Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (24 page)

We pulled into
diabetic Paul’s driveway. His wife waved at me from their concrete porch.

“Thank you
,” I called. “We got the fence done.”

She squinted at Boone.

“This is my friend, Boone,” I yelled. I didn’t want to get dragged into the two-hour conversation preordained if we went anywhere near her porch. “Do you want us to take the thingy off or anything?” I pointed to the auger.

“Nah. The Criders want to use it
,” she called.

Grampa wav
ed at me from down the road.

“Grampa’s waiting. See you!” I yelled as I pulled Boone across the gravel to
my grandparents’ modest house.

 

We were quickly sprung. Grandma had left a note she’d gone to the library, and Grampa eagerly reclined in the old blue chair where he would doze to Weather Watcher.

I backed Dad’s sedan out of
the driveway and watched Boone in my peripheral vision. I wanted more details on what was going on without being nosy. “Any good news about Drew?” I ventured after half a mile, figuring it might help if I started with the positive.

“He called at the beginning of the week. By the time he got out of the wilderness, the commercial flights were all jacked
up. The planes have to land in California or the southwest. No guarantee of getting any farther east. He decided he is either going to buy a car or try to get a train ticket to get on the eastern side of this mess.” He tapped his fingers on his dusty jeans. “I don’t understand why they didn’t call me. They talked to him on
Monday.
What are they trying to protect me from?”

“What are they doing now?” I asked
as if I hadn’t eavesdropped on his entire conversation.

He grimaced. “They say they
’re going somewhere in Iowa, but they won’t tell me exactly where, and I’m not supposed to go there or go home. What kind of bull crap is that?”

It
was
bull crap. Something didn’t jive with his midget-football supporters casting him adrift. I might expect that from Mia’s family, not from a stable ranching clan.

“And Dad was being such a hard ass
. He’s always been strict, but not like that.”

“Do you think things are worse than they
’re letting on?”

“I think things must suck for my
dad to leave at all. He said he got what stock he could hauled out.” He looked away from me, out the window at the woods. “He had cancer a few years ago. I wonder if that’s what they aren’t telling me.”

“Hopefully they’re
going east. No matter what’s going on with them, east has to be better.”

I turn
ed onto our driveway. I had no idea what else to say so I reached over to put my hand over his. He flipped it so he could curl his dirt-stained fingers around mine.

“Thanks for taking me behind the house.” He looked down at our hands clasped as much in a gesture of solidarity as affection. “I guess you could tell I needed a few minutes.”

“Been there. Have the T-shirt.” A glimmer of happiness sparked in my chest as I eased up in front of the closed garage. “And look. You survived your first trip as my passenger.”

He smirked.

My phone chirped as I slammed the car door shut.

Text from Mia:

“
Uh-oh. Poor Mia is having a rough day, too.”

“Yeah, I bet Jerse
y is a barrel of fun these days,” he said as he opened the front door for me.

The aroma of Mom’s meatloaf filled the house.
I hoped she’d at least used some beef, instead of trying to fool us with tasteless ground turkey. Boone excused himself to take a shower, so I texted more with Mia.

Text from Mia:

Mom and Dad converged on me the instant the water
started running in the shower. They waved me out to the garage for I had no idea what. I stopped a few feet inside, stunned anew by the inventory. In addition to the dining table fertilizer, we owned a bizarre assortment of building and plumbing supplies, stacks of tarps, coils of garden hose, food-service sized cans of fruits and vegetables, Grampa’s tiller, a hoard of gas cans and other containers that put Boone’s small collection to shame. The thicket of hand tools made my shoulders hurt looking at them, the most impressive a long, vicious-toothed saw with handles at both ends.

“What
’s Boone’s situation?” Dad asked, more accustomed to his hijacked garage than me.

“Um, his parents are leaving
, but they don’t want him to come where they’re going.”

Mom and Dad shar
ed a just-as-we-thought moment.