Paul had done. The young ranger had nearly died for his lack of good judgment.
It didn’t make sense that Paul would walk into a wall of fire that he knew would probably kill him. If anyone could tell her why Paul had done something so completely out of character, it would be Jesse.
“The mongrel son returns,” Jesse Kingston jeered softly to himself.
He backed his battered brown SUV into one of the two open parking spots in front of the Diner, his tiny hometown of Bristol’s favorite gathering place. Turning off the engine, he glanced first at the array of pickup trucks and cars crowding the lot, then at his watch. The trip south from the mountains to Bristol should have taken only a little over an hour. If it hadn’t been for the weekend traffic, he’d have been here a long time ago.
More to the point, if his boss, Chief Ranger Hank Thompson, hadn’t ordered him home to “get his head on straight,” Jess wouldn’t be here at all. He’d be in the only place he’d ever considered to be his real home—the forest.
He could still hear Hank’s words ringing in his ears. “You’re driving everyone around here crazy with your questions about Paul’s death. I want the questions to stop, and I want you to go home and get a handle on your life.” He’d taken a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice was less strident. “Dammit! It’s not rocket science, Jess, and there’s no big mystery. The official report was that Jackson stupidly walked into a bad situation and paid the price. We all make mistakes. For your sake and mine, let it go.”
Jess couldn’t let it go. Hank was wrong. Paul didn’t make mistakes. Jess had known him since they’d graduated from forestry school. They’d been through hell together, fighting forest fires shoulder to shoulder. Paul was the best. He’d risen up the ranks fast and eventually became Jess’s superior officer. But they’d remained friends. Paul had never pulled rank on Jess until that day three months ago when he’d ordered Jess to stay behind while he’d walked into the trees and never came out.
Jesse hadn’t told Hank, but just because he was back in Bristol didn’t mean he’d stop trying to find out what actually happened to Paul. Before Jess could find any inner peace, he had to know if it was his fault—if he’d followed Paul, would it have made a difference and would Paul be alive today?
Familiar guilt flooded through him. Jess rubbed his hand over his tired, burning eyes and wished for the thousandth time that he hadn’t obeyed Paul’s orders. If he’d just followed him anyway, if he’d—
He cut off the painful musings and let his gaze wander, taking in the lazy street activity. The town hadn’t changed much. Elma Davidson hobbled toward the library with the latest bestseller tucked under her arm, a cane supporting her arthritic body. Marv Adams still had the For Sale sign in the Gazette window, right where it had been for twenty years. The Garden Club had planted a colorful array of summer flowers around the flagpole in the center of the small, grassy town square.
How deceptive it all was. Beneath its lazy, welcoming exterior, Jess could almost hear the hum of gossip that would begin when the townspeople found out Frank Kingston’s son was back. The same gossip mill had worked overtime when Jess’s mother had left his father and then again when Jess had come back here at the age of nine.
Jesse sighed. Despite the familiar sights and the fact that he’d grown up here, he still felt like a stranger. Would there ever come a time when he thought of this place as home?
He started to open the car door, but hesitated. Did he really want to stay? He could just back the car out and no one would know he’d even been there.
You’ve been running away from things all your life. Isn’t it about time you stopped?
Unsure if he was ready to face his childhood demons, Jess conceded that running hadn’t helped before and probably wouldn’t help now. He was here, and he might as well stay. Stuffing his apprehension in his back pocket, Jesse climbed from the car, closed the door and then went into the diner.
Karen’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since the Danish and coffee she’d grabbed at a thruway rest stop hours ago. She leaned into the car, retrieved her purse, closed and locked the door, then headed for the diner, appropriately named the Diner. From all the travels with her mother over the years, she’d learned that the hub of any information in a small town was one of two places—the local garage or the local eatery.
Thanks to Sam’s friend Rachel’s connections, Karen knew that Jesse Kingston had just been sent home on leave to Bristol, New York. With any luck, stopping at the diner would allow her to fill her stomach and learn something about the man she wanted to meet.
Inside, Karen paused and did a double take. From its pink-and-black vinyl booths to the chrome bands around the counter stools and the rainbow-colored jukebox tucked in the back corner, the Diner looked like it had fallen straight out of an episode of Happy Days. The hum of the customers’ voices nearly drowned out the strains of a plaintive country song drifting out from the jukebox. The air hung heavy with the odor of grease, cooking meat and bodies.
A sign beside the cash register read Seat Yourself. Since there were quite a few patrons, Karen didn’t have much of a choice. The booths were taken by several couples, four men loudly discussing the latest baseball scores and one man sitting alone with his back to her, his attention buried in a newspaper.
She made her way down the narrow aisle between the booths and the counter seats and chose one of the only available stools.
A tall, thirtyish man emerging through a door to her left drew her attention from the small, cardboard menu card she’d pulled from between a napkin holder and a bottle of ketchup. Over his shoulder she could see a door with the word Roosters and a picture of a rooster in overalls chewing on a piece of straw painted on it.
The man walked down the aisle with the assurance of someone totally at home. As he moved toward her, he spoke to several people at the counter and paused to add his opinion of the Yankees’ last game to those already expressed loud and clear by the group in the booth. Moments later, obviously seeing that he was not going to change anyone’s assessment that the Yankees would take the pennant, he shook his head and moved on. He’d almost reached her when he stopped next to the booth occupied by the lone man reading the newspaper.
“Well, I’ll be damned. As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Jess Kingston in the flesh.”
Jess glanced up from the newspaper, which he hadn’t been really reading but using more as a shield against anyone engaging him in conversation. Evidently, Charlie Clay didn’t let a little thing like a newspaper stand in his way.
“Hello, Charlie.”
“When’d you get back in town?”
“Little while ago.” Hopefully, if he didn’t give the appearance of wanting to exchange pleasantries, this conversation would end quickly. Charlie’s next words told Jess he’d been successful.
“Well…nice to see you.” Charlie moved on.
As the construction worker moved on, Jess caught sight of a woman at the counter. She faced him and although he couldn’t see her eyes, which were hidden behind sunglasses, he could tell she was showing an overt interest in him. Used to his dark looks drawing attention from women, he tried to dismiss her stare. But he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from her.
Jess
