The Long Road Home, page 1
This book is dedicated to the memory of Doreen Auger. I couldn’t have written this story without her generous help on all things Harley. The world lost a truly special woman when she left us.
Also by Charley Marsh
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SPENCER REED MYSTERY SERIES
Gypsy Gold
Dark Horse
Desert Star
* * *
BLUEHEART SF ADVENTURE SERIES
A Desperate Gamble
Stone City
The Four Angels
Deadly Games
* * *
STEAMPUNK
Steampunk Heart
* * *
JUNKYARD DOG SCI-FI SERIES
Junkyard Dog
Kraken Blues
Deadly Cargo
Ruby City
Double Cross
Spider Silk
Rose Sunstone
New Earth
Red Mist
Ghost Ship
Bolkarus Station
Omega Lab
Mars Base
Junkyard Dog Collection Books 1-3
Junkyard Dog Collection 2 Books 4-6
Junkyard Dog Collection 3 Books 7-9
Junkyard Dog Collection 4 Books 10-13
Junkyard Dog Omnibus Books 1-13
UPHEAVAL SERIES
Slow Walk
Edge of Reality
Solstice Moon
Upheaval Series Omnibus
* * *
ROMANCE
Twisted Sister
Pandora
Cassandra
Artemis
Andromeda
The Long Road Home
* * *
DESTINATION DEATH MYSTERY SERIES
Stalked in Paradise
Masked in Paradise
Frozen in Paradise
Buried in Paradise
Shattered in Paradise
Betrayed in Paradise
Haunted in Paradise
* * *
See Charley’s website for other books and series in science fiction, mystery, and romance.
https://charleymarshbooks.com/
The Long Road Home
An Enemies to Lovers Romance
Charley Marsh
Timberdoodle Press LLC
The Long Road Home
Copyright © 2023 by Marsha L. Kessler
All rights reserved.
Published 2023 by Timberdoodle Press LLC.
The Long Road Home is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Print Book ISBN# 978-1-945856938
Cover Art: welcomia @ depositphoto
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
About the Author
Chapter One
Camden Burns kept her eyes on the mountains ahead of her. Rising out of the flat plain that was western Kansas, they were little more than a low, blue-gray ridge topped with white frosting.
She knew that the Rocky Mountains were huge compared to the country’s eastern mountains–with fifty-eight peaks reaching fourteen thousand feet above sea level–and yet they still looked like mere hills from the seat of her Harley.
The size of the country blew her away. This was her second day of driving across Kansas and she didn’t seem to be getting any closer to America’s largest chain of mountains.
Part of that was because she’d gotten tired of sharing Interstate 70 with the big rigs and had dropped south to secondary roads, many of which turned to gravel or simply ended in a tee, forcing her to go north or south until she found another road heading west to pick up. It was an inefficient way to travel, but she hated the way the big trucks pushed the Harley around.
She wouldn’t have minded if Johnny had been riding with her like they’d planned–riding their motorcycles from coast to coast, from Portland, Maine to San Diego, California. The trip was supposed to be their adventure of a lifetime.
Reddish gold fields of wheat stretched to her left and right as far as Camden could see, broken only by the occasional sunflower field or a farmhouse with its barns and assorted outbuildings.
She wondered about the people who lived in those farmhouses. How far did they have to drive for supplies? Did they make a whole day of it? Spend the night? Running to the corner store for a forgotten carton of milk or a loaf of bread was out of the question. These people had to plan. They had to make lists so they didn’t forget anything. If they did forget, they had to go without.
For a woman who’d been born and raised in a small city, living on the vast prairie was a foreign concept. What did the farm families do for entertainment? What about their social lives? How far did the kids have to ride the bus to get to school? How did teens get together and date
Where on earth did they take their dates?
The sun continued its climb over Camden’s head, disappearing now and again behind huge, puffy white clouds that reminded her of sailing ships marching across the deep blue sky.
She wished Johnny was there to share it with.
For five years they had looked at maps, planned the routes and destinations, changed the plans, and always, always fed on Johnny’s dream.
They had scrimped and saved, rarely eating out and driving older cars, until they could afford to buy the two Harley touring bikes, an outlay of nearly fifty grand. Another two years of saving for the trip expenses–money for food, the occasional hotel, campground fees at the parks they wanted to see, gas, etc.
