Page 12 of Bad to the Bone
Chapter Seven
ALEXwas no closer to having answers when he crawled into bed that night, but whether his brain was tired of chasing in circles or his body was simply exhausted, he managed a solid eight hours. The rising sunlight inching its way through his window roused him before the alarm. Even on the mornings when Alanna would be opening the store and he didn’t have to take over until midafternoon, he usually woke around seven. He rose and moved through a few stretches before pulling on a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt and lacing on his running shoes.
Buck danced around him as soon as he opened his bedroom door and followed him into the kitchen, the feathery sweep of his long tail betraying his eagerness. Alex nodded a greeting to Alanna, who was nursing a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. “Get this overgrown dust mop out of here,” she groused when Buck laid his head in her lap and nudged. Alanna gave a good scratch behind each of the setter’s floppy ears, bringing him to an expression of blissful idiocy. “I don’t want to have to fish his hair out of my corn flakes.”
“Might be too late for that.” As soon as Alex opened the door leading to the stairs, Buck raised his head and darted out in front of him, then waited impatiently at the bottom of the steps for Alex to unlock the heavier outer door. “You’d think we never let you outside, you big goof.”
The mid-October morning air carried a chill hint of cooler weather to come, but Alex knew he’d be pushing up his sleeves before the end of the run. He started off slowly, Buck loping easily at his side, until he left the streets of the Freeland business district—such as it was—behind him. As the buildings thinned, giving way to more open field, he picked up the pace, letting the breeze waft away the last of his sleepiness.
Running had always been his catharsis, his way of releasing stress and clearing his head. He’d sat through enough sport physiology lectures during his playing days to know that the endorphins it released were not only analgesic but also mood-elevating—the so-called “runner’s high.” Pounding along the quiet country road, he consciously freed his mind of thoughts, focusing on the rhythm of his footfalls and the regular cadence of his breath.
It worked for the first few miles, but the unsettled feelings raised by Ricky Lee’s return refused to stay at bay for long. Running might provide a temporary distraction, but it couldn’t resolve issues or make them disappear, Alex knew. The only solution for that would be to face them.
He paused at the crossroad that marked his midpoint, slowing his breathing and pushing up the sleeves of his T-shirt as the sun and his exertion warmed him. Buck had wandered off to answer nature’s call, but as he bounded back he halted and turned his head to glance down the road, his ears perked up.
The throaty rumble of a motor broke the morning silence before a black dot appeared against the horizon, growing larger as it approached. The cycle rolled to a stop and the rider pulled off his helmet. Before he could speak, Buck leaped forward and jumped up at Ricky Lee, barking furiously.
Alex grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him back before he could knock the bike over, wondering if Buck could possibly remember Ricky Lee. “Sorry about that.”
“You still have Buckaroo Bonzai?” Ricky Lee dismounted and squatted on the side of the road, to the dog’s obvious delight. Buck strained forward to lick at his face, and Ricky Lee wrapped an arm around him in a vain attempt to calm his wriggling as he ran his other hand over the silky red fur. “Hi, boy. Yes, I remember you. Yes, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
After a few moments of wrestling with the ecstatic setter, Ricky Lee stood. He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket today, just a black T-shirt that embraced his broad chest and a pair of faded, equally snug jeans over worn leather boots.
“You heading out of town?” Alex asked, his throat abruptly dry.
“Looking for you.” Ricky Lee rubbed absently at Buck’s head as the dog continued to nose against him in a clear appeal for more attention. Alex could empathize. “Alanna told me you usually run out this way.”
“You saw Alanna?” Stupid question, but Alex felt nearly as incoherent as Buck at the moment.
“Seemed only polite to stop by and say hello to her. I’m sorry to hear about your parents.” Ricky Lee’s deep voice dropped lower. “They were good folks. It must have been hard to lose them.”
“It was. Thank you.” It felt hypocritical to offer condolences to Ricky Lee when Alex knew how badly his father had treated him, but the manners his mother had raised him with wouldn’t let him neglect it. “I heard about your dad’s passing too.”
“Not soon enough.” The glint in his dark eyes told Alex that Ricky Lee hadn’t forgotten or forgiven, but his grim aspect cleared when Buck, clearly unhappy at being ignored, sprang up against him. “I was going to offer you a ride back and buy you breakfast, but I hadn’t counted on your partner here.”
The image of climbing behind Ricky Lee on the big bike, wrapping his arms around that chest his palms itched to smooth over, his thighs pressing against Ricky Lee’s hips, was enough to make Alex’s cock harden. Hoping the jock strap he wore beneath his running shorts was enough to conceal its interest, he grabbed Buck’s collar and pulled them both out of Ricky Lee’s magnetic field. “Thanks, but I… I already have breakfast plans.” For a brief moment he considered asking Ricky Lee to join him, but he wasn’t ready to expose either of them to the cross-examination Sam would undoubtedly subject them to.
Was it only wishful thinking that Ricky Lee seemed disappointed? If he did, he quickly replaced the expression with a cocky grin. “I have things to take care of during the week, but Saturday night can’t get here soon enough.”
Perhaps to make amends for turning down the offer of breakfast, Alex heard himself saying, “I have a Habitat for Humanity building project Saturday morning. If you’d like to join me there, you could come by the store around nine, and we could clean up and go to dinner after that.”
“Still taking up for the underdog, Alex?” Ricky Lee swung a leg over his bike and started the engine. “Sure, I’ll give you a hand. See you Saturday.”
The motorcycle roared off down the road. Buck chased it a few yards, barking excitedly, before giving up and circling back to Alex, his entire backside shimmying with the force of his wagging tail.
“I guess that makes two of us glad to see him.” Alex gave Buck a quick head rub and started back to town.
“THATconcludes the minutes of last month’s meeting.” As the secretary of the Freeland Public Library board, it was Alex’s responsibility to make notes, type up the minutes, and present them at the monthly board meetings. “Are there any comments or corrections?”
“Move to accept the minutes as read,” Laura Lou Gardner, the head librarian—though she only had volunteer assistants—and president of the board said when no one offered any revisions.
“Seconded,” Jennifer Stockton, who was one of those volunteers, chimed in.
“All those in favor?” All four members of the board raised their hands. It might seem like a meaningless ritual, but Laura Lou was a stickler for following Robert’s Rules of Order. “The minutes are accepted as read. Next on the agenda are the officers’ and committee reports. Andrew, will you share the financial status?”
Andy Dorman, the board treasurer and Freeland Middle School principal, cleared his throat. “If you’ll look at the spreadsheet I distributed, you’ll see that other than a small amount of collected fines, the income for the month consisted of the proceeds from the used book sale and the Friends of the Library car wash. The major expenditure was repair of the roof leak above the children’s section and replacement of the damaged carpeting underneath.”
“We’re lucky the water only came in through the reading area and didn’t ruin any books,” Jennifer muttered. “We might not be as lucky next time. The whole roof needs to be replaced.”
