tobacco flew past the truck window and landed with a splat near the front tire. “When you gonna stop givin’ everybody handouts?”

“I’m the mayor, Luke. I won’t stand by and watch four kids starve because their father’s out of work with a broken back and their mother’s run off to God-knows-where with who-knows-whom.” Right then, Heather’s mother came to mind, making Royce wonder what it was about Nowhere that had women running off in the middle of the night.

“Broken back, my ass.”