Finally they decided they had enough cash set aside. The trip dates were set and arrangements made. Then Johnny came home sick from work with what he thought was the flu. When he didn’t get better Camden took him to the doctor. Johnny had pancreatic cancer. Four months later she buried her boyfriend of five years and found herself looking forward to a bleak and lonely future.
Johnny had made Camden promise that she would still make the trip. She had promised, but in her heart she never meant to keep that promise. She didn’t want to make the trip alone–it was meant to be their adventure together, something they could reminisce about in their old age. But by that point she would have said anything to ease Johnny’s passing, even an outright lie.
When the time came to sell the touring bikes, Camden found that she couldn’t part with hers. It was the strongest link she had left to Johnny, a reminder of the hours they had spent exploring Maine together while they became accustomed to traveling by motorcycle.
Her bike sat in the garage of their rental house for a solid year. She cleaned it and polished the chrome and dutifully applied conditioner to the leather seat, but until that past April, a full year after Johnny’s passing, she never once fired it up or even sat on it.
Maybe it was the anniversary of Johnny’s death. Or maybe it was the growing sense that life was passing her by and would continue to do so unless she made a drastic change, no matter how difficult that change might be.
Whatever the reason, one day after cleaning the bike, Camden sat on it. She reached for the handlebars and decided to drive her bike to San Diego, following the route Johnny had so passionately dreamed of.
The next day she gave her notice at her job.
The following week she packed up all but the clothes she would take with her and donated her belongings to Salvation Army and a local group home. Then Camden did something that would have shocked Johnny–she cut the waist length, thick black hair that he so loved and donated the locks to Wigs For Kids, an organization that provided free wigs for kids with cancer.
She went home with her head feeling ten pounds lighter. Once the weight of all that hair was gone, what was left sprang into gentle curls all over her head. The new hairdo reminded her of a devil’s halo.
The next day she cleaned the rental house and left the key with the real estate agency, hopped on her bike and headed south out of Maine. She had a goal in mind–to reach San Diego. She didn’t care how long it took. After that? She didn’t know. For the first time in her life, Camden decided to let the future take care of itself.
She learned a few things that first week on the road that she and Johnny should have discovered together. She learned to eat her meals at weird times to avoid the crowds–everyone ate between six and eight a.m., noon time, and between five and seven p.m. She settled on a late breakfast, late lunch, and late dinner after stopping for the night.
She learned that one hundred and fifty mile to two hundred miles tops was as far as she wanted to travel in a day. Her arms and hands grew tired from gripping the handlebars and her body stiffened up if she spent any longer in the saddle. She never rode after sunset and always planned out where to stop for the next night before she turned in.
She never spoke to anyone beyond ordering food or requesting a room for the night. Her life fell into a rhythm of riding, stopping for fuel for both her and the bike, visiting a particularly fine view or historic site, and sleeping in strange beds.
While she and Johnny had planned to camp much of their trip in order to stretch their funds, Camden always stopped at a motel for the night. She didn’t have room for camping gear in her hard-sided saddlebags, and she didn’t want to camp alone. With the funds from selling Johnny’s bike and the reduced cost of feeding one body instead of two, she could afford to indulge in a cheap room every night.
She had to admit that she looked forward to a nightly hot shower and a comfortable bed. She missed her habitual long, hot soaks in scented bubble baths, but drew the line at using motel tubs.
She had also traded the silk nighties Johnny preferred her to wear for the more practical tee shirts and boxer shorts. If she ever had to vacate a motel room in the middle of the night due to some emergency like a fire, she didn’t want to be wearing a revealing silk nightgown.
Looking across the wheat fields that seemed to stretch to the very horizon, Camden wondered if she’d be sleeping in the rough that night. She had been thrown off her route earlier that morning when the road she intended to take was blocked by an extra wide load that turned out to be an entire house set on a trailer bed, stretching from ditch to ditch with no room to pass on either side, even for a rider on a motorcycle.
She still couldn’t believe it. Someone had decided to pick up their whole three story farmhouse and move it to another location.
The nice man smoking a butt and leaning against the end of the trailer had informed Camden that they were waiting for the power company to take care of some lines up ahead so the house’s roof wouldn’t tear them down. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
Camden thanked him and turned around to look for another road west. The one she ended up on was a minor county road that seemed to only service crop fields and the occasional farmstead. She’d been on it about an hour with no sign of a town or even another vehicle, when she noticed a rough vibration in her handlebars.
