Chapter 4 Homecoming
Chapter four
Homecoming
“I’ve known you for like sixteen goddamn years, and not once have I seen you look at a woman the way you looked at the bakery lady yesterday. If you don’t go after her, I’ll beat your ass. Just as soon as I get out of this bed.”
Lance’s mini-lecture replayed in Jon’s head as he rolled back into Misty Glades.
There was no good way to spin that accurate assessment, even if the situation weren’t so cut-and-dry.
Being called out by an ace commitment-phobe, being threatened by a man unable to leave his hospital bed, either one of those things was a sucker punch to Jon’s pride. The combination was shameful.
Though it had left a foul taste in Jon’s mouth to leave Lance to himself in that hospital, the man insisted he’d be fine.
And like it or not, Jon had business—apparently a variety of business—to take care of in Misty Glades.
Including figuring out whether or not he’d make his hometown his new homebase.
He owed it to Tom. The older, one-armed airman had gone and skirted a few obnoxious technicalities in the paperwork for him at the dealership because about a decade past, Jon and his recon crew had saved Tom’s life.
The pilot had gone down well out of scanning range, and taken serious injury in the crash.
He was lucky to have survived, though he ultimately lost most of his right arm and a chunk of his ear.
Stubborn bastard had, apparently, decided to keep working after going civilian and earned himself a managerial position at the same dealership Jon had gone to that very morning.
Because it was small fucking world.
And because it was also a frustrating one, Jon would have been forced to leave empty-handed for the mere fact of having no definable residence—except that a wandering manager had recognized his face.
"I’ll just put my address down. All you need is a place for bills to go and it’s an easy change down the road.
” Tom raised a wrinkled smile across the desk, the shine in his eyes too raw and too open to possibly be any sort of practiced sales pitch.
“I can see in your eyes you want to say no, and I respect that. But you said yourself you’re between places, yeah? ”
Jon ground his teeth and inclined his head with a grunt.
Tom’s expression held. “You saved my life, Johnson. I’ll never know how the hell you found me in that jungle, and I don’t care.
If it weren’t for you, I’d have bled out and been eaten by scavengers.
If I was lucky. My wife’d be a widow and our youngest wouldn’t exist. The damn least I can do is lie and say you’re crashing on our couch while you find a place for yourself.
It’s no big deal.” Here turned his focus to the papers spread out before him.
Jon unlocked his jaw. “That’s a hell of a show of trust. We both know I was just doing my job.” He said the words because they were true, but he knew equally well he’d feel the same if their positions were reversed.
Tom chuckled. “Pretty sure I can trust the Marine who found me in fucking nowhere and carried me on his back to safety well enough for something like this.” He tapped the paper with the tip of his pen briefly. “Not like I’m giving you my bank info.”
There hadn’t been any winning that argument. It was a favor Jon needed, no matter how much he hated it, and apparently one Tom had been downright eager to offer. It only drove home all the things Jon still needed to figure out.
Too much remained undecided. Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long with no direction.
That was probably why he went straight to the old house.
He didn’t know if his parents still lived there, if they’d sold or moved into his grandfather’s place, or if they’d left Misty Glades entirely.
So, he parked the truck he’d spent most of the morning signing papers for at the curb, cut the engine, and gave himself a few seconds to analyze the property while he steadied himself.
Something akin to nerves twisted his stomach.
He had such few good memories of that specific, single-story home.
It didn’t even hurt to see that no one had kept up with caring for the thing.
The grass was a little too tall, yet also half-dead.
Weeds in the form of bushes had overgrown his mother’s attempt at a flower bed.
A pair of outdated campaign signs sagged in the yard, weather-beaten revealing all at once.
A vehicle Jon didn’t recognize occupied the driveway.
But it had been the better part of two decades, and the family car had been older even back then, so an unfamiliar vehicle was hardly a surprise.
Jon rolled his neck, pushed out a hard breath, and climbed from the truck.
He had too much shit to deal with to be sitting around succumbing to old, childhood fears.
