Long Ride Home by Elizabeth Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

already, thanks.”
    He laughed. “You know what I mean.”
    “I do.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m going to end up working the grill at Dad’s diner.”
    “You’ll class up the place.”
    “It’s not exactly why I went to culinary school.”
    “I don’t know.” He settled back, turning his eyes toward the dark road ahead. “You liked Cartwright well enough. It’s as small as the Springs.”
    “Nothing’s as small as the Springs. And Cartwright was a college town. It may have been small, but there were plenty of food snobs with disposable incomes to experiment on.”
    He shifted again, and Jena had to pinch herself. There was no sound when he moved, except the expected whistle of the night wind at the window and the soft snoring of eight-year-old Low Jr. in the backseat.
    “Well, now you’ll have truckers, farmers, and desert eccentrics to experiment on. The town could use a little shake-up. You’re just the woman to bring it. Your dad won’t bat an eye when you add duck confit hash to the breakfast menu. It’ll go great with a side of your mom’s gravy.”
    Jena winced. “That’s wrong on so many levels. I’m not even going to respond.”
    Lowell laughed, the rich, welcome sound echoing in the tightly packed car. He looked over his shoulder at the sleeping boys. He watched them silently for a few moments, then looked around the car before his green eyes settled on Jena.
    “I’m glad we spent the money on the Subaru. You’ll like the all-wheel drive out in the desert. This thing will last a long time. Really safe, too.”
    Jena looked over to meet his eyes when the road straightened out. A smile lingered on his lips and blond hair fell over his forehead. He looked the same. He looked better. Like he had when he was a vibrant young man, before the cancer had ravaged his body and stolen the light from his eyes.
    “Mom?”
    Jena blinked away her tears, and he was gone. She looked into the rearview mirror at her five-year-old son. “What’s up?”
    Aaron yawned, his round cheeks stretching as his arms reached out, whacking his older brother, who grunted and shifted away.
    “I need to go potty. When do we get there?”
    “Not for a while, Bear. We’ll stop for a break, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    Jena stared at the urn in the passenger seat for a moment before she turned her eyes back to the road and kept driving.

Day One
     
     
     
    Northern California
     
     
    Out of the corner of her eye, Jena saw Aaron blow hot breath on the window before his small finger squeaked out the figure of a tree that matched the towering pines soaring along the side of the road.
    “Mom, will there be trees there?”
    Low Jr. said, “Stupid, you’ve been there before. We’re just moving to Grandpa and Grandma Crowe’s house.”
    “Mom! He called me—”
    “Low, don’t call your brother stupid. And yes, there are trees but not this many.”
    “Mostly weird Joshua trees,” Low mumbled. “They’re not really trees. Not real ones. I told you, Aaron. It’s the same place we go every Christmas.”
    Aaron’s small forehead wrinkled. “But we didn’t live there, then.”
    Low sighed and his voice softened. “Bear, a place doesn’t change just because you’re moving there instead of visiting.”
    “Well, I didn’t know that. I’ve never moved before.”
    “Yeah, you have. We moved four years ago.”
    Jena glanced up. “You remember that, Low? You were only four.”
    Her oldest son slumped down. “No.” He looked out the window. “Dad told me about it.”
    Jena didn’t say anything. Lowell and she had planned the move back to their childhood home as soon as he was diagnosed, resigned that they hadn’t managed to outrun the peculiar curse that had kept them away for so long. If he’d lasted longer, Lowell would have joined them, but the cancer that attacked his brain had shown no mercy. Her husband was gone within five months.
    “If you were four, then how old was I?” Aaron