At first she ignored the vibration, but it continued to grow worse. The county road was tarmac, bleached pale gray by years of sun, but it was still relatively smooth. It wasn’t responsible for the new feel in her handlebars.
A grinding rumble soon accompanied the vibration, and it became harder to steer. Camden knew she had a mechanical problem with the bike. If Johnny had been with her he could have checked it out for her, but he wasn’t. She would have to deal with the problem herself.
For the first time since setting out, she wished she had never left Maine. Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a possibly unsafe bike.
Chapter Two
The grinding noise continued. Camden’s hands were growing numb from the vibration in the handlebars, but she continued to press on until her bladder felt ready to burst.
She spied a broad swath of green up ahead that soon revealed itself to be a cornfield. It appeared to stretch as far as the earlier wheat fields had. Western Kansas was an ocean of corn and wheat with no service station or diner in sight. It would have to do.
Downshifting, she steered the bike onto the road’s gravel shoulder and came to a stop. She shook out her hands until the tingling stopped and removed her helmet with a sense of relief. She would never ride without one, but hated the way the helmet cocooned her head and crushed her hair.
Her neck cracked and popped as she rolled her head. Scratching all over her scalp, she yanked on her thick, curly hair until she restored its spring.
Now that she wasn’t moving, it became apparent that the day had warmed considerably. Heat waves rose from the gray ribbon of road that narrowed to a point and disappeared over the horizon in either direction.
She hadn’t seen a car in several hours. Still, she didn’t want to get caught squatting on the side of the road with her leathers down around her ankles.
The corn field it was. At least the stalks were shoulder high and would hide her should anyone drive by.
Camden hung her helmet off the handlebars and trotted down the embankment to the corn field. It felt good to use her legs. A usually active woman, she hadn’t realized just how sedentary riding across the country would turn out to be.
The cornfield smelled of rich dirt and green, growing things. Insects buzzed among the tassels, spreading the golden, powdery pollen that showered Camden as she pushed through the closely planted stalks.
Insects and pollen and something magical in the corn plant somehow managed to work together and turn the tassels into an ear of corn. It occurred to Camden that the process was as close to a miracle as she had ever seen.
After taking care of business, she stood in the field and let the sun warm her face and the light breeze ruffle her hair. The bike’s grinding noise worried her. She didn’t dare get back on it until she knew what was wrong. Crashing was too real a risk, one she wasn’t prepared to take.
She needed to take off her too warm leathers and walk down the road until she found help, but first, she wanted to enjoy the moment.
Her eyes closed. She took a deep breath and let it out. No exhaust fumes. The insects buzzed in her ears and the leaves on the corn stalks rustled in the breeze. She heard the hum of tires beneath them. Someone was coming. She needed to flag them down and ask about the nearest town.
Trouble was, she didn’t want to deal with a stranger. That meant conversation. Questions.
Knowing she had no choice, Camden ran up the embankment and grabbed her helmet just as a navy blue SUV with “Sheriff” in bold white letters on the passenger door pulled up behind her.
She waited beside her bike, suddenly nervous and wondering why. She’d done nothing wrong.
A tall man with broad shoulders stepped out of the car and planted a dove gray cowboy hat on his head. He looked up and down the road before he looked at Camden with eyes of such piercing blue they made her breath catch.
Eyes that missed nothing.
The sheriff pulled on dark sunglasses and ambled around the hood of the SUV, never taking his gaze off Camden’s face. He had his thumbs hooked in his belt, his service gun holstered on his right side, handle forward for a cross draw.
A lefty then. Camden forced a smile. “Hello, Sheriff.” Her voice felt rusty. She hadn’t used it since she’d ordered dinner at a truck stop the previous day. Her stomach growled loudly, as if it had just been reminded that it must be time to refuel. She was sure the sheriff heard it.
“Miss.”
He had a square jaw with a shallow cleft, sharp cheekbones, and a small white scar through his left eyebrow that stood out against his tanned skin. She half expected the man to touch a finger to the crown of his hat as a gesture of respect in the way of television cowboys, but he kept his thumbs hooked in his belt.
