Dustin could see every step so clearly that excitement rushed through him. He could do this. For the first time in months he felt he was where he needed to be. Mr. G asked a question to check for understanding and Dustin’s hand shot up. When he answered correctly, Mr. G praised him and a deadly silence fell over the rest of the room, followed by murmuring and shuffling. Confused, he looked around. How come no one else got it?
Jay glared at him and Dustin realized no one else got the correct answer because no one else understood it. They thought he was just showing off, trying to be teacher’s pet.
Someone across the room made a sound of disgust and the boy behind him made kissing noises.
Dustin sat quietly through the remainder of the class. Even though he loved this math, he didn’t belong there.
He didn’t belong anywhere.
* * *
ERA SALYER’S FACE shone with happiness as she told Carly and Dustin her good news. “I never thought I could get that much for my land—too rocky for farming, or much of anything except raising chickens—but this man just showed up and said he wants to expand his gravel digging operation. The highway department pays good money for gravel for road maintenance and he’s got a contract with them.”
“Be sure to hang on to your mineral rights,” Carly said, thinking of the hard lesson she’d learned.
“I can’t imagine I would need them. There’s no oil or gas on my land.”
“You never know.”
Era wasn’t really listening. “This is an answer to my prayers,” she said, giving them a dazed smile. “I can’t believe it was so easy to find a buyer, especially since I wasn’t even looking for one.”
Dustin looked from one woman to the other, his distress growing. “But, Grandma, if you sell your house, where will we live?”
“Oh,” she said in dismay. “I didn’t think.” She looked at Dustin and shook her head helplessly. “I...I guess I could buy a house here in town, what with the money from the sale of my land, but I wanted to put that in a college fund for you, Dustin.” Her eyes were full of tears as she spoke to Carly. “He’s really smart, you know.”
“I’ve discovered that.”
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t really want the responsibility of another house, and they’ve got an apartment for me at Sooner Community.”
“That would be the perfect place for you, with the other retirees,” Carly reassured her even as her gaze stayed fixed on Dustin’s face. “There are always activities going on there and it’s right in Reston.”
Dustin shook his head helplessly, his anxious eyes fixed on Era’s face. “But I can live there, too, right? With you?”
“You can visit,” Era said, sitting forward and reaching for his hand. “Every day, just like you do now.” Seeing the consternation on her grandson’s face, tears started into her eyes. “I...I can’t take care of you, Dustin. I proved that when I was trying to hide you and I made a mess of everything.”
“You were trying to do what you thought was best for him, Era,” Carly reassured her.
Sunk in distress, Era wasn’t listening. She grabbed a tissue and mopped at her eyes. “I made a mess of things, of everything. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have enough food for you, Dusty. I was afraid they’d take you and I’d never see you again, ever. Then I got sick...”
His eyes were full of terror as he asked, “Will I have to go back to foster care...or to my mom?”
“No, no, honey,” Era sobbed. “She doesn’t want you back.”
“Era!” Carly gasped.
Dustin’s face was stiff with shock. “What? What do you mean, Grandma? Did my mom say that?”
“Oh, no.” Era breathed the words as horrified realization settled over her. “I didn’t mean to tell you that, honey, but I’m afraid it’s true. After you ran away, she said she couldn’t handle you and for the state of Texas to take you if they could find you.”
Dustin’s mouth was working and his chin trembled. “She gave me away? Like...like a puppy? I have to go back to Texas? To foster care? But...but your house is home. Where...where I belong.”
“It’s going to be okay, honey,” Era sobbed.
“Not if I have to go away, go live someplace else again.” He stared at his grandmother, the only person in his life he’d thought he could trust.
Carly jumped to her feet. “But that’s not going to happen, Dustin. You’re staying with me.”
She hurried around the bed, reaching out to him, but he spun away from her and lunged out the door. In the hallway, a cart crashed against a wall and someone shouted for him to be careful.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“DUSTIN, STOP.”
Carly rushed after him, hoping the security door would stop him, but someone had just entered and the door hadn’t closed all the way, leaving enough space for a skinny kid to slip out once he’d dropped his backpack.
The receptionist punched in the code to reopen the door, but the fifteen-second delay meant that Dustin was long gone by the time she reached the front sidewalk. At a run, she circled the entire building, looking up and down the streets.
“Oh, Dustin,” she whispered. “Where will you go?” She already knew he was very clever and could make his way in the woods without being detected.
Toncaville was twenty-five miles from Reston. He would probably hitchhike, as she suspected he had done from Waco. Even after reaching Reston, though, it was a long walk to his grandmother’s old place, but if he was determined enough, he could do it.
The house was locked up. She didn’t know if he had a key, but the water and electricity were shut off, too. It made her heart clench to think of him alone, hungry, scared, in that cold, abandoned house, and feeling like the whole world had turned its back on him.
She hurried inside, scooped up his backpack and went to reassure a tearful Era that she would find Dustin and let her know he was safe. Then she called Lisa, asking for help.
“Are you going to call the sheriff?”
