Dragonfly Creek (2 page)

Chapter Two

W
hen he crossed over Pound Gap from Virginia into Kentucky, the butterflies that had been resting in Ben Campbell’s stomach took flight. It was dark, and the rain that had moved in complicated the drive. He’d lost the rock station he’d been listening to since Kingsport as he started down the mountain, and when he tuned into the mega-watt country station broadcasting from Hazard, he laughed. The song playing was about a truck driver on the road on a rainy night.

Ben wasn’t a truck driver, but he was driving a pickup. And since he’d been on the road all day, he felt a bit as though he were driving his life away.

The decision to return home hadn’t been an easy one. Although he’d grown up in Perry County, Kentucky, he’d been living in Georgia since he was nineteen. He and his sister Emma had both gone to college there, and his maternal aunt and grandmother lived in the area, as well. He had stayed in Savannah after he finished his degree and landed a good job at one of the huge commercial growers in the region that supplied landscape companies across the south. He’d enjoyed the work for the most part, but over the past summer, a restlessness had started growing inside him. Ben had ignored it as long as he could, but when he started getting short with his family, he couldn’t avoid the issue any longer.

His grandmother had been the first to approach him, after a quiet Sunday dinner at his Aunt Kathy’s one lazy August afternoon.

“You’re homesick,” Eliza Browning had stated as they sat on the porch swing. The large ceiling fans moving quietly overhead stirred the thick summer air. They worked with the evaporative cooler to make the temperature just bearable in the shade. “What are you going to do about it?”

Ben picked at a callus on his palm. “It’ll go away. It always does.”

She gently touched his hair. “I don’t think so. Not this time.”

“I don’t want to go back,” he admitted. Eliza was one of the few people in the world who knew why Ben had been so eager to leave Kentucky permanently a few years before.

“I think you do. Your heart’s always been there, in the hills. You’ve been away too long.”

“And what would I do if I went back? It isn’t like jobs in my industry are thick on the ground in eastern Kentucky.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you could go back to school, get that landscape architecture degree you’ve been thinking about.”

Ben’s gaze shot to hers. “How’d you know about that?”

Eliza smiled, and she looked so much like Ben’s mother, Sarah, that his chest tightened. It was like looking into a mirror of what the future held.

“Sweetheart, I don’t have to have any special abilities like your father’s people in order to know you’re bored with what you’ve been doing. And I know the idea has always intrigued you. The University of Kentucky has a good program, I hear.” She picked up her iced tea glass and took a casual sip.

Ben shook his head, amazed. “I’ve just barely started entertaining the idea, Nonny.”

“Well, I think it’s a good one. It’s too late for you to enroll this year, but that would give you a few months to get re-acclimated to the region, so to speak. Maybe to deal with some things you’ve been putting off far too long. You’ve set aside some money, I suppose?”

“I have.” His job paid well, and while Ben didn’t lead a Spartan life, he liked things simple. “You know, you might have to go back to Kentucky, too. I’ll miss you too much if you stay here.”

Eliza laughed softly, and her words surprised him. “You know, if you and Emma weren’t here, I might consider it. Kathy doesn’t need me like she used to. And I miss the hills. But I don’t want to leave Emma. This new boyfriend of hers… I don’t like the feel of him.”

“Yeah. Me, either. But she seems happy enough.”

“For now.”

They changed the subject as the object of their conversation came out onto the porch. Emma was Ben’s twin sister, older by just over five minutes. She never let him forget that, either. Tall, with their father’s dark hair and their mother’s fair complexion, Emma turned heads wherever she went. She was a photographer, working for one of the premiere studios in town. She’d worked hard to get where she was, and Ben was proud of her. He didn’t tell her that too often, though. After all, someone had to keep his sister on her toes.

The discussion with Nonny weighed on his mind for a few weeks. As much as he wanted to deny it, she was right. He
was
homesick. And so, when talk at work had turned to restructuring, Ben volunteered to leave. His boss had been disappointed, but there were practically ten other people lined up behind him, eager to fill his shoes.

He’d put off the trip as long as he could, eking out one excuse after the next, until Emma was frustrated enough to threaten to knock him out and send him home via the mail.

“What if the folks don’t want to see my ugly face?” he’d protested. “You know I haven’t mentioned the plan to them. What if they think it’s a bad idea?”

“Seriously? You do know our parents, right? Sarah and Owen Campbell would have all five of us back under their roof in a heartbeat. If Daddy hadn’t put his foot down, there’d have been at least three or four more little Campbells running around.” Emma turned serious, which told Ben just how concerned she was. “You need to go home, Benny. You never told me what sent you running, but whatever it was, it’s pushed you long enough. It’s time to push back. I want to see you happy and… you’re not.”

She was right. He sold as many of his belongings as he could, gave away most of the rest, and packed what was left into neat boxes, which he tucked away safely under the flat cover on his truck bed. On his way out of town, he stopped at Eliza’s. Emma had driven over for the send-off, and he hugged them both tightly, not wanting to let go.

“Remember, not a word to the folks. I’ll call you both when I get in, but I want to surprise them.”

Eliza smiled up at him, though her eyes were damp. “You always did love a surprise.”

“As long as he’s the surpris
er
and not the surpris
ee
,” Emma added. She hugged him just as tightly as he’d held her a few minutes earlier. “Be careful out there. Give everyone my love.”

He got on the road before they all turned into blubbering idiots. Walking away had been harder than he expected. But the farther away from Savannah he got, the less restless he became. Going home felt right.

Now, as he stopped at a brand-new convenience store at the foot of Pine Mountain to stretch his legs and fill up the truck, he realized he felt a little like a kid at Christmas. He’d taken his time on the drive, and it wasn’t quite seven o’clock in the evening. He would be at the homeplace by eight. Just imagining the look on his parents’ faces made him smile. The woman filling up her car at the next gas pump gave a startled blink, then smiled back at him. Ben winked at her as he went inside to settle up with the gas station attendant.

