Lone Star Longing (Hearts of Broken Wheel, #1) Read online

  Lone Star Longing

  Hearts of Broken Wheel, Volume 1

  MJ Fredrick

  Published by MJ Fredrick, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  LONE STAR LONGING

  First edition. January 23, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 MJ Fredrick.

  Written by MJ Fredrick.

  Also by MJ Fredrick

  Cascada Encantada

  Christmas in the Cowboy's Arms

  Kisses Sweeter Than Wine

  Hearts of Broken Wheel

  Lone Star Longing

  Lost in a Boom Town

  Twirling with Trouble

  Standalone

  Smitten in a Small Town

  Sunrise Over Texas

  A Ghostly Charm

  Watch for more at MJ Fredrick’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By MJ Fredrick

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One | TWELVE YEARS LATER

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

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  Also By MJ Fredrick

  About the Author

  To my brother Dale, strong and steady

  Prologue

  LACEY DAVILA STEPPED up on the bus, but didn't remove the hood of the rain jacket that was keeping her dry. She didn't lift her gaze to meet that of any other student as she made her way to her seat, slinging her backpack to the seat so that it hit the side of the bus with a thud.

  “Hey,” Mrs. Driscoll, the bus driver, chided, barely waiting until Lacey followed her backpack before rolling the bus forward.

  Lacey tuned out out the chatter going on around her. She knew without looking who was on the bus: Poppy, Austin, Bridget, Sofia and Javi. She didn't want to listen to their boring, childish conversations.

  She’d heard her dad crying last night. Man, that was a horrible sound. Her dad, big and strong, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, crying because his wife had left with three of his kids. Would have been four, but Lacey insisted on staying. She couldn't leave her dad on his own, to take care of himself. He would forget to eat, he wouldn’t know how to do laundry, he would just be a mess without her. Her mother didn't need her, but her father definitely did.

  She didn't really know how to make things better, so she was just there, quiet, but there. She thought her dad appreciated that but she couldn’t be sure.

  She had a test today, otherwise she would have convinced her dad not to let her go to school in the downpour. Unlike her mother, he would have let her stay home. West Texas had few enough rainy days, and Lacey wished she was home, under her quilt with a non-school-related book. Spring Break was too long ago, and summer was too far away. Plus, she’d have to get a job this year because she was finally sixteen. Not a lot of possibilities for jobs in Broken Wheel, Texas.

  She didn't understand why her dad didn't want to live closer to the base in San Angelo. He had an hour commute every day, which was another reason her mom left. He was exhausted by the time he got home, and didn't help her, though she kept a list for him, right beside her list for Lacey, Dalton, Tanya and Luke.

  Maybe her dad didn't like being treated like one of his children, Lacey reasoned, though she didn't think her mom had the same thought. She just wanted help.

  Lacey wished she could sympathize with her mother more, but while she loved her mother, she saw how much her dad did for the family.

  She glanced up when the bus stopped and let Con McKay and his younger sister Claudia on. She sat up straighter. Con and Claudia never rode the bus. Con drove a beautiful red pickup, giving Claudia a ride, along with his girlfriend Britt. Lacey had heard, because Claudia was in her English class, that Con had gotten grounded for being out too late with Britt, and they were sentenced to ride the bus until the end of the school year, that their dad had taken the keys to that shiny red truck. Lacey figured there was more to the story, because she didn't think breaking curfew was worth losing your truck for almost two months.

  Claudia made her way to the back of the bus with Bridget Tippler, and Lacey felt a little guilty for not offering the seat beside her, but they weren’t friends, exactly. Lacey didn't have a lot of friends. She’d stopped making them in elementary school, when she had to leave them every two years when her dad got transferred.

  Con plopped a couple of seats behind Lacey, clearly not letting his punishment get him down as the other boys on the bus, all younger, greeted him like he was a rock star. Lacey could see where that would go to someone’s head, and he soaked up the admiration until they pulled up to Britt’s bus stop.

  Con rose as Britt stepped on, clearly not as at ease with Con’s punishment as he was, especially, Lacey figured, since her hair was plastered to her head from the short run from her bus shelter to the bus door. Con reached for her hand to pull her down the aisle and they dropped together on a different seat, Con nuzzling her damp hair.

  Lacey forced herself to turn away. Con was so handsome, and a god to all the girls at Douglas Consolidated High. She didn't have a crush on him, like most girls did, because she just didn’t, all right?

  She turned to look out the window at the pouring rain, the water rushing down the ditches at the side of the road. The rain on the roof of the bus was deafening. The boys behind her were shouting, but she wasn't going to waste the energy trying to figure out what they were saying to each other. Instead, she watched the sheets of rain through the window.

  Yeah, it would have been a great day to stay in bed and read.

  She was reaching into her backpack for a book, even though she didn’t like to read in a moving vehicle, when Mrs. Driscoll hit the brakes suddenly, tossing Lacey against the seat in front of her. She pulled her hand out of her backpack and looked up.

