Now she just had to convince John that his home was here, and not the place where he’d grown up.
Rodeo.
* * *
JOHN FOUND HIS parents and brothers just outside of Santa Fe. Their small silver mobile home rumbled under turquoise-colored skies, with a truck—his brothers’—following closely behind. If not for cell phone contact, he would have missed them.
Mary and Mack Mathison waved at him as he pulled alongside their white truck, which hauled the silver Airstream mobile home they’d bought too many years ago for John to remember. His brothers Javier and Jackson saluted him, and he fell back into position, trailing behind the white truck lettered Mathison on both doors in black. Home sweet home.
This was it. He turned on some tunes, tried not to think about Daisy and told himself he was content to caravan as far away from Texas as possible.
“This could never have been her life,” John told the smiling bobblehead dog on his dash. “Daisy grew up with so much wealth, so much of everything, that she couldn’t possibly understand this kind of pared-down existence.”
The black-and-white bobblehead dog he’d named Joe, because it fit the J motif of his and his brothers’ names, neither agreed nor disagreed. In fact, Joe didn’t seem to be worried about much of anything other than the sunburn he was getting on his furry behind, courtesy of dash sitting. John watched the mountains of New Mexico fade away, thought about how beautiful it would be to see this highway on his motorcycle, with Daisy parked comfortably on the back, her arms around his waist, which she’d done all the way back from Montana. He got a woody just remembering her delicate arms around him, felt a dull hammer begin inside his skull.
“Holy Christmas,” John muttered. “I’m going to have to take up serious meditation to get her out of my head.”
He’d left his motorcycle in Bridesmaids Creek, under Sam’s care, with dire instructions that it was to be in the same beloved condition when he returned. Sam had agreed with a grin, saying smartly that of course it looked even better with Daisy polishing the seat, and would he mind—
“At which point I gave Sam such a glare that he shut clean up,” John told Joe, and Joe nodded in approval. Or maybe he didn’t nod in approval, but if he wasn’t nodding in approval, then what the hell good was a bobblehead dog to a man, anyway?
At the border connecting New Mexico and Colorado, his parents stopped the caravan at a roadside rest stop. He hadn’t expected them to stop so soon, as life on the road was about putting the miles between destinations. But they were more than happy to halt the train soon after he’d joined them, to welcome him back to the fold.
“What the hell, son?” Mack demanded, giving him a tight hug. “You took a year off my life showing up like that. I thought I’d seen a ghost.”
“Might as well be a ghost,” Mary said. “He hasn’t been around in four years.”
His brothers banged him on the back with enthusiasm. “We missed the hell out of you,” Javier said.
“We’ve been keeping Mack and Mary on the circuit,” Jackson said. “It’ll be good to have you back. You can help us keep them focused. They keep wanting to run off to New Zealand.”
“New Zealand?” John looked at his parents as they began checking over the ancient trailer. There was never much time for idle conversation. Everyone had their chores and responsibilities at each stop, where duties were parceled out and executed with a minimum of discussion. It was all business: check the equipment, use the facilities, stretch the legs and get back in the trucks.
As a child, John had carried along a soccer ball to kick with his brothers at the stops. He’d always wished they could stop long enough to have a real picnic at one of the shaded tables that usually graced a rest stop. On their birthdays, they did—but as a rule, the road was a demanding mistress, and must be gotten back to immediately.
“It’s my birthday,” he said suddenly, wanting his parents and brothers to cease their ant-like scurrying, and act as if him showing up in their midst after four years away was actually a big deal.
“Your birthday?” Mary frowned, thinking. “Is it?”
John nodded. “Yes.”
“Good heavens,” Mack said. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
“I’m a Navy SEAL,” John said. “I lean toward honesty.”
They stared at him, perplexed. “It’s just that we stay in our groove,” Mary said. “We don’t mean to seem uncaring.”
“I know.” John shrugged. “No big deal. Let’s sit down and have a water bottle or something. Talk.”
His parents took that in.
“All right, son,” Mack said after a long moment. “Javier, do we have any birthday cake in the trailer freezer?”
John sighed, remembering this well. Birthday cakes, of course, were kept in the freezer, for birthdays occurring on the road. No muss, no fuss. And nothing home baked. The boys had been homeschooled, too, which meant a rolling education. But Mary was smart, and they’d learned everything they needed to know to do very well on the standardized tests. At one point, young Javier had even decided he might want to attend college and had applied to Florida State, finding himself a very desirable candidate before he’d ultimately decided he preferred to stay with the family.
That was what happened: you spent your life on the road, and nothing else seemed as exciting.
They sat under one of the awnings at a concrete table. A couple of birds hopped near, wondering if the humans might drop any crumbs. Pity the bird that thinks it is getting crumbs from the Mathisons, John thought—feeling bad when Javier came out from the trailer triumphantly bearing five slices of cake, one of them anointed with a lit candle. Javier put this one in front of John, grinning. He whistled a long note, and his family all burst into the “Happy Birthday” song.
“Make a wish!” they exclaimed, so John blew out his candle—totally annoyed with himself when he realized that the image that flickered across his mind the instant he tried to think of what he’d wish for was Daisy’s beautiful face.
Before he’d had a chance to stop his brain, he’d wished she were here with him right now.
What a stupid wish.
John couldn’t have been more stunned when Sam’s truck pulled up beside the family trailer, but his brain seemed to separate into two parts when Daisy’s long-legged sexiness got out of the passenger side.
He shoved his cake with the birthday candle still smoking far away from him—clearly Bridesmaids Creek didn’t have the only claim to mystical mayhem—and got up to greet his friend. And the woman who drove him mad even in his sleep.
“What the hell, buddy?” John said to Sam, slapping the bearlike man on the back by way of embrace. Over Sam’s shoulder, John’s gaze was locked onto Daisy. She smiled, looking a trifle unsure of herself, which was unusual for Daisy. “What brings you two here?”
“Following you,” Sam said, then went to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Mathison, and Javier and Jackson.
That left John staring at Daisy, drowning in her dark eyes. “Hi.”
She smiled. “Hello.”
“So, is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” John asked.
“You left without saying goodbye.”
“How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t hard. You told the fellows exactly where you were headed.