“Not yet. Dustin is terrified of law enforcement, thinks they’re going to slap him in jail. And I know it’s dangerous for him to hitchhike, so we’ll have to pray someone trustworthy picks him up.”
“You’ll need more help, Carly. Better call Luke,” Lisa advised. “I’ll get hold of Gemma and anyone else I can find, and start looking. If he’s hitchhiking, it will take him a while to get here, so we’ll have time to organize.”
Carly called Luke and then phoned Jay to let him know what was going on and that she wouldn’t be home for a while. She hurried to her truck and started searching the streets closest to the hospital, looking for an angry, dark-haired boy who’d just had his heart broken.
* * *
JAY SLIPPED HIS cell phone into his pocket and kicked a tire on the four-wheeler. Hadn’t that little punk caused enough trouble today? This whole month in fact? All summer? It was like there wasn’t any end to the problems he could cause.
Jay went back to work for the next half hour, but the more he thought about Dustin, the madder he got.
Sheena drove up and he told her what was going on. “Can you finish here?” he asked as she stepped out of her vehicle. “I’m going to help look for the little creeper.”
She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head at him. “You know, it might help if you quit thinking of him as a creeper. Do you call him that to his face?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what he is.”
“He’s a messed-up kid,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like to live like he has. As soon as Carly told us about him, I knew you were clueless.”
“Hey!”
She sighed as she said, “You’ve had the same mom and dad your whole life, and they take care of you, like my mom takes care of me and my brothers and sisters. My dad does
, too, when he remembers we exist. And he’s sober.”
Jay stuck out his chin, ready to argue, but she shook her head again and held up her hand. “Save your breath. I’ve got the work of three people to finish. Go ahead and look for him, but be nice to him if you find him.”
“Did I tell you what he wrote on the signs down at the stand?” He jabbed his thumb toward the road.
“Six times. Maybe he was mad because you treat him like he’s your enemy.”
“He is. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”
“You’re only mad because you’re twice as big as he is and he’s twice as smart. And he tricked you. Be nice to him.” She turned her back and walked away.
“Bossy woman,” he muttered.
Jay had to actively look for him this time, not wait for him to stumble into a trap. He wouldn’t take his motorcycle. It was too loud and he figured he might have to sneak up on the kid at some point.
He removed a flashlight from the bike’s saddlebags and climbed into the four-wheeler. Carly wouldn’t mind if he took it to check out the Salyer place. As he started off, he tried to determine how long it would take Dustin to walk from town after hitchhiking from Toncaville, if that’s what he’d done.
The kid could have hitchhiked anywhere if he thought nobody wanted him. Guilt kicked at Jay. Maybe Sheena was a little bit right. Maybe he could cut the kid some slack, but he was so annoying. Reminding himself that he was doing this to help Carly, he started trying to think like a desperate kid.
If Jay were making that hike, he would stick to the road, ducking into the underbrush whenever a car approached. But Dustin was probably sneakier than he was. After all, he’d somehow made it from Waco, Texas, to Reston, Oklahoma, without anyone catching him or becoming suspicious of a kid traveling alone. Jay still didn’t know how Dustin had done that.
As he drove, Jay tried to turn the time, speed and distance Dustin could travel from town into a math problem, but then he couldn’t solve it. Besides, Dustin was a fast runner, so that would change the outcome, anyway.
That was another thing that ticked him off. Dustin was a smokin’ math genius. There was no doubt about that. A seventh-grader in a high school algebra class was something you just didn’t see every day. Not in their town where everyone knew everyone and kids grew up together, knowing the smartest ones in their grade.
Since he and Dustin knew each other, kids in their class would expect him to be responsible for the kid—or to convince Dustin to let them copy his homework. That wasn’t going to happen. Just because Dustin was living with Jay’s employer didn’t make Jay responsible for him—even if he was beginning to feel a little sorry for him.
He pulled into Mrs. Salyer’s rutted driveway and steered the four-wheeler as far into the tall weeds and undergrowth as he could. Then, walking on the outsides of his feet to minimize the sound of his footsteps, he explored all the outbuildings, flicking on his flashlight in short bursts like he’d seen a detective do on television. When he found nothing except chicken coops and abandoned farm equipment, he made his way toward the house. Standing at the corner of the front yard, he could watch both the front and side doors.
Sure enough, as dusk was falling, he saw movement in the shadows and then Dustin made for the side door. Running all out, Jay got to him before he could get it open, grabbed his arm and spun him around.
“Hold it, kid,” he said.
“Let go of me!” Dustin yelled, trying to wiggle away.
Jay held on tight. “Why do you have to be such a jerk? Why are you scaring Carly like this? She actually likes you and she’s worried about you.”
“None of your business!” the younger boy yelled back, then called him a string of dirty names.
“Hey! Do you want me to wash your mouth out with soap?”
“You...and...and whose army?” Dustin asked as he twisted and turned, trying to get away. He aimed a kick at Jay’s shins, which he managed to avoid.
“Ah, Dustin, don’t you realize how good you’ve got it here?”
To Jay’s surprise, Dustin went stiff in his arms then seemed to lose all his strength and fight as he slumped. Jay stumbled and had to put one foot back to steady himself as he held on to the suddenly boneless boy.
