Long Way Home
Authors: Ann Vaughn
This book is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright @ 2013
Ann Vaughn
All rights reserved
Cover art by Carey
Abbott
Ebookcoverdesignsbycarey.com
For Shilpa, for all your hard work and
help and texting and brainstorming and laughing and editing and all that other
fun stuff!! Could not have done this without you! Good luck on your
first year back to teaching after an 11-year break! You will do fine!!!!
For Cindy, who has always been the
strongest person I know!
For Kym, for keeping me going and all
the other great read recommendations, and a Baseball Mama shoulder to cry on!!
For Kristen Ashley, even though I’ve
never met you…you have been an inspiration to me and it was because of you that
I thought I might try my hand at the self-publishing end. Success or
fail, you gave me the wind to support my wings and even though you may never
see this, I just wanted to put this in writing. You are the Ultimate Rock
Chick!! ROCK ON!!!!
For Alex & Abby, never ever be
afraid to go after your dreams! Love you both to the moon and back.
And for Stanley, just for being you and
letting me live my dreams! You have kept every promise you have ever made
me and that means more to me than you will ever know. You are my rock and
I love you!!!!
Table of Contents
Going
to Kindergarten was definitely not five-year old Shane McCanton’s idea of a
good time. It was summer after all; there was still fishing to do and
baseball and swimming and all kinds of stuff. He knew his numbers and his
letters already. He didn’t see any point in having to sit in some dumb
old classroom all day with a teacher and girls and books and...and girls.
He
sent his mother a long-suffering glare when they found his name taped down at a
table between two girls, one of whom was already sitting in her chair. He
had two little sisters, didn’t he get enough of girls at home? Sulking,
he wondered if his teacher, Mrs. Uptmor, would let him move to where his best
friend Steve Sinclair was sitting.
“Your
daddy is Sheriff McCanton,” the girl said to him. “I’ve seen you with him
at Miss Nettie’s.”
Miss
Nettie’s was a restaurant in town that his great-aunt owned.
“Yeah,”
he said, not really looking at her.
“He
is always nice to me. My mommy says she went to school with him.”
Shane
shrugged. “He’s the Sheriff. He’s nice to everyone. ‘Cept bad
guys.”
“He
wears a gun and a star,” she said.
Shane
did look at her then. “He’s the Sheriff,” he repeated as if the wearing
of a badge and a gun went right along with that explanation and she should have
understood that.
“Do
you ever get to shoot his gun?’
“Nah.
He keeps it locked up when he gets home. But I have my own hunting
rifle.”
“It
would be cool to shoot bad guys, don’t you think?”
He
gave her an odd look. She didn’t talk like any girl he’d ever
known.
“I
don’t think I’d like to shoot at people,” he said after a moment, “but I think
I’d like to be Sheriff one day when I’m big.”
She
nodded, her blonde hair swinging. “You will be...and you know what?”
“What?”
Her
bright green eyes locked on his blue ones. “We’re gonna get married one
day. When we’re big.”
Now
he looked at her like she’d suddenly sprouted two heads.
“You’re
nuts!” he exclaimed.
She
shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’m Tessa. Tessa Kelly.”
“You’re
crazy.”
“Am
not.”
“Oh,
yes, you are!” he shouted.
“Shane
Gabriel!” his mother admonished, turning her attention back to him. “What
is wrong with you? Be nice.”
“She’s
crazy, Mom. I don’t want to sit by her.”
“Stop
it now. You be nice. I have to go, OK?”
“Just
let me sit with Steve,” he begged.
“Honey,
just try to get along, OK?”
When
she left, he scooted his chair as far from Tessa as he could and did his best
to ignore her altogether. He could feel her watching him, though, and it
creeped him out.
So
began a pattern that held for the next several years. In their small
hometown of Indian Springs, Texas, there was only one elementary school that
fed into one middle school and one high school...and it usually always worked
out that they were in the same class together.
Third
grade was the worst. Shane did his best to keep away from her, but she
constantly pestered him. She considered everything they did a
competition; school work, games in PE...it drove him crazy. She
criticized everything he did, too: what he wore, what he said, what he liked;
nothing was off-limits.
One
day, she’d been particularly hard on him. From the moment he got to
school that day, she’d started in on him. His Nike baseball shirt said
Bring the Heat; she said,
why? so you can strike out?
(he’d struck out
twice in his Little League game the night before. She had been there and
seen it). They’d had a spelling bee in class and as usual, it came down
to the two of them. In the middle of spelling his last word, she
“accidentally” stepped on his foot. He’d gotten flustered and
misspelled his word. On the bus ride home she’d gloated about her victory
and how easily distracted he was. He took and took her torment until
finally, he’d had enough.
When
they got off the bus at their stop, after the bus drove off, Shane
intentionally tripped her. She fell but grabbed him as she was falling,
pulling him down with her.
“You’re
not so tough, Shane McCanton,” she taunted.
Pushed
to his limit, Shane wrestled her down to the ground, pinning her arms with his knees.
He glared down at her when all she did was laugh at him.
“Not
so tough at all,” she laughed, not the least bit intimidated by him.
Furious,
he grabbed a handful of dirt, intending to grind it into her smug face.
She was saved when his mother came running over to them, shouting at him.
“Shane
Gabriel McCanton! Get off of her!” his mother cried, horrified. She
grabbed his arm and jerked him up. “What has gotten into you? Tessa, are
you all right?”
“Yes,
ma’am, I’m fine.”
