Page 23 of The Way Back Home

“Ah,” I say.

“That one of Stevie Rae Mae’s?” He tilts his chin toward my sandwich.

“Yep.”

“Best brisket in the south,” August says.

I nod my head. “I’m thinking that’s not a false claim.”

“It ain’t. I been to every Podunk town in this great state. It’s the best.”

“Walking the railways, right?” I sit down on the concrete edge beside him, still far enough away so he won’t feel threatened. He nods. “Did you find what you were looking for out there?”

He laughs halfheartedly. “Kinda hard to find what you’re looking for if you don’t even know what it is.”

“I guess you’re right. That would be kind of difficult,” I agree. “I thought walkin’ the railways was illegal. How did you never get arrested?”

“I’m a Marine, darlin’. We’re like ninjas, only tougher,” he says, and I raise my eyebrows. Was that a flutter of my heart when he called me darlin’?Yep. I think it was. “I got approached by Rail Authority a bunch of times, I was always gone before they could come back or send a car out after me.” He frowns and glances down at his shoes. “That true, what you said in there?”

“About the stats.” I cringe. “You heard that?”

“No. I mean about your hoagie.”

Did he just make a joke with me?

I nod with a wry smile. “Yeah, it’s true.”

“Then what you’re doin’ matters.”

I gape at him with wide eyes. “Does that mean you want to be a part of the program?”

“No,” he says, and my chest deflates.No. Not maybe one day, or not just yet, but no. Definite. Final. Never to budge, no.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind—”

“I don’t need your program.”

“There’s no weakness in asking for help, August.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t need help; I need to be left alone.”

“Then that’s going to be disappointing for you, because you’re not alone. You have—”

My words are cut short by the church doors opening, and Doctor du Pont steps out. For a beat, his gaze roams over me unapologetically and then it lands on August. The two men eyeball each other for a long moment.

Jude is the first to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were out here with someone.”

August makes a derisive choking sound in the back of his throat and gets to his feet. “Would it matter if you did?”

“Excuse me?” Jude says, and I glance warily back and forth between the two of them.

“Will you tell Bett I’m waiting in the car?” August says, without even looking at me.

My shoulders sag, because I’m sitting on the church steps in a skirt that’s ripped all the way up to my panties, holding a now soggy sandwich, and I just yelled at the occupants of this town, pretty much eradicating any possibility of them ever getting behind Paws for Cause. All I want to do is hightail it out of here on my bike, but I nod, even though his back is to me, and say, “Sure.”

Jude lets out a sigh and turns to me. “Some of us have tried talking to him, but August Cotton doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to.”

I clear my throat and set my sandwich down, attempting to cover my exposed thigh as best I can. It’s a dismal substitute for fabric, but it’s all I got.