by Vaughn, Ann
Long Way Home
by Ann Vaughn
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright @ 2013 Ann Vaughn
All rights reserved
Cover art by Carey Abbott
Ebookcoverdesignsbycarey.com
For Shilpa, for all your hard work and help and texting and brainstorming and laughing and editing and all that other fun stuff!! Could not have done this without you! Good luck on your first year back to teaching after an 11-year break! You will do fine!!!!
For Cindy, who has always been the strongest person I know!
For Kym, for keeping me going and all the other great read recommendations, and a Baseball Mama shoulder to cry on!!
For Kristen Ashley, even though I’ve never met you…you have been an inspiration to me and it was because of you that I thought I might try my hand at the self-publishing end. Success or fail, you gave me the wind to support my wings and even though you may never see this, I just wanted to put this in writing. You are the Ultimate Rock Chick!! ROCK ON!!!!
For Alex & Abby, never ever be afraid to go after your dreams! Love you both to the moon and back.
And for Stanley, just for being you and letting me live my dreams! You have kept every promise you have ever made me and that means more to me than you will ever know. You are my rock and I love you!!!!
Table of Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Three
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
About the Author
Part One
Chapter One
Going to Kindergarten was definitely not five-year old Shane McCanton’s idea of a good time. It was summer after all; there was still fishing to do and baseball and swimming and all kinds of stuff. He knew his numbers and his letters already. He didn’t see any point in having to sit in some dumb old classroom all day with a teacher and girls and books and...and girls.
He sent his mother a long-suffering glare when they found his name taped down at a table between two girls, one of whom was already sitting in her chair. He had two little sisters, didn’t he get enough of girls at home? Sulking, he wondered if his teacher, Mrs. Uptmor, would let him move to where his best friend Steve Sinclair was sitting.
“Your daddy is Sheriff McCanton,” the girl said to him. “I’ve seen you with him at Miss Nettie’s.”
Miss Nettie’s was a restaurant in town that his great-aunt owned.
“Yeah,” he said, not really looking at her.
“He is always nice to me. My mommy says she went to school with him.”
Shane shrugged. “He’s the Sheriff. He’s nice to everyone. ‘Cept bad guys.”
“He wears a gun and a star,” she said.
Shane did look at her then. “He’s the Sheriff,” he repeated as if the wearing of a badge and a gun went right along with that explanation and she should have understood that.
“Do you ever get to shoot his gun?’
“Nah. He keeps it locked up when he gets home. But I have my own hunting rifle.”
“It would be cool to shoot bad guys, don’t you think?”
He gave her an odd look. She didn’t talk like any girl he’d ever known.
“I don’t think I’d like to shoot at people,” he said after a moment, “but I think I’d like to be Sheriff one day when I’m big.”
She nodded, her blonde hair swinging. “You will be...and you know what?”
“What?”
Her bright green eyes locked on his blue ones. “We’re gonna get married one day. When we’re big.”
Now he looked at her like she’d suddenly sprouted two heads.
“You’re nuts!” he exclaimed.
She shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’m Tessa. Tessa Kelly.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Am not.”
“Oh, yes, you are!” he shouted.
“Shane Gabriel!” his mother admonished, turning her attention back to him. “What is wrong with you? Be nice.”
“She’s crazy, Mom. I don’t want to sit by her.”
“Stop it now. You be nice. I have to go, OK?”
“Just let me sit with Steve,” he begged.
“Honey, just try to get along, OK?”
When she left, he scooted his chair as far from Tessa as he could and did his best to ignore her altogether. He could feel her watching him, though, and it creeped him out.
So began a pattern that held for the next several years. In their small hometown of Indian Springs, Texas, there was only one elementary school that fed into one middle school and one high school...and it usually always worked out that they were in the same class together.
Third grade was the worst. Shane did his best to keep away from her, but she constantly pestered him. She considered everything they did a competition; school work, games in PE...it drove him crazy. She criticized everything he did, too: what he wore, what he said, what he liked; nothing was off-limits.
One day, she’d been particularly hard on him. From the moment he got to school that day, she’d started in on him. His Nike baseball shirt said Bring the Heat; she said, why? so you can strike out? (he’d struck out twice in his Little League game the night before. She had been there and seen it). They’d had a spelling bee in class and as usual, it came down to the two of them. In the middle of spelling his last word, she “accidentally” stepped on his foot. He’d gotten flustered and misspelled his word. On the bus ride home she’d gloated about her victory and how easily distracted he was. He took and took her torment until finally, he’d had enough.
