Homeward Bound

She held her breath as his hand hovered over the door-knob. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when his large masculine fingers fell away without securing the lock.

Shoving his fists into the front pockets of his jeans, he rocked back on his heels. The stubborn lug looked so out of place standing in the peach-colored room with flower-stenciled walls and a mint-green velvet canopy hanging over her bed. Barbed wire was definitely more his style.

“Your room’s nice, Heather.”

A compliment? Admiring comments from Royce had been few and far between over the years. “Anything is better than that hovel I grew up in.”

“If I’d known you cared, I’d have given you money to spruce up the trailer.”

A knot formed in her chest. She had cared. Once, she’d started to paint the kitchen a soft buttercup yellow, but her old man, in one of his drunken rages, had stumbled and fallen against the wall, smearing the paint and cursing her for ruining his clothes. After enough of those “instances,” she had realized caring was a waste of time and energy. Besides, acting as though living in a trash dump hadn’t mattered to her gave Royce one less thing to butt his nose into.

She sat on the end of her bed, smoothed a hand over the white lace spread and swallowed twice before she could trust her voice.

“Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the chair at the desk by the window.

As he crossed the room, she noticed the way his western shirt pulled at his shoulders. Noticed his backside, too. The cowboy was in a category all his own. Ranching was physical work, but most of the ranchers she’d known growing up didn’t have bodies like Royce. She’d touched a few of his impressive muscles when they’d kissed long ago, and this cowboy was in a category all his own. She wondered how he managed to stay in such great shape. She knew for a fact there wasn’t a health club within fifty miles of Nowhere.

Some fool named Sapple had opened a small sawmill in the 1920s south of town, but like so many other East Texas sawmills, the place closed up five years later. Sapple and most of the loggers and their families had moved on, but a few people stayed behind. The town was officially named Nowhere when the interstate went in twenty-five miles away, leaving the local residents out in the middle of…nowhere. Aside from a barbershop, a bank, her father’s feed store and a couple of mom-and-pop businesses, the town, surrounded by miles of ranchland and pine forests, boasted little else. If a person wanted excitement they had to get back on the interstate to find a popular restaurant or a honky-tonk.

Royce sat on her desk chair, expelled a long breath, then clasped his hands between his knees and stared at the floor.

Stomach clenching with apprehension, she asked, “What’s so important you couldn’t have told me over the phone?”

Her question brought his head up, and she stopped breathing at the solemn expression in his dark eyes. “What I have to say should be said in person.”

She almost blurted, Three years ago you had no trouble telling me that our kiss had been a terrible mistake. That you didn’t want to see me again. That you didn’t want me to come back to Nowhere. Instead, she settled for “A long time ago you had no trouble telling me over the phone to get lost.”

He stiffened, then cleared his throat and studied the Titanic movie poster hanging on the wall beside her bed. He turned his attention to her face, embarrassment and regret pinching his features. This time she looked away.

“How are you situated for money?”

The news must really be bad if Royce was stalling. “If I get the job that I applied for at the law library, I’ll be able to make ends meet this summer.” She’d already exhausted all the partial scholarships and government grants she’d been eligible for during the first four years of school. From then on, she’d had to work to pay for tuition and books, expenses and rent. She hated admitting it, hated that she was still dependent on him, but without Royce’s more-than-generous Christmas and birthday checks she would have had to drop out of college long ago.

Shifting on the chair, he removed his checkbook from the back pocket of his jeans. She had only one pen on her desk, a neon-pink one with a bright yellow feather and beaded ribbon attached to the end. She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at the disgusted expression on his face when he tried to see around the feather as he wrote out the check.

“I don’t want your money, Royce.” Her face heated at the lie, but she felt compelled to offer a token protest.

He didn’t hand the check to her. Instead, he set the draft on top of her psychology text. “For someone who had to be forced to go to college, you’ve hung in there and beaten the odds.”

Two compliments in one day. This must be some sort of record for Royce. But knowing that she’d done something he approved of made her feel good. Proud. Vulnerable. She smiled sheepishly. “To be honest, I’m a little surprised I didn’t drop out my first year.”

“Just think. If you hadn’t been involved with that group of misfits who held up the Quick Stop, you might never have gone to college.”

Heather groaned. “Please. Let’s not bring that up.” She’d just as soon forget that fateful July night seven years ago when Royce had bailed her out of the county jail after being arrested in connection with the gas station holdup. She’d been using the restroom, unaware that the other teens had planned to rob the place. Because she hadn’t been in the store during the robbery, Royce had been able to convince the judge to let her off the hook. But the judge had added a condition of her own—college.

“The expression on your face when the judge announced your sentence was priceless. One would have thought you’d been sentenced to death, not college,” Royce chuckled, then his face sobered.

“What are your plans after you get your degree in August?”

“I want to work with children. Socioeconomically disadvantaged kids.”

He started to protest, but she held up a hand. “You’re thinking I wouldn’t be a good role model, right?” Why was it so hard for Royce to believe she’d changed since going away to school?

Shrugging, he slouched in the chair. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been the one receiving help, not giving it.”

Ouch. That stung. Irritated with herself for allowing his comment to hurt, she changed the subject. “Enough reminiscing. Why the surprise visit?”

“I wish there were an easier way to say this.” He dragged a hand down his face.

The suspense rattled her nerves. “Spit it out, Royce.”

“Your father’s dead.”

She opened her mouth to suck in air, but nothing happened. Her lungs froze as her body processed the shock. After several seconds, her chest thawed, and she gulped a lungful of oxygen.

“I’m sorry, Heather.” He leaned forward again and squeezed her hand.

Numbly, she stared at the tanned hand, wondering whether the rough, calloused touch of his skin against hers or the news of her father’s death shook her more.

“How—?” Her eyes watered, surprising her. After all these years, she didn’t think she had any emotion left for her father. That she still felt something for the old man made her stomach queasy.

“A fire.”

Her gaze flew to his face. “The feed store burned down?”

He tugged his hand loose, and she bit her lip to keep from protesting the loss of his warmth and gentleness.

“The trailer caught fire. The county fire investigator believes it was accidental.”

No need to explain the gory details. As a child, how many times had she gone to bed, only to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and find her father asleep on the couch, a lit cigarette dangling from between his fingers?

“A tourist passing by called 911. By the time the volunteer fire department got there…” Royce shook his head, sympathy in his eyes. “Nothing but a burned-out shell remained.”

“When?”

“Late yesterday afternoon.”

Her father was dead. She was alone in the world. Really alone. But maybe that was okay. Even when her father was alive she’d been alone. Still, Royce had always been there.

And he’s here now.

Royce stood. “I’ll wait in the truck while you pack.”

Dazed, she mumbled, “Pack?”

His eyebrows dipped. “For the funeral.”

“Funeral?” Why wasn’t anything making sense? She rubbed her temples, wincing at the onset of a headache.