Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) (22 page)

“That’s the last one?” Donny asked after Chase tossed the box into the back of the guy’s truck.

“Yeah.” He was about to walk away, when Donny stuck his hand out. Chase stared at it for a few seconds, debating on punching the guy in the face, but he’d been raised better than that and shook his hand.

“No hard feelings,” Donny said.

Chase squeezed, tightening his grip until the man Rina had chosen over him winced. Then he turned and went inside, slamming the door a little harder than was necessary. That was enough playing nice.

With the exception of the duffel bags by the door and a
few odds and ends on the kitchen counter, almost everything he owned was in boxes in a storage locker, waiting to be moved to a new, much smaller apartment the weekend after he returned from Stewart Mills.

By downsizing his life, groveling and bargaining, he’d managed to clear up most of his business woes. And, most importantly, he’d sold the engagement ring he’d bought Rina back when times were good and he was feeling flush. Every time he’d thought he was ready to pop the question, though, something had held him back, and the ring had stayed hidden in the bottom of a beer stein from college, under miscellaneous guy debris she had no interest in sifting through.

He wasn’t sure why he’d never asked her to be his wife, yet considering she was living with Donny and the ring was paying not only for his trip to Stewart Mills but also the first and last month’s rent on a new place once he found one, it was a damn good thing he hadn’t.

After one final look around, Chase tossed his stuff into his truck and hit the road. It was a nine-hour drive, so if he pushed straight through, he’d get into Stewart Mills early evening. If he was going to be any later than that, he’d spend the night in a motel and arrive in the morning.

He had one quick stop to make before he left town. When he’d told his parents he was going back to Stewart Mills and why, his old man had called him an idiot, and his mom had told him to swing by and pick up a pie. It was intended as a hostess gift for Mrs. McDonnell, but Chase was afraid if Coach’s wife had ever had his mom’s pie and remembered the experience, she might not let him in the door with it.

His parents’ home was in a small neighborhood made up mostly of retirees, though his mother still worked. She
claimed she enjoyed doing insurance claim work for a large auto body shop, but Chase suspected she couldn’t handle her husband 24/7. Nobody could. Today she was home, though, her shiny compact car squeezed into the driveway alongside the massive Cadillac that Bob Sanders had bought back during Clinton’s first term in the Oval Office.

His mom was on the sofa when he walked in, watching some kind of cooking show. “Hi, honey. Your father’s out back.”

It was the standard greeting, but he stopped and kissed her cheek on his way through the house. “Hi, Ma.”

His old man was on the tiny dock that matched all the other tiny docks up and down the canal that ran through the neighborhood. He had a bulk package of cheap chicken drumsticks and was shoving a couple of pieces of raw poultry into each of his wire traps. Ma would be making fresh crabmeat-salad sandwiches for lunch.

Chase hated seafood. Especially crab.

“You heading north today?” Bob asked when Chase reached the dock.

“In a few minutes. Ma made a pie for Mrs. McDonnell.”

“Lucky her.”

Chase grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets, but the smile faded as the silence stretched toward awkward. They’d never had a lot to say to each other, but their relationship was particularly strained at the moment.

Bob Sanders made no bones about being disappointed—and maybe a little embarrassed—by the failure of Chase’s business, no matter how much of it was due to the economy and Seth’s financial shenanigans rather than mismanagement on Chase’s part. Chase’s impending return to Stewart
Mills had also dredged up his buried resentment that his father had written him off as stupid, and it had taken Coach McDonnell to show him he wasn’t.

Bob lowered the last trap into the water, shoved the empty chicken packaging back into the plastic shopping bag and turned to face Chase. “Get everything straightened out?”

“More or less. Got most people willing to wait for pay until the lawyers catch up with Seth. Scraped together enough to stay out of bankruptcy court, and managed to find contractors to handle the jobs I can’t afford to do now. Things are tight, but I’ll probably get to keep my shirt.”

“And you think it’s a good idea to go to New Hampshire right now?”

Yeah, he did, because Coach needed him. “Probably not, but I’m going anyway. This mess will still be here when I get back.”

Chase followed his dad back to the house and, since the conversation seemed to have run its course, he got the pie and got the hell out of there. He thought about ditching the hostess gift in a rest area trash can, but if his mother tried to call him at the McDonnells’ and the pie—or lack of one—came up in conversation, he’d never hear the end of it.

He turned the music up too loud, drove a little too fast and drank way too much coffee, but he pulled into Stewart Mills a little past six. A perfectly respectable time to show up on Coach’s doorstep.

As he drove through Stewart Mills, though, he noticed the town had changed a lot, and not necessarily for the better. A lot of For Sale signs. A few bank auction signs. They’d obviously done some restoration work on the historic covered bridge, but it didn’t distract from the dark, silent shell
of the paper mill looming behind it that used to be the lifeblood of the town.

There was also a new stop sign, he realized
as
he went through the intersection. Without stopping.

And the Stewart Mills Police Department had a fairly new four-wheel-drive SUV, too.

There hadn’t been a stop sign at that intersection fourteen years ago, Chase thought as he pulled off to the side of the road, making sure there was plenty of room for both his truck and the SUV with the flashing blue lights.

It was one hell of a welcome home.

Shannon Stacey
is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense, including the Boys of Fall novels (
Defending Hearts
,
Under the Lights
), the Kowalski Family novels (
Falling for Max
,
Taken with You
,
Love a Little Sideways
) and the Devlin Group novels (
No Place to Hide
,
72 Hours
,
On the Edge
). She lives with her husband and two sons in New England, where her two favorite activities are four-wheeling in the mud and writing stories of happily ever after.

Visit her online at shannonstacey.com, facebook.com/shannonstacey.authorpage and twitter.com/shannonstacey.

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