Page 7 of Hometown Girl

“You comin’?”

Roxie, always quick to forgive, ran outside toward their favorite running trail. Drew preferred to run without music, focusing instead on the sounds of his breathing and the great outdoors. He’d grown to love the ranch and everything it had taught him. He oversaw the daily operations and managed the staff, but he’d worked the schedule out so he could also spend time alone. That time had never haunted him until today.

With every familiar tree he passed, the memories crept closer to the surface of his mind—memories he’d buried long ago in the hope of never reliving them again.

Drew turned a corner and ran along the creek at the back of the ranch property, his mind spinning.Closure.His mother made it sound like it was something he could buy at the drugstore. He knew better. It had been twenty years, and he’d never found it.

Revisiting Fairwind, dredging up the past—it couldn’t bring him what he needed. The ranch, Colorado, his long runs—those were peaceful. Why did his mom seem to think he was still searching for something he’d found long ago?

And yet, as he weaved to the right to avoid a dip in the trail, he knew peace was about more than a quiet environment. He’d come here in search of something specific, but if he was honest with himself, he was still looking for it.

His spirit wasn’t at peace, and the realization irked him.

Some men pursued women or money or fame or power. Drew asked for so little compared to them, yetpeaceseemed more elusive and much harder to attain.

Roxie quickened her pace to keep up, panting a little harder than usual. Drew’s mind wandered to the photo in Harold Pendergast’s obituary. He’d grown to see Harold mostly as a nuisance, what with his regular calls begging Drew to come back to the farm. Drew had stopped answering those calls a long time ago. Harold always left messages, but Drew never called back. Then the old man started sending letters filled with new, crazy ideas about the case, and he always listed the reasons why returning to Fairwind might help Drew, not to mention possibly give them the lead they’d been waiting for.

Son, I’m not asking you to spend a whole summer here like you used to, just a few days to jog your memory. See if anything shakes loose when you walk the grounds. It’s important. Don’t do it for me. Do it for Jess.

But Drew had never gone. He’d resisted every attempt to reconnect with Fairwind and the old man. Why was he spending even a second thinking about it now?

Sticks snapped underneath his feet. He inhaled the scent of pine trees, and Jess’s face swept through his memory.

All these years, Harold had been the one fighting on her behalf, but who would do that now that he was gone?

As soon as the thought entered Drew’s mind, another one replaced it:This is not your problem.He’d been telling himself that for years now, and he believed it. So why the sudden urge to drive to Willow Grove, Illinois, and see what had become of Fairwind?

Why now, after all this time, did it feel like maybe Harold had been right? Maybe Drew would remember something or find the closure he’d been craving.

He stopped and doubled over, winded—a punishment for failing to focus on his breathing. He’d been running too fast. He’d been running too hard and too long.

Roxie slowed, doubled back and sniffed his face.

He stepped off the path and sat on a boulder next to the water, watching as the current lapped over the rocks on the creek bed. He could see straight to the bottom. Everything here had always felt cleaner—clearer. Did he really want to go searching through the mess that Harold had left behind?

Drew had done such a good job of pushing everything down and away, into little boxes he’d neatly stacked at the very back of his mind, but Harold’s death was chipping away at that tidy pile.

His breathing finally slowed. He stood back up, still inhaling deeply, and stared up at the bright-blue sky. He’d been here at this ranch for years, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt an undeniable push to do the one thing he’d been avoiding.

He had to go back to Fairwind. Not for long—just to walk the property. To revisit the place where his entire life had changed. He needed to prove to himself that there were no hidden memories locked up somewhere in his mind.

He needed to prove he couldn’t have been the one to provide justice for Jess.

He just didn’t have the answers everyone was looking for.

“Let’s go, Roxie.” He ran home, showered and changed, then called his boss to make arrangements for a short vacation.

“It’s the start of the busy season, and we’re booked solid,” Doug said. “Be awfully hard to have you gone now.”

“Have I ever missed a day in the four years I’ve been here?” Drew paced the small living room of his cabin, walking its full length in just a few short steps.

“No, you haven’t.”

“Then you know it’s important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

There was a pause on the other end, followed by a sigh. “How long are you thinking?”

“Maybe a week?”

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