Longing For Home

by Christine Lynxwiler

  Jake left the boy tossing the ball a foot in the air and then catching it. Or dropping it, whichever the case happened to be.

  When Jake walked into the B&B, Brandi was coming down the stairs.

  She dropped her gaze to his damp T-shirt then hurried into the den, apparently afraid she’d get dirty by association.

  “Hmph,” Jake muttered under his breath. “I guess men don’t sweat in California.”

  ❧

  “Brandi?” Melissa stood in the open doorway of the den, eyes wide.

  “Yeah, squirt. What’s up?” Brandi grinned at her youngest sister. It seemed like just yesterday she was a chubby-cheeked baby with straight fine blond hair. Now her hair hung in two neat braids down her back, and her delicate features were losing their babyish qualities. If the years from ten to eighteen went as fast as the years from two to ten had, Brandi knew Melissa would be graduating from high school in the blink of an eye. Or sixteen blinks, since Brandi only saw her twice a year. The thought sent a stab of pain through her heart.

  “Are you mad because you had to come home and take care of us?”

  Brandi cringed at the word “home.” She loved her family, but this would never be home. Home was childhood memories of Gram’s house, sandy beaches, close friends. “Mad? Of course not.”

  “Really?”

  Brandi walked over and pulled Melissa into a one-armed embrace. “Melissa, why would you think that? I’m happy to be with you all.”

  Melissa leaned against her sister. “Valerie said you were gonna be mad. And at breakfast you glared really hard and left pancakes on your plate.”

  That had been the clincher, Brandi realized. Leaving Nellie’s chocolate chip pancakes was unheard of, so naturally Melissa knew something was wrong.

  Brandi plopped into the rocker and pulled Melissa onto her lap. The little girl snuggled against her. Brandi’s heart swelled with emotion. How must it feel to be ten and have your mother a world away? She remembered how hard it had been for her when she was eighteen, knowing her mom wouldn’t be in to say good night. Of course she’d had Gram. And it had been her choice.

  She realized Melissa was still waiting for an explanation. Playing with one of her sister’s braids, she lowered her voice. “To tell you the truth, I was a little bit put out at Jake.”

  “Why?”

  Brandi pursed her lips. How could she explain the intricacies of adolescent social situations to a ten-year-old? “Something he did a long time ago hurt my feelings.”

  “Mama always says we should ‘forgive and forget.’ Can’t you do that with Jake?”

  “Sure, baby,” Brandi said and squeezed her sister’s hand. “I will.” She thought she already had, but that seemed to be easier said than done.

  ❧

  “Explain to me again why you and I are doing laundry and Michael and Melissa are out playing football.”

  Brandi grinned. “C’mon, Val. Don’t tell me they never work when you’re goofing off.”

  “If you say so.” Valerie rolled her eyes.

  Valerie still had a major attitude, but at least she had rejoined the land of the living after Brandi’s talk with her. She’d even graced them with her presence at lunch.

  “Would you run up and sort these towels into the bathrooms?” Brandi motioned to the color-coded stacks of neatly folded towels. Each bathroom had a different color for its accessories.

  “Okay.” The teen picked up a pile and balanced it on one arm while getting another one. “The way Jake was looking at you at lunch, I’d think you’d want an excuse to walk by his room later. You might run into him in the hall.” Valerie ducked and darted up the stairs.

  Brandi smiled and shook her head. Valerie had quite an imagination. Either that or she just thought Jake was cute and decided to make up something. Probably the latter.

  Brandi and Jake hadn’t even spoken at lunch, but from his and Gram’s conversation, she gathered Jake was in town working on his cardio fitness while he waited for his shoulder to heal. He’d be rejoining the Cardinals as soon as he was completely well.

  As far as Brandi was concerned, the sooner the better. His blue eyes mesmerized her, but there was no way she’d give a second thought to a man who traveled for a living.

  Five

  “What’s the matter with you? You’re running like a girl today.” The old coach frowned.

