Coming Home to Texas

by Allie Pleiter

  Ellie didn’t like—or trust—the way her stomach flipped at the look Nash gave her in reply. She shifted her gaze to the car. “So that’s the car, huh? Theo’s right. It is a fancy thing.”

  Nash nodded and picked up another slice of pizza. “If you want to know where my money and my spare time go, you’re looking at her.”

  “You must not have had much to move if you came out here in that. Does it even have a trunk?”

  Laughing, Nash pointed at the rear of the vehicle. “It has a hatch. But, no, I wouldn’t put that many miles on her. I had her shipped out. And as for belongings, yeah, I suppose you could say I travel light. My dad was navy, so we moved around a lot when I was growing up. I’m used to the shifting. LA was actually the longest I’ve stayed in one place.”

  Ellie ate another bite of the blondie. “Wow. I’ve lived two whole places in my entire life. Here and Atlanta. I’ve never traveled abroad or anything—but I want to.” She spread her hands. “I’d love to be a citizen of the world, you know?”

  After a bite of pizza, Nash said, “It’s not as great as it sounds.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “My dad had a few posts in Asia. I was born in Japan, actually. My mom’s Japanese.”

  Ellie looked at him, and suddenly the thing she couldn’t name about his eyes became clear; they had just a bit of an almond shape to them. His coloring was ruddy, but his face had just enough of the round features and eyes to reflect a hint of Asian influence. Instead of clashing, the combination gave him a memorable, striking—okay, handsome—face.

  Nash caught her looking and ran a hand through his golden-red hair. “You can imagine what it was like to grow up near Tokyo with this hair. I felt like a circus freak until fifth grade when we moved to Annapolis. I didn’t have a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich until I was eleven years old. I’m probably the only person you know whose comfort food is sushi, not mac and cheese.” He shook his head. “Martins Gap is sorely lacking in decent sushi joints, you know.”

  He picked up one of the blondies and bit into it. The confection lived up to its reputation, for pleasure washed over his face, and Ellie felt a surge of satisfaction for being the one to introduce him to one of the town’s best goodies. “I think I found a way to cope,” he said behind a mouthful. “These really are good.”

  * * *

  Ellie was looking at him. “Martins Gap can be an adjustment, but it has its advantages. You’ll find a way to fit in.” She cocked her head, studying him. “You’re not actually worried about that, are you?”

  Nash couldn’t come up with an answer that didn’t make him appear either paranoid or insulting. “No, not really. Everyone’s been welcoming. I like it here. And I chose to come here. It’s just...”

  “Not quite what you thought?” Ellie sighed. “I get that. It’s not quite what I remember, either. And I haven’t even been gone very long.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Funny. I thought I’d feel foreign. I do. Then in other ways I don’t. I feel like I don’t fit in, but I feel from here. I can’t really explain it.” She shot him a look. “And I sure don’t need to bore you with it.”

  “No,” he said, surprised by how much he meant it. “I get it. You know you’re different, but no one else seems to recognize it. Or they do, but not in the way you want.”

  Understanding lit the blue in her eyes. “Yeah, like that.” She stood up, walked toward the car and peered under the hood. “It’s a Japanese car, right? Is the manual in Japanese?”

  Nash laughed. “No. And she takes good old American motor oil and gas.”

  She ran one hand down the line of the car’s front panel, a soft stroke of artistic appreciation. “Does it go really fast?”

  Nash pulled the rag from his back pocket and polished a smear off the front headlamp. “Officially, she never breaks the speed limit.”

  That pulled a smile from Ellie. “And unofficially?”

  Nash couldn’t suppress his own grin. “She’s fast. And she corners like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Ellie stepped over the toolbox to lean in the open window. “Is that an eight track? Like from the ’70s?”

  “It’s a cassette player, actually. That was before our time, right? We’re babies of the CD era, you and I.”

  “I’d be amazed if the kids in our program even know what a cassette tape is, much less an eight track. I mean, all they know are downloads and smartphones.” She was babbling again. Maybe she was as unnerved by the easiness that seemed to spring up without warning between them as he was.

  Some rebellious part of Nash liked that she’d said “our program.” The way she’d said “you and I” a moment ago had uncurled something in his stomach that ought not be there. But she did look as though something was out of sorts—something beyond the broken engagement. “Did Theo say something? Are there concerns about the program? Or are you having second thoughts about taking such a long leave?”

  “Second thoughts? Oh, about a million.” She ran her hand along the chrome door handle, then down the rear fender, appreciating the car’s bold lines. Nash always enjoyed it when people liked the Z as much as he did. It wasn’t an antique, but it was an exquisite classic and a possession he treasured. “It was a dumb move, I suppose,” she continued. “No one should hit the pause button on a great job like that. Only, I knew I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stand everyone looking at me the way they did.” She pulled her hand from the car to hug her chest. “There was no place there for me to hide and be hurt, you know?”

  “I suppose.”

  She came back to the picnic table and sat down. “So why’d you bolt out of LA? I know you were shot and all, but why did you feel you had to move so far away?”

