Baby, Come Home. Stephanie Bond

candy bar wrappers and an empty box of chocolate donuts. In hindsight, sugar and cocoa hadn’t been the wisest stimulant for the long drive. She was wired, and every sense seemed to be firing on all cylinders.

      Despite the winter month, the north Georgia mountains were plenty colorful, with soaring evergreens thriving in red clay, and banks of snow high on rock ledges. Cottony clouds hung in a sky of the clearest, deepest blue…the color of Kendall Armstrong’s eyes.

      She was, she conceded, a nervous wreck about seeing him again. For a week she’d been giving herself pep talks to steel herself against the onslaught of emotions she knew would hit her, but she wasn’t sure the mental gymnastics had done any good. Tony, as she’d expected, wasn’t happy about her leaving. Of course, he wasn’t happy about many things these days, so it was hard to pinpoint if she was the cause of his discontent or just a target.

      When she turned off the state road onto the more narrow one that would take her to Sweetness, a hot flush climbed her neck. When she’d left this place, she hadn’t planned on ever coming back. Now, it felt as if the years away were collapsing. The landscape had changed somewhat, had suffered from the decade of neglect after the tornado. Kudzu vine encompassed entire copses of trees and hillsides. She knew from industry journals just how concerned civil engineers in the South were over the encroaching plant. It was referred to as the “mile-a-minute vine” that could consume bridges and overpasses in a matter of weeks.

      But the surroundings became more cultivated as she entered the outskirts of the small town. The road was newly paved, she noticed, and wider than before. The fluorescent center and shoulder paint lines looked freshly applied. A low guardrail might seem unnecessary to newcomers, but she knew the railing would keep weeds at bay, and serve as a hindrance for wild animals to wander onto the road.

      Her first sign of civilization was a car coming in the opposite direction. Once upon a time, she would’ve recognized not just the car, but the person driving it. The fact that she didn’t know either one made her feel like an outsider.

      When she rounded the last curve before the straightaway into town, she glanced to the left for a glimpse of the Evermore Bridge that had always welcomed people into town. Marcus had told her it had blown away, but she wasn’t prepared for the sinking sensation in her stomach over the yawning gape in the landscape where the bridge had once stood. In fact, if a person didn’t know better, they might not know the fine landmark had ever existed. From an engineer’s point of view, she should be glad the demolition of the existing structure would be minimal, but it was alarming that something that had been so solid, so…steadfast could be there one minute, and gone the next.

      Like Kendall…

      The site where the mercantile had once stood was equally haunting. Once a hubbub of activity where farmers bought feed and lumber and women bought fabric and books, it was now an overgrown plateau covered with scrub brush and spindly saplings.

      Just when she’d started to think she would recognize nothing about this place, Amy looked up to see the water tower perched high on a ridge and her heart unfurled. The inverted white capsule-shaped tank was topped by a pointed roof that resembled a hat. It looked like a stalwart soldier, standing watch and heralding, “Welcome to Sweetness.” When Nikki Salinger had relocated to the town, she’d called Amy from the water tower because it was the only place her phone could get cell service. As Amy drove closer, she could make out graffiti on the side of the tank—giant red letters that spelled out “I

Nikki.”

      Amy smiled. It looked as if Porter Armstrong had resumed the age-old tradition of proclaiming love publicly with a can of spray paint.

      And apparently, it had worked. The last time she’d spoken with Nikki, her friend had sounded deliriously happy and in love. Amy felt guilty about not letting Nikki know she was coming, but honestly, she was afraid she might change her mind at the last moment. She’d sworn Marcus to secrecy.

      The fact that the historically disagreeable man was being so accommodating only reinforced her belief that Marcus knew more about her life than he was letting on.

      The approach into Sweetness was long and flat, giving her a few more moments to collect herself and figure out what to do when she arrived. She slowed as buildings came into view in the distance. To the right was a broken paved road that led up to Clover Ridge where the Armstrongs had lived. She’d spent many hours there with Kendall and, after he’d left to join the Air Force, visiting his mother, Emily. Her heart squeezed. Emily Armstrong was the mother she’d always wanted, kind and cheerful and loving. Amy had been loath to leave her company and go home to her aunt who was perennially bitter that Amy’s parents had died in a car accident when she was a toddler and left Amy for her to raise. Aunt Heddy always said that Kendall Armstrong only wanted one thing from a girl like her. In hindsight, she had been right.

      After Amy left Sweetness, she’d wondered if Emily Armstrong had persuaded her son that Amy wasn’t the right girl for him, that she wasn’t good enough to be part of their family. Now, though, she conceded it had been a defense mechanism. If Kendall had rejected her because of her coarse upbringing, he had done it on his own.

      She tapped the brake again as she approached what she presumed was the new downtown. The rise where their high school had once stood was now a windmill farm, the enormous white blades turning like a flower garden in motion. Amy kept driving, then squinted. The exterior of most of the buildings looked as if they’d been built with a patchwork of materials—a school, a General Store, a large structure with a wraparound porch that she surmised was the boardinghouse Nikki had mentioned, and other unidentifiable establishments that seemed to be bustling with activity. She stopped to allow a group of children to cross the road in front of her vehicle. From the armloads of books and sagging backpacks, it appeared that school had just let out. Amy smiled when they gawked—the town was obviously still small enough for everyone to recognize a stranger.

      She’d dressed carefully in slacks and low-heeled leather boots, a tailored blouse and jacket. She’d had her unruly red curls tamed with a relaxer and wore it pulled back at the nape of her neck. When she’d left Sweetness, she’d been a ragamuffin tomboy. She was determined to return as a successful professional. A glance down at her collar elicited a moan—a smear of chocolate marred the look she’d so carefully orchestrated. So much for sophistication. Amy tucked the collar underneath the lapel of her jacket and gave a self-deprecating laugh.

      You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.

      Her fingers drummed nervously on the steering wheel as she pondered her next move. She was considering calling Marcus or Nikki when, up ahead, she spotted a familiar sign from the website— Sweetness Family Medical Center. Nikki would probably be there. She’d stop first to say hello to her friend…and buy more time before she had to face Kendall.

      Kendall pushed back from his laptop, then walked over to a color laser printer in the corner of the new media room in the boardinghouse to pick up the aerial view printouts. The presentation for the Department of Energy representative had been tweaked and retweaked until it was damn near perfect.

      But they were still waiting for the guy to arrive.

      “Kendall?”

      He turned to see Rachel Hutchins, the informal spokesperson for the original group of women who had arrived from Broadway, standing there in all her blondeness. She was a little flashy for his tastes, but a treat for the eyes, for sure, with her long legs and tight sweaters. It had been months since he’d place that ad—Amy obviously wasn’t coming home. Maybe he owed it to himself to start…looking.

      He smiled. “Do you need something, Rachel?”

      She dimpled. “A picture hung in my bedroom.”

      He almost balked, then told himself he was over-reacting. “No problem. Let me shut down here.” He slid the color printouts into a folder, then stashed every thing in his laptop bag. Carrying the bag, he followed her through the hallway of the boardinghouse they’d built for the women they’d attracted with the promise