AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Ben
The sliding doors of the airport open, and it isn’t the Nebraska heat in June that shocks me. Rather, it’s my dad and two brothers sitting in an old black pickup truck with the Plain Daisy Ranch logo peeking out from the splatters of dirt along the side.
“It’s about fucking time!” Emmett shouts, half his body hanging out the open window of the back seat.
There better be air conditioning in that truck.
My dad isn’t an emotional guy, and neither is my older brother, Jude, so I’m surprised they didn’t just send Emmett to pick me up from the airport.
My dad rounds the back of the truck and takes my suitcase, tossing it in the back. No pat on the back or hug. We’re not very affectionate in the Noughton family.
Dad’s presence has a giant red light flashing in my brain. Like those ones above the slot machines to say you won big. Something is wrong. They’re treating me too nicely. What’s happened since they came out to visit me a couple of months ago when I announced my retirement from football?
“I could’ve gotten that,” I say, opening the door Emmett is hanging out of and shooing him to slide over.
He groans as if he’s six and I’m bossing him around, which was a normal occurrence back then. If Jude and I had known that Emmett would grow taller than each of us, maybe we would’ve held off on razzing him so much. Then again, probably not.
“Welcome home.” My dad climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck.
The only time we were allowed to drive him around was when we were working on passing our driver’s exam. Even then, we’d already been driving on the ranch for years before we turned sixteen.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
Excitement isn’t the first word I’d use to describe my feelings about returning to my small town. Do I love where I was raised? Hell yeah. Do I love my family? Without question. And I miss the ranch. The cows, horses, all my cousins and aunts and uncles. It might not be Kansas, but as Dorothy said, there’s no place like home.
But over the years, I got used to my life in San Francisco. The life of a professional football player who got paid nicely—in dollars and women. People would approach me as if I were God everywhere I went even though I was just playing a sport I loved.
“No AC?” I ask.
Jude scowls over his shoulder. “Have you seen gas prices?”
“Last I heard, the ranch was thriving.”
In my fourteen years since leaving the ranch to attend college and go on to play pro, Plain Daisy Ranch turned not so plain. It’s a cattle ranch, but with the help of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, they’ve turned our over five hundred thousand acres into multiple profitable businesses for all.
“It won’t be if we waste our money. It’s only June, wait until July.” Dad glances in the rearview mirror.
He’s still got that rugged rancher look. A little scruff as though he hasn’t shaved in a few days with a sprinkling of gray and a few deep lines around his eyes, but he still has the fit, lean muscular build under his plaid shirt and jeans from working longer than nine-to-five every day.
I lean my head closer to the window, letting the warm wind blow in my face. We drive out of the city, the tall buildings shifting to corn stalks that aren’t quite tall enough to hit your knee. The rolling hills of corn and soybeans lead us toward our town of Willowbrook. I expect to see the rusty old welcome sign with the slogan, “Nothing beats small-town life.”
The truck flies past, and I barely catch my name on the new Welcome to Willowbrook sign.
“Did that?” I thumb toward the sign.
Emmett cracks up laughing.
Jude grunts.
Dad straightens up in his seat. “Yep. New sign. You’re the best thing to come out of this town, so deservingly so.”
I turn to Emmett. “Did it really say home of Ben Noughton, San Francisco Kingsmen?”
He leans in closer, lowering his voice as if Jude and our dad could even hear him over the whooshing wind screaming in through the open windows. “Just wait.”
“For?” My eyebrows rise, and he laughs again, shaking his head.
