Not my home, p.1
Not My Home, page 1
LOOK FOR THESE EXCITING WESTERN SERIES
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHORS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J.A. JOHNSTONE
The Mountain Man
Luke Jensen: Bounty Hunter
Brannigan’s Land
The Jensen Brand
Smoke Jensen: The Early Years
Preacher and MacCallister
Fort Misery
The Fighting O’Neils
Perley Gates
MacCoole and Boone
Guns of the Vigilantes
Shotgun Johnny
The Chuckwagon Trail
The Jackals
The Slash and Pecos Westerns
The Texas Moonshiners
Stoneface Finnegan Westerns
Ben Savage: Saloon Ranger
The Buck Trammel Westerns
The Death and Texas Westerns
The Hunter Buchanon Westerns
Will Tanner, Deputy US Marshal
Old Cowboys Never Die
Go West, Young Man
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
NOT MY HOME
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J.A. JOHNSTONE
Pinnacle Books
Kensington Publishing Corporation
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
Teaser chapter
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Copyright © 2024 by J.A. Johnstone
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Following the death of William J. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-5058-1
ISBN: 13: 978-0-7860-5058-1
ISBN: 13: 978-0-7860-5059-8 (eBook)
CHAPTER 1
Randall Early never understood what the phrase, you can’t go back home, really meant until he’d come back to his childhood home of Springerville, South Carolina, four months ago with his new bride. He’d been excited to rescue her from the big-city life and worries of Chicago to the place he’d waxed poetic about ever since they’d met in basic training. To her credit, Ashley was game for it, happy to start their new lives in the place that made him happiest.
A lot had changed since he’d left to serve in the Army for five years, with another year living with Ashley in Oak Park. Sure, when they walked down Main Street there was still the Iron Works Bar and Grill with its tattered front awning, Fuller’s Luncheonette with the best biscuits and gravy in all of South Carolina, and Banks Fill and Go. Randall had gotten his hair buzzed just the other day by Al Keene, who had been cutting his hair since he was old enough to sit in the chair by himself. Mrs. Wallace, still chubby and bubbly, manned the realtor office her late husband had left her.
From the outside looking in, Springerville was trapped in amber.
But outsiders were the problem.
A few of Randall’s classmates and childhood friends were still kicking around, now with budding families of their own, but whenever he walked or drove around town, he saw too many faces to count that weren’t familiar to him. According to his father, there had been an influx of folks from all points of the compass seeking “the slower pace of life,” now that they could work remotely. Most of all, they came seeking to get more bang for their buck. Unfortunately, their money brought a rising tide in the price for goods and services, which was fine for them with their big-city paychecks, but was making life a struggle for those who had called Springerville home for generations.
The hope of Randall and Ashley was to buy a house, preferably somewhere close to his parents now that his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The problem was, the price of the few houses left on the market were astronomical. Because of that, they’d had to move in with his parents, which made it easy for Randall to help care for his mother, spelling his dad so he could take a moment for himself from time to time. It wasn’t easy for Ashley, no matter how much she told him she loved being there. It was one thing to uproot your life, and another to navigate the first year of marriage while living with your in-laws.
Which is why they needed tonight.
“You want some more?” he asked Ashley, holding the half empty bottle of chilled white wine.
“Don’t mind if I do,” she replied, with a smile that never failed to quicken his heart.
He reached into the cooler and got another bottle of beer for himself, because this moment was too special for cans. A lesson his father had taught him long ago.
“I haven’t seen this many stars since we were deployed in Guam,” Ashley said.
They sat on a blanket on the eighth green at the Spring Golf Course. Randall used to caddy here when he was a kid, hitting the links every now and then when he turned eighteen, just before he headed off to serve. Back then, like the housing, it was affordable. It had also been open to the public and getting a tee time was never a problem.
Now, the course was private, and the membership fee was beyond rational. Most of the locals had been priced out, having to travel as far as an hour or more away to play a round. Randall may not have had the expendable funds to buy a membership, but he still knew where the breaks were in the surrounding fences. The eighth green was on top of a hilly section that overlooked a pond and the rolling greens below, and the panoply of stars above. He’d always wanted to take a girl out here when he was a caddy.