“I don’t have it good,” Dustin said around a sob. “I don’t ’cause nobody wants me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Haltingly, Dustin reported what he’d learned that day but broke down before he finished.
“Dude,” Jay said, making sure Dustin was steady on his feet, then taking another step back to give the boy space to knuckle the tears from his eyes. “That sucks, but Carly wants you.”
“No. Nobody does.”
“Did Carly say she didn’t want you?”
“No, but she’s trying to be nice.”
“She is nice. That’s why you should stay. She’s done a lot for you. If Carly wants to keep you, you should stay. I mean, where else are you gonna go?” He paused, watching to see what effect his words had and remembering what Sheena had said about how his parents took care of him.
“I don’t know.”
“Your mom doesn’t want you to come back?”
“No. She told me she was sorry she had me, especially after my dad died and she couldn’t find no one to take care of her, not if she had me. She had money they gave her when my dad died, money from... What do you call it?”
“I don’t know. Insurance?”
“Yeah. The oil company he worked for gave her a lot of money, but she hasn’t got it now.”
“What happened to it?”
“She bought stuff and her boyfriends took it and bought stuff. She doesn’t like to work and none of her boyfriends liked me. That’s why she put me in foster homes and that’s why I ran off.”
“Dude,” Jay repeated in horror, stretching the word out. His mom got mad at him sometimes, but he knew she loved him and wanted him around. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around having his mom say she wished he hadn’t been born.
“But that’s her problem, not yours. Your grandma can’t take care of you, but at least you’d be close to her,” he went on. “You could still do stuff with her like... I don’t know, watch a movie? Grandmas like stuff like that, at least mine does. And she’ll bake cookies for you, I’ll bet. My grandma’s cookie jar is never empty. And you gotta know that if you run off, they’ll catch you, put you in another foster home somewhere. You’d have to start at another new school, right? You want that?”
“No.” Dustin looked up. “I don’t want to change schools again, but they put me in that math class with the high school kids. Those guys hate me.”
“They’re jealous. You understood that stuff Mr. G was teaching today, your first day in class. No one else did, including me.”
“What?”
Jay sighed. Might as well admit it, he thought. “That class is full of freshmen, Dustin. I’m a senior. I’m in that class because I didn’t pass it the first time, and I’ve got to pass it so I can graduate. I don’t like it and I don’t want to be there, but I gotta do it. At least you know what Mr. G is talking about. This is my second time in this class and I still don’t know.” He paused as a new thought occurred to him. “Hey, you know what? Maybe you could tutor me. I could pay you.”
In the last few rays of sunlight, he saw Dustin’s mouth fall open. “You want me to tutor you?”
“Sure. I bet other kids would, too. You could earn some money and then use it to do something nice for your grandma.”
“I don’t know.” Dustin dragged out the last word. “I might be kinda busy working for Carly.”
“Ah, come on, Dustin. You’re just trying to hijack me for more money.”
“Will it work?”
Jay crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
<
br /> “Well, maybe I can.”
“Yeah, and this way, you can show all the other kids how smart you are without being an annoying little butthead.” Jay paused as something occurred to him. “Hey, I’ve been wondering about something. When you were sneaking into Carly’s gardens and stealing stuff, how come we never saw any footprints?”
“I used a branch from a bush to wipe ’em out, then took the branch with me.”
“I should have thought of that. So, now that we know you’re smarter than me, how about that tutoring?”
From the darkness behind them, Carly spoke up. “I think that’s a good idea, Dustin.”
Jay turned his flashlight in that direction and she stepped out from the trees. Luke was right behind her. He hoped they’d heard all of what Dustin had said so he wouldn’t have to repeat it.
Carly went on. “And I promise you won’t have to move again, Dustin. You’ll stay with me.”
Luke chimed in. “Why don’t we go back home and talk about it?”
Dustin hesitated. “Yeah, I guess we could. I’m hungry.”
“Me, too. I’ll bet Carly’s got food,” Jay said.
Carly laughed. “Since Dustin came into my life, I’ve always got tons of food.”
Luke turned on his flashlight and put his hand on Dustin’s shoulder, guiding him through the darkness. Dustin didn’t shake off Luke’s hand.
Carly stepped back so she could walk with Jay. She put her arm around his shoulder and gave him a squeeze.
“You’re my hero, Jay Morton,” she said quietly.
“Does that mean I get a raise?”
* * *
CARLY FINISHED PUTTING the last of the dishes into the dishwasher and turned it on. The house had been full until a few minutes ago. Now everyone was gone except Luke. Gemma and Nathan had come over as soon as she’d let them know Dustin was safe. Before Lisa made the trip to Carly’s house, she had called Era, who was still upset over her slip of the tongue, but she’d calmed down now that she knew Dustin was home.
They had all eaten together and Dustin had been the center of attention, which he didn’t like, but he’d been impressed that so many people had been out looking for him. Jay had quietly told Carly everything Dustin had said and she spent the evening trying to decide how she was going to handle it.
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