Page 9 of Call It Home

“So, who’s your partner?”

“Um…”

He groaned and gave me a sideways look and frown that reminded me so much of our dad whenever I got a wild hair to do something, like changing the color of my bedroom—or my hair. “I’m still working on him.”

Chase crossed his arms. “Cammie, what did you do? Who is it? Didn’t you have a partnership agreement before you applied?”

“Before you say anything, I only had one day left to send in the application. There wasn’t time to ask anyone.”

I could feel his disapproval as he drummed his fingers on the granite.

I sighed. “Mac Caldwell, and no, I didn’t have time to ask him. Honestly, I didn’t think my chances were very good, so I figured why bother him?”

He rolled his eyes as he shook his head in exasperation. “Um, because of course, you’d be accepted, and you should have asked him because you made him part of the deal!”

I loved his confidence in me, even if he didn’t approve of how I went about it. I held up my finger to stop whatever lecture my twin wanted to deliver. “I’m working on him. He’ll come around.”He had to.

He closed his eyes and groaned while shaking his head. “Cameron Michelle, when are you going to learn?”

I sucked on my lower lip. This was why I hadn’t told anyone yet. I wanted to have everything squared away. And I would talk Mac into helping me because…because there was no other option. Unless… “You could take his place.”

“Uh-uh. No way. I have my own business to run, and we’re coming up on the busy season.” He pointed a finger at me. “You got yourself into this. You get yourself out of it. If you can talk Mac into it, great. But I know you. Don’t badger the man, Cam. I don’t know his background, but I sense he won’t take kindly to feeling pushed into something.”

Yeah, you’re not kidding.“Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.” I always did.

A signal on my phone distracted me. Expecting a text message from Bristol scolding me about missing her dinner, I was surprised to see it was a notification from one of the trackers in a company truck. As I studied the tracker’s data, I realized it was the truck loaned to Mac. He had gone beyond the sixty-mile radius that was automatically set up on all of our trucks. That was a clear violation of company policy without prior approval. I knew that Will had granted Mac temporary use of a company truck, something only I was allowed to authorize, but I’d take that up with Will later.

I chewed on my lower lip, thinking. Maybe a solution had landed in my lap after all.

Chapter4

Mac

A warm frontpushed up from the south, making the late winter temps milder. There was a path in the woods behind my house that I’d spent countless hours on. It was like my own version of therapy, a quiet place where I could work out the problems in my head while enjoying the natural beauty. It was pretty and private, only interrupted when I occasionally startled a deer or raccoon.

My feet pounded along the pine needle-carpeted path as I ran three miles to a small waterfall where I took a short break, then I’d run the three miles home. Usually, the run brought me a measure of peace. But today, it was failing at it. Trey’s words yesterday still echoed in my ears.

“Mymistake.Mycrime.Mypunishment.”

He was so wrong. He wouldn’t be in prison if it wasn’t for me. Trey had taken care of me my entire life, and I owed it to him to make sure he was taken care of when he got out. We’d drained both of our savings to hire a lawyer, but it hadn’t done much good. Trey was a hard worker, humble, with a quiet sense of humor. All amazing qualities, considering all that we’d been through in our childhood. He’d always protected me.

When he was almost eighteen and I was sixteen, we ran away from our foster home before we could be placed in another one. I knew we were getting ready to be placed in another home, and finding one that wanted two older teenage boys was a challenge. Trey wasn’t keen on the idea of me going with him, but he was less keen on me potentially being placed somewhere he couldn’t get to me.

Being big for our age made it easy to find work at a construction site, where we got paid under the table.

We stayed in a shelter until we’d earned enough that we could afford to buy a cheap truck—the one I still drove, or at least I did until now—sometimes even having to sleep in it until we could afford the rent on a crappy apartment. It wasn’t anything close to the kinds of homes we were building during the day, but at least we didn’t have to share our rooms with anyone else. We ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches—jelly was too much of a luxury—and ramen noodles.

Most of all, we’d survived. Trey insisted I earn my GED by taking some night classes. I didn’t want to spend the money on it. I mean, why bother? We’d gotten some raises, picked up valuable house-building skills, and were doing well enough without it. I wanted him to take the classes with me, but he wouldn’t budge, insisting I would do better at it since he didn’t think he was any good at school anyway. Instead, he picked up a second job.

We put away every dime we could, planning to someday open our own woodworking shop. Things had been falling into place. I got my GED. A guy we knew was getting out of the construction business and moving to Florida. He didn’t want the hassle of moving all his heavy tools and sold them to us at a decent price.

I should have known it was too good to be true.

Everything ground to a halt because of stupid choices on my part, and Trey was paying the price, no matter how much he denied it.

The thought of moving on with my life while he was stagnating behind bars was crazy. But that was my brother—always trying to see a way to the future for me. Well, this time, I would figure things out for him. My only goal was to make things better for him when his time was up.

Now it seemed like that might happen sooner than we originally hoped. I knew better than to believe that Trey would get a parole hearing moved up. Things like that didn’t happen to the Caldwell boys. But maybe we were due for a change in luck.

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