скачать книгу бесплатно
Joel jumped up and held open the door. It gave him an even better view of his rescuer and Matt’s teacher. Her blond hair bordered on white. It fluffed out and just hit the top of her shoulders. A dark blue skirt was topped by a white-and-dark-blue-striped blouse. Colorful tennis shoes finished the outfit.
He’d like to chase those tennis shoes. “Anything else change?” he asked.
She raised one eyebrow. “What?”
“Besides you growing up while I was away.”
She hesitated. “I’m not as easy to get along with now.”
“I don’t believe it for a minute,” Joel said, and checked out her hand, her left hand. No ring. He should have checked earlier.
“Let me buy you an ice cream.” It wasn’t exactly the dinner he’d suggested earlier, but she’d already turned that down. This could be a start.
Was it his imagination, or did the look she shot Billy appear sympathetic?
“Hi, Beth,” Billy greeted, frowning in Joel’s direction. “Looks like our paths are crossing quite a bit these last twenty-four hours.”
“Susan called. She’s wanting ice cream.” Beth looked at Joel, her expression wary. “I’m in a hurry, so no thanks.” Her chin went up, for no reason since he’d done nothing to insult her, and she headed to the counter. She ordered a full gallon of bubblegum.
Bubblegum? This might be her only flaw.
She followed that by ordering a chocolate chip cone. Joel stepped forward to pay, but she shook her head. The young man behind the cash register looked bored. Definitely not the kind of kid who would notice a guy trying to impress a girl and help him out.
“Bubblegum?” Joel questioned.
“Susan’s pregnant. It’s all she wants to eat. She puts blueberries on top.” With that, Beth stopped paying attention to Joel, smiled at all three of the boys, especially Matt, and took a seat at the opposite end of the ice cream parlor. She pulled a book from her purse while she waited for her order.
“I feel like I struck out,” Joel complained, “before I even made it to bat.”
“What do you expect?” For the first time, Billy’s usually calm demeanor slipped. He stared at Joel, an unwavering expression that said talk, confess, convince.
“I expected—” Joel carefully chose his words because his nephews, staring at him all big eyed and tense, didn’t need to hear the family’s dirty laundry “—I expected to be able to say I was sorry and for all to be forgiven.”
“That may take a bit of time.”
“I was eighteen, an adult. Granted, I didn’t leave in the most sensible manner. But I didn’t expect for the whole town to treat me like a pariah.”
To Joel’s surprise, Billy didn’t rush to assure him that everything was all right and his friends would come around. Instead, his stepfather’s lips pursed together and a definite look of disappointment came over his expression.
“What?” Joel asked. “I chose the rodeo over the farm. It wasn’t big enough for the two of us, anyway, and it was Jared’s dream, not mine. Still, I should be able to come home for—”
“You boys stay put,” Billy ordered. “Matt, finish your ice cream. Ryan, clean Caleb’s face.” He stood, motioning for Joel to follow him outside.
Joel stood too quickly, and then had to wait for his balance to return. All three boys looked at him like he was in trouble.
Beth still had her nose in her book.
The late-September sun still hovered high in the sky. A few cars were traveling down Main. Billy’d already made it to a distant picnic table. He sat with a rigid demeanor, his lips still pursed.
Joel waited, but Billy looked as if he expected Joel to do the talking.
The sunlight shimmered on the black-topped street in front of the Ice Cream Shack. Across from it was the barbershop where Joel had first climbed in a chair, sat on a padded seat with a cape over him and felt grown-up. Next door was the grocery store, not nearly as big as what the city boasted, but with a candy aisle that lived up to a preschooler’s dreams. Everything looked the same; it was the feel of the place that had changed.
Fine. Joel would start. “Out with it, Billy,” he ordered, carefully sitting across from his stepfather. “What’s going on? I expected Jared to be mad, but to turn me away when I’m truly down on my luck? And people I waved to on the street this afternoon, they either waved back at me like I was a ghost or they didn’t wave at all. At the school, I ran into people I grew up with, parents now, and they looked at me like I’m not real. Then Mrs. Armstrong practically tells me to never step foot in the elementary school again.”
“You really don’t know?” Billy asked.
“I. Really. Don’t. Know.”
“Maybe that knock on the head did permanent damage?” The words may have been in jest, but the look on Billy’s face was serious.
“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Joel repeated.
Billy looked at the sky, ran a hand over mostly nonexistent hair and sighed.
“It’s one thing,” Billy said, “to hurt people by taking what belongs to you.”
Joel opened his mouth. He’d been stifled on the farm, had always felt out of his element, and on top of everything else, Jared didn’t want to share, especially after he’d married, brought his wife to Solitaire Farm to live and had a baby.
