But this bright and already hot July morning, he would be able to answer that question with a resounding yes. He was indeed a happy man. He was happy, and he was whole, and he was….
He was home. This was his home, and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with the land he stood upon. As long as he had his best friend, and his woman, he would be home.
It was a hell of an epiphany.
All this time I thought I was looking for a piece of real estate, and that wasn’t it at all.
Putting his mind back on the task at hand, which was breakfast, he decided to show his more sensitive side to his woman. He recalled hearing Michaela talking about her preferred breakfast, in one of those general conversations that had been shared at the roadhouse that had literally begun with a discussion of the phrase “soup to nuts.”
They didn’t have fresh fruit or yogurt in order for him to give her a part of her favorite morning meal, but a quick run into Lusty would take care of that.
He took a minute to text his cousin to let him know where he was headed, and then he stepped into his boots and headed out.
This was his first visit to the grocery store in town, and Lewis was impressed with the selection offered. The store seemed bigger inside than it had looked from the outside. It didn’t take him long to get everything he needed. As he passed the dairy case, his eye was drawn to an object he hadn’t expected to see. Canned whipped cream. Lewis grabbed one up and put it in his cart. It wasn’t on the menu for breakfast but would be great to have on hand for an impromptu snack of the sexy Michaela kind.
The older woman at the checkout worked quickly and then paused as she took a moment to look from his grin to that can of whipped cream. She snickered then entered the price in the register, and Lewis felt his face heat.
Fortunately, she didn’t say anything, and he pretended the moment had never happened.
As he walked back to his truck, he thought about that rather large display of whipped cream, and he snickered, too. One of his Texas cousins had quipped that their great-great grandparents had named the place Lusty and every generation since had been dedicated to earning the name.
I can believe that.
Within minutes he was back at Michaela’s, thinking about her and that whipped cream.
Two steps from the truck, a strong odor slammed into him and stopped him in his tracks. Gasoline, and lots of it. His first instinct was to look at his truck, to see if the ground beneath it was getting wet, and he did. He couldn’t see anything there, and stepping back toward the truck had taken him out of the odor. As far as he was concerned, there were only two other sources for that smell—Michaela’s car or the fuel tank beside the barn.
Lewis stepped into the house long enough to put the groceries he’d bought on the kitchen counter and then headed back out again.
The smell was coming from toward the barn. The closer he got to the structure, the stronger the smell became. His gaze went automatically to the old fuel tank. He recalled seeing a bit of rust on it. He regretted now that he hadn’t taken the time to examine it more closely the day before. Rust near the joints of the tank and the legs could eat away at the metal. Damn thing must have sprung a leak.
“Man, that’s strong. Did the tank start leaking overnight?”
He’d heard the door slam, so his cousin’s presence didn’t surprise him. Likely saw me out the kitchen window.
Randy’s question mirrored his own thoughts. His eyes scanned the tank, seeing nothing amiss at first. But the ground beneath the container was most definitely wet. And now that he was almost upon it, the smell nearly made his eyes water.
Lewis squatted so he could examine the bottom area. It took him a moment to understand exactly what he was seeing.
He answered Randy’s question. “That’s one way of looking at it.” Except he didn’t necessarily think it had happened overnight. It could have. A slight breeze now stirred air that had been still when he’d left for the store. He hadn’t smelled the gas when he’d set out for Lusty—he checked his watch—twenty minutes before.
“Did you hear anything while I was gone?” Lewis asked.
Randy squatted beside him, his scowl testimony that he, too, understood what had happened.
“Not a damn thing. We both kind of dozed off again. If it happened this morning, we should have heard that.”
Lewis nodded. “I agree. I think we should call Adam.”
He looked at his cousin. Randy nodded. “Yeah, okay. Who would do this?”
“Not a clue, brother. But hopefully, the asshole who did was careless when he left that behind, and a check for fingerprints can answer that question for us.”
Neither man reached for the screwdriver that lay, totally out of place but suspiciously obvious, about a foot and a half from where it had been used to cause damage.
Lewis had thought, once he located the leak, to find something to collect the dripping fuel in. The gaping, jagged holes he could see assured him that anything that had been in the tank was now soaking into the Texas dirt beneath it.
Chapter Fourteen
Terry hadn’t ever really excelled at math. Hell, he hadn’t excelled at anything. He didn’t know what to think when he considered his own situation. If he was a kid with