When they got off the bus at their stop, after the bus drove off, Shane intentionally tripped her. She fell but grabbed him as she was falling, pulling him down with her.
“You’re not so tough, Shane McCanton,” she taunted.
Pushed to his limit, Shane wrestled her down to the ground, pinning her arms with his knees. He glared down at her when all she did was laugh at him.
“Not so tough at all,” she laughed, not the least bit intimidated by him.
Furious, he grabbed a handful of dirt, intending to grind it into her smug face. She was saved when his mother came running over to them, shouting at him.
“Shane Gabriel McCanton! Get off of her!” his mother cried, horrified. She grabbed his arm and jerked him up. “What has gotten into you? Tessa, are you all right?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m fine.”
“Shane, you apologize right this minute,” his mother insisted.
“I’m not apologizing to her,” he snapped. “I hate you, Tessa Kelly. You stay away from me!”
“Shane!” his mother gasped.
“I don’t care if I get in trouble!” he shouted, shrugging out of his mother’s hold. “I mean it, you stay away from me!”
“Go to your room right now!” his mother told him.
“Fine,” he snapped, yanking his backpack off the ground and stormed off. His dad was likely to give him the whipping
of his life, but just then he didn’t care. He went into his room and flopped down on his bed, waiting for the worst.
Thirty minutes later, he heard his dad come into the house. Tears stung the backs of his eyes but he fought them back. He’d take whatever was coming to him. It had been worth it to finally shut Tessa Kelly up.
His door opened and both his parents stepped in. Shane sat up on his bed but didn’t speak.
“You wanna tell me what happened, son?” Luke McCanton asked.
Shane shrugged. “I couldn’t take any more. She’s always on my case.”
“Cordy says you tripped Tessa,” his mother said, referring to one of his sisters.
“I just wanted her to shut up.”
His parents exchanged a look. They knew of his troubles with Tessa.
“Look, son, I know she pushes your buttons but no matter what, she’s still a girl and you had no business getting physical with her,” Luke admonished. “She could have been hurt, and it is never OK to hurt a girl. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, his eyes on his hands.
“We’re going to go over to her house and you will apologize to her.”
His head snapped up. “No, sir, I will not!” he exploded.
“Shane!” his mother gasped, truly appalled by his behavior.
He glanced briefly at her then back at his dad. “Whip me if you want, but I won’t apologize to her. I won’t,” Shane insisted, “I’m not sorry. I’d be lying if I said I was.”
His dad leveled him with a stern look. “I understand what you’re saying, son, I do, and truth be told, if Tessa was a boy then you’d be justified, but she’s not. It’s never going to be all right that you lost your temper and got rough with her. How would you feel if someone did that to one of your sisters?”
Shane sighed and looked down at his hands. “Mad.”
“Now do you see why I want you to apologize?”
“I guess...but Dad, she picks on me all the time! Am I supposed to just take it because she’s a girl?”
Luke rubbed the back of his neck, quiet for a moment. “Look, I’ll talk to her mom. Mary and I grew up together so she’ll listen to me. Maybe she can get Tessa to leave you alone from now on. How’s that?”
“Do I have to apologize?”
“Don’t push me, Son,” Luke warned. “You’re lucky I’m not gonna blister your backside over this. Push me too far and I will, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
After Shane apologized, Luke and Mary talked things over, and for the next few years they made sure that Shane and Tessa were never in the same class, which suited Shane just fine and dandy at first. But then a funny thing happened; he started realizing that he missed the drive of the competition with her. From Kindergarten through third grade, everything he’d done had revolved around beating Tessa. When she wasn’t in his class to compete with every day, he found that he missed the competition.
They didn’t have another class together until their senior year of high school. All through the rest of the years they would see each other in the halls but that was it. Shane got busy with school sports and cheerleaders. Tessa was busy with her sports and band. If he noticed how nicely she’d begun to fill out, he certainly didn’t say. If she noticed how tall and muscular he’d gotten, she kept that to herself as well. What was the point? They were childhood enemies, forbidden to interact with each other, after all.
In high school, though, things began to change. Freshman, sophomore and junior years they would only see each other in passing. Senior year, they had three classes together and became lab partners in Biology. When the assignment of lab partners was read, a hush fell over the room, all eyes on them. Everyone knew their history, after all. In typical Tessa fashion, she ignored all the looks and began quietly gathering materials they would need for their dissection lab.
“Try not to trip her, bud,” Steve teased Shane when he got up to join her.
Shane smiled but refrained from replying. When he stepped over to the lab space where Tessa was setting up, she met his gaze, direct as always.
