Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

When she couldn't get Yancey to talk. When she couldn't get Yancey to listen. When she couldn't get him to leave well enough alone, she cooked and she cleaned.

Fortunately, she had a growing son perfectly capable of eating her out of house and home and then some. Nothing ever went to waste with Spencer around. About that, at least, she couldn't complain. A good thing since she had plenty of other complaints.

Enough that were she to spread them like a thin Asiago cheese and spinach mixture over phyllo dough and layer them in her hygienic sink, she'd fill it to the brim and need another. Not that she could get phyllo dough in Pit Stop, Texas. Or that anyone living here would even know what it was.

Except, perhaps, for Neva Case.

Ooh, but if Yancey went out there to the Barn and caused more trouble . . . Jeanne rubbed harder at the scoured surface. She swore if he did, this time she was going to carry through with her threat and kick him out of her—their bed— no matter how much she'd miss having him there.

He just couldn't try to run their son's life. Spencer was near enough to being a man to be making his own decisions about the girls he dated. And, quite frankly, she'd never had a problem with her son seeing Candy Roman.

The girl was black, yes, in a town filled with necks of the red variety, or Latino brown. That alone made her unconventional. But she reinforced it with the way she dressed. The way—and colors—she wore her hair. Still, she was a good girl with a real head on her shoulders. She was creative. She was smart and charming, and quite beautiful in a young Whitney Houston or Gladys Knight sort of way.

Plus, she was here without being from here. She knew there was a lot more to the world than what could be found or experienced in Pit Stop. Pit Stop. A P.S. at the end of the road. Spencer could do a lot worse. At least seeing Candy romantically would give him more reason to come home than seeing his fuddy-duddy parents.

Ugh. Jeanne stripped off her rubber gloves. When had she gotten so old, thinking of herself as fuddy-duddy? She was only forty-two. Supposedly in her prime. Then again, she'd canceled her subscriptions to Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Oprah's magazine when the stove needed replacing and every penny counted. For all she knew, as out of touch as she was, she was over that dreadfully painful hill and sliding down fast.

From the front of the house came the sound of a truck on the drive, followed a minute later by the screen on the mud-room door banging against the frame. The mesh was already torn, and at this rate they'd be needing to change out the hinges and the springs, too. Then again, Spencer would be off to Lubbock in another month, and no one else ever let the door slam.

"Hey, Mom," her son called as he entered the kitchen. "I wanted to stop and let you know I'm not going to be around tonight for supper."

Jeanne blew her nose into the paper towels she'd used to dry her hands. She sniffed as quietly as she could before turning. "Then I guess it's a good thing I was only planning soup and sandwiches, isn't it?"

"Dad working late?" Spencer grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and opened the refrigerator door to graze.

Her son. Tall like his father, yet built like the star wide receiver he was. And such a typical teen. Full of life and hormones. Not to mention being a bottomless pit.

"Are you sure you don't want soup and a sandwich now?" she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the sink to watch him rummage.

"Nah. Me and Joe and Mike are heading over toward E.T." Earnestine Township. The kids in the area used the acronym as a joke, Earnestine being a place alien to everything they knew. "This kid, Jase Bremmer, who played football over there, him and his girlfriend are both missing. His dad's always been at all our games, so we thought we'd go hang out and make sure he's doing okay."

Jeanne felt a tight gripping pain in her side. What was that Yancey had said earlier? About Holden Wagner searching for a missing girl? This was not anything she wanted Spencer involved in. It was bad enough knowing where Yancey was going tonight. What he was doing. With whom.

"Okay, but why don't I grill all of y'all some burgers? You boys check in with your friend's father, and I'll get everything ready." She glanced up at the wall clock, which resembled a peach. "Say, be back here at seven?"

Spencer closed the refrigerator, bit off another chunk of apple then into the square of cheddar cheese he'd pilfered. "I don't know, Mom. I'm pretty sure there'll be a ton of food at the Bremmers'. And after I drop off the guys, .I'll probably head out to see Candy. Dad working late and all, the timing's pretty good."

Jeanne shook her head slowly. "Except the call your dad's seeing to tonight is out at the Barn. And it may have to do with your missing friend's girl."

She didn't know why she was telling Spencer anything. Yancey was good not to bring his work home, to keep what he could of his cases confidential, even when the Pit Stop phone lines would be burning up with the news.

He didn't talk about his work in front of Spencer because he didn't want to give their son the idea that the supposed excitement that went on here was anything when compared to the rest of the world. The world she and Yancey had chosen to leave behind because of what had happened to her. Because of what had truly happened to both of them.

"No way, really? Liberty's out at the Barn? Jase said her parents weren't into that crap about