A
Yes! Come get me?
N
I’m over at the vet’s office. I’ll be there in fifteen.
A
See ya!
Nora’s a vet tech who helps out through the county, and I’m lucky she’s close. Quickly, I change, trading my travel clothes for a comfortable pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and wash the travel off me, before grabbing my purse and heading downstairs to wait on the porch.
The wooden steps creak under my feet as I settle onto the top step, just like they used to when I was a kid waiting for my dad to drive me to the bus stop. Some things never change, I suppose. The prairie stretches out before me, endless and golden under the late afternoon sun. It’s beautiful in a way I’d forgotten, or maybe chose to forget when I was desperate to escape to what I thought were bigger and better things.
“Already going somewhere?” Truett asks. He’s standing in the doorway, thumbing through his cell phone, probably checking the weather forecast like he does every few hours during every season of the year.
“Yeah, Nora’s coming to get me. We’re gonna catch up. Is that okay with you, Dad?”
The word slips out before I can stop it. I haven’t called him Dad since I was sixteen and trying to assert my independence. His expression softens, and I see a flash of the boy who turned into a man in one night and chased away the monsters from my nightmares.
He snorts, but it’s gentle. “It’s fine. If you need a ride, because I know how the two of you get, call me.”
With those words, it’s like I never left. Nora and I had been notorious for losing track of time, getting caught up in whatever adventure we’d dreamed up. There was the time we decided to hike to the old mining cave and didn’t come back until after midnight, or when we got distracted by a roadside farmer’s market and came home with three pies and a goat we’d somehow convinced Truett to let us keep for exactly one week.
“Love you, Tru.”
“Yeah, yeah. I gotta go. Be safe, okay?”
I watch him walk toward the barn where Dave’s probably still fighting with that cultivator, his shoulders set in the determined line that means he won’t stop until whatever’s broken is fixed. He’s always been that way—a problem solver, a fixer. It’s probably why he’s taken care of everyone around him his whole life, including me.
The guilt hits me like a physical blow. Jesse was right, wasn’t he? I had been spoiled. Truett gave me everything after our parents died, tried to be mother and father both, and I repaid him by running away the first chance I got.
A cloud of dust on the horizon signals Nora’s approach, and I push the guilty thoughts aside. There’ll be time for self-deprecation later. Right now, I need my best friend and whatever normalcy she can provide.
Nora’s truck, newer than the old one she drove in high school, skids to a stop beside me. Grizzly River Vet Services is slapped on the door, which reminds me that we’ve all grown up.Through the windshield, I can see her grinning like a maniac, her red hair pulled back in a messy bun that somehow looks effortlessly chic on her.
“Aubree Michelle!” she shouts, pulling out my middle name, jumping out of the truck before it’s fully stopped. “Get your ass over here and hug me!”
I can’t help but laugh as I run down the steps and into her arms. She smells like hay and the vanilla body spray she’s worn since we were fifteen. It’s the smell of home in a way that’s different from the ranch house but just as powerful.
“God, I missed you,” I mumble into her shoulder.
“Missed you too, city girl.” She pulls back to look at me, her hands on my shoulders. “You look like you’re doing okay.”
Okay is a good way to put it. I’m not good, not bad, but I’m making it. “I am.”
She links her arm through mine, steering me toward the truck. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before your brother decides he wants to interrogate us about where we’re going, and then tells us it’s a bad idea.”
“He’s not that bad,” I protest, but I’m already climbing into the passenger seat.
“Please. Remember when we were seventeen, and we wanted to go to that party at Miller’s pond? He made you promise to text him every hour and had Jesse follow us in his truck.”
The mention of Jesse’s name sends a flutter through my stomach. “I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t. Jesse parked where he thought we couldn’t see him and spent the whole night glaring at any guy who looked at you sideways.” She starts the truck and backs out of the driveway, gravel crunching under the tires. “Looking back, it was kind of sweet. At the time, I wanted to murder him.”
“He was just looking out for me because Truett asked him to.” The words sound hollow even to me.