  Jake pulled off his cap and wiped the sweat from his face. “I guess I’m protecting my shoulder. I strained it a little Friday.”

  “How?”

  Jake thought of the red car being tossed into the creek like a toy sailboat. Explaining sounded too much like tooting his own horn. “Just doing something for Elva.” After all, she had been the one who’d asked him to go check on Brandi.

  Coach Carter shook his head. “Elva Reynolds is a fine woman, Jake. Not to mention a fine-looking one. And I can understand you wantin’ to help her.” The coach bent down and nimbly scooped a baseball from the grass. “But you pay to stay there. And if you want to be back on the pitcher’s mound, you’re going to have to be more careful about what you do.” He grinned, mischief glinting in his eye. “Next time she needs some heavy lifting done, have her call me.”

  “Will do, Coach.” He suddenly remembered the older couple sitting together at the last church potluck. And even though Jake had sat on the opposite side from Brandi and her family during worship yesterday, after it was over he’d overheard Coach in the foyer asking Brandi about her grandmother.

  Attraction was a funny thing. He couldn’t imagine a more unlikely pair than the crusty old coach and the vibrant, youthful grandmother. Unless it was he and Brandi.

  He frowned. That would be unlikely. Impossible was more like it.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re getting stronger every day.” Apparently misreading Jake’s frown, Coach patted him on his good shoulder. “In no time you’ll be back on top.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But for today we might as well call it quits. Give your shoulder a break, and I’ll see you back out here tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They shook hands, and Jake walked to his truck. As he reached for the door handle, his cell phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “Jake. Sheriff Baines here. I thought you might want to know we located that little red car you called me about. It caught on a snag a quarter of a mile below the bridge.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “Sure is. On dry land now since the creek’s gone down. You’ll need to go through the Slaytons’ field road to get to it, but they won’t mind.”

  “Thanks, sheriff.”

  Jake disconnected and called his friend Les.

  “Tow service.”

  “Les, it’s Jake. Any chance you can meet me down below the Big Creek bridge with a tow truck in a few minutes?”

  “You betcha,” he said without hesitation.

  “Thanks, Les. I appreciate it.”

  “For the man who got me season tickets? Anytime.”

  Jake winced. He’d hoped Les would do it for his high school friend, not his ticket to the major league games. But right now he’d take what he could get. “See you there shortly.”

  Ten minutes later the two men stood by the car. The back end of the convertible now balanced up in the air on a deadwood snag, and the front rested on the sandy dirt.

  Jake looked inside. “It looks like the things in the backseat didn’t get wet.”

  “Yeah, Miss California ought to be real happy to get that laptop back intact.”

  When they were in school Jake had called Brandi Miss That’s-not-how-we-do-it-in-California, but Les, like a typical teenage boy, had focused on her beauty and quickly shortened it to Miss California. Even though Jake thought of her that way sometimes, too, hearing Les say it had always grated on his nerves.

  “Anyone would be glad to get their things back.”

  “You’re as testy about that girl as you ever were, aren’t you? No wonde
r Tammy was so jealous of her.” He finished hooking things up and slapped his hands together.

  “Tammy wasn’t jealous of Brandi.” Jake shook his head. Where did Les get such crazy ideas?

  “Was so. When you weren’t around, her claws came out every time Brandi’s name was so much as mentioned. Meow!”

  Jake groaned inwardly. Les had been easier to take in high school.

  “Hey, I know how you can make some points with Miss California.”

  “Les, I’m not interested in making points with Brandi.” He emphasized her name. “I’m just trying to help her because she has a lot to deal with right now.”

  “Uh huh. I see. Well, then, if you want to help her”—Les waggled his eyebrow—“you should call Quinton down at the shop and see if he can get this baby road-ready in the next day or so.”

  “What about her insurance?”

  “Quinton will help her figure all that out when it’s done. It’s not like it would hurt you if you had to kick in some money at the end. So as long as it doesn’t cost her, how could she complain?”