At this moment, sitting close to his new bride, he was glad he’d been so woefully unsuccessful before Ashley. It made the moment even more special.
As she rested her head on his chest, he said, “I know you’ve been wanting to talk about having a baby and I’ve been telling you we should wait until we’re more settled.”
“I get it, Randy. We have time. Besides, your father keeps telling us to enjoy the honeymoon.” She snickered and Randall joined her. It was hard to fully enjoy the honeymoon when your parents were right down the hall.
“I was wrong.”
Ashley sat up and searched his eyes, looking to see if he was playing a joke. Randy smiled.
“I mean it. I can’t think of anything more important and wonderful than bringing a new life into this world . . . with you.”
Tears welled in his and Ashley’s eyes. “Do you really mean that?”
He cupped her face in his hand. “I do. I really, really do.”
“But what about waiting until we have a little more, you know, security?”
Randy kissed her long and lovingly. “My parents had me when they barely had two nickels to rub together. We’ll figure it out. All three of us.”
Ashley threw her arms around him, quietly sobbing into the side of his neck. When she settled down, she said, “Or the four of us.”
“Four?”
“You know twins run in my family.”
“Oh boy.”
Ashley gently pushed him to the ground while unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh boy is right.”
Their clothes were cast off with practiced aban
Neither of them heard the approaching footsteps.
Randy felt a sharp kick in his side. It was hard enough to roll him off his wife. With his hand clasped to his ribs, he looked up to find they were surrounded by four men, all of them wearing hoodies and black surgical masks so he couldn’t make out their features. One of the men had grabbed all of their clothes and rifled through the pockets until he found Randy’s wallet.
“Got it,” he told his shadowed cohorts.
“What about her?” one of them asked, pointing at Ashley who was desperately trying to cover her nakedness.
Randy wanted to jump to his feet and take on the four men. What was surely a broken rib and realizing he was outnumbered and nude kept him on the ground. He shifted on the grass so he could position himself in front of his wife.
“Just take the wallet and go,” Randy said. He had twenty-three dollars in cash and a lone credit card, along with his driver’s license. It could all be easily replaced.
“What about hers?”
Ashley gripped Randy’s arms, pressing herself against him. “I don’t have a wallet, dumbass,” she said. “You got what you wanted. Now go before things get worse.” Ashley could be tougher than most of the men Randy had served with. She could also let her temper get the best of her.
One of the men chuckled. “Get worse? For who? Us? I don’t think so.”
The man had an accent Randall couldn’t place. He was certainly not from around these parts, that was for sure.
Randy got to his feet, still clutching his side. “You’ve gotten all you’re going to get. You should call that a win and go back to whatever hole you came out from.”
The men creeped forward. Randy couldn’t see their eyes in the gloom, but he could feel their gazes locked on his wife and sense their intention.
“Step back,” Randy said.
Ashely was on her feet now, unabashed by her nudity. They both raised their fists and took a fighter’s stance. “We don’t want to hurt you,” Ashley said.
“But we will,” Randy added.
He heard the metallic click of a friction lock baton expanding. He knew the sound well. He had one of his own . . . back home.
“I don’t think so,” the one with the baton said.
Before Randy could react, slowed by his broken ribs, the baton cracked the side of his knee. He went down hard, lifting his arm up just in time to take the brunt of the next blow aimed at his head. Randy lashed out with his leg and connected with the thug’s ankle. The hooded piece of trash landed beside him, but that didn’t stop him from bludgeoning Randy with the baton.
Ashley cried out. The sound of fists on flesh cut through the still night air as she tried to fight off her attackers.
Even she was no match for three men who each must have outweighed her by fifty or more pounds. They drove her to the green. Randy reached out for her but received a sharp blast to his wrist for the effort.
“Get the hell off of her!”
“Randy!”
He rose just in time to see the baton headed for his eyes.
And then he saw and felt nothing.
CHAPTER 2
Augustus “Gus” Fuller turned on the flat top before he hit the lights. He liked getting to the luncheonette before sunrise, when everything was still and peaceful. While the flat top warmed up, he would go in back and make the biscuit mix and get started on the sausage gravy. Then he’d whip up some pancake and waffle batter.