  Mrs. Driscoll was opening and closing her hands on the steering wheel as the bus sat at a complete stop. Lacey glanced back at her fellow passengers, then out the side window of the bus. The water was rushing downhill, and rising closer to the tires of the bus from the ditches on the side of the road. Lacey had to wipe away condensation as she pressed her head to the window and peered down. The road, mostly caliche, was eroding beneath them. Lacey tried to picture where they were on their route, but she truthfully never paid that much attention. She thought maybe the dry creek, because she thought she’d seen one of those gauges to measure the depth of the water. She didn't see the gauge now.

  She heard a scream from behind her—Claudia, Bridget or Britt?—as the bus jolted beneath them. And then the bus lurched forward.

  A knot formed in Lacey’s stoma
ch when she saw the rushing water ahead of them, the bus inching toward it. Another scream, this time certainly Britt, as the front of the bus swung sideways, pushed by the water. Lacey kept her head pressed to the glass to watch the progress as Mrs. Driscoll fought for control, losing as the bus resisted the rushing water. Lacey could see the water swelling as it came in contact with the body of the bus, churning brown and frothy up toward the window where she watched.

  Lacey snapped back from the glass, wanting to see the progress but fearing it at the same time.

  “Hey! Hey, the water’s coming in the bus! Hey!” Javi Saldivar shouted from the front of the bus, motioning toward the doors. “Hey!”

  Nearby, Mrs. Driscoll strained for control of the bus, but nothing she did was successful in getting the front wheels back on the road. Suddenly the bus pivoted, tossing Lacey out of her seat and across the aisle into Austin Driscoll, the bus driver’s son, who caught her head before she slammed it into his window.

  She couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own breathing and the roaring of the water and the screams of the other passengers. She tried to push herself off of Austin, but the bus was tilting, tilting.

  It landed on its side with a splash, and water was everywhere, pouring in through the windows beneath them, cascading over them from the floor. Her head was submerged for a moment, her legs trapped against the seat so she couldn't push herself upright. The water and the position of the bus kept her legs above her head, and even when she tried to put her hands on the window below her to push herself up, she couldn't.

  Lacey’s hand was wrapped around the strap of her backpack so she wouldn't lose it, but the thought raced through her mind...why did she need it? She didn't need anything in it, and she was going to drown holding onto it, weighing herself down. She worked frantically to unwrap it, but the water made the fabric hard to manipulate. Panic had her panting before Austin gripped her hand, snapped open a knife and sliced the backpack free. Then he shoved her, his hands on her shoulders and his feet against her stomach, to push her upright so her head was above the water.

  Only then did she realize she’d been pinning him below the water, too.

  She glanced around to see the others fighting to find their orientation. The seats made movement almost impossible, and with the bus sideways, they were standing on the windows, their bodies held in their spots with the seats below them and the seats above them.

  She saw someone—Con, she thought, reach for the hatch on the roof, one that looked too narrow to escape from. He popped it open, and the alarm blared, adding to the cacophony of rushing water and panicked cries.

  Water poured in through the opening, filling the bus and sending it spinning.

  A jolt sent Con underwater as the bus collided with something—tree? creek bank—crushing the roof near the doorway.

  “Here! Here!” Poppy shouted, and cranked the lever on the door on the side of the bus, that was now the top of the bus.

  Yes. Up. That was the direction they needed to go.

  Rain poured in, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the brown rushing water from the roof hatch. Poppy pulled herself up and out, and reached her hand down into the bus. Lacey was closest, and took it.

  Now the seats were helpful, but the vinyl was slick as she tried to find a foothold and heave herself up and out of the bus, which was swirling again in the current. No way was Poppy going to be able to help the boys out, not without losing her own purchase on the slippery side of the bus, so Lacey knelt on the other side, holding on for dear life with one hand, and reaching back into the bus with the other.

  A wet hand closed around her wrist and the weight of the person tugged at her tender skin, but together she and Poppy pulled Austin out. He took her spot and she edged along until she found a window open enough that she could slip her fingers in and hold on.

  She watched as Austin and Poppy pulled out Con, who took Poppy’s spot and lifted out Britt and Javi. Lacey’s fingers were numb from the cold water and her tight grip. She tried to flex them, and saw blood running into the water, down the glass of the window. Was the window broken? She wanted to check but didn't dare let go as the bus went into another spin, and Javi went into the water.

  Lacey screamed, and lurched toward him, but the bus was already swirling the other way. She couldn't rescue him, only hoped that he could get to a tree and hang on until the water went down or help arrived.

  “Mom!” Austin shoved his head into the opening of the bus and shouted. “Mom!”

  Lacey held her breath as she waited for him to emerge holding his mom’s hand, but instead he pulled out Sofia, before swinging his legs over the opening and disappearing back inside the bus, while Con and Sofia yelled at him.