  Jake couldn’t believe how tempting the idea was. Brandi had so much going on, recovering from her dip in the creek and trying to take over for Elva. Wouldn’t she be thrilled to see her convertible drive into the B&B parking lot?

  “C’mon, Jake.” Les clamped Jake’s sore shoulder with a meaty paw. “Surprise her.”

  ❧

  Brandi stretched across the bed and tucked in the sheet. This was the last guest room to be cleaned. And only a little over a week before the first guests arrived. She made a face. Maybe her friends were right. She probably did overprepare to some extent.

  She had to admit she’d been a tiny bit disappointed that Jake’s room wasn’t on the cleaning schedule. She certainly hadn’t planned on snooping, but she couldn’t help but be curious about a baseball player who spent so many hours locked in his room.

  In the six days since she’d arrived, she’d seen almost nothing of him. Not that she was complaining. According to Gram, he picked up clean sheets and towels each week from the linen closet and handled his room chores himself. Did that mean he had something to hide?

  She rolled her eyes at her overactive imagination. He probably spent his time stretched out on the couch, watching TV and munching on chips. She removed the chips from her mental picture and replaced them with raw carrots and broccoli. Jake was way too buff to be a junk-food junkie.

  “Brandi?” Michael stuck his head in the doorway. “Telephone.”

  “Thanks. Want to put the bedspread on for me?”

  “Sure. Just what I always wanted to do after school. Make beds.” His grin belied the words. “I think that’s what I’ll invent next. An automatic bed-maker.”

  “Let me know when you finish it. I’ll be your first customer.”

  Brandi left her brother muttering about patents and licenses and ran to grab the extension in her room. “Hello?”

  “Bran! It’s me.”

  “Kris, how’re you doing?”

  “Dying of loneliness since you left.”

  Brandi grinned. Krista Huntington didn’t know the first thing about loneliness. Even though she and Brandi had been best friends since eighth grade, bubbly Krista had enough friends to start her own sit-com.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I have! After all, I don’t lead the exciting life you do. I can’t remember the last time my car washed off a bridge and I was rescued by a pro-ball player.”

  “Be quiet.” Brandi laughed. “Gram said you called while I was asleep that first night. I see she filled you in. I tried to call you back, but I got your machine.”

  “Still prejudiced against answering machines, huh?”

  “I like voices to have a real person connected to them. What’s wrong with that?” Brandi stretched out on her stomach on the bed. “Besides, I knew you’d call back when you saw my number on caller ID. And I was right.”

  “Smarty, for your information I didn’t even see that you’d phoned.”

  “Ah, so what’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?”

  “Yep, something must be, or you wouldn’t have broken the sacred chain of phone call order to call me back a second time without knowing I called you.”

  “You make me dizzy even long distance. All those ‘calls’ and I don’t have a clue what you said.” For someone who knew Krista as well as Brandi did, her tone screamed evasiveness.

  “But something is wrong.” Silence hummed through the line. Brandi traced the smooth surface of the curly cord with her fingers. Her stomach clenched.

  Déjà vu.

  She was seventeen again, stranded in Arkansas. Krista was calling from the coast, telling her that Colby—I’ll-never-forget-you-no-matter-how-far-away-you-are Colby—had started going out with the homecoming queen. In the wake of that news Brandi had toppled into that infamous date with Jake.

  “Not exactly wrong.” Krista spoke slowly, as if that would make the news, whatever it was, easier to take. “It’s Mitch. He and Norma drove to Vegas and got married.” She spit out the last sentence in sharp contrast to her earlier slow speech. It was as if she couldn’t stand the words in her mouth another second.

  Still clutching the phone, Brandi rolled over onto her back. She stared up at the fan whirring on the plaster ceiling.

  “Brandi? Say something.”

  My life is a ceiling fan, and I’m only a speck of dust holding on for dear life. Hysteria bubbled in her throat. Krista would think she’d lost her mind if she started waxing poetic. “What is there to say? I broke it off with him. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but I thought someday he’d see you were right and he was too controlling. . . .” Krista’s voice drifted off.

