"Coming Home-Pt-2"

Howdy Folks,

      Yesterday I posted the first few pages of Chapter One of "Coming Home" and over night I had requests for more, so just for fun I thought I'd let you have a peek at a few more pages, it picks up where yesterdays story left off. I hope you enjoy.-----

      Coming Home-Pt-2

       

The slow drive down the long lane gave her time to think about Dad, Mom, and coming home. It would be odd now, with Dad retired. He would be the one to sit across the supper table and listen to her stories about criminals and crime solving. She laughed, "crime in Hondo County." Wouldn't be much compared to Nashville. But Nashville hadn't proved to be what she'd expected either. Neither had marriage.

      

Billie let her Vette idol an extra second between the new barn and old equipment shed, enjoying the low rhythmic rumbling of three-hundred-fifty horses vibrating off the walls. She loved her horses, man-made, and God-made.

      

"Billie! I thought sure I had another day to get her all shined up for you! But by golly I'll take you ahead of schedule any time." Ty Weston hurried to her car leading a beautiful buckskin mare. And admiring his daughter's new Corvette. "Still like fast cars I see. That's good."

      

"Guess I always will. But I do come by it honest." Billie pointed to the dark brown tarp covering what she knew to be her father's vintage 1963 Corvette stingray in the equipment shed.  "Dad you look great!" She ran at him, wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on, nearly knocking him to the ground. She backed up, "and it's great to be home!" She snatched the lead rope from her father and hugged her horse's neck. "I've missed you too, Honey!"

      

Ty gave her a moment to love on her horse, while he inspected her Corvette. "They sure do make 'em big nowadays don't they?"

      

She smiled at him over Honey's neck. "And fast. And expensive."

        

"Ah well, everything's expensive nowadays. Got plenty of gadgets too I see. Just how did we find our way around Texas before GPS?"

       

Billie pushed her face into Honey's mane to hide her laugh, remembering his weekly letters during the time he'd been contemplating retirement. Those letters had a common theme, the world was moving too fast for an old crime solver like him. No time to contemplate when a cell phone could be hung around your neck and ring every twenty seconds interrupting your train of thought. Radios were bad enough, but at least a man could walk away from the car and think, he'd written. She remembered he never did accept the cell phone the department tried to give him. Told her he sat it on a fence post and shot it on his last day. Billie had inherited his dislike for most modern technology, she preferred her pen and notebook to smartphones and iPads. 

      

"Let's put Honey away and get up to the house, your mother has been rearranging your room twice a day since your things arrived Monday."

      

"Good idea, I drove all night and could sure use some of Mom's coffee. And her welcome home hug." Billie led the way almost skipping as she dragged her father along to dirt path that served as the rear walkway to the house. She grinned at the neat stack of red bricks that had been waiting for over five years to be laid in place. "I suppose you'll have time now to lay Mom's sidewalk." He eyes twinkled as she teased.

       

They sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee, dipping her mother's home made sugar cookies and catching up. Billie did more listening than talking. She looked around the room. What a marvelous old house. Funny how a person doesn't notice things, like how cozy the kitchen you grew up in feels, until you've grown up, moved away, and come back. Mom looks older than Dad now. How can two years make such a difference? She'd only missed one Christmas, the last one. But that was when all her own problems were going on hot and heavy. She'd thought about coming home then. Could've used her mom's comfort and dad's advice, but she was neck deep in divorce, and a high profile kidnapping. Neither had worked out the way she'd have liked. Well, maybe the divorce. Should have probably taken her dad's advice before the wedding. The Vette was a nice consolation prize though. She almost pitied Jack. FBI Special Agents don't earn that much. But he'd offered. She'd accepted. Besides her '04 Vette had a hundred-twenty thousand miles on it. She chuckled softly. Considerably more miles than she had on Jack.

     

"Sheriff Lovell hinted he'd make you a Detective right away." Billie's mother said, her voice had the same prideful tone it always had whenever she talked about her only child.

       

"Apparently he's got the okay from his higher-ups. I'll take it. Pays a little better than Deputy, and I can wear my own clothes." She smiled when she looked at her boots. Billie Weston hadn't changed her style of dress to suite anybody but herself, ever. Anne Taylor jacket, Cruel Girl jeans, and lately, Ariat boots. Sometimes a good looking pair of Justin's worked too.

       

Ty shrugged. "We didn't have Detectives in Hondo County Sheriff's Department when I ran things. We all did our own investigating then. Sure we teamed up when we had to, but I wasn't sure we ever needed a full blown Detective." He tossed Billie a proud smile. "I guess you'll show 'em how it's done." He paused. "We're dang sure proud of you Billie." He raised his coffee cup in a toast.

     

"We certainly are! … What are your plans for today? Any chance of a mother daughter day?"

       

"Well, Roy already knows I'm home. He caught me at the end of the lane and asked me to Martha's for diner."

       

Ty nodded. "Wednesday, spaghetti."

       

"Since I'm not dating, and if I were, I wouldn't be overly excited about spaghetti, but I did tell Roy I'd meet him at Martha's for an early lunch. At eleven. That'll give me plenty of time to catch up on local news and gossip, you know, things that might help me when I interview with Sheriff Lovell." She reached for her mother's hand, "How about a mother daughter morning?"

Gitty Up ~ Dutch Henry 

You can read "Coming Home" Pt 3 here --  http://dutchhenry.blogspot.com/2013/04/coming-home-pt-3.html