The Way Home by Dallas Schulze Read Free Book Online Page A

notice the anxiety that deepened the lines around her mouth.
    “I’ll have a coffee soda,” Ty said as he sank onto the stool in front of the counter.
    “Cornin‘ up,” the white-coated soda jerk said cheerfully. “You’re Ty McKendrick, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.” Ty looked at the younger man, trying to put a name to the vaguely familiar face.
    “Eddie Dunsmore, Al’s kid brother.” Eddie grinned, revealing crooked front teeth.
    “Sure. How are you?” Ty shook hands with him across the counter.
    “Can’t complain. I heard you were back in town. Heard you cracked your plane up pretty bad,” he added, giving Ty a speculative look as if seeking evidence of injury.
    “The plane recovered quicker than I have,” Ty admitted, his mouth twisting ruefully. He rubbed his leg, aware of the dull ache that was with him more often than not. “How’s A1 these days?” He was more than a little tired of explaining his treetop landing.
    “He’s doing all right. Got married four or five years back, lives in Sioux City these days. Teaching school and figuring to be principal by the time he’s forty, I guess. Two kids of his own.”
    “Seems like a lot of the old gang is married,” iy commented, trying to picture A1 Dunsmore as a husband and father. The picture wouldn’t come quite clear. His most vivid memory of A1 was from grade school when A1 had succeeded in gluing Miss Randall’s dress to the seat of her chair, which might not have caused much uproar if Miss Randall hadn’t been wearing the dress at the time. The entire class had been dismissed for the afternoon, making A1 something of a hero, at least until the perpetrator was revealed and punishment descended on his sandy head.
    “You in town long?” Eddie asked. He didn’t seem in any particular hurry to prepare Ty’s coffee soda, but Ty didn’t rush him. It wasn’t as if he had any pressing appointments.
    “For the summer,” he said, trying not to think how endlessly the season stretched out in front of him. “My parents are in Europe and they didn’t want to leave the house empty.”
    Eddie’s sandy brows rose in silent comment on the idea that anyone would worry about leaving a house empty in a small Iowa town that had so little crime that a teenager taking a joyride in his father’s car was likely to be front-page news.
    “I guess you can probably use a vacation,” Eddie said, looking a little dubious.
    “Yeah. Plenty of time for fishing,” Ty said, trying to look as if three months of fishing didn’t seem like way too much of a good thing.
    “Lot of fishing,” Eddie commented with unerring accuracy. Before Ty could think of a response, he seemed to remember the coffee soda and turned away from the counter.
    Ty pushed one foot against the counter, turning the stool so that he faced the interior of Barnett’s Drugstore. When he was a kid, having a soda at Barnett’s was practically the high point of his week. It was a sad thought that, twenty years later, nothing had changed. He’d never have believed that three weeks could seem like three months. Or that three months could look like three years.
    He was just about to turn back to the counter when he caught a glimpse of sun-colored hair. She was standing in front of the magazines with her back to him, but Ty didn’t hesitate to put a name to her. Meg Harper. There couldn’t possibly be two girls in Regret with hair that color and a figure like that. He’d left the soda counter and was walking toward her even as he realized who it was.
    “Fancy meeting you here.”
    She turned, those beautiful blue eyes widening a little when she saw who had spoken. Her lashes lowered and a light flush came up in her cheeks. “Hello. How are you?”
    “Can’t complain,” he said, echoing Eddie’s earlier greeting. The fact that he could complain, loud and long, didn’t seem important now. “No school today?” he asked, his thoughts more on the creamy softness of her skin than on what he was