walk away, sell the place as it was, let someone else deal with the cleaning and repairs. But that didn’t feel right. Despite everything, this had been his home when he was young. His earliest memories and dreams were formed here. No matter how hard it was, this was his task and his alone.
He shook his head, telling himself to just get on with things. The sooner he started, the sooner he could put it all behind him and stop thinking about what might have been.
The doorknob squeaked as he turned it, already making itself an item on his to-do list. He stepped across the threshold and into his past, the one he’d fled when he’d gone away to college. All around him, piled to the ceiling, was...stuff. Old magazines sat side by side with clothing that hadn’t been worn in decades. Shelves of ceramic dust-catchers—cats, cowboy boots, ladies in frilly dresses, bells and God only knew what else—competed for space with chairs draped in more quilts and afghans than anyone in Texas should own.
He forced himself to take a few more steps into the house, but the farther he went the more he felt as if the piles of belongings were going to topple over and bury him alive. He’d had that particular nightmare for years, still did on occasion, and his lungs constricted just thinking about it. He spun in a slow circle, so overwhelmed he had no idea where to start. The task of getting rid of years of his grandparents’ hoarding felt like he was facing scooping away Mount Everest with a teaspoon.
His grandparents had never been able to satisfactorily explain why they found it impossible to throw away any of their possessions. Not even when they’d passed the point of being able to know what items resided at the bottom of the piles. The one saving grace was that they hadn’t been the type of hoarders who kept true garbage that attracted rodents or had dozens of cats. Still, it felt as if it was going to take the rest of his life to sort out what they’d left behind. Everything around him seemed to close in on him.
Not ready to face the rest, he turned and hurried back outside. The moment he stepped into the fresh air, the world expanded in size from what it had been only moments before, as if his lungs had received a sudden infusion of oxygen. Out here he was able to remember the good times, how his younger self had wanted so desperately to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps here on this ranch. But the oppressive reality of the hoarding had been too much for Austin to handle, had robbed him of his chance to follow that particular dream.
Current reality hit him square in the chest, knocking thoughts of the past to the back of his brain where they belonged. He needed help, someone to haul all this stuff away. Because there was no way he was going to wade through everything. He didn’t have the time or the inclination.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten all day, not since the half sandwich after the funeral the day before. Needing food and distance, he stalked to his car and fled the ranch as if a wildfire were taking up the entirety of his rearview mirror. By the time he rolled into the city limits of Blue Falls, he felt like a fool. He was a grown man. A house full of junk shouldn’t make him damn near hyperventilate.
He parked outside the Primrose Café and headed inside for lunch. Once his stomach was full, he’d make an actual plan that would get him back to Dallas before he was a decade older.
Before he even made it to a table, three people stopped him to express their sympathy over his grandfather’s passing. That was both the blessing and the curse of a small town—no matter how long you’d been gone, people still remembered you.
After he seated himself and placed his order, he looked up to see Nathan Teague walking toward him, a to-go cup of coffee in hand.
“Hey, Austin.” Nathan extended his hand for a shake, which Austin accepted. “Sorry to hear about your grandpa. He was a good man.”
“Yeah, he was.” Just because Austin had gotten out of his grandparents’ house as soon as he could didn’t mean he hadn’t loved them. You could love people and still not understand them, still be at odds.
“How long you in town for?”
“Not sure. Need to get the place ready to sell. I’m actually in need of someone to haul off a bunch of junk. Who does that around here these days?”
“I’d suggest Ella Garcia.” This answer didn’t come from Nathan.
It took Austin a moment to recognize the older woman at the next table, but then he realized it was Verona Charles, the aunt of Elissa Mason, who’d gone to high school with him. “Pardon?”
Verona consulted her phone, then wrote something on a napkin and handed it to him. “Call Ella. She’ll be able to help you out.” With a smile, Verona stood and headed toward the front to pay her bill.
“You ever need to know something in Blue Falls, don’t bother with the phone directory or the paper. Just ask Verona,” Nathan said. “Sorry to run, but I’ve got to go pick up my son for a doctor’s appointment. Little booger broke his arm and it’s cast removal day.”
Austin said goodbye and was left with his just-arrived burger and fries and a napkin with a phone number. It seemed somewhat odd that a woman was running a trash removal business, but he didn’t care if it was a band of little green Martians on the other end of the line as long as they could make quick work of his mounds of garbage.
Not wanting to waste even one moment, he stuck a fry in his mouth and dialed the number.
* * *
ELLA GARCIA STRAIGHTENED from where she’d been bent over her latest creative project and took a deep breath. Not that it was particularly refreshing since the temperature was nearing triple digits. She pulled a bandanna from the pocket of her cargo shorts and wiped the sweat off her forehead for what had to be the hundredth time. She walked over to the edge of her back porch and adjusted the fan she’d placed there to point toward where she was working in the backyard.
Satisfied with the angle of the mechanical breeze, she resumed sanding the rust off an antique tractor wheel that was going to become the main piece of a coffee table for one of her customers. As she scrubbed at a particularly difficult spot, her phone rang. She tossed her sandpaper onto the top of the upturned cable spool she was using as a workbench and pulled the phone from her back pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, so she answered with her professional greeting.
“Restoration Decoration, this is Ella.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, causing her to think it might be a telemarketer. But then a man said, “Um, I’m calling for Ella Garcia.”
“Speaking.” He sure sounded tentative for a telemarketer. Man, that had to be one of the top five suckiest jobs in the world.
“I was given your number,” he said, as if he’d suddenly remembered he should say something. “I need some junk hauled off.”
“How much and what type?”
“A lot and you name it.”
Excitement sparked to life inside Ella, her imagination dancing with her innate ability to turn one person’s trash into another’s treasure. She looked at the tractor wheel, mentally calculating how much work she had left to do in order to deliver the table by the deadline. She could always catch up on sleep after the buyer picked up the table, right? If she wanted to really grow her home decor business, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to acquire some raw materials on the cheap. She could spare a few hours.
“Okay, I’ll come take a look. Can I get your name and
