Читать книгу Soul Mates - Carol Finch, Carol Finch - Страница 9

You can do this, Nate. You’ve spent fifteen years planning and dreaming of this moment. Don’t wimp out now.

Nate Channing hauled in a bracing breath and exhaled slowly. He stood face-to-face with his lowly beginnings, and he was determined to lay the bad memories to rest—here and now, once and for all.

Removing his sunglasses, he reached across the bucket seat of his car to pat his dog on the head. “Come on, Taz, let’s get this done.”

Nate got to his feet, then turned to confront his unpleasant past. The ramshackle farmhouse with its surrounding pastures, where he spent his misbegotten youth, had tumbled down on itself, like the bitter memories that avalanched over him. Nate stared at the dilapidated house that was silhouetted against the blazing orange-and-yellow sunset, where rolling hills flattened into gray, arid plains. This was the rugged landscape where Nate had grown up like a wild weed.

He flinched when the sights and sounds of that night—fifteen years ago to the day—erupted in his mind. He could almost see the flashing lights of the squad car, see the crowd of bystanders closing in around him while he was read his rights, cuffed by Sheriff Fuzz Havern and stuffed into the back seat. As if it happened only yesterday, voices exploded around Nate.

“’Bout time we got No-Account Nate out of our hair,” someone had jeered at him.

“Yeah, all he does is raise hell and howl at the moon, like the rest of the prairie wolves that prowl around Coyote Flats,” somebody else yelled smugly.

“Whaddya expect? The kid’s daddy is a jailbird, and his mama boozes it up and runs around with any man who’ll give her a second look.”

“Good riddance, loser. Now you won’t have to visit your worthless daddy in prison. You’ll be right there with him!”

The sneering comments chased one another around Nate’s head as he strode purposefully toward the run-down shack that was overgrown with weeds and sagebrush. He took one last look at the broken front steps, shattered windows and chipped paint on the wood-framed home, and he saw nothing that he was going to miss.

This was the best of his childhood memories, he thought with a snort. Hell of a childhood he’d had.

Nate reached into the pocket of his slacks to retrieve a lighter, then set the overgrown weeds aflame. The dry branches popped and crackled as orange flames consumed and devoured the shanty. A plume of dark smoke rose in the twilight, drifting down the rock-strewn hill in the light breeze.

Nate stood there, purging himself of his bad beginnings, watching his bitter memories burn to cinders. Now he owned the deed to this property that his family had rented all those years ago. Now this drafty, leaky shack was his to destroy—and rebuild. He was going to make something from nothing, something worth remembering.

Nate continued to stand there for the longest time, listening to the forlorn howls of a pack of coyotes that trotted west across the tabletop flats that were skirted by deep, winding ravines. He felt intense heat radiating from the roaring blaze that engulfed the shack and the caved-in barn that had become little more than a pile of rotted wood through the years. Smoke rolled, and flames reached up with orange-tinged fingers to claw at the gathering night.

Nate blinked back the tears that welled up in his eyes, assuring himself that it was just the pungent whiffs of smoke that caused the watery reaction.

“It’s done,” he murmured, then glanced down at his faithful companion. “Come on, Taz. Let’s get the hell out of here.”