Buck pointed at the Nova. “Your dad was so stoked when he found it. He didn’t stop smiling for a week.”
Suddenly, the garage felt suffocating. Jaxson walked out into the sunshine and took a deep breath.
Buck noticed his limp. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to get me sent home,” Jaxson told him.
He didn’t want to get into the specifics. Thankfully, Buck didn’t ask for any.
“Sorry, man, but I’m not going to lie. It’s good to have you home again. You’re sticking around, right?”
“I don’t know,” Jaxson answered honestly. He didn’t know much of anything, other than that he had no plans. Not what he was going to do. Not where he was going to be.
“Does Cherise know you’re back?” Buck asked.
Jaxson shook his head. In high school, he and Cherise had made up half of their friend foursome along with Buck and Janie. They’d been young. Had some good times.
“Figured she’d moved on.”
“She did. Took up with Bobby Cheney when you didn’t come back.”
“Bobby Cheney?” Jaxson asked in disbelief.
He wasn’t surprised that Cherise had found someone else—she wasn’t the kind of person who liked being alone—but the son of the local bar owner? Granted, the pickings were limited in the hollow, but Bobby was big, mean, stupid, and ugly.
“Yep. He’s not in the picture anymore though,” Buck told him. “The dumbass went and shot himself in the face.”
“How the hell did he do that?”
“He forgot to unload it before he cleaned it.”
Jaxson shook his head. “He never was the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Buck agreed. “But Cherise got the bar out of it, so it wasn’t a total loss, I guess.”
Jaxson wasn’t sure what to say about that. Some things weren’t worth the cost, and in his opinion, a person’s dignity was too high a price to pay for a shitty hole in the wall dive bar.
Thankfully, Buck said nothing more about it. “Hey, when you’re ready, I’ve got something of your dad’s for you at the house. It was on the floor next to him when they found him. Janie thought it’d be better to keep it at our place.”
Jaxson raised his eyebrows. “What is it?”
“One of those fire safe boxes, the kind you keep important papers in and shit.”
Jaxson nodded. “Thanks.”
“I’ll bring it over later.” Buck scratched the back of his neck. “Or you could come back to the house with me. You know Ma’s going to tan both our asses if she finds out you’re back and you didn’t stop in to see her.”
Jaxson knew nothing about his own mother, but Mabel James had adopted him as one of her own. And Buck had a valid point. She would be pissed if he didn’t head over there before he went anywhere else.
“How did you know I was back?”
“I stop by every couple of days to check on things.”
“Thanks for that.”
Buck shrugged. “Figured you’d find your way back here eventually. Wanted it to be livable when you did. Full disclosure: Janie and I sometimes come here for some alone time. Things get pretty crowded at the house with Ma and the kids, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, Jaxson knew exactly what Buck meant. And he didn’t want to know any more.
“Does your mom still make that fried chicken?”
Buck grinned. “Frying some up today as a matter of fact. Made a pecan pie, too.”
Two of his favorites, which meant that Buck had somehow known he was back and given him the night to get his shit together. Jaxson didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Well then, what are we waiting for?”
* * *
It was much later that night when Jaxson had another moment to himself.
First, there had been the visit to Buck’s place, where Mabel had plied him with hugs and plenty of food. Then, afterward, he spent most of the evening at Cheney’s with people welcoming him back, trying to buy him drinks, expressing their sympathies, asking questions he didn’t want to answer.
Cherise had been giving him the eye, too. She was still attractive, though her features had hardened. Whether that could be chalked up to living life in the hollow or too much alcohol and the cigarette she always had in her hand, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, that ship had sailed the moment he left for basic.
Jaxson stared at the black box and tried to summon the will to open it. It felt wrong. Invasive. Yet he knew he had to.
He wasn’t expecting to find anything beyond the title to the land and maybe his dad’s will, if he’d even written one. Bo Adams had been a good man but a simple one. Therefore, when Jaxson opened the box and found not only those things, but also a small stack of love letters, he was understandably surprised.
Jaxson knew next to nothing about his mother, except that she’d never been in the picture. His father hadn’t liked talking about her, and Jaxson had learned early on not to ask. As far as Jaxson knew, no one in Campbell’s Junction knew anything about her, including who she was.
The letters were private, but he couldn’t stop himself from reading them. It didn’t take long; there weren’t many. But by the time he was finished, he felt as if he’d just encountered another car bomb, except this one hit solely on the inside.
* * *
“You sure about this?” Buck asked the next day. “I mean, you just got here.”
“I know.”
Finding those letters had given Jaxson something he’d desperately needed—a renewed purpose. A mission to discover more about where he’d come from. Who his mother was. Why she’d never been part of his life.
And if he was totally honest with himself, an excuse to get out of Campbell’s Junction for a while. He’d been back less than forty-eight hours, but he’d already answered the same questions a hundred times.
Why couldn’t people just leave him be? Give him time to re-acclimate?
They were coming from a good place, but they didn’t understand. They expected him to be the same guy who’d left town at eighteen, the one who’d had a bit of a wild streak and believed he had life all figured out.
He wasn’t. In fact, if the last ten years had taught him anything, it was that he didn’t know jack shit and that everything could change in an instant.
The restlessness was real, and if he didn’t do something to put some distance between him and them, he was going to end up doing or saying something he’d regret.
“Might be best to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Might be,” Jaxson agreed, “but I need to do this.”
Unusually serious, Buck searched his face and then nodded. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, man.”
“Me, too.”
“Don’t stay away another ten years though, huh?”
“I won’t.”
Jaxson went out to the garage and rolled out the Willie G—the limited-edition 1983 FXRDG Harley Davidson that had been his father’s pride and joy. It seemed fitting for such a quest.
His stiff joints and damaged body protested at first, but once he was in the seat and the powerful engine roared to life, he forgot all that. He let the familiar rumble and the feel of the wind in his face wash over him, and with each mile he put between him and Campbell’s Junction, he felt more of the tension drain away and sense of purpose sink in to take its place.