  Lacey’s attention was on the drama of Javi’s disappearance so she didn't see the tree looming in their path, until the bus collided with it, turning the bus onto its roof and dumping all of them into the churning water.

  Lacey’s scream was silenced by a mouthful of dirty water, and she sank, thinking the creek bed couldn't be too far beneath her. But the roiling water wouldn't let her reach the rocky bottom.

  She wasn't a particularly strong swimmer in the best of times, but she thought she’d read somewhere that when one is stuck in a current, one should float, so she rolled onto her back, squinting against the pelting rain, and tried to see the bus.

  It was downstream from them, with Austin and his mother inside. At least it wouldn't roll over her as she tried to hold her head above the water, tried to see if anyone else was around.

  She couldn't tell which were heads above the water, and which were rocks, or branches, or other debris. She tried to imagine, in her mind, where the creek would turn, where there would be something she could grab onto to stop her free-tumbling. She coughed and choked while the water spun her around. She kept her arms wide, hoping to catch something or someone that would stop her. All she wanted was to stop.

  The motion, combined with the water she was swallowing, twisted her stomach and she vomited into the water, her head submerging before she fought her away back up. She was surprised that she had the presence of mind to be disgusted as she swirled forward, the vomit swirling with her.

  Then she saw her salvation—a scrub brush sticking out from the side of the creek. So weird that it was sticking out of the side, but she tried to paddle toward it, hands outstretched to grab the spindly branches. First she grasped air, then leaves, a few of which tore off in her hand, before she was able to latch on to the narrow bendy branches. Her fingers hurt where the wood cut into them, but she would not give in to the impulse to let go. She would not let go.

  Fighting against the current that flowed over her chest and churned up toward her face, she struggled to climb closer to the bank, where the branches were thicker, sturdier.

  She had almost worked her way to the slick caliche of the bank when she heard her name, and turned to see Poppy struggling in the water, arms flailing. She was going to sweep right past Lacey unless Lacey did something.

  With the last of her strength—she couldn't remember ever being so exhausted in her life—she gripped the spindly branches with one hand, praying they didn't snap, and flung her other hand toward Poppy.

  “Here! Here!” she cried, though she could see Poppy was struggling to reach her, that Poppy knew Lacey was trying to help.

  And then Poppy’s nails were digging into her wrist. Lacey felt the branches bend under her hand, ready to snap, and she opened her hand only enough to grasp a cluster of branches instead.

  Poppy’s weight dragged both of them downstream, and only Lacey’s tenuous hold on the branches kept them from tumbling after the bus. Lacey’s grip, plus Poppy’s weight, eased Poppy toward the bank, and since the scrub brush was taking the brunt of the current, Poppy was able to work her way toward the brush and grab on with Lacey. The girls wrapped their arms around each other as they held on, held on and waited for help to come.

  She didn't know how long they clung to th
e scrub brush before a large hand thrust in front of her face. She didn't know how long it stayed there until she was brave enough to let go of her anchor and grab onto it. She felt the strength in it, in the forearm she grasped with her other hand, and looked up against the rain into the face of Beck Conover, kneeling on the bank, his hair plastered to his head, his clothes plastered to his shoulders and chest as he pulled her up onto the bank, out of the water.

  She lay gasping on the soaked ground, her fingers digging into the mud, and it took her a moment to realize another man was there with Beck, and together they pulled Poppy out. Once both girls were safe, panting for breath against the sobs that tore from them, Beck and the other man—his dad, Lacey thought—tried to get them to their feet.

  Lacey couldn't have walked if the ground was on fire beneath her. She had no strength left. Her legs and arms were noodles. She couldn't even push herself up out of the mud.

  She didn't know which of the men realized that, but one of them did. Beck reached beneath her and lifted her into his arms, snug against his broad chest. She didn't know where he was carrying her, but she was willing to let him do it, letting her head rest against his shoulder in exhaustion and relief.

  Behind him, she glimpsed Poppy getting to her feet, aided by Beck’s dad, and staggering after them with his arm wrapped around her, guiding her.

  Then Lacey saw the truck parked nearby. Beck opened the door and set her on the seat, then helped Poppy in beside her before he went to the driver’s side and turned the ignition, blasting heat in their direction. The two girls clung to each other as the warm air blew over them, and the two men went back to the gully.

  THE FUNERALS WERE HEARTBREAKING. Lacey’s father didn't want her to go. She had endured enough, he said. She wasn't healed, and had developed pneumonia from the time in the water, and was fighting off infection in the cuts on her fingers. But she wanted to be there for Austin as he buried his mother, who had risked his life to save his mom, and for Con and Britt, who were beating themselves up over not being able to save Claudia, who had been at the back of the bus. She never made it out. Neither did her friend Bridget, the daughter of the single mom who owned the diner in town, Janine Tippler.