“Shane,
you apologize right this minute,” his mother insisted.
“I’m
not apologizing to her,” he snapped. “I hate you, Tessa Kelly. You stay away
from me!”
“Shane!”
his mother gasped.
“I
don’t care if I get in trouble!” he shouted, shrugging out of his mother’s
hold. “I mean it, you stay away from me!”
“Go
to your room right now!” his mother told him.
“Fine,”
he snapped, yanking his backpack off the ground and stormed off. His dad was
likely to give him the whipping of his life, but just then he didn’t
care. He went into his room and flopped down on his bed, waiting for the
worst.
Thirty
minutes later, he heard his dad come into the house. Tears stung the
backs of his eyes but he fought them back. He’d take whatever was coming
to him. It had been worth it to finally shut Tessa Kelly up.
His
door opened and both his parents stepped in. Shane sat up on his bed but
didn’t speak.
“You
wanna tell me what happened, son?” Luke McCanton asked.
Shane
shrugged. “I couldn’t take any more. She’s always on my case.”
“Cordy
says you tripped Tessa,” his mother said, referring to one of his sisters.
“I
just wanted her to shut up.”
His
parents exchanged a look. They knew of his troubles with Tessa.
“Look,
son, I know she pushes your buttons but no matter what, she’s still a girl and
you had no business getting physical with her,” Luke admonished. “She
could have been hurt, and it is never OK to hurt a girl. Do you
understand?”
“Yes,
sir,” he replied, his eyes on his hands.
“We’re
going to go over to her house and you will apologize to her.”
His
head snapped up. “No, sir, I will not!” he exploded.
“Shane!”
his mother gasped, truly appalled by his behavior.
He
glanced briefly at her then back at his dad. “Whip me if you want, but I
won’t apologize to her. I won’t,” Shane insisted, “I’m not sorry.
I’d be lying if I said I was.”
His
dad leveled him with a stern look. “I understand what you’re saying, son,
I do, and truth be told, if Tessa was a boy then you’d be justified, but she’s
not. It’s never going to be all right that you lost your temper and got rough
with her. How would you feel if someone did that to one of your sisters?”
Shane
sighed and looked down at his hands. “Mad.”
“Now
do you see why I want you to apologize?”
“I
guess...but Dad, she picks on me all the time! Am I supposed to just take
it because she’s a girl?”
Luke
rubbed the back of his neck, quiet for a moment. “Look, I’ll talk to her
mom. Mary and I grew up together so she’ll listen to me. Maybe she
can get Tessa to leave you alone from now on. How’s that?”
“Do
I have to apologize?”
“Don’t
push me, Son,” Luke warned. “You’re lucky I’m not gonna blister your backside
over this. Push me too far and I will, understand?”
“Yes,
sir.”
After
Shane apologized, Luke and Mary talked things over, and for the next few years
they made sure that Shane and Tessa were never in the same class, which suited
Shane just fine and dandy at first. But then a funny thing happened; he started
realizing that he missed the drive of the competition with her. From
Kindergarten through third grade, everything he’d done had revolved around
beating Tessa. When she wasn’t in his class to compete with every day, he
found that he missed the competition.
They
didn’t have another class together until their senior year of high school.
All through the rest of the years they would see each other in the halls but
that was it. Shane got busy with school sports and cheerleaders.
Tessa was busy with her sports and band. If he noticed how nicely she’d
begun to fill out, he certainly didn’t say. If she noticed how tall and
muscular he’d gotten, she kept that to herself as well. What was the
point? They were childhood enemies, forbidden to interact with each other,
after all.
In
high school, though, things began to change. Freshman, sophomore and junior
years they would only see each other in passing. Senior year, they had
three classes together and became lab partners in Biology. When the
assignment of lab partners was read, a hush fell over the room, all eyes on
them. Everyone knew their history, after all. In typical Tessa
fashion, she ignored all the looks and began quietly gathering materials they
would need for their dissection lab.
“Try
not to trip her, bud,” Steve teased Shane when he got up to join her.
Shane
smiled but refrained from replying. When he stepped over to the lab space
where Tessa was setting up, she met his gaze, direct as always.
“Are
we going to have a problem, McCanton?” she asked. “Because I don’t need
you screwing up my GPA.”
He
shrugged. “I don’t know. Are we? And same goes.”
She
regarded him a moment. “Can you handle this dissection?”
“I
hunt. We process what we kill. This frog’s been pumped full of
formaldehyde, it’s not gonna bother me.”
A
slight smile tugged at her lips. “A simple Yes or No would have sufficed,”
she teased, “but, hey, at least you’re talking to me. That’s an
improvement.”
To
his consternation, he could feel heat creeping up his neck and he rubbed the
back of it to mask the blush he knew was there.
“You
want to do the cutting or you want me to?” he asked.
“Knock
yourself out,” she replied, “I’ll keep the lab sheet...look, about all that
happened back then, I -”
“Let’s
just leave it in the past, Tess, OK?”
She
nodded. “OK, sure, but I just want you to know I never meant to upset
you.”
He
met her gaze a moment, studying her, then sighed. “I know. I’m
sorry I over-reacted and I’m sorry I tripped you that day.”
Tessa
laughed then. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t deserve it. I’d been
particularly brutal to you that day.”
“Yeah,
you were,” he agreed with a smile.
“What
do you say to a truce now? I’ve only ever wanted to be your friend.”
“Yeah,
OK. Truce,” he agreed, offering his hand for her to shake. She took his
hand then they got on with their dissection.