But Billy wasn’t done. “It’s quite another thing to hurt people by taking what doesn’t belong to you.”
The words hung in the air, an invisible yet tangible barrier between Joel and the stepfather he so admired. It hadn’t been an easy decision, asking for his share of the inheritance, in dollars, instead of pitching in and staying on the family farm. But the will had stated that at eighteen Joel could sell his share. Because of the economy, it was a lot less than he’d expected. Still, Joel taking what was his hadn’t caused the sale of Solitaire Farm; it had only caused a bigger mortgage.
“What? Are you saying the money you gave me didn’t belong to me, because as I see it, having Jared buy me out was the best solution to—”
“I’m not talking about your half of the farm,” Billy sputtered. “I’m talking about the Rodeo Club Fund.”
Joel leaned forward, perplexed. “What about the RC money?”
Billy’s expression took on a hard edge. “The money that I put in my office after the festival the night you left.”
Joel growled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What about the RC money? I remember attending the Fall Festival because it was my last night in town, but—”
“I put it in my office,” Billy said. “The treasurer said he figured we’d made double the usual. I was about to unlock the safe when my cell phone rang. One of the kids had gotten kicked by a horse. I didn’t think twice. I took off.”
That was Billy. He was a hands-on principal, and kids were his top priority.
“I took off,” Billy continued. “About an hour later, I went back to the office. I’d never forgotten that I needed to lock that money away.”
A bad feeling started prickling in Joel’s stomach. This wasn’t some proverbial story that Billy was telling to make a point.
“The money was gone,” Billy said, “and so were you.”
Joel had been sucker punched more than once in his twenty-six years, but never before had he realized that words had more impact than fists.
“You knew where I kept the key to my office, you knew I’d put the money in there, and you took it.”
“I—” Joel opened his mouth in indignation, but finishing the conversation was not to be. They were no longer alone. Beth stood behind the three boys, her hand on Matt’s shoulder.
“Matt’s got a stomachache,” she explained, her gaze going from Joel to Billy and back to Joel. To prove it, Matt held his stomach and doubled over a bit, moaning.
Beth shifted uncomfortably. “Is everything all right? Do you want me to run the boys home?”
“Everything’s fine. Or, at least, it’s going to be,” Billy rushed to assure. His eyes never left Joel’s face. Disappointment battled with anger.
Nothing was all right, not in Joel’s life and apparently not in Matt’s life, either.
Billy looked at Joel for a long moment before saying to the boys, “Let’s head home before your father sends out the hunting dogs.”
“We don’t have any hunting dogs,” Caleb complained.
“Shut up,” Ryan said. He quickly and somewhat apprehensively looked at Billy, but instead of Billy offering the reprimand, it was Beth who chided, “Don’t say shut up, say be quiet.”
“I might throw up,” Matt added to the conversation. Because of the threat, apparently real, Matt rode shotgun in the front while Joel went in the back with Ryan and Caleb. Beth, with a backward glance, headed for her own vehicle. She clutched her ice cream in her arms.
Why he cared about her opinion so much, Joel didn’t quite know. He needed to tell her, as well as Billy and apparently the whole town, that he was innocent.
No wonder lukewarm didn’t begin to describe the way the town of Roanoke had responded to his return so far. Fundraising for the Rodeo Club Fund was tradition in Roanoke, going back fifty years. The Fall Festival was the Friday before Thanksgiving and put preschoolers on the back of sheep, brought a real carnival with a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster to town, and allowed the high school’s marching band—usually about ten of them—to show off. It was fried chicken on picnic tables and a speech from the mayor.
Next to the Fourth of July celebration, it was the town’s favorite, and the earnings helped with the cost of Roanoke’s annual summer rodeo, where Joel’s first taste of bull riding, at age eleven, led to big dreams and, later, exhilarating reality.
The whole town, as well as his family, thought him a thief. This probably, no, definitely, included Beth—although she hid it better—and her mother.
“Billy,” Joel started. “Something’s very wrong here. I didn’t steal—”
;
“Little pitchers have big ears,” Billy said. The three boys moved, but to prove Billy’s point, Matt covered his ears. Ryan adopted an all-too-familiar judgmental look. One pretty advanced for a boy of eight.
The only forgiving one was Caleb. He clutched a raggedy napkin in one hand, held up two fingers with his other hand and informed Joel, “’Morrow. I be three.”
