Page 4 of Home Changes
Dean widened his eyes. “So, she’s like …”
“Psychic?” Code asked.
Seth nodded. “Woo-woo.” That was his word for it. Call it what you want, but that woman had it in spades.
Tyler looked at his phone. “A witch?”
They all laughed at that. Granted, it was a nervous laugh because … yeah. Seth looked at his watch. “Gomer and I are going to take a walk so he can find some grass. We’ll be back unless I get a text telling me he has to be loaded.”
He stood, and Gomer was immediately at his heel. Tyler rubbed his head. “Thanks for the therapy, Gomer.”
Seth smiled and grabbed his backpack just in case that text came in. “Come on, bud,” he said to Gomer, and they headed out to the fresh air.
“Don’t forget to say hi to my friend Kate for me,” Blessing said as he walked out of the USO.
He stopped and smiled at her. “I’ll be back. I’m just taking him for a comfort break.”
Blessing just smiled. “Sure.” She leaned down and stroked Gomer’s fur. “Goodbye, Gomer. You’ve got a good home now,” Blessing said to the dog and then winked at him before spinning around and picking up the phone. “Hello?”
He looked at Gomer. “Did that phone ring?”
The dog’s head cocked as he looked at the woman. Seth shook his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so either.”
Twenty minutes later, as he and Gomer reentered the terminal, his phone buzzed. It was a text from the service counter. His plane was loading for departure. He shook his head. Woo-woo didn’t even scratch the surface of that woman’s ability.
CHAPTER 2
Allison Sanderson no longer grimaced when Sheriff Ken Zorn’s cruiser pulled up in front of her bakery. The familiar thrum of his engine didn’t twist her stomach with dread the way it used to. It had been almost two years, more than that, actually, since the disaster that was their so-called on-and-off-but-mostly-off-again relationship had finally imploded.
She chuckled under her breath as she wiped down the counter, remembering the countless sessions with Dr. Wheeler. They’d tried to piece together the reasons she’d held onto Ken long after the feelings were gone. It had been a selfish kind of tethering, and she wasn’t proud. If she couldn’t have him, she didn’t want anyone else to, either.
The trouble was, she hadn’t even wanted him.
She let him dangle, caught on the hook of her indecision, for far too long. The guilt of it had swamped her once the truth had settled in, and it was another ugly knot she’d worked out. It had taken time, but the past two years had been productive. Lonely, maybe, but as she’d discovered, growth often was.
There’d been a brief connection with a motorcycle mechanic from Rapid City. Nail had been everything she’d thought she needed. Big. Burly. Unapologetically blunt. And yet, while he had no trouble telling her exactly what he thought, their priorities had never quite lined up. And the three-hour drive between them hadn’t helped.
He was a good man, and she didn’t regret the time they’d spent together. But the slow, steady clarity she’d gained through her work with Dr. Wheeler had taught her that alignment mattered. It mattered more than chemistry. It mattered more than comfort.
Outside, Ken lingered on his phone before walking in, the jingle of the bell above the door pulling her from her thoughts. Allison reached beneath the counter and pulled out a brown paper bag, already packed with his usual order. Sheplaced it on top of the display case and offered a smile.
“Hey, Ken. How’s life treating you today?”
He slid off his sunglasses and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “Things are good. People are behaving themselves. No UFOs or Bigfoot sightings lately.”
They both laughed, the shared amusement warm and familiar. It was an unspoken reference to Edna Michaelson, Hollister’s most enthusiastic believer in all things unexplained.
Edna was a local institution. Her beliefs were as loud as her personality, and neither had ever met a boundary they respected. She butted into everyone’s lives without apology and somehow managed to make people love her for it. She’d once been dubbed the town gossip and still held the title, although time and her innate kindness had softened the edges of her title. Her heart was always in the right place.
Ken tilted his head, his eyes dropping to Allison’s bandaged hand. “How’s your hand doing?”
She glanced down, flexing her fingers slowly. The bandage wrapped around her wound shifted as the muscles moved beneath the healing skin.
“It’s doing good,” she said. “There for a while, after the surgery, everything I made looked like apile of cow dung. But it got easier once I got used to using my left hand more. Now I can use my right just as well. I go back in two days for the final follow-up and hopefully to get cleared from any restrictions.”
He nodded. “That’s good. That was the most excitement we’ve had in a while. Well, aside from the … Barry thing last year.”
Allison narrowed her eyes at him, crossing her arms. “You know the entire town knows exactly what happened.”
