“You know there’s a problem, then,” Miss Francis pushed.
“I do.” He glanced at the older woman, then the back door of the ranch house. “I don’t see why I’m the one who needs to fix it. Why don’t you run, Miss Francis?”
“Honey, I’m old. And tired. I don’t want to be in charge of everyone else’s business, but I don’t mind getting in the middle of it now and then.” She winked. “You can do this, Brody.”
“Can do what?” His father walked onto the back porch. “Marilyn, that mud’s not for eating.”
Brody pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and headed toward his daughter.
“I’m trying to convince your son to run for mayor, Vic.” Miss Francis put her hands on her hips. “You know as well as I do John Draper needs to step aside, for the good of our town.”
His father grunted. “You thinking about it, Brody? Being mayor?”
Brody considered his father’s questions as he cleaned up Marilyn’s face. “Marilyn, baby, please don’t eat the mud. It’s almost dinnertime and we’ll eat real food. Okay?”
Marilyn nodded, wiping off her tongue. “Nasty mud.” She wrinkled up her little freckle-covered nose.
“Daddy.” Suellen held a long, wriggling earthworm between her fingers. “Look.”
“You found a friend?” he asked. “Might want to let him go home, Suellen. He lives here, taking care of the flowers.”
“He does?” Suellen asked, studying the worm.
“Yes, ma’am. He helps them grow.” He ran his hand over Suellen’s cheek. “Be gentle with him.”
She cradled the worm in both hands then, stooping to carefully place the worm back in the soil Amberleigh had saturated. “Good, Daddy?”
“Perfect, baby.” He smiled, nodded and turned to face his father. “I’ve been thinking about it. Miss Francis hasn’t given me much choice.” He glanced at the grinning older woman. “What do you think, Dad? About me running? I’ve been gone for a while—”
“You’ve always been a Fort Kyle boy, Brody. Even if you did hang your hat in Houston for a while. You came home,” Miss Francis argued.
“Dad?” Brody pushed. If he did this, and it was a big if, he’d want his father’s support.
His father stared at him, considering his words. Which meant he was thinking of the right thing to say. “You want to do it, you should.”
Brody sighed. His father had lumped him into the defector camp the day he’d left for law school. Vic Wallace had money, and his son didn’t need to go off to make more—that was what he’d told Brody anyway. But Brody needed to find his own way, become his own man, and leaving had been the best way for him to do that. He didn’t regret going. Or coming back.
“I’m not sure,” he confessed, glancing at his girls. “Got plenty to keep me busy right now.”
His father snorted. “You think it’ll get easier when you have three teenage girls running around? Live your life, boy. Fort Kyle’d be lucky to have you for mayor.”
The hint of pride in his father’s voice was the best endorsement Brody could ask for.
His father burst out laughing. “Besides, I can’t wait to see Woodrow Boone’s face when a Wallace is mayor.”
And there it was. Brody frowned, his gaze returning to his daughters. He had no expectation when it came to India Boone, he knew better. The bad blood between their fathers was too full of vitriol to allow their long-term secret friendship to become public. Or for India to ever discover how deeply he’d loved her for the past fourteen years.
* * *
INDIA SAT AT the table in the back corner of Fort Kyle’s small library. Her textbooks, notes and laptop covered the table, along with an array of highlighters, pens and pencils. She’d been reviewing her best practices for school counseling prevention and intervention for the last two hours, and her head was starting to spin.
She had five weeks until her test. Once she passed, she could apply for a full-time counseling position—which she was more likely to find in the city. She’d never be rich, but she and Cal wouldn’t have to stay here, being a burden to her father. That was what she wanted: choices. For the last few years, her fate had been determined by someone else. From now on, she would be the one to decide her fate. And when she stood on her own two feet, she wanted it to be away from her dad’s judgment and scrutiny. A positive fresh start for her and Cal—in a place where her father’s unwavering disappointment wouldn’t have her questioning her decisions and weighing her down. She could be a better person—a better mother—if she wasn’t living in the shadow of a painful past her father still blamed her for.
“Mom,” Cal said from the beanbag in the corner. “I’m hungry.” Tanner, whom the librarian kindly turned a blind eye on, sprawled on his patch of carpet, snoring.
She glanced at her watch. “You’re always hungry, Cal.” But it was 6:13 p.m. Dinnertime.
He chuckled. “I’m a growing boy, Mom.”