The Prodigal's Return. Lynn Bulock

didn’t need to be Southern California.

      When the phone rang she dropped her towel in surprise, even though she’d been waiting for it, listening for it, for over an hour. Her fingers hesitated over the handset of the cordless phone. Answering it would end her suspense, and she wasn’t sure she wanted that.

      She should have flown to St. Louis to be in Friedens for her father’s surgery. But nobody won an argument with Hank Collins, even when he was arguing from a hospital bed, so in the end she sat in California and waited for the call. Everyone had assured her that her dad would be even more upset if she came all the way home again so soon after her trip to his wedding.

      So here she was, in a standoff with her own telephone. It rang again. No sense in assuming that it was Claire. It could be anybody. She picked it up. “Hello.”

      “It’s me.” The sound of her sister’s voice made Laurel search for her chair with her free hand behind her. She suddenly felt too weak to stand and listen to the news. Not that there was anything in Claire’s tone that said the news was going to be bad. It was just that hearing her voice made Laurel realize just how long she’d been waiting, almost holding her breath.

      “Tell me it all went fine.” Her slightly panicky voice bounced off the pale yellow kitchen walls, the pristine tile and sparkling glass.

      “It really did. I can’t imagine how many people were praying us through this one,” Claire said. She sounded almost as shaky as Laurel felt.

      The conversation passed by in a blur, and before Laurel knew it she was holding a quiet phone in her hand again. She realized she hadn’t told Claire she’d finally made the decision to move back to Friedens. That was probably for the best. Claire would just say she was overreacting to Dad’s surgery.

      Maybe she was, partly. Laurel was pretty sure this decision to move was brought on by much more than her dad’s health.

      It took her a moment to realize that she needed to hang up the phone. Doing so, she breathed the first of several silent prayers of thanks that her dad was okay.

      Her lanky teenager stumbled into the kitchen a moment later. “Was that Aunt Claire or Aunt Carrie?”

      He pushed a shock of brown hair out of his face. Laurel could see concern in those brown eyes that looked so much like his father’s.

      “It was Aunt Claire. And everything is fine. Grandpa made it through the surgery and is in recovery already.”

      A smile lit up his face. Laurel treasured it. Jeremy smiling that broadly wasn’t something she saw every day. There were a lot of challenges to raising a fourteen-year-old boy alone, and one of the biggest was putting up with his adolescent moods.

      Before she could give him any more details, or even a hug, the phone rang again. Jeremy picked it up, talking to the person on the other end just long enough that Laurel began to think it was one of his friends. Just when she’d turned to get herself a cool drink of water, Jeremy handed her the phone.

      “It’s Grandpa Sam.”

      Laurel realized that she should have called her father-in-law once she got off the phone with Claire. No one there in Friedens would have thought to tell the older gentleman how Hank’s surgery had gone, though he’d be interested.

      “Hello, Mr. Sam.” Nobody aside from Jeremy called the elder Sam Harrison anything but “Mr. Sam.” “I guess you’re calling about Dad?”

      Sam’s voice on the phone was gruff. “Not exactly. I hope he’s doing real well. The shorter time I have to deal with that idiot deputy he put in charge, the better.”

      “Oh?” His tone told her there was a story here, and Laurel knew he didn’t need much urging to keep telling it, whatever it was. Mr. Sam was never at a loss for words.

      “The fool sure isn’t the same caliber of law officer as your father. Do you know what he had the nerve to tell me this morning?” He didn’t even pause for breath to let her guess. “He said that if he caught me breaking even the slightest traffic law in Lurlene, even failure to signal a turn, he was going to take my keys. Ban me from driving within the city limits of Friedens. Can you imagine that?”

      “I hardly think that’s legal.” Even when the individual in question was eighty-two and his car was an aqua vintage Cadillac that was a city block long, that didn’t strike Laurel as right. “Maybe you can lay low for a little while and he’ll forget about you.”

      There was a harrumph from Mr. Sam’s end of the phone. “Maybe. You haven’t met Tripp yet, have you? He’s a pretty persistent guy. And up until today I would have said he had good sense, too.”

      “Having good sense” was the older gentleman’s highest compliment. It was also one that was instantly withdrawn when someone crossed him. “Do you think a call from me would help?” Laurel asked.

      “Not likely. I mean, what could you do? You’re two thousand miles away.”

      “I could be a lot closer.” The words came out in a rush. “I’m really regretting not being there for my dad and my sisters. How would you feel about a houseguest for a while?”

      There was a pause. “One houseguest?”

      “No, you know it would be two.”

      Mr. Sam cleared his throat. “As long as it would be the two of you, I think I could stand it for a while. Maybe that would keep me from tangling with Tripp again. Your father won’t be back at work for a while, will he?”

      “Afraid not. Although if I know Dad, he won’t stay down a moment longer than necessary.”

      “Good. Maybe if you two come out and keep me company, I can find a way to keep my car keys.” They made small talk for a few moments, and then Mr. Sam hung up, conscious that he was spending money on long distance in the middle of the day.

      Each call seemed to strengthen Laurel’s resolve that going home was the right thing to do. Talking to Mr. Sam wasn’t as disturbing as getting bad news about her father, but it was close. She worried about Sam’s father, living alone in a large house, driving his huge car and getting into who-knows-how-much trouble around town. He’d been cantankerous as a younger man and hadn’t aged gracefully.

      How long would Jeremy have his grandfathers around? Laurel knew she was doing him a disservice by living as far away from them as she did. Mr. Sam didn’t hold with new things like e-mail. Even when Sam had gotten his father a computer before he’d gotten terribly sick, Mr. Sam hadn’t take to the new means of communication. And though money wasn’t a problem for him in any way, he still didn’t pick up the phone and call long distance very often.

      Not that her father was much better. He’d taken to the computer a little, out of necessity. Even a police department the size of Friedens’s did a lot of work on the computer these days. So naturally his new familiarity with it all spilled over into Hank’s personal life. Marrying Gloria had helped him overcome his long distance phobia a little, too. Laurel knew she’d heard from him more in the past two months than she had in previous years.

      With this sudden health problem, that communication felt like a blessing. She felt secure knowing that if things went terribly wrong, she wouldn’t agonize over what she hadn’t said. She’d healed whatever wounds she had with her father many years before, and now told him she loved him at every opportunity. That was one of the many legacies Sam had left her. She wasn’t shy anymore about telling anyone close to her that she loved them. Time was too short for that.

      Now that she didn’t have to sit around and wait on a phone call, Laurel got busy around the house. Today she was especially glad she’d never given in to Sam’s argument that they needed household help. Even when Sam had been well and working from home, there wasn’t much to clean up after three people. Most days about an hour took care of all the housework she needed to do. Another hour spent doing laundry, and maybe as much time running errands left her with a lot of time on her hands.

      She liked being home where Jeremy could