Delilah allowed Emilia to pull her into the house.
Her misgivings about the couple intensified the moment the door shut behind them.
“It was a bad idea bringing you down here,” Lucas muttered.
Stormy shifted in her seat, placing her back against the door and her bare feet into Lucas’s lap. He’d been tense since they’d crossed the state line into Oklahoma and now that they were on the outskirts of his hometown, he seemed to reach a breaking point.
Stormy wiggled her toes, demanding attention, and Lucas moved his right hand from the steering wheel to her feet, massaging one foot, then the other. As intended, the small rhythmic motion settled him, allowed him to release kinetic energy without leaving the confines of the truck.
“If things go south, call Mama, she knows how to handle bad situations. The Brood’ll get you out fast if you call her.”
Stormy didn’t plan on calling. She knew how to handle bad situations, too.
“And if I…lose control…you get the hell out, Stormy, you get the hell out and you don’t come back.”
She wasn’t abandoning him, but she wouldn’t tell him that either; it would only agitate him more and Lucas didn’t need to reunite with his parents already on the edge of losing himself. He needed to stay present, to resolve the current situation for Merlee, and maybe, if he was ready, to address what lay between him and his parents from the past.
She planned on being there—for all of it.
“Are we within the city limit?” Stormy asked, watching trees and grassland give way to single-structure homes on large acres of land.
“Yep, welcome to Wexford, Oklahoma.”
The deeper they drove into town, the more the city of Wexford took shape.
Two-story buildings distinguished mostly by the shade of brick and the storefronts specific décor, lined the street. There was a step between the road and the sidewalk, and the parking in front of the buildings slanted at an angle. The metal street lamps that ran the length of the road were painted dark blue and ornately designed, harkened back to a bygone era of gas-lit lamps. American flags waved from the second-story mounts on each building. Stormy wasn’t surprised by the number of Confederate flags she saw mounted as well.
Although they were in the downtown area, the place wasn’t bustling, it was more of a meandering flow of mostly white people walking down the street in T-shirts, jeans, cut-off shorts, and pastel or patterned summer dresses. This place was way more Mayberry than the towns her family lived in Louisiana.
Lucas made a couple of turns and the people-scape changed. Darker shades of folks, mostly black and Latino, added depth to the town’s cultural tapestry. Though their numbers were smaller, Stormy breathed easier knowing she wasn’t the only one, that she had people to stand with if a race-war broke out while she was down here.
She laughed a little. Who was she kidding, if a race-war broke out she was sticking to the massive brawler who made men crumble like blue cheese with one punch.
“I know you’re not laughing at the grandeur of my hometown.”
“Never. I’m simply considering the possibility that we’ve gone over a hundred and fifty years in the past and I’ll find myself having to fight my way to freedom.”
“Nah, you’re firmly in present-day Wexford, but given why we’re here, you may still have to fight your way out of here.”
“You know, sometimes you take the fun right out of living,” she said in a dry monotone.
Lucas grinned and winked at her.
“I ain’t always gonna bring you fun, but you can guarantee I will always bring…” He looked at her expectantly. She refused to say it.
Lucas continued. “I will always bring themotherfuckin’…”
“Thunder. Whatever, man,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.
He laughed from his gut and she fell in love with him a little. As large as he was physically, Lucas’s spirit glowed around him like a supernova, inextinguishable within the darkness that sometimes overwhelmed him. When the power of it touched her, it did powerful things to her heart.
The scenery outside shifted again and they drove through a residential area. The houses were a mixture of styles, mostly ranch and colonials on big lots with grass and trees. Lucas slowed down and parked the truck near a soft yellow two-story colonial with cream columns and piping, a wraparound porch, and beautiful ancient trees sitting on the opposite side of the horseshoe-shaped driveway.
“Is this your grandparents’ farmhouse?”
“Darlin’, we’re still in town. The farmhouse is about seven miles outside of town…in the country…on an actualfarm.”
“Oh, fuck off.” She nudged the inside of his thigh with her heel before sitting upright in her seat. “And don’t get all bold now that you’re back home.”
