Kitabı oku: «A Girl, A Guy And A Lullaby», sayfa 2
Chapter Two
The truck’s headlights detected little movement as Tom drove out of town. An occasional larcenous raccoon was the only night-life in Brushy Creek. The beer joint locked up at ten o’clock during the week because good farmers went to bed with the chickens. Even the convenience store closed at nine.
“Must feel good to sit down.” He was still trying to figure out the logistics of carrying that belly around.
“Yeah. Haven’t done much of that lately.”
“The bus?” He decided pert best described her features. Disheveled summed up her appearance. Her personality was pure spunk with generous helpings of sass and vinegar.
She shuddered dramatically. “Have you ever ridden a bus?”
“Just to school when I was a kid.”
“Oh, no. That doesn’t even begin to count.”
He stole another glance. Despite her tart tongue and bossy manner, she looked incredibly young and vulnerable. The thought of her making a long trip alone aroused feelings he’d forgotten he had. Protective feelings. When was the last time he’d been tempted to reach out to a woman? And why was he so tempted by this little bouncing ball of trouble?
Before long they were riding through rolling hills. The Department of Tourism called this northeastern corner of the state “Green Country.” Tom had traveled extensively on the rodeo circuit, all over the west and north to Canada. He’d seen a lot of fine country, but always figured someday he’d settle down in Oklahoma, close to his roots.
In his big-money days, he’d bought eighty acres of prime grazing land a few miles south of town. There was a pretty, wooded knoll on the property, and he’d dreamed of building a log home on top of it. One of those sprawling, lodge-pine jobs like he’d seen in Colorado. He thought it would be the perfect home for Mariclare. For their children.
Besides kids and dogs, he planned to raise and train horses. Turn his acreage into a tidy little quarter horse operation. Someday.
He never quite pinned it down, but someday was always that time in the vague future when he’d made enough winning rides. When he’d worked the rodeo out of his system. When he could retire from the circuit and never look back.
He’d learned the hard way that it was a mistake to put dreams on hold. They had a short shelf life. He’d postponed until everything was gone. Rodeo. Mariclare. Kids. All of it. Maybe he was a clabberheaded fool. He should have seen it coming. She’d begged him to quit and he’d kept riding.
Since he was unwilling to choose real life over rodeo, a wild-eyed bucker had chosen for him. Ten charmed years with no injuries more serious than sprains and scrapes, and he’d ended his career with a bang.
A concussion, two compound fractures, and three broken vertebrae. Multiple surgeries to repair the damage. Weeks in rehab. Months of casts and canes. Bottles of pills for the pain and inevitable depression.
It had taken a year, but he finally looked whole on the outside. Inside, something vital had been severed. And that wound wasn’t even close to scabbing over.
“I’d forgotten how far it is to Birdie’s.” Ryanne was not as comfortable with quiet as the strong, silent cowboy beside her. He watched the deserted road like a freeway at rush hour.
“As they say around here. It’s a ‘fur piece.’”
Light from the truck’s space shuttle instrument panel cast a greenish glow over his face. She’d been eleven the last time she’d seen Tom Hunnicutt. It was in the café, the day he left for New Mexico State on a rodeo scholarship. He’d been excited. His parents had been proud. Heck, the whole town had been proud. Local boy makes good.
He’d been a lanky, smooth-cheeked teenager then. Now a mature thirty, he’d finally grown into his masculinity. Strong chin, straight nose. Couldn’t beat a combination like that. She couldn’t see his eyes, but recalled that they were so dark pupil and iris were one color. A boyish dimple and a crooked grin wrapped up a very appealing package.
She might be eight months pregnant, but she wasn’t quite brain dead. Or body dead, for that matter. Her pheromone receptors were alive and well and capable of going on full red alert. But she’d made a decision during the grueling bus ride. She didn’t need another man in her life. She needed to learn how to enjoy being alone. All urgent twinges would henceforth be ignored. They were nothing but trouble.
Giving in to twinges, urgent and otherwise, was what had set her on the fast track to disaster. It would pay to remember that.
“What were you doing in town so late?” she asked.
“I was driving back from Tulsa. When I saw the bus pull out and you standing there all alone, I thought I should do something.”
“Do you always brake for damsels in distress?”
“No,” he admitted. “But you seemed to be in a bit more distress than most of the damsels I run into.”
And he had a killer smile. Which she would also ignore along with all ensuing twinges. She sighed. Good thing she was enceinte and he had The Clairol Girl.
