The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

TWENTY-FOUR

Cooper flew into Dallas, rented a car, and drove west, past Abilene, to his mother’s house in Sweetwater. The little red brick house with blue-and-white striped window awnings was all decked out for Christmas, with a tree in the front window, and a mantel full of Christmas cards.

His mother was in a jovial mood. She’d made fried chicken for him, which Cooper didn’t have the heart to tell her he hadn’t eaten in years, mashed potatoes and, of course, green beans that she’d poured out of a can and into a pan to warm. She bustled around her kitchen humming Christmas carols. “It’s the first Christmas I’ll have both my boys since your father died.”

“You won’t exactly have Derek,” Cooper reminded her. “He’s going to be in a halfway house in Midland.”

“I know, but I have plans for that day. We can take him out for three hours. That’s plenty of time to take him to church and get him a decent meal,” she said. “That’s just what we’d do here, so essentially, it’s the same thing as having him home.”

It wasn’t essentially the same, no matter how badly his mother wanted to believe it was.

Cooper spent the night on his childhood twin bed, the light of his mother’s computer modem blinking at him all night. The next morning, they left very early for the six-hour drive down to the Texas town of Huntsville to pick up Derek.

It was two days before Christmas.

Derek walked out of the gloomy monolith that was the correctional facility with a sack in one hand. The clothes he’d been provided for the occasion were ill fitting. Derek was hard and lean now, his neck and arms painted with prison tattoos. He was missing a tooth, too, and Cooper wondered how and when that had happened.

“I’ve got some clothes for you at home,” his mother said once they were on the road. As they drove away from the place he’d called home, Derek was antsy, jumpy.

Cooper drove so that his mother could pamper his brother. Derek was quiet at first. He sat behind Cooper’s mother and stared out the window. “A lot’s changed since I went down,” he said. “I can’t believe how big Austin is now.”

“Just wait till you see Sweetwater,” his mother said proudly.

“How about a beer, Mom?” Derek asked, his head suddenly appearing over the console between Cooper and his mother. “It’s been a long time.”

“No, sir,” Mom said firmly. “I’m not buying you a beer. You haven’t had any all these years, so why would you want to start up now?”

“You can get booze on the inside, you know,” Derek said absently, and turned his head to look at Cooper. “So what’s up with you, Coop? Married yet? Got a girl?” he asked, and playfully tapped Cooper on the back of the head.

“Not married. I’m still in LA. We’re still training stunt performers and thrill seeking—”

“First thing I’m going to do is get a job,” Derek interrupted. Cooper didn’t know if it was because he truly hadn’t been listening, or he didn’t want to hear about Cooper’s prison-free life. “One of the guards told me that oil fields are hot again. That true?”

“Oh yes,” his mother said. “And they pay good money, too. Nicole Fruehauf’s son got a job there, and he just bought himself a new truck.”

“That’s what I’m going to do, Mom,” Derek said. “I’m not afraid of hard work, you know.”

Cooper glanced out the window at cactus thick as weeds. If Derek was truly okay with hard work, maybe he wouldn’t have held up the convenience store with a gun. Maybe he would have gone to school and found a job like everyone else.

“I’m going to make some money and get a little house and maybe a girl. I miss women.”

“Derek,” his mother said. But she was smiling.

“Worst thing I ever did was break up with Tammy,” Derek continued.

“I always liked her,” Cooper’s mother said cheerfully. “She married a boy from Anson and they moved to Fort Worth.”

“You remember her, Coop?” Derek asked, shoving at the back of Cooper’s seat.

“Of course,” Cooper said. “I had a huge crush on her.” He glanced over his shoulder at Derek and smiled.

“You were a squirt,” Derek said, and laughed. “Tammy was hot, man. I’m telling you, letting that one go was a mistake. If I’d been the kind of man Tammy wanted me to be, I would never have gone down. Never.”

No one argued that.

Derek grew quiet again and sank back into his seat.