“How about your truck?” Billy asked, settling behind the steering wheel and starting the van, effectively changing the subject again. His lips were still in a straight line. The smile that usually reached to his eyes was missing. It seemed for his grandchildren he was willing to put on an act and pretend nothing was wrong. Still Joel could only wonder … maybe the question really was, How soon will your truck be fixed so you can go?
“I arranged to have it towed to Tiny’s Auto Repair right after they checked me out of the hospital. He wasn’t there. If possible, I’ll stop by tomorrow morning. I think the door will be an easy fix, but I’m a little worried about the front bumper.” Joel didn’t really want to talk about his truck. More than anything, Joel wanted to protest his innocence.
He’d not stolen money from the elementary school’s office, Billy’s office, right before he left town. Thanks to his inheritance, half of the farm, Joel’d had a bank account in the six digits. At the time, he thought it would last forever.
“Tomorrow is Caleb’s birthday,” Matt reminded.
“I won’t miss it.”
If he was invited, that is. He’d not been invited to the house, not really, not by his brother. Billy was acting as the go-between and in just an hour, Joel would be facing a brother who did not want him home. Since Jared’s weapon of choice had always been silence, a literal invitation seemed doubtful.
Chapter Three
Beth’s sister didn’t even mention how melted the bubblegum ice cream was, just quickly got herself a bowl, grabbed the blueberries and motioned Beth to sit at the kitchen table.
Susan Farraday was a middle child suffering from oldest child syndrome.
“Linda called this morning.”
Beth almost laughed, especially when Susan prepared a second bowl of blueberry-covered bubblegum ice cream and placed it in front of her.
“I’m full,” Beth said.
Susan didn’t say anything, just pulled the bowl back to her side of the table. “Tell me everything.”
“About what?”
Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean about whom?”
“There’s nothing to tell. I went over to Solitaire Farm last night to talk to Jared about Matt. That didn’t work. Mom wanted me to drop off some Bible study stuff to Meg McClanahan. I spent some time there eating watermelon and answering a few questions about Trey’s homework even though he’s not in my class.”
Susan looked thoughtful. “Go on.”
“On the way home, I noticed this truck ahead of me. It would speed up and then slow down. I was getting scared at first. Then I started trying to place it. I knew I’d seen it before. Finally, it really sped up, ran off the road, across the irrigation ditch and right into the McClanahans’ fence.”
“When did you realize it was Joel?”
“I think the moment I saw it, but I just didn’t believe. Then, when I looked into the truck bed, his gear was back there.”
“How is he?”
“He seems to be fine. He even helped pick up the boys from school.”
“Does he look the same? Or cuter? Did he say anything about what he’s been doing? I wonder if that means Jared’s letting him stay?”
Beth thought back to the Ice Cream Shack and how tense a conversation she’d interrupted. They’d been talking about the RC money. “He was out of it while I drove him to the hospital. The only thing he said was that his head hurt. And I’m pretty sure he’s staying, but last night he was sure leaving in a hurry. So, I doubt this visit is getting off to the best of beginnings.”
“Is that all it is, a visit? Do you suppose he ran off the road because he and Jared had a fight?”
Beth had already considered that scenario, and it seemed plausible enough.
“Guess you’ll know more tomorrow,” Susan said. “Aren’t you going to Caleb’s birthday party?”
Beth had been there for all of Ryan, Matt and Caleb’s special moments. As Mandy’s best friend, she was a quasi aunt. A few minutes later, she headed for her car, grateful that Susan had failed to notice that Beth hadn’t answered one of her previous questions.
Does he look the same? Or cuter?
Beth could never admit to her sisters that she thought Joel McCreedy looked even better than he had eight years ago. They’d known about her crush and had teased her without mercy. Susan might be seven months pregnant, Linda might own her own beauty salon, but that didn’t stop them from ganging up on their baby sister, especially when it came to matters of the heart.
Especially when the matter of the heart had an arrow aimed at it, but not from Cupid’s bow. Patsy Armstrong, aka Mom, was the sharpshooter in question.
The McCreedy men, all six of them if you counted stepfather Billy Staples, were having hot dogs for dinner. The kitchen hadn’t changed all that much, except that Joel didn’t know where he belonged. The table, from his childhood, was a six-seater, and Joel was pretty sure that the only vacant chair had at one time belonged to Mandy.
His sister-in-law had suffered with a long illness, was six months gone, and Joel hadn’t made it to the funeral. He hesitated, and Billy came to the rescue. He got up, moved around the table and took the empty seat. Joel took Billy’s place feeling like he kept winding up with the losing hand in a game with rules he didn’t understand. Jared’s and Matt’s faces bore identical scowls when Joel sat down.
“So, what happened in school today?” Billy asked, unable to hide a look of resignation.