The truck hit a hole in the road and bounced Ryanne’s head to the top of the cab. “Ow!” Startled by her yelp, Tom slammed the brake and she pitched forward.
“Jeez, Louise!”
“Are you all right? I didn’t see that pothole.”
And she thought he was watching the road. She grasped her belly with both hands. “Are you prepared to midwife, cowboy?”
“You mean you’re—?”
“No, I’m not in labor. Just don’t hit any more of those craters.” She frowned at his queasy expression. Big, strong men were so squirrelly about childbirth. “Good thing males don’t bear children or the human race would be extinct.”
“If men had babies,” he said as he accelerated, “we’d have figured out a better way to do it by now.”
She laughed at his serious tone. “Something less time consuming, perhaps?”
“And not so messy.”
“You have strong opinions. Which are based, I assume, on your extensive experience with…”
“Dogs and horses.”
The truck rounded a curve and trapped a deer in its headlights. The animal froze in the classic pose and Tom tapped the brakes to give it time to gather its wits and leap into the underbrush.
“It’s been a long time since I saw a deer in the road,” she said quietly. It gave her hope that the world was not such a bad place, after all.
“So tell me about Nashville,” he said. “I was in town the summer after you left and I remember Pap moaning about how his favorite waitress had lit out to make a big splash in the country music business.”
“You know what they say about best-laid plans,” she muttered.
“What is it you do again?”
Maybe it was unreasonable, but the question hurt her feelings. And was just a smidge irritating. In a town where everyone knew everyone and their business, evidently her life was of little consequence.
“I play the fiddle and sing.” She tried not to sound as defensive as she felt. “And write songs.”
“So did you make a big splash?”
Ryanne rubbed her belly. “Not really. I neglected to check to see if the pool was filled before I jumped in.”
“Half-cocked.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Pap said something about you tearing off half-cocked.”
“Remind me to thank Pap for the vote of confidence.” She knew very well that impulsiveness was her downfall. Hell, half-cocked was her modus operandi.
“Don’t take it personally. He just hated to lose a good waitress.”
“Being a waitress, even a good one, was never my primary career goal. However, the way things are going, I can’t rule it out.”
“You didn’t have any luck in Nashville?”
“Luck is relative. If they paid musicians to audition, I’d be rich. Actually, I got pretty close a few times.”
“Real close from the looks of you.”
“I was referring to breaks.” It came out as cool as she intended. She didn’t need the local cowboy to remind her that if she’d concentrated on her music and ignored those pheromone twinges, she wouldn’t be in her current predicament.
“Mmm-hmm. I see.”
“What do you see? A big fat pregnant failure running home like a whipped pup?” Ryanne’s anger swung out of left field, surprising even her. But he’d blundered into sensitive territory, and she needed to use the damned bushes again.
“I figured you came home to be with Birdie.” He looked concerned. “For the baby.”
The tears came fast and hard. Six terrible months, capped off by two horrible days, finally caught up with her. “Never mind that I’m broke, or that my husband deserted me.”
Ryanne gripped the seat. Uh-oh. She was in for another ride on the old estrogen roller coaster. “Did Birdie mention I got fired because itty-bitty cocktail waitress outfits don’t look perky on pregnant ladies?” Sniff. “Or that I got kicked out of my room because I was three months in arrears? Or that the bank repossessed my car out from under me? I guess what you see is, if it weren’t for Birdie taking me in, I’d have to whelp in the street like a stray dog.”
Ryanne ended on a high, damp note. She hated crying. It was not her style to wallow in self-pity or inflict her troubles on others. Damn the hormones that jerked her around like a mindless puppet.
Tom took the sandblasting in silence, his strong profile set in stone. She should be ashamed of herself. She’d really unloaded both barrels this time. And on a poor cowboy trying to do a good deed.
But, Lord, it felt good.
Tom drove quietly during the minitirade. What kind of loose cannon had Ryanne Rieger turned out to be? Mood swings were one thing, but he wanted no part of her emotional excess.
The louder she got, the tenser he became until his jaw ached and he white-knuckled the steering wheel. It had been a year since a woman had yelled at him like that. He had not missed the experience one damn bit.
Ryanne sniffed some more and wiped her leaky eyes and nose with the back of her hand. “So now you know. I’m a failure. Down and out and knocked up.”