The rain slacked off somewhat as he got closer to Hazard, and fog started to creep up, out of the rivers and creeks and into the hollers. Even though the evening was cool, he cracked the truck’s windows and let the mountain air wash over him. The scent of fall leaves mixed with the rain-washed air. Absent of the saltiness present in coastal Georgia, the dampness screamed “home” to him.

He stopped the truck at the foot of his parents’ driveway and just sat there for a few minutes. He didn’t really doubt his welcome, but he knew that once he drove up the long, long driveway, there was no turning back.

“You knew there wasn’t any turning back as soon as you left Georgia, Ben.” He put the truck in gear.

A full minute later, he reached the top of the mountain where he’d grown up. The farmhouse looked snug and welcoming, with lights on in the living room, as well as his sister Amelia’s upstairs bedroom. He parked next to his father’s truck and grabbed his jacket from the passenger seat.

The porch light came on before he was halfway to the steps, and Owen Campbell opened the door, an astonished look on his face.

“What in the world…?” He held open the screen door, but didn’t say anything else as Ben came up on the porch.

“Hey, Dad.”

Owen looked into the house behind him, blinked twice, and then a lopsided smile spread across his face.

“Ben. You’re home.” Owen pulled his son in for a bear hug, holding on so tightly that it almost hurt. Ben’s eyes grew damp, and when his father finally let him go, he saw that Owen’s eyes were damp, as well. “What in the world are you doing here? Is everything okay? Emma? Nonny?”

“They’re fine.”

“Owen? Is it Amelia?” Sarah Campbell’s voice called from down the hall.

“You’d better come here,” Owen told her. He had to clear his throat, and he kept an arm wrapped tightly around Ben’s shoulders as they took a few steps into the house. “We’ve got a visitor.”

“This late? Who…” Ben’s mother stopped in the doorway to the living room, her hands going to her mouth. “Oh, my baby.”

“Mom.” Ben crossed the space and lifted her off her feet. “I’ve missed you. Both of you.”

A couple of minutes later, their emotions were finally clear enough to talk rationally. Ben was the first to speak. “Where’s Pip?”

“On a date,” Sarah answered.

Owen scowled. “It isn’t a date. It’s a get-together with some of her friends, and a couple of them happen to be boys. She’s just sixteen. It’s not a date.”

Ben looked at his mother, who nodded.

“It’s a date. What are you doing here? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I might not let you go now that you’re here. But this is a little unexpected. Have you eaten?”

He shrugged. “I could probably handle a sandwich, if it isn’t too much trouble. Leftovers, whatever you have. And I, uh, was in the neighborhood.”

Owen raised an eyebrow and looked over his shoulder at the door. Hands in his back pockets, he turned back to them with pursed lips. “Savannah’s not
that
big.”

“It’s growing more every day, Dad.” Ben grinned at his father. “I thought it was time to come home. That’s all. Is it okay if I crash here until I find a place?”

Sarah kept his hand in hers as she tugged him toward the kitchen. “Of course you can. And are you telling me you’re home to stay?”

“I think so.”

She gave a mock scowl as she made him sit at the island. “You aren’t in trouble, are you?”

“No! Well, there was that one bank robbery,” he mused, scratching his chin. When his father wrapped him in a loose headlock, Ben put his hands around Owen’s arm, but didn’t try to move it. He knew he had to be wearing the goofiest grin in the world, but he didn’t care. “It’s so good to see the two of you.”

Owen tousled his hair. “You, too.”

Amelia came in a little after nine, and with typical teenage exuberance, squealed and danced happily around Ben. They stayed up late, catching up on the big picture and the little things.

Sitting in the presence of his family was a gift, Ben thought. As corny as he knew a lot of people would think it sounded, he enjoyed being with his parents and sister.

The next day was Sunday, and wanting to extend the surprise as much as possible, Ben parked his truck in the barn. His brother and his family were coming to the farm for dinner, and Ben was eager to see the look on John’s face when he walked in and realized Ben was there.

“Benjamin Wayne, you’re twenty-four years old,” Sarah scolded him mildly from the dining room door as he paced the hall, waiting for John’s arrival. “One of these days, you’re going to surprise someone, and it’s going to backfire.”

Ben rubbed his hands together as he looked out the small window beside the door. “Yeah, but not today. They’re here. Oh, wow. Noah’s half grown. And Eli’s so big! He’s walking?”

“He was what, five or six months old when you saw him last?” Amelia chimed in from her seat on the stairs. Ben joined her, trading places with Owen, who opened the door. “He’s running around everywhere now. They can hardly keep up with him.”

From the way his father’s eyes were lit up, Ben knew Owen was looking forward to John’s reaction as much as he was. However, Zanny, his sister-in-law, was the first through the door. She stopped dead when she saw Ben, her mouth falling open with shock.

“Oh, my God!” Dropping the diaper bag in her hand, she rushed over to him, arms open wide. Ben obliged her with a hug. “Are you really here?”

“I am. Hey, gorgeous.” Ben drew back and smacked a kiss on her forehead. “You get prettier every time I see you. John.”

“I’ll be damned.” His brother handed Eli to Owen and shook his head. A pleased smile crossed John’s face, and he stepped inside.

Ben met him halfway, grinning like an idiot. “Probably. You always were the mean one.” Despite the contentious words, they shared a tight embrace. There’d always been a healthy competitiveness between John and Ben, but no true animosity. Ben liked to tweak John when it came to Zanny, but only in a joking fashion. He had a lot of respect and admiration for his older brother, and much like with Emma, someone had to keep John on his toes.