  He made sure to keep a safe distance between them when he returned to the table, as well. “Well, for starters, I didn’t bolt. The decision was a long, slow process. I had to think a long time before leaving.”

  “So you did like your job back there?”

  “I did. I felt like I made a difference. It’s not rocket science—gangs succeed because kids want to know they belong somewhere. They don’t care that it’s the wrong somewhere. Everyone throws their hands up like it’s hopeless, but it’s not. I’ve seen God do some amazing things in the worst kids’ lives, Ellie. Tough guys everyone else would write off as good-for-nothings turned their lives around once they realized somebody actually cared about what happened to them.”

  “I could see where that would make a whole lot of difference.”

  “I’d get about one kid a year truly straightened out. And that would give me fuel to work on the other dozens who didn’t. You have to be stubborn in my line of work.”

  Ellie put the last of her blondie in her mouth. “I guess so,” she offered after she licked her fingers. “Derek used to say confidence was a chef’s best trait—to believe he was captain of the kitchen and master of the ingredients and all.” She rolled her eyes. “More like arrogance.”

  “He sounds like a real piece of work.”

  Ellie spread her hands as if introducing the guy on stage. “Derek Harding, Atlanta cuisine’s rising star.” She dropped her hands.

  “Hector.”

  She looked at him. “Hector who?”

  “Hector Forrio was the name of the kid who shot me.” He hadn’t even told Don that.

  “Do you hate him? I hate Derek. I know I’m not supposed to hate him, and someday I’ll probably just ignore him—I don’t think the whole ‘let’s just be friends’ thing is going to work here—but what I feel right now is pretty close to hate. I’m not proud of that, but I don’t seem to be able to change it at the moment.” She picked up the empty wax-paper wrapper that had held her blondie. “Hate tends to leave a bitter aftertaste. I’m self-medicating it with Lolly’s blondies. I’m an ‘eat my feelings’ kind of gal.”

 
He thought of the biscotti from the night of the traffic stop. “So I’m seeing.” He took another bite of blondie in solidarity with Ellie. “I suppose I hated Hector for a while. When my shoulder hurts or I see the scars in the mirror, something still burns in my gut. But mostly I view him as more of a signpost. An arrow pointing out of LA, if that makes any sense. If it wasn’t Hector, it would have been some other kid with some other name.” That wasn’t exactly true. Hector had been a special case. Nash’s extraordinary connection with the boy—the trust he thought he’d built between them—was what let the hurt run so deep. And while he didn’t drown his feelings in baked goods, he’d poured hundreds of dollars and hours into the car during his recovery. “I suppose you could say I’m a ‘drive my feelings’ kind of guy.”

  “Hey, you do what it takes to handle the Hectors and Dereks of this world. But you could have worked on your car in LA. I still don’t get the move to someplace like here.”

  Nash sat back and leaned his elbows on the picnic table. “I needed somewhere far away and different. It could have been anywhere, really, but a friend knows Don’s son and heard he was looking for a younger deputy to bridge the gap for consistency when the new sheriff was elected. The new sheriff can either keep me or bring in his own deputy, and I’m fine with that. The short time frame suits me fine.” He managed a small laugh in spite of the serious conversation. “It’s not like I did research.”

  “So you ended up here by accident?”

  He didn’t believe it was an accident, but he wasn’t at a place where he could confidently say God had led him to Martins Gap, either. “Wouldn’t Pastor Theo tell us to consider it providence?”

  “Well, I know a good Christian woman would say I trust God’s hand is at work in my failed engagement, but I’m afraid I’m not there yet.”

  Yes, it was smart to remember Ellie Buckton was a woman in the throes of serious rebound. A romantic land mine best kept in platonic territory. “It’s been what, nine days? I think you’re entitled to pitch a few fits.”

  She smirked. “Thanks. If you need anything hammered to bits, give me a call. I’ve got a lot of aggression to work out, and there are only so many holes you can dig on the ranch before the bison start to complain.”

  It was a good thing it was only a lunch break, or he might be tempted to remove the T-top inserts so that the Z was nearly a convertible and take Ellie out on the open highway. She’d like the way the wind and the engine noise could wash a problem off—for a little while, anyway. He’d come to depend on how a drive could blow off the residue a bad day could leave all over his mind and body. The unnerving notion that they weren’t so different settled persistent and itchy in the back of his mind. Instead, he looked at his watch. “I’m back on shift in ten minutes. Thanks for the treats.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll see you on the eighth, then?” The program was scheduled to start the first Wednesday after Easter.

  He wasn’t that surprised to realize he was looking forward to seeing her every week. This was going to take a little discipline on his part, especially if she kept plying him with baked goods and warm smiles. He rose and piled the rest of the blondies onto the pizza box while he picked up the files with his other hand. “Yep. See you then.”

  The little wave she gave as she headed out the office front door stuck with him for hours. That was not necessarily a good sign.

  Chapter Seven

  The crickets were singing loudly as Gunner’s wife, Brooke, walked out on to the porch clutching a glass of ginger ale. “I don’t need to read any test results to know this is a boy,” she groaned as she eased herself into the wicker rocking chair. “No female would do this to another woman. It’s got to be a boy. I was never this sick with Audie.”