Tom kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t want to careen through any more potholes, and he didn’t want to look at the girl weeping beside him. As long as he didn’t, she was just a noisy distraction. He didn’t want to glance over there, and see some wrung-out kid who needed him to make her feel better. He was out of the feel-good business.
“You’re not a failure.” He didn’t mean to sound gruff.
“I didn’t do what I set out to do. I’m divorced, broke, homeless. Last I looked, that wasn’t a recipe for success.”
“You tried, didn’t you? Failure is not trying. So your dreams didn’t come true. Get over it. Then try again.”
She leaned back and folded her arms over her belly. “I am in no mood for sensible advice.”
“You’ll survive. You’re the feistiest little pregnant lady I ever met.”
She succumbed to mirthless laughter. “Oh, brother. What a thing to say. Feisty little pregnant lady? Damn!”
“Maybe you can start a club.” Tom watched the road, worried she might go off on another crying jag.
But the next time she laughed, it was real. “Or a twelve-step program.”
“There you go.” He let out a slow breath.
“Hey, that gives me an idea for a song. ‘I ain’t got nothin’ left but spunk/ but I can’t get far on that.’ What do you think?”
Tom smiled in the darkness. Good thing she had a sense of humor; she’d need it. He made the mistake of looking at her. Her wide eyes reminded him of the frightened doe.
Damn. He didn’t need this. And he didn’t want it. “It” smelled too much like involvement.
“Or how about this? ‘I don’t have a husband/ I don’t have a home/ but I’m gonna have a baby/ so I won’t be alone.”’
“Sounds almost pitiful enough to be a hit.” He found it hard to resist her ability to act up, even when she was down.
“You think?”
“It’d be better if your dog died. Or you maybe drove an eighteen-wheeler.”
“I’ll work on it.”
He turned to her after a few minutes. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah. I’d forgotten how good it feels to have someone to talk to.”
Yeah, right. If she wanted a sympathetic ear, she was barking up the wrong cowboy. According to Mariclare’s exit speech, he was incapable of listening. Too wrapped up in himself to care about others. What was it she’d called him?
Oh, yeah. An emotionally unavailable, self-centered SOB.
The accusations had cut deep. He’d had a lot of time to think about them. He knew she had her reasons, but he could never quite reconcile the heartless man she’d described with the one whose face he shaved every morning.
Tom stuffed those feelings down and concentrated on maneuvering the curves. Ryanne was humming now. Like she was testing out an elusive melody heard only in her head. She’d been through a lot for someone so young. He didn’t want to add to her pain.
And he did not want to share it.
“I don’t know what happened to me back there,” she said. “It was either a fleeting episode of temporary insanity or a really bad case of bus lag.”
“I reckon you just needed to let off steam.”
“You reckon?” She laid her head back on the seat. “Just don’t think I’m a high-strung, world-class hysteric. I’m not. Normally I’m pathologically stoic.”
She made it sound like she cared about his opinion. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “You’ll be home soon.”
“Home. You don’t know what that means to me.”
But he did. He’d come home to lick his wounds, too. To find comfort in the familiar world of his childhood. To slip back into the skin of the nice guy he’d once been. The man he’d been when he left Brushy Creek. The one his hometown thought he was. “Home is the place you can’t appreciate until you leave.”
“That’s pretty poetic for a cowboy.” For once she sounded sincere.
At least she’d calmed down. He wasn’t up to handling raw emotional upheaval in any form. With his own future so uncertain, he sure as hell didn’t want to get involved in anyone else’s life right now.
Especially not the overwrought, messed-up life of an abandoned fiddle-playing wannabe country singer who looked like she could give birth and/or have a nervous breakdown at any moment.
In his heart, that hollow place he’d boarded over when Mariclare walked out, Tom knew Ryanne needed reassurance that things would be all right. But understanding the problem and taking responsibility for it were two different things.
No way would he volunteer for any comforting jobs. He had enough problems, without letting some little gal get under his skin.
Ryanne let out a sudden squeaky yelp.
He resigned himself to another outburst. “Now what?”
She grinned and patted her belly. “Tom Hunnicutt, meet the future clogdancing champion of the world.”
Chapter Three
Birdie Hedgepath’s house on Persimmon Hill crouched among tall post oaks and pines at the end of a long gravel drive. A pole light between the house and barn illuminated a weedy yard where leggy petunias spilled from old tires.
Everything was just as Ryanne remembered. Peeling white paint on the clapboards. Plaster hen and chicks under the crape myrtle bush. Pink plastic flamingos clustered around the propane tank.