  “Instead he found someone malleable and ran off to Vegas. I’m okay with that. Really.” As she spoke the words she realized they were true. She’d broken things off with Mitch because he wanted to micromanage every detail of her life, but in truth she hadn’t loved him as she should. If she had, her heart would be broken right now instead of just a little bruised. Or was that her ego smarting because he’d replaced her so quickly and so permanently?

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “He was a jerk, and you’re lucky to be rid of him.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Kris. Don’t sugarcoat your true feelings on my account.”

  When their laughter died away, Krista cleared her throat. “I miss you, Bran.”

  “You, too.”

  She and Krista caught up on all the happenings both at the beach and at the B&B. Twenty minutes later Brandi hung up the phone with a sigh and rolled over onto her back again. So Mitch was married. When she’d broken it off, he’d vowed to change and win her back, but apparently she hadn’t been worth the effort. Not with Norma waiting in the wings ready to step into the role of adoring wife. Even though Brandi was thankful to be out of the relationship, that thought still stung.

  At least she was still thinking for herself and standing on her own two feet. A little too literally, since she didn’t have a vehicle. Without her car she felt so dependent. And that made getting it back or replacing it her top priority.

  ❧

  Jake stared at the Jake McFadden/Stop Drug and Alcohol Use among Teens Web site statistics. Had the number of visitors to the site really fallen off that much since he’d been hurt? He’d have to contact his Webmaster and see if he could link to more sites.

  He closed the graph page and reclined slightly in his seat. As he sorted through PR ideas, someone pounded on the door. He leaped to his feet, and his chair rolled back. No one ever even tapped on his door. The house must be on fire.

  He crossed the room in three strides and yanked the door open.

  Brandi Delaney stood in the hall, fist raised to pound again. Had she lost her mind? She had a bandanna around her hair and a duster tucked in the front pocket of her jeans, but she looked more like a furious queen than a mad maid. If she’d said, “Off with your
head!” Jake wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Her voice, when it came, was chillingly calm, in stark contrast to the violence of her knock. “What have you done with my car?”

  Jake gulped. Why did he suddenly feel like a common criminal?

  She stepped into the room and looked around. “Where’s my car?”

  What? Did she think he’d hidden it under the bed?

  This wasn’t how he’d imagined it at all. After working extra long hours Quinton had promised to have the little red convertible ready by this afternoon. Jake had planned to coax Brandi into going to town with him and then surprise her.

  “Surprise?” He flashed her a weak grin.

  “Please explain.” Her starburst eyes glittered like fireworks.

  “The sheriff called a couple of days ago—”

  “Three days.”

  “What?”

  “He said he called you three days ago.”

  Jake nodded. “Okay, three days. Anyway, he called while I was out at Coach’s and said they’d found your car, about a quarter of a mile down the creek. On dry land.”

  “And so, of course, since it was my car you called me immediately.” She tapped her finger on her cheek and glared at him.

  Jake took a deep breath and counted to ten silently. Brandi must have written the old adage “Nice guys finish last.” Either that or she saw it as her life-long duty to make it come true. So much for trying to do her a favor. “I called my friend Les. Remember him?” From Brandi’s snort he guessed she did indeed remember Les. “He owns a tow service. I was going to have him haul it over here and surprise you.”

  She walked across the room and looked out his bedroom window then turned back to face him. “Where did he park it?”

  “I reconsidered and had him take it to Quinton’s shop. He’s the best around, and I knew he’d do it fast and reasonably priced.”

  “I don’t believe it! Did you call my insurance company and tell them it had been found?” She paced as she talked.

  Jake felt the heat creep up his ears and spread to his cheeks. That had been the only part of the whole scheme he was uncomfortable with. “Since you’d already essentially filed a claim, Quinton was able to deal with them. If you have any balance, I’ll be glad to pay it.”