If his father was there, and his father started shit—which he would—Jon could deal with that.
He didn’t have to bow his head and take it anymore.
He clomped up the front steps, frowning at the way each stair creaked under his weight. At least the porch held. The door shuddered under his fist when he knocked.
Then he held himself still and waited. At the ninety second mark, he knocked again. He was debating knocking a third time when he finally heard movement and the tell-tale slide of a deadbolt.
Somehow, he still wasn’t fully prepared to find himself face-to-balding head with the man who’d made it so easy to leave everything behind at seventeen years old.
George Johnson had lost a couple inches of height and stood with a hunch Jon didn’t remember.
His lighter brown hair had thinned and mostly disappeared from the crown of his head.
In contrast, his once-imposing figure had taken on a pear shape, his gut hanging over the band of his pants.
And for all the changes, that dark look of disdain Jon remembered so well didn’t seem to have lost a beat.
“Still alive, I see.”
Jon let his frown deepen. “Despite the rumors you’ve been spreading.”
George scoffed. “I told you if you ran off to play hero, you were as good as dead to me.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
George responded by lifting his head and spitting on Jon’s pantleg.
Jon folded his arms across his chest. “Where’s Mom?”
George’s lip curled. “Get off my porch.” He stepped back and made to slam the door, but Jon shot out an arm to catch it.
“Did she finally dump your ass? Is that it?”
George glared up at him for a long second before his shoulders deflated. “You stay out there.” He turned, making no further effort to shut the door, and dragged himself down a hall and out of sight.
Jon grunted and scrubbed a hand over his hair.
Maybe he’s writing down her new address.
Or maybe he was calling the fucking police.
With his father, it was a crapshoot. Was it possible his mother had finally grown enough sense and confidence to pull away from George? He did find that hard to believe.
He stood impatiently on the porch for five damn minutes before George ambled back into sight.
The older Johnson held what looked like a standard letter envelope in one hand.
When George reached the doorway, he shoved the letter outward.
The envelope appeared sealed, and damaged around the edges, as if it had been treated roughly.
It was addressed to Jon, first name only, in his mother’s scrawl.
Warning bells went off in Jon’s head.
“Here,” George said, tone gruff. “Take this and get the hell off my property. I see you here again, I’ll put you in the ground myself.”
Jon took the envelope and arched a brow at his father. “With what training?”
George’s brow furrowed. “I hunt every year.”
“Cute.” Jon dropped his gaze back to the envelope. It didn’t feel terribly thick overall, but there was something inside that was heavier and chunkier than a piece of paper. “What is this?”
“Fuck if I know. Your mother left it for you, made me swear not to open it.” He gave a shrug and grabbed for the door. “That bitch is in the dirt next to her daddy.”
In the space it took Jon’s brain to process his father’s words, George finally slammed the door between them.
Jon took a large step backward.
His mother was dead.
He’d had no idea.
Of course he’d had no idea. She was the one who’d reached out to write him and let him know when his grandfather had passed.
It was the only time she’d sent him a letter after he’d left.
His father wouldn’t have written him if someone held a gun to the bastard’s head.
And that meant there was no one—no one who would have, could have, told him about her passing.
Jon’s fingers clenched tighter to the already damaged envelope, crumpling a corner as he sucked in a hard breath.
That wasn’t quite right. It seemed his mother had written him one more time, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t mailed it.
He had no idea what to expect in the letter he held, or even if he believed his father had really left it alone, but he knew he’d look anyway.
As soon as he put his childhood home and piece of shit father behind him.
Jon sprinted off the steps, cut through the dead lawn, and for good measure he made sure to knock over one of the stupid political signs. It was just fucking tacky to leave them up more than two years after the relevant election.
He tossed the envelope onto the passenger seat of his newly acquired truck and tore off, driving half blind through the streets he no longer remembered.
He’d once thought Misty Glades never changed, but it turned out, even a small town changed in noticeable ways after seventeen years.
That, combined with faded memories and entirely different perspectives, made the town as unfamiliar as any other he’d landed in on a duty tour.