The old porch swing stirred in the breeze and the creak of its rusty chains brought a rush of memories. Hot summer days. Cold Pepsi. Shelling beans. Birdie and meaning-of-life discussions.
Nothing had changed. Insects filled the night with their noisy chorus. Down at Annie’s Pond the bullfrogs belted out the amphibian top ten. Even Froggy, Birdie’s rheumy-eyed old hound, was in his spot by the door. He barely looked up at the midnight intruders.
Ryanne took a deep breath. She’d missed the smell of this beautiful green place. She’d been so self-absorbed that for five years she hadn’t thought once about barn owls or little sulfur butterflies. She’d forgotten the feel of dew-damp grass on bare feet. The sound of bobolinks.
In her single-minded pursuit of fame and recognition, she’d discounted the treasures left behind. She’d worried that coming home meant moving backward instead of forward. That embracing the past meant giving up on the future.
She was wrong. Persimmon Hill wasn’t the end of the road. It was a place to rest while she repaired the damage of her own foolish choices. Her life might be going to hell in a handbasket, but here she would be safe.
Home was the most sentimental song of all.
Tom set the last of the bags on the porch. “No one answered?”
“I haven’t knocked,” she admitted. “I’m just taking it all in.”
“Let’s surprise her.” He didn’t know what had gone wrong in Ryanne’s life, but when he saw the look in her eyes, he knew she’d been right to come here. He motioned her back into the shadows behind him. He rapped, and in a moment a sleepy-eyed woman in her midsixties pushed open the screen door.
Birdie Hedgepath’s quarter Cherokee blood showed in her round face, high cheekbones and dark eyes. She and her late husband Swimmer had no children of their own. If she hadn’t taken in ten-year-old Ryanne when her mother died, the child would have become a ward of the court, and sent to live among strangers.
Birdie did not possess the frailty her name implied. She had substance. Shoulders that were wide for a woman. A waist and hips to match. Stout legs, flat feet. Her black hair was cut short and streaked with gray. Though strong physically, her real strength was her wisdom and humor. Everyone who met Birdie, loved her.
“Landsakes, Tom,” she said with a yawn. “What’re you doin’ out here this time of night?”
“I brought you a little something I picked up in town.” He stepped aside with a dramatic flourish.
“Oh, oh, oh! You brung my baby home.” She pressed her hands to her mouth then threw her arms wide. “Baby girl, come here to me and let me hug your neck.”
“I missed you, Auntie Birdie.” Ryanne’s eyes filled with damp happiness. “I don’t know why I stayed away so long. I’m glad to be home.”
“Not half as glad as me. Let me look at you. Ohwee, girl, have you gone and swallowed a watermelon seed?”
“Something like that.” Ryanne gave her foster mother another hug. “You smell exactly as I remember. Like lilacs and bacon.”
Birdie’s dark-eyed gaze raked Ryanne from her cockeyed ponytail down to her bare feet. “What did you do, Tom? Drag her backward through the brush all the way?”
Ryanne laughed and hugged her again. “It’s a long story.”
“And one I aim to hear. Tom, you get those bags in the house and I’ll put on some coffee. Probably got a pie around here somewheres.”
He carried the luggage inside, but declined the offer. Like a messenger delivering a prize, he had no right to hang around and enjoy it.
“Thank you, ma’am, but I need to get home. I know you two have a lot of catching up to do.”
“You go on then. But stop by the Perch and I’ll wrap up one of them blackberry cobblers you and Junior favor so.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. Birdie. Ryanne.” He tipped his hat and stepped out into the night.
Ryanne caught up with him as he climbed back in the pickup. “Thanks again for hauling me out here. I’m sorry about, well, you know. Getting all weird earlier. It’s the hormones. Normally I’m a much nicer person than what you’ve seen tonight.”
Tom felt an inexplicable urge to touch the spirited woman and claim some of her energy for himself. He settled for a light tap on the tip of her nose. “Nothing wrong with the person I saw.”
“Good night, then.” She stepped away from the truck, but seemed reluctant to let him go.
Or maybe he was just reluctant to leave. “Good night, Short Stack. Take care of the little dancer.”
When the rooster crowed, Ryanne and Birdie were still at the kitchen table. It had taken hours to catch up. Since nothing ever changed in Brushy Creek, Ryanne had done most of the talking.