Gus had called Springerville, South Carolina, his home all of his life. His family could be traced all the way back to when the town was incorporated back in 1827. Springerville was the very definition of a bucolic suburb, with the nearest big city being Charleston forty miles to its east. The tree-lined business district consisted of four blocks with one streetlight at their midway point. From his front window, he could see clearly from the library at the southern end to the Iron Works Bar and Grill in the north. City hall was just a block away, with its grassy oval complete with large gazebo that hosted most town events for as long as anyone could remember.
His grandfather had opened the luncheonette to great fanfare before Gus was a twinkle in his father’s eye. It had become a staple of Springerville over the years, host to every hungry belly in town, four marriage proposals, one wedding, innumerable high school lunches and book club breakfasts, hotly contested bridge tournaments, as well as a meeting place for folks to talk of frivolous and serious topics, all over a cup of coffee and fresh biscuits slathered with butter.
Even after his stint in the military, serving during wartime in the Middle East, there was never a doubt in Gus’s mind that he would return to the town and luncheonette he loved. Being in service to others gave him true joy, which is why he never missed a day of work, still feeling that thrill of anticipation during his morning prep work.
Gus paused for a moment and sipped on a steaming mug of coffee.
A shadow passed by the glass front door and tapped on the window. Gus raised his hand in greeting, not that Maddie Jackson could see him in the dark. She lived a few blocks down and grew some of the best raspberries and blueberries around. An early riser like Gus, she left several cartons of berries beside the door. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, but she did have her cane, so Gus didn’t worry about her getting hurt on her way home. He paid Maddie for her wonderful produce on Mondays, always giving her a little more than she asked for, knowing she was on a fixed income and how difficult the economy was making life for people like Maddie. Heck, it wasn’t just her. It seemed like everyone was feeling the squeeze in Springerville. Well, at least those who’d called it home for most, if not all, of their lives.
The bread delivery would be next, in about fifteen minutes or so. Gus remembered when he was a kid and they had a milkman that delivered to the houses in the neighborhood. He wondered what had become of Mr. Keene, their local dairy man. Where did milkmen go when there was no more milk to deliver?
Gus put the biscuits in the oven and laid out three pounds of bacon strips on the flat top to get them going under the yellow hood light. His father used to deep fry the bacon, but Gus’s wife, Annette, now gone ten years, had insisted he at least try to serve healthier fare. It didn’t help that Gus’s father and grandfather, the prior owners of the luncheonette who loved their cooking as much as their patrons did, had died too young of heart disease.
If Annette had been around now to see all of these horrid plant-based foods, she would have pressured Gus to add them to the menu (and drive his customers away). He never wanted to know how plant bacon tasted.
When the clock turned five thirty Gus threw on all of the lights, unlocked the door, and brought in the bread and berries.
Like moths to a flame, his early-morning regulars came ambling in five minutes later.
His good friend Chris Banks sidled up to the counter. Gus poured him a cup of coffee without his needing to ask. There was also Ron and Mike, best friends who used to own a restaurant in the next town but had shifted over to home security that paid more and involved a lot less stress. There was a sudden need for their services in Springerville and every other town in the county. Ron always took orange juice while Mike preferred his coffee black. In came Sarah Birch, who owned the launderette three blocks down. She opened at six for the folks who wanted to get a load in before work. Gus slid a mug of warm water and a box of tea bags her way.
“I’m feeling like blueberry pancakes today,” Banks said.
“And just how does that feel?” Sarah asked. “I’m genuinely curious.”
“Har har. And here I was ready to pay for your breakfast today.”
“I’d rather you pay for my dinner. Preferably someplace nice with menus that aren’t laminated with bad pictures of the food on them.”
Gus smiled as he put some bread in the toaster for Ron and Mike. Sarah had been chasing after Banks for as long as he could remember. She may have been seven years older than Chris, but she was still a catch, at least in Gus’s opinion. Banks couldn’t get over her little sister breaking his heart back in high school.
