Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

out Ryan had sprained his wrist falling off his skateboard. He’d told those boys to go easy on the other sports while they were heading into play-off contention. They’d been having a marginally good season, and now this.

Cutting the motor, Drew sat in the Hummer a long moment. He didn’t feel like going to the movies. All he wanted to do was sit in the hot tub, smoke a cigar and veg out. But he’d promised Mackenzie they’d go to a movie, and he had to make a good showing of trying to be a good dad. But, damn, it was difficult.

This was harder than he’d thought.

She’d been really pushing him lately, almost intentionally, as if she was trying to get a rise out of him. He didn’t want to yell at her or anything, but he could only take so much.

He’d gotten his cell phone bill in the mail, and had a heart attack when he saw she’d text-messaged $396.00 worth of messages. Who knew that many damn people? He’d questioned her about it, but only mildly, not wanting to rock the boat. She said she hadn’t realized she’d sent that many. He suggested she just pick up the phone and dial the number after 7:00 p.m. instead. She’d replied that texting was much funner.

So Drew let it go.

Then he came home and she’d left dirty dishes all over the kitchen counter. Leftover scrambled egg on the plates, empty milk glasses, dirty pans and utensils in the sink, and the butter had been left out on top of the stove and had melted from the heat of the pilot light. He cleaned it all up, didn’t say a word, when he’d really wanted to lay into her but good and tell her he didn’t live like a pig.

He liked things neat and uncluttered. Simple. Basic. Keep it neutral. Don’t personalize. Open. Nothing closed off. It stemmed from his childhood and not wanting to feel suffocated. The way his dad changed jobs and his mom’s moods swung from hot and cold, Drew had always needed space—wide-open and with nothing in his way. He liked a clear view. Uncomplicated.

Opening the SUV’s door, he tugged in a tired breath. This movie playing in Hailey was some teen comedy, and he really wasn’t in the mood. If he’d been a drinker, he’d have had a shot to take the edge off and release the tension of the day. But those thoughts were long since gone and he’d turned to other things for self-medication.

A glass of orange juice gave him a bit of a sugar rush, and was almost just as good. He wasn’t much for drinking pop, not without rum in the Coke, so he’d all but given up soft drinks.

Drew let himself inside and was thinking about drinking the juice straight from the carton, when he paused in the entryway and gazed around. For a second, he thought he’d come into the wrong place.

“What the f—”

That last word was never uttered, fading before he even got the door closed.

The main living area was decorated with white mini holiday lights—over the windows, on top of the bookcase, by the wet bar. The two leather sofas that faced one another had throw blankets over them. He recognized both the lights and throws—they were his. The lights only went up at Christmas, and he didn’t do it himself. He paid someone. The soft yarn throws had been given to him, or maybe he’d bought them—he couldn’t remember, but he didn’t like them sitting out on the furniture. They only cluttered. As far as he could remember, he’d never used either. They’d been in the linen closet for years.

The expensive coffee table sitting between the couches had two boxes of facial tissues on it, and the focal point was his pitcher’s glove, the same glove he’d had dipped in bronze and engraved with the date he’d retired it. The glove’s pocket wasn’t that deep, but it was filled to the brim with peanut M&M’s. This was his No Hitter glove he’d earned at a team dinner. It had a place in his trophy cabinet, not on the damn coffee table.

Peanut M&Ms were his favorite, but he’d never set a bowl of them out.

On top of the fireplace mantel were rows of frames. About a dozen of them. And filled with pictures. He went over and looked. He froze. Those pictures he’d kept of Mackenzie all these years—they’d been put into the frames. Drew’s gaze went down the line of photos, pausing as he found one of Sheriff Roger Lewis and Deputy Clyde Cooper.

“What the hell?” he said aloud. He picked up the picture frame and saw the bend in the paper. He recognized it as a cutout from the town’s local travel brochure that included a brief bio on the two lawmen. Looking farther down, he found a framed portrait of Opal’s Diner from the same brochure, then one of Ada in front of Claws and Paws.

Not sure which way to go, Drew found himself headed for the kitchen. It smelled as if Lucy had been here, the aromas of chicken and garlic filling the air.

Once in the kitchen, he paused and took it all in. He wasn’t sure what to hone in on first—his highly prized, valued and autographed baseballs that were now residing in the fruit bowl as if they were a bunch of apples—or the collage of things stuck onto the front of his refrigerator with magnets.

He stopped at the stainless doors, gazing at everything. There was a grocery list with several items listed:

Kleenex

      Lip Gloss

      Fun

There were cutouts from magazines on the refrigerator along with household things. Pictures of dogs, cats, an Armani suit taken from the pages of GQ, a seascape, a perfume bottle, a Hummer ad. Then there were pizza coupons, a grocery checkout receipt, the schedule for the Wood Ridge Little League, a picture that he’d never seen of Mackenzie—of her sitting on the back porch with