She chose to edit out the sordid details of her brief marriage. What Birdie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her as much as the truth. So she took pains to keep her voice light as she described what she hoped sounded like a run-of-the-mill marry-in-haste, repent-at-leisure scenario.
They talked about the baby, and Birdie offered emotional and financial support. Then she insisted on making biscuits and eggs before driving to town to open the café. It was Friday morning, and there would be a crowd of regulars waiting for her breakfast specials.
“I’ll go with you.” Ryanne cleared the table. “I want to earn my keep and you know I’m a whiz-bang waitress.”
Birdie, who had changed into her uniform of white polyester slacks and tunic, bent to tie her athletic shoes. “You had a good teacher, didn’t you? No, honey, you stay here. You need to rest. Take a warm bath, then go straight to bed. You hear me?”
“Yes’m. I am tired.”
The older woman gave her another measuring look. “Tired? You look like you’ve been sortin’ wildcats.”
“I know. I’m a mess.” Ryanne cleared the table and set the dishes in the sink.
Birdie kissed her cheek. “But you’re my mess and I’m glad to have you.”
“I can’t imagine what Tom thought.” She ran dishwater into the sink. “He probably went home and told his wife all about the wild-eyed maniac he picked up at the bus stop.”
Birdie looked up, her broad features puzzled. “Wife? Why, Tom ain’t never been married.”
He hadn’t wed his too-perfect sweetheart? It seemed she’d made the wrong assumption. “What about Mariclare Turner? I thought those two would be married by now.”
“Nope.” Birdie shook her head. “She up and left him a year ago. It hurt him bad, her running out on him that way. I don’t know the whole story, but Junior said she left while Tom was in the hospital after that bronc stomped him.”
“But they were engaged for as long as I can remember.”
“Since high school,” Birdie confirmed. She swigged the last of her coffee and set the cup on the counter. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when they split up. It’s funny he didn’t mention it.”
Ryanne squirted liquid soap into the dishwater. “He’s not the chattiest guy I ever met.”
Birdie nodded. “I’ve known a lot of rodeo hands in my time. They’re tough and they keep a short rein on their feelings. They don’t talk about problems.”
Ryanne cringed when she recalled how she’d spilled her guts the night before. He surely thought she was a flake.
“Cowboys have to ride, no matter what,” Birdie went on. “They learn to ignore physical pain. They get so used to aching, they ignore it when the hurt’s on the inside, too.”
“That doesn’t sound very healthy.”
Birdie gave her a pointed look. “And climbing on a thousand pounds of bucking horseflesh does?”
“I see what you mean.” She put the dishes in the sink.
“When Tom first came home, he was all broken up. Mind, body and spirit. He had a right to grieve.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t,” Ryanne said.
Birdie frowned. “He shoved his sorrow down to the bottom of his heart and pretended it didn’t exist. First time I saw him after he came back, he looked like the light of his soul had sputtered out. Everybody knew he was hurtin,’ but he wouldn’t talk about it or let anybody help.”
“Tom’s strong.”
“And stubborn,” Birdie added. “You know, you might be good for him.”
She smiled. She’d forgotten how much Birdie liked to “fix” things. And people. “How so?”
“Tom needs to get on with his life, and you’re about as full of life as anybody I know.”
“I can’t get involved with anyone right now, Auntie.”
“What? You can’t be friends with a man who needs one so badly?” the older woman asked with exaggerated innocence.
Ryanne could use a few friends herself. She’d been alone long enough to know it wasn’t a natural state for her. But she wasn’t in the market for a man. If the time ever came when she was, she planned to take things slow and easy. No more rushing into things. She knew, all too well, the consequences of falling in love too fast.
“Well?” Birdie prodded.
“‘Friends’ sounds good.” In a way she was glad that Mariclare-with-the-Perfect-Hair hadn’t turned out to be the quintessential sweetheart. If couples who’d known each other all their lives couldn’t stay together, how could lightning-strike courtships like hers be expected to succeed? She felt so much better about her own problems she actually hummed as she washed the dishes.
“Ryanne?” Birdie’s expression was as amused as her tone.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I’m sorry. I must have spaced out for a bit.”
The older woman grinned. “That’s okay, honey. You go right ahead and think about him all you want.”
Ryanne hid her embarrassment by scrubbing a coffee mug that was already clean. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” Birdie separated a key from her key ring and laid it on the table. “I was saying, drive in for supper later if you feel like it. Here’s the key to the Jeep.”