  Ellie finished the last row of the sample squares she was knitting for the first girls’ class next week. She’d found a clever pattern that took a small square and stitched it up into a slipper sock—an excellent first project for teen girls. It was a fun pattern to make up in bright colors of inexpensive yarn, but the resulting slipper socks would feel extra wonderful and last a long time if done in bison fiber. As such, they perfectly suited her program. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time of it,” she offered to her pale sister-in-law.

  Brooke produced a weak smile. “I could say the same for you. You were awfully quiet at dinner. Did something happen in town?”

  Ellie put down the finished square and picked up her basket full of yarn. She moved over to the chair next to Brooke. “Shows that much, does it?” She reached into the basket and pulled out two balls of fluffy pastel yarn, one a sunny yellow and the other mint green. “I’ll be okay. Which color do you like?”

  Brooke considered a moment and then chose the green yarn. “I take it word’s gotten out why you’re home?”

  Sitting back in her chair, Ellie fished the correct set of needles out of her case and began to cast on the required number of stitches for a baby-size version of the slipper sock. The sky was a still, perfect lavender dusk. The night had fallen soft and warm on such a jarring day. “It was bound to happen. I can’t hide out at the ranch forever.” She stopped stitching for a moment. “I just didn’t count on feeling so...exposed. Like the whole world thinks they know my business, even though they only have half the story. It made me want to run around explaining the other half.” She returned to the stitches. “Does that make any sense?”

  Brooke sipped her ginger ale. “What’s the half you think everyone knows?”

  “Ellie Buckton’s fiancé cheated on her with her best friend. Oldest story in the book, isn’t it? It feels like everyone in Atlanta knew my relationship with Derek was on the rocks before I did. How can you feel that close to someone and in reality be so far away?” She’d cast on the full amount of stitches—not many for such a tiny pair of booties—and now turned the needles to start the first row. “I feel stupid. As if I was too dazzled to see Derek wasn’t head-over-heels in love with me anymore—if he ever was at all. It’s humiliating to think all my friends are all saying ‘Poor, ignorant Ellie’ behind my back.”

  “Don’t you think there are some saying ‘Ellie’s better off without a cheating louse like Derek Harding’?” Brooke shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I know that’s what Gunner is saying. Quite a bit worse than that, if I’m honest.”

  Ellie managed a giggle. “Is it wrong that I love how ticked off Gunner is at Derek? Makes me feel...I don’t know...defended.” She continued stitching, delighting in the softness of the yarn and the hopeful feeling it gave her to make something for her coming nephew. She loved Audie, happily considered herself Audie’s aunt, but to know the child to be born this September would be the first Buckton in so many years and the start of the next generation of Bucktons on the Blue Thorn? That was a blessing beyond counting. “I’m glad to think Gunner’s in my corner, you know?”

  “He’s so happy to have you on the ranch. Your gran is and I am, too. But—” Brooke seemed to choose her next words carefully “—he knows you won’t stay.”

  Ellie halted her stitching again. “I have to go back to Atlanta. I told him that the first night I was home. Who am I if I let a jerk like Derek drive me back home and away from my own life in Atlanta? I’m not saying I’ll never come back, but today just showed me all over again why I left. I know you and Gunner are happy here, but this town is too small for me. I need bigger dreams than I can have here. I know Gunner understands that.” Gunner certainly should understand that. He’d left the ranch for several years—run as far away from it as he could, actually—before coming back after their father died. Those had been tense, raw times. Ellie was glad things were completely different now.

  “So you won’t even consider staying? What about this venture with the bison fiber? Couldn’t that be a big enough dream?”

  Ellie waved the thought away. “It’s a good side venture for the ranch an
d absolutely worth doing, but it’s nothing I could build a career on. If it works—” she pointed one of the needles emphatically at Brooke “—and it will work—the most it can amount to is a steady project for me. A minor income stream, my bit for the family ranch, a hobby venture if you will.”

  “So why do it at all? It sounds like a lot of work for just a hobby.”

  “Because I’ve always wanted to. I’ve been toying with the idea since Gunner brought bison onto the ranch. It’s a way to put my mark on the Blue Thorn the same way Gunner has put his. Okay, I admit part of the appeal is to prove Gunner wrong when he thinks it’s silly.”

  “You’re just going to make your point and then ride off into the sunset?” Brooke actually sounded disappointed.

  Ellie finished the next row. “I’m going to make my point so I can have something that doesn’t make me feel like a total failure.” She turned her work and thrust the needle into the fabric to start a new row. “And then I’m going to go back and repair my trashed life in Atlanta. Find a real guy with solid values and no online fan base of foodie groupies.”

  That popped Brooke’s eyes wide. “Foodie groupies? Really?”

  “I ran the man’s internet fan page, for crying out loud.” Ellie leaned in. “I ran all the chefs’ fan pages, actually. Which means I know how to take Derek’s down in flames, if I wanted to... If I were a lesser woman, of course. I’m trying to take the high road here, but I won’t say I haven’t been tempted. He is, as you say, a cheating louse.”

  “You wouldn’t publicly defame him.” Brooke paused. “Would you?”