Saving Axe Read online

  “Oh,” I said. That sounded like the Cade I knew. Cade had always been that kind of guy, the one who would run into a burning building to save your dog.

  He had always been a good guy.

  “Is- is he back here in West Bend?”

  “Oh, no, honey,” Connie said. I could feel her gaze on me, knew she was trying to assess what I was thinking. I felt transparent, asking about Cade, and Connie C. was a gossip. The last thing I wanted were a bunch of questions from people in town about why I was moving back home. The last thing I wanted was for people to assume I was moving back home to see Cade.

  He’s probably married with kids by now.

  “Oh. I didn’t think he would stay here," I said.

  Connie leaned closer, her voice dropping. “Ran off to California, the year before his mom died.”

  California.

  Not here.

  I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved.

  “Don’t say you heard it from me,” Connie said. “But as I heard, he joined some biker gang. It broke his dad’s heart.”

  A biker gang. That didn’t sound like the Cade I knew.

  It was years ago; the Cade you knew is long gone.

  “I didn’t know,” I said. Of course, I didn’t know much about this place anymore. I hadn’t been back here since the end of my junior year in high school. That was when everything in my life had changed.

  Why had I come back here?

  My therapist had warned me about this. You’re jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, she had said. You think you can quit medicine and get away from the trauma from Afghanistan, yet you’re running right back to the place where your family died?

  She thought it was all about running away from the trauma of Afghanistan. She didn't understand it was about more than that, because she didn't know the whole story behind why I was running. I had to come back here. It was the only place that could heal my soul. I realized how corny that sounded. But I believed that there was something about coming home, back to this place, that could fix the part of me that was broken.

  There had to be.

  My therapist had acted like there was something wrong with running away.

  But weren't we all running away from something? What was so wrong with wanting something different? Everyone fantasized about it.

  During deployment, on my down time after finishing my shift, I'd sit around with some of the other doctors, smoking cigars and bullshitting about what we’d do when we got back home, or what we’d do when we left the military. All of that medical education among us, the financial investment in our futures, and none of us, at least in our fantasies, wanted to practice medicine. Not anymore. In our fantasy lives, we wanted to be bartenders, stay-at-home moms, chefs, scuba dive instructors.

  The difference between me and the other doctors was that I'd had the courage to do it - to walk away from it all. Well, that was one difference. The other difference was that they weren't murderers.

  “He hasn’t been back here in years,” Connie said, picking up a bag of groceries. “Are you parked right outside?”

  I nodded. My voice seemed to have left me. I followed her, my arms laden with bags.

  “You should stop in and see Mr. Austin,” Connie said. “I know he’d like to see you.”

  “I will.” I could feel my chest tightening, and I willed myself to take in slow breaths, trying to stave off the feeling of panic building inside me. I didn’t expect it to be this hard, coming home. I was thirty-five; my parents and sister had died eighteen years ago, over half of my time existing on this earth. All of this should be a distant memory. I was an adult now, and so much more had happened since then.

  What had happened with my family wasn’t Mr. Austin’s fault.

  It wasn’t Cade’s fault.

  Logically, I knew that.

  “Thanks, Connie C.," I said. "I appreciate the help.”

  Connie reached around me, her arm squeezing my shoulder. “It’s real good to see you, honey. You're so grown up.”

  I nodded. I suddenly didn’t feel so all grown up. It was funny how going home could make you feel like a kid again. I shut the trunk of my car. “I’ll see you, Connie C.”

  In a town like this, I’d be seeing her, and everyone else, all the time. I might be leaving my past as a Navy doctor behind me, but in a way, moving to a small town like this wasn't so different than all the places I'd lived when I was in the Navy.

  I cruised down the winding road on the way to my new home, the sunlight bright even through my dark tinted lenses. The hills rose up from the road on either side, covered in sagebrush so green it looked like it had been painted on the landscape. I rolled down the window so I could breathe in deeply the smell of freshly cut grass, and felt my heart rate immediately decrease. It smelled like home. It reminded me of being a kid, running through the meadows behind the house for hours. Getting lost with Cade in the clusters of aspen trees. That memory sent a shiver up my spine.

  I came back to West Bend because it’s where I had to go. It was a part of me. Even after all that had happened, all the pain and heartache, this place was where I belonged. It was never a question of whether I would return. It was only a question of when. Even if it dredged up painful memories, this place was where I had to be.

  That possibility only became real after I decided I was not going back to surgery. Practicing medicine was behind me now. It’s no longer who I was. I didn’t care if I was running away or not. At least I wasn’t breaking out in cold sweats at the thought of holding a scalpel.

  At least by running a bed and breakfast I wouldn’t have blood on my hands.

  I sat outside on the porch with a cup of coffee, drinking in my surroundings as I sipped from the mug. The warmth of the liquid was soothing, and I desperately needed the caffeine. I wasn’t even fully unpacked yet, but this house already felt like home. My border collie, Bailey, wandered around the field in front of the house. She was already at home here too, much more content with the open spaces in Colorado than she'd been in Chicago. Country life suited us both.

  I hated thinking about the future. If there's one thing I had learned in my life, it's that everything was fleeting and unpredictable. But as much as I could think about my future, West Bend was the only place I could see myself living.

  I looked across the pasture to Stan Austin's ranch, where Mr. Austin was outside, slowly making his way around the deck with his watering can, touching it to each of the hanging plants. Even from this far away, I could see that his hair was white now, and he walked slowly, taking his time with the flowers.

  I suddenly felt fourteen again, watching him, like it was the summer before high school. At any moment, I expected Cade to walk outside, dressed in jeans and his cowboy hat. He'd walk up to me, dip his head down so that the hat covered the top part of his face, and then look up at me with those dark brown eyes, that stupid half-grin covering his face.

  Mr. Austin looked up and waved, breaking me out of my reverie.

  I should go talk to him.

  I took a deep breath, steeling myself, then gulped down the rest of my coffee. As I strode across the pasture that separated our houses, I watched the dust kick up around my boots. It was nice to put a pair of cowboy boots back on again. The familiarity felt comforting.

  I was nervous as I approached the house. It had been a long time since I'd been here. A lifetime, in fact. I'd been intentionally avoiding coming by since I'd moved in last week.

  “June.” Mr. Austin set down his watering pitcher and put a hand up over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Walking down the front steps, he greeted me in the dirt driveway. “Welcome back. So you’re my new neighbor now.”

  He brushed his hands on his jeans before awkwardly reaching out to shake my hand, then pulled me toward him in a hug.

  “Hi, Mr. Austin.”

  “Oh, stop with the 'Mister' bit,” he said. “You’ll make me feel old. It’s Stan.”

  “Stan.” It soun