Riders (Riders, #1)(7)

Hobbling past the moving boxes, I made it to the front door and stepped outside. The concrete walkway felt cool under my right foot; my left was safely encased in the air cast.

Half Moon Bay, where I grew up, is a small town southwest of San Francisco right on the Pacific Ocean. It’s a fishing town and a surfing town and the smell there is a combination of lobster traps and highway exhaust and tourist restaurants. You know the smell of fish and chips? That’s home for me. A hundred percent, it’s home. It’s the best smell in the world. I’d missed it, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about the move. Soon this wouldn’t be home. Where would my mom go? And everywhere I looked I saw memories of my dad. The street, where we used to throw the baseball. The driveway, where he used to wash his truck. His workshop, in the garage.

I’d already lost him. Was I going to lose these memories of him, too?

My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Collins, was out tending the roses along her picket fence. Mrs. C had just retired after being a nurse for forty years. Her husband had flown F-4s for the Air Force in Vietnam. Mrs. C had never had kids, so she’d sort of adopted Anna and me as unofficial grandkids. She loved to bake and had this great sense of humor. The day I enlisted, she brought over an olallieberry pie with a note that said, Dear Gideon, The Army is a fine path too, I suppose.

As much as I liked her, I was in no mood to talk. But I shuffled over to her anyway, because I knew my mom would never hear the end of it if I didn’t say hello.

“Hey, Mrs. C,” I said, trying to settle myself down. The personal anger atmosphere I’d developed was still with me, this searing heat that seeped from my skin. “How you doing today?”

“Gideon?” Her eyes met mine. They seemed foggy, like she wasn’t really focusing on me. And she’d frozen in place, letting the long red rose she’d just clipped fall to the grass.

“Mrs. Collins? You all right?”

She blinked. “Of course I am. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t say you did. What is it you want?” she demanded, her cheeks jiggling.

I didn’t really register her question right away. It seemed too harsh, and her gaze had gone from foggy to granite. “I was just walking to the beach.”

Actually I’d been hoping she’d heard about my accident and would offer to bake me a get-well pie, but not anymore. She was starting to freak me out.

“Liar.” She pointed the clippers at me. “You’re not going to the beach, young man. All you’re doing is standing there wasting my time!”

“Uh, what?” I didn’t understand. This was the little old lady who asked me to catch and release house spiders. Who smiled when she was sitting on her porch—alone. I mean … wasting her time? She lived for visits from me and Anna.

“Get on your way!” she yelled. She pulled off a gardening glove and tossed it at me. I dodged, but not very well with the cast and the crutches, and it smacked me on the back. “Scat!”

That sounded like a good idea to me. I dragged myself down the street, confused and shaken up. I made a mental note to talk to my mom. Mrs. C was getting up there in age. Maybe it was time someone checked her out.

I hobbled past the Marshburns’ and the Harringtons’ down to the end of our court. I knew better than to head into the sand with my injuries, so I stopped at the trailhead. Beyond the dunes and beneath the fog, the ocean was there, big and dependable. You could always count on the ocean to be the ocean.

As I stood there, I realized I still felt no pain in my leg or my arm. My doctors had been way off on their estimates for my recovery. A year, they’d told me. No way. Six months was my new target for getting back to Benning. Why not? Physically, I was feeling way better than I expected. Mentally, I had a full tank of frustration and anger to fuel me. And my pre-Army life offered nothing I wanted. My buddies and my sister were away at college. And with the house selling, I wouldn’t even have that anymore. I had to get out of there.

Down the beach, I spotted the Harringtons’ dog loping across the shallow waves. Jackson was more grizzly bear than Labrador. He’d been my running partner before I left home. I called him, and smiled as he came bounding over.

Ten feet shy of me, he dug his paws into the sand and stood tall, ears on high alert like he didn’t recognize me.

“Easy, boy. It’s me.” I’d known him since he was only a couple of weeks old.

His lips curled and he bared his teeth, letting out a low, rumbling growl.

“Jackson, it’s me.”

He charged before I got the words out, his hackles lifting, his mouth snapping.

I swung my crutch forward. “Jackson, back!”

But he kept snarling and lunging at me no matter what I yelled, pushing me back toward sand where I knew I’d lose my footing. I thought ahead. If I fell, I’d use my arm with the cast to shield me from his bites.

I’d just stepped off the asphalt when Jackson stopped. His ears pricked up. Then he took off, responding to the voice I could now hear calling him up the street.

I watched him disappear around the side of the Harringtons’ house, my heart banging against my chest.

What was that?

I’d had enough fresh air for the day. I hustled home, relieved that Mrs. C had gone inside, too. Shooting through my front door, I came face-to-face with my mom.