My daddy was the star of his high school football team… but Life threw him a pass he couldn’t catch with Momma’s death.
Our world changed forever that winter.
Dolly says love is like a butterfly, soft and gentle as a sigh, but from what I’ve seen of love, I think it’s more like a tornado, shocking and violent and so powerful it can rip your soul out of your mouth…
It’s faster than you can run, and it blows one house away while leaving the next one peacefully standing.
I didn’t know which way love would take me, quietly or with the roar of a freight train. I should’ve known. I should’ve realized the moment I saw him.
It was both. It was quiet as the brush of peach fuzz, but it left my insides in splinters. It twisted my lungs and lifted me up so high only to throw me down with a force that rang my ears and flooded my eyes.
It all started the summer before they left, a month before my brother was sent to fight in a war everybody said was over.
It all started in the kitchen of my momma’s house…
Seven Years Ago
1
Taron
“Rise and shine, Slick.” Sawyer slaps my foot, knocking my legs off the couch, and I come up with my fist clenched.
“What the hell…” Defense is an instinct to me, born out of a childhood where I had to fend for myself.
“Be at the truck in seven minutes.”
I scrub my eyes with my hand instead of punching. “Seven. It’s still dark.”
“We’re on farm time now.” His voice mimics our drill sergeant’s and he closes the bathroom door without looking back.
Farm time, military time… no wonder he adapted so easily to basic. Lifting my phone, I see it’s only five. Shit. Looking around, I try to get my bearings in the large, dark room. The hint of a dream still lingers at the edge of my brain.
Soft skin, soft hair… A scent so familiar, but I can’t place it—sweet, but earthy. I want to close my eyes and bury my face in her neck and just breathe…
It was only a dream.
A dream I’d like to finish for once.
With a low growl I stand, pushing down the wood in my shorts and searching the floor for the jeans and tee I wore on the drive in last night.
We arrived at Sawyer’s place after midnight, and I crashed on the couch in the living room, thinking I’d sleep more than five hours. We finished boot camp last week and got our marching orders. We’re full-fledged Marines now, with only a few weeks before we head out to South America for an eighteen-month assignment.
Eighteen months if we’re lucky.
I find my shirt at the same time something warm and wet smears down my face.
“What tha—!” I shout, falling back on my ass.
My heart is in my throat as the bathroom door opens again, casting a column of light across the floor. A big, black and gray dog with one blue eye and one brown eye stands in front of me. It looks like it’s grinning. I’m pretty sure it knows it scared the shit out of me.
“Akela, come.” Sawyer’s voice is sharp. “Bathroom’s yours.”
He doesn’t stop as he passes, and the fluffy dog follows him to the kitchen. Shaking my head, I stagger toward the light.
Five minutes later, we’re in the truck, and I’m no morning person but I have to say, the golden sunrise over the hills covered in short trees heavy with green leaves and ripe peaches is pretty special. A misting of dew makes it shine.
Sawyer has his cap pulled down low as he drives, and he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s been pretty focused since we left Nashville yesterday evening. I guess coming home can be stressful, even if you own the place and your best friend volunteered to come back and help settle things.
“That’s some dog.” My elbow is propped on the open window and the warm breeze wraps around us in the cab.
“She’s Noel’s.” He’s driving slow down a narrow, dirt road.
He’s told me a little about his kid sister, skinned knees and pigtails, chasing jackrabbits.
“Where we headed?”
“Harristown central.” He cracks a hint of a smile, and I’m glad to see he’s not brooding.
“Where’s that?”
“You’ll see.”
We continue at twenty miles per hour until we reach a paved, two-lane highway. He takes a right, heading into the small town, and I think he’ll speed up.
He doesn’t.
Looking down at my phone, I see I have zero cell service. “No Verizon out here?”
He casts me a glance. “Who you trying to call?”
“I was gonna let Patton and Marley know we made it.”
“I got a landline at the house.”
Pressing my lips together, I give him a nod. It’s like that. Great.
Five more minutes and we’re pulling off on a service road, up to a truck stop with a Denny’s restaurant attached. Several trucks are parked near the entrance and men in jeans and caps climb out slowly, adjusting the top of their britches and stretching.
“Denny’s?” I shoot him a skeptical look.
He just shrugs. “It’s how they’ve always done it.”
“Done what?”
“Sorted out the schedule of workers for harvest.”
“You don’t have your own workers for harvest?”
“I’m about to.”
He shifts the truck into park, adjusts his cap, and gets out. I follow him inside at the same slow pace as the rest of the old-timers filtering through the doors. On my mind is our conversation a few weeks back, when we were getting our assignments, talking about leaving the country.
He’d told me all about the hundred-acre farm he inherited from his dad in north Louisiana, and I’d said I’d like to see it sometime.
I don’t have much family left in Nashville, besides my buddies Patton Fletcher and Martin “Marley” Randall. We enlisted together hoping to get the same assignment, which luckily, we did.
Sawyer fell right in with Patton, Marley, and me on our first day, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. When he asked me to come home with him, to help him get everything in order before we ship out, I figured why not? I’d just be wasting time, partying too hard if I spent a month in Nashville waiting.
“Welcome the hometown hero,” a voice calls to us from across the room.
“Not yet.” Sawyer clasps hands with a man who looks at least twenty years older than us. “How’s the team this year?”
“About the same as last year.” The man’s voice is measured, like my friend’s. He nods toward a stout, Mexican man sitting at a booth across the way. “Jay Hidalgo has a good team lined up. We’re just discussing price.”
Then he looks at me and nods. “How’s it going?”
I quickly stretch out my hand. “Taron Rhodes.”
He gives it a shake. “Dutch Hayes. I own the cotton fields east of town all the way to Delta.”
“Nice.” I have no idea how to respond, but Sawyer interjects.
“Taron’s a friend of mine from Nashville. We finished basic together.”
“Another Marine? With that face?”
My jaw tightens. Being what people consider good-looking has definite plusses and minuses. The plus is easy pussy, although I’ve never been a man-whore. It’s not my style.