“No. You drive the Cherokee. I’ll take the truck.”
Birdie frowned. “That old beater? It doesn’t have air-conditioning.”
“Ol’ Blue and I go way back. You taught me how to drive in her, remember? I want to take her out for old times’ sake.”
“You sure?”
At her nod, Birdie shrugged and handed her another key.
“Auntie Birdie? Are you going to warn people about me?” Ryanne asked softly.
“What for? You going to bite them or something?”
“You know what I mean.” She patted her belly. According to Tom, Birdie hadn’t mentioned her pregnancy. She’d never say so, but maybe she disapproved.
Birdie gave her a reassuring hug. “My baby’s going to have a baby. If you want anybody to know more than that, you can tell them yourself. I’m busy in that café, you know. I don’t have time for gossip.”
Right. Ryanne watched the Jeep disappear down the dusty road. Brushy Creek didn’t have a newspaper or a radio station. It had Birdie’s Perch. That’s where everyone headed when they wanted information. Or a darn good piece of pie.
Ryanne washed her hair, gave herself a facial and polished her nails. Then she soaked in a tub of bubbles until all the nagging aches eased from her body. The little dancer, as Tom had called her, cooperated fully and allowed her to sleep eight straight hours in her old bed.
She woke up feeling refreshed, like maybe she hadn’t lost her grip after all. As she dressed for supper she wondered if Tom would stop by the café. Did she want to see him? The fact he was unattached didn’t change anything. Or did it?
The answer was definitely no. She had enough on her plate right now. She needed a man in her life like a frog needed spit curls. She would stomp and squash any twinge that dared to rear its hormoney head. Never again would she let runaway emotions rule her life. From here on out, caution would be her middle name.
Hopefully, there was truth to the old adage “once burned, twice learned.” Having been thoroughly toasted on the altar of matrimony, she should be a blooming genius.
Still, there was no denying the unsettling current of excitement she’d felt when Tom touched her last night. It was just a casual tap on the nose, but it had jolted her like a poke from an electric cattle prod. Her shameless reaction was probably no more than a leftover from her girlhood crush. Like all leftovers, it couldn’t possibly taste as good the second time around.
Maybe she wasn’t trying to impress Tom or anyone else, but Ryanne took extra care with her makeup and hair. She was tired of looking like day-old road kill. Old friends would stop by the Perch for supper, curious to see how the world had treated her. She didn’t want to look like something set on the curb for immediate disposal.
At this stage in her pregnancy it required sleight of hand to appear even moderately fashionable, so she chose the one dress that had not been designed by a Bedouin tentmaker. The beige crinkled-cotton number floated around her bulky figure and showed her shoulders to advantage.
She added a silver choker and dangly silver earrings to draw attention away from her midsection. Much like trying to camouflage an elephant with a hairbow. She slipped into a pair of leather mules that didn’t pinch her feet, and checked the results in the full-length mirror.
Not bad for a fat lady.
She wasn’t returning from a triumphant engagement at the Grand Ole Opry, but she had her pride. She was no longer a sad little orphan. And she wasn’t Short Stack, the Teenage Waitress. She was about to be a mother. She might not have much to show for the past five years, but she had gained maturity, worldliness and poise.
Well, not worldliness. That would be a stretch. Maybe not poise. But definitely maturity. She’d aged ten years in the last five.
She climbed into Ol’ Blue and cranked the key a few times before the engine roared to obnoxious life. Just like the good old days. She guessed Birdie had last used the truck to haul cow manure for the garden. As it rattled down the drive, backfiring all the way, bits of dried dung swirled around in the bed and blew out to litter the road.
Did she know how to make an entrance or what?
Tom locked the front door of Hunnicutt Farm and Ranch Supply behind the last customer of the day. It had been six months since he arrived to give Pap a hand, and he was getting antsy.
Junior Hunnicutt, always vigorous, had bounced back from heart surgery sooner than expected. Maybe one of these days Tom would work up the courage to tell him his son didn’t plan on following in his retail footsteps. Not that there was anything wrong with selling feed and fertilizer. It was just that the job required too much time indoors.
The store’s long-time success depended on skills Tom simply didn’t possess. He was no chip off the old salt block when it came to such things as anticipating trends, creative stocking and inventory control. Or shooting the breeze with customers—what Pap called public relations.
“I’m going over to Letha’s for supper tonight, son.” Junior flicked off lights. “I won’t be late.”
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