Page 39 of Homecoming

I smell you on my pillow.

The three little dots bounced, like he was typing a response. The dots disappeared, then reappeared again.

Sorry?

She grinned.

LOL. I don’t think you are.

You’re right. I’m not.

I had fun last night.

The dots bounced again.

I did too.

She huffed out a laugh. The man was so hard to get details out of.

Gonna go get ready for family time. Later!

Later.

Grace hummed holiday songs as she showered and got ready. As with every other year, her family would be in interrogation mode. Jazz had sent her lips emojis, and she had no doubt her mother would have questions too. Everyone could see Owen’s truck out in front of her shop.

When she pulled up in front of her parent’s house, she was kind of surprised to see her aunt standing on the sidewalk. Tash was not dressed for the snowy day, but she was looking up at the softly falling flakes, her flyaway hair blowing in the wind.

“Hey, Tash. Where’s your coat? Aren’t you cold?”

Tasha waved a hand as she looked at Grace. She furrowed her brows and leaned in, eyeing her. “I don’t even feel the cold right now. Did you see the sparks?”

Grace blinked, trying to reason out what her aunt meant. “What sparks?”

Tash waved a hand. “Up on the mountain, girl!”

Grace frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean by sparks, Aunt Tash.”

Tasha looked back up toward the mountain where the Foxhole was. “They’re dancing. But there’s so much pain there,” she said. Then, turning to Grace, she squeezed her hand and walked away.

Grace would have gone after her, but Tash wouldn’t tell her anymore than she already had.

For as long as she could remember, Aunt Tasha had gotten little insights into people. Usually nothing groundbreaking or epic. Just little things. Don’t go out with that out-of-town boy, she’d told her once. A few nights later, he’d wrecked his brand new car. She was good at finding things- lost dogs or keys. And losing things, Grace thought, smiling. But she had a good heart.

She looked up the mountain, wondering what Tash had meant.

Owen triedto keep himself busy as Christmas day dragged on. There were regular chores that needed done every day, but he hadn’t scheduled them anything extra to do. He let them be lazy today. Yates had managed a satellite hookup and gotten damn near every streaming service available on the big TV downstairs, and there was a football game on. Owen could hear Big Kenny yelling from here. He texted Grace to let her know that he would be down to pick her up about five, and he’d stared at her response for a ridiculously long time.

Can’t wait to meet everyone!

And then a big heart.

Did the heart mean something? Or was he just reading way too much into probably a generic response? He thought about it all day and almost radioed Angela about it. No, that would be stupid and way too exposing.

It had been so long since he’d dated…

His nerves ate at him as the time crept closer for him to go get her, and he felt a headache nibbling at his brain. He hadn’t had one for a long time, and he really didn’t want to have onenow. He popped a few ibuprofen and drank a bunch of water in the hopes of heading it off. He needed a distraction.

Two hours later, he was cursing himself for even thinking the words. He’d no sooner taken his pills than Fontana radioed that the power plant was down. A fallen log had washed down the pass and damaged the turbine blades, knocking everything out of balance. Dominic had retrieved the propeller from the water, and they’d been working to rebalance it since then. The Den was running on stored battery power right now, so they’d be fine for tonight, but it wasn’t something that could be down indefinitely.

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