Shelter Me Home(41)

"With everything I am."

"I don't have enough saved up."

"Don't worry about that. Briney started a Farrah Fund at the bar. The  Landing's people have been dropping money in it for three months just  for a plane ticket back. Everyone wants you back here where you belong. I  can book a flight tonight. You can come home whenever you want."                       
       
           



       

Home.

Hope bloomed inside her, filling her until warm tears of utter happiness touched her cheeks. "Can you make it for tomorrow?"





Chapter Twenty


Aanon set the phone down slowly and stared at it on the table. He hadn't just imagined her, had he?

Briney leaned against the sink with his arms crossed, and his bushy eyebrows lifted to his hair line. "Well? What did she say?"

"We're going to need the Farrah Fund."

A slow smile spread across the old man's face. "I'll take care of the plane ticket. When does she want it?"

"Tomorrow." His own voice sounded dreamy, far away, but Briney slapped  him on the back, then gripped his shoulders and shook him until his  teeth rattled, slamming reality back down like a hammer on a nail.

When the old bartender grinned like a fool, he couldn't ever remember seeing so many of Briney's teeth.

"You must really want to retire," Aanon teased.

"Darn tootin' I do. And I don't trust nobody but Farrah to run my bar.  I'm going to go. Plane tickets to reserve, you know. Give me your  number, and I'll call you with the times and information she'll need."

Aanon scribbled the digits across the back of an old grocery receipt,  and Briney shoved it in his pocket. "I can't believe she's coming back."

"Well, she never should've left, if you ask me. That"-Briney halted and  glanced at Dodge, who was wrestling a carton of milk from the fridge-"ex  fox of yours got you two all tied up. Cunning little critter, she was."

Briney let himself out, mumbling about how Burtlebey better not have  burned his bar to the ground, and Aanon watched Dodge slowly toddle his  way back to the table with the milk.

Scooting his glass from lunch closer, Dodge prepared to pour.

"You need help, bud?"

"No, I'm big."

Dodge spilled a bit, but it was nothing that couldn't be cleaned up.  Most of the milk poured into the glass, and a sense of pride filled  Aanon at his son's independent streak. It would serve him well if he  ever decided to run the homestead like the generations of Falks before  him.

She's coming home.

The thought was a warm brush against his heart, stirring life there once  again. The months since she'd left had been hollow and clouded with  fear. He'd been adrift without her here, and scared about losing Dodge  for good. Aanon had lost part of himself he thought he'd never get back.  But the thought of her coming back to him stirred within him a glimpse  of what could be. Something he hadn't dared dream about before, when  everything had gotten so out of control.

Dodge chugged the drink and wiped the creamy mustache from his upper lip  with the back of his hand. "Aaah," he said with a satisfied grin, and  Aanon chuckled.

"You and me, we have to clean up this house. Farrah is going to be  staying here, and we can't have her coming home to an untidy bachelor  pad, can we?"

Hours later, as he rinsed a sponge out in the bathroom sink, he glimpsed  his reflection in the mirror. His face looked sunken and tired. He ran a  hand over his newly shaven jaw. Before the court hearing that morning,  he'd shaved his beard. He hadn't had the capacity to worry about shaving  after Farrah left but wanted to look less like a hobo for the judge. He  hadn't given much thought to anything besides losing her and the  possibility of losing Dodge, too. But now? His life had meaning again.  Purpose. He'd be given a chance to do it right this time. Give Dodge a  stable home and provide for him and Farrah. And Oleanna.

A ghost of a smile brushed his lips. There he was again. He wasn't  totally lost because that smile was so familiar. It's the way he used to  see himself before everything went belly up.

Oleanna.

The name was Norwegian, and even if Farrah hadn't said she loved him  with words on the phone earlier, the declaration of the baby's name said  them for her. She loved him still, and if anyone could bring him back  completely, it was her.

His phone rang, and in a rush, he accepted the call. He was only a  little disappointed when it was Briney with the flight information. It  would've been a relief to hear Farrah's voice again so soon, but knowing  when she would arrive in Anchorage was the next best thing.

Besides, now he had a reason to call her back.

****

The four hour layover in Phoenix was torture. Farrah had plenty of time  to leave the airport and find some local fare to eat, but paranoid about  missing her flight, she'd settled on a fast food burger restaurant  outside her terminal. Staring out the window, she watched flight after  flight take off and prayed for time to pass so she could be up in the  air, on her way to him.                       
       
           



       

Oleanna stretched within her, and she rested a hand over the movement. "We're almost there, baby."

When her flight was finally called, she ignored the suspicious glances  from fellow passengers that said they thought she'd deliver at any  moment. Nothing could dampen her mood. She'd never thought to see Aanon  again, and now every mile she traveled brought her closer to him.

She settled into her seat on the plane and fidgeted impatiently. Five more hours and she'd see his face.

"Excuse me," said an older woman with a stylish bob and glasses framed  in a rosy hue to match her lipstick. "I'm in the window seat."

"Oh, here let me stand and let you pass."

The woman pressed her carry-on bag into the compartment above and scooted into her seat.

Farrah settled back in and worried a loose thread on her jeans with her fingertip.

"Nervous flyer?" the woman asked.

"No. Just ready to get to Anchorage. Someone is meeting me there."

"Corinne," the woman said, offering her hand.

"I'm Farrah." She settled her palm in the woman's for a shake.

"Are you meeting your husband?"

"My husband?" Farrah asked.

Corrine pointed to her protruding stomach.

"Oh no. I'm not married."

"Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I just assumed."

"It's okay." She felt the need to explain Aanon to the stranger so she'd  understand. But what could she say about him? Calling him her boyfriend  wasn't enough. He was so much more. "I'm meeting a man who has been  really good to me, though. My love story is complicated."

An easy smile brightened Corrine's face, making her look years younger.  "I'm not an easy flyer like you are." At a questioning look from Farrah,  she asked, "Would you mind sharing your complicated love story with a  stranger?"

A pleasant looking woman with curly red hair and rosy cheeks leaned  across the aisle. "Two strangers?" she corrected with a questioning arch  to her brows.

The flight attendant stood in front and gave a short lecture on safety  procedures and how to use the seat belts. Directly after, the plane  taxied the runway.

"Okay," Farrah agreed as the plane took off. "I first met Aanon when I was six."

And for the first hour, she told of how she'd come to be on this flight,  in her last trimester, running back to the man she loved. Conversation  after that drifted and flowed this way and that as the other women  shared stories of their lives. There was something freeing about talking  to people she'd never see again, and her earlier wish was answered.  Time passed quickly.

As the plane descended on Anchorage, she became quiet and restless  again. What if he didn't like the changes in her? Residual sadness still  clung to her like a second skin, and as much as she didn't want the  past three months to come between them, he'd see what they had done to  her. The Aanon she remembered didn't miss anything. What if he gave her  back, like Miles had done?

"Go get him," Corrine said with a kind pat to her leg.

She smiled her thanks and pulled her carry-on from the bin above. The  wheels of her ratty purple suitcase made a hitched rumbling sound as she  followed the others out of the plane. Gripping the handle of the  luggage, her palms began to sweat, and her body felt as if it was  floating. She stopped on the loading ramp and leaned against the wall as  others passed, eager to meet friends and family waiting for them. God,  what if she wasn't enough for him?

Gasping against the panic that pressed against her chest, she leaned her  head back until it rested on the cloth wall. She'd just have to work to  be worthy of his love as he had worked for hers. Emotion shook her as  she stepped unsteadily toward the exit.