“Are we going to have a problem, McCanton?” she asked. “Because I don’t need you screwing up my GPA.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Are we? And same goes.”
She regarded him a moment. “Can you handle this dissection?”
“I hunt. We process what we kill. This frog’s been pumped full of formaldehyde, it’s not gonna bother me.”
A slight smile tugged at her lips. “A simple Yes or No would have sufficed,” she teased, “but, hey, at least you’re talking to me. That’s an improvement.”
To his consternation, he could feel heat creeping up his neck and he rubbed the back of it to mask the blush he knew was there.
“You want to do the cutting or you want me to?” he asked.
“Knock yourself out,” she replied, “I’ll keep the lab sheet...look, about all that happened back then, I -”
“Let’s just leave it in the past, Tess, OK?”
She nodded. “OK, sure, but I just want you to know I never meant to upset you.”
He met her gaze a moment, studying her, then sighed. “I know. I’m sorry I over-reacted and I’m sorry I tripped you that day.”
Tessa laughed then. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t deserve it. I’d been particularly brutal to you that day.”
“Yeah, you were,” he agreed with a smile.
“What do you say to a truce now? I’ve only ever wanted to be your friend.”
“Yeah, OK. Truce,” he agreed, offering his hand for her to shake. She took his hand then they got on with their dissection.
Chapter Two
Over the next days and weeks, Shane allowed himself to relax around Tessa and finally let a friendship begin to develop between them. Tessa was included amongst his circle of friends and he found they had a lot in common, from sports to movies and music to books and an interest in law enforcement, which he had to admit was pretty cool.
He also found himself watching her when she wasn’t looking. He liked that she was sporty and not just a girly girl like his sisters, though not to say she wasn’t feminine. She had really pretty long blonde hair and eyes so green at times they bordered on turquoise. He thought she smelled good, too...truth be told, he thought about her all the time. It jolted him.
At the annual town street dance to celebrate the county fair, Shane became aware the minute Tessa and her mother came into the square. He’d been dancing with Natalie Peters and looked up when he heard Tessa’s laugh, causing him to miss a step and step on Natalie’s foot. He’d apologized and forced himself not to look around for Tessa any more, concentrating on finishing the dance with Natalie. As soon as the song ended, however, he excused himself from the crowd. He had a feeling things with Tessa were about to change…at least he thought he might want them to, and that confused him even more. He ended up heading toward his dad’s office for an escape.
“Hey, Shane,” Bob, one of the deputies, greeted him.
“Hey…just need to use the restroom. Is my dad here?”
“You just missed him. He’s out at the square now.”
He headed back to the restroom then went into his dad’s office for a bit, just to collect his thoughts. He thought maybe he should just head home. Being around Tessa like that, in a social environment maybe wasn’t the smartest thing for him right now, not with the thoughts and feelings he had going on for her lately. But then he realized that he couldn’t hide out here forever and decided he might as well head back out.
Shane stepped outside his dad’s office to head back to the dance when something in the shadows just to the right of the front entrance caught his attention. He wasn’t quite sure what it was at first, but as he turned in that direction he could tell it was the sound of someone quietly crying. When he got closer, he was stunned to see it was Tessa. She was sitting on the bench in front of Mr. Jeffries’ travel agency, arms wrapped around her knees that were drawn to her ch
est, forehead resting on her knees. For a moment, he debated about whether he should just walk away, but as her whole body began to shake from her effort to keep her sobs quiet, he knew he couldn’t.
“Tess?” he called out to her in a low, cautious tone.
Her head snapped up and a soft gasp escaped her lips. He took a couple of steps toward her before she shook her head.
“Go away, Shane,” she said softly, stopping him in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He snorted. “Yeah, no offense, but that doesn’t look like nothing. What’s wrong?”
“What do you care?” she snapped back.
He shook his head. “Whoa! What is it with you?” he asked, truly puzzled. “I thought we were friends now. I heard you crying. I’m just trying to be nice, but you bite my head off. That time in third grade when I tripped you aside, what have I ever done to you that has made you treat me the way you have? Because I pushed you away when we were five? I was a little butt to you, I get it. You’ve made me pay a thousand times for it, every day since…but I thought we were past all that.”
She sighed. “I know.”
“Wanna tell me why?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“You are Shane McCanton. Even in Kindergarten, all the girls wanted to be yours; your friend, your girlfriend. Yours. I was no different.”
“Yeah, you told me we were going to get married one day, when we were big. Way to freak out a five-year old boy, by the way,” he chuckled, and felt a strange little fluttering in his stomach when she actually smiled slightly back at him.
