Page 23 of Home on the Road
The brothers had not returned by the time the second batch of cookies were finished baking, so he swapped them out for the uncooked tray and started the process all over again. Having a few minutes before the next batch was finished, he washed the dishes and cleaned up the counters and table where he’d been working.
When the brothers still did not return, he packed the first three dozen cookies in a container to take with them on the road. He was pulling the last tray out of the oven when the brothers finally returned, looking unusually grim.
“What’s wrong?” Ziggy asked without hesitation.
“Your stepmother told us some things while you were in the house and we just confirmed that she was telling the truth. She doesn’t own the truck stop.”
“She doesn’t? Who does?” Ziggy frowned in confusion.
She claimed his father left everything to her and nothing to Ziggy. Had she been lying for the last six months?
“You do. Your father never updated his will after he married her. He left everything to you. The diner, the truck stop, the house. Everything. She lied to you, Z-man,” Harry said as he moved within hugging distance.
“But…” Harry started, but did not know what he was going to stay. “Does that mean I have to go back there?”
****
Harry’s heart clenched as Ziggy’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of returning to the hell he had lived in the last six months.
“Not unless you want to. And even if you do go back, I’ll be going with you,” Harry said, pulling him in for a hug. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“I don’t want to go back. I never want to go back,”Ziggy said, sounding more confident than Harry had ever heard before.
“Then you don’t have to. If you want to maintain ownership, we can find a manager to take over the day-to-day operations. Or you might think about selling it,” Sam said.
“I wonder if Sally Jo and her brother-in-law would be interested in buying it?”
“We can call them. Later. Right now, you and I are going to eat some cookies before we go upstairs and take a nap. We didn’t sleep well last night, and you’re yawning,” Harry said as he led his man to the table and helped him sit down.
“Yeah, right, a nap.” Sam snarked as he grabbed three cookies from the plate in the center of the table. “Just remember, you have to bake my cookies before you hit the road day after tomorrow.”
“If he has time,” Harry said, picking up the plate. “He might be too busy to bake them.”
Without hesitating, Harry checked that Ziggy had turned off the oven as he crossed to the man. Bending forward, he lifted Ziggy over his shoulder while keeping the plate level so he did not spill any cookies.
“What are you doing?” Ziggy squealed as he turned and headed for the stairs.
“We’re having our cookies in bed,” Harry said as he climbed the stairs, grinning as Ziggy began to giggle at this craziness.
Epilogue
“Come on, come on. Hurry up,” Ziggy pulled on Harry’s hand, trying to get the man to move faster.
It was his first official day driving for Three Myles To Go Trucking and he could not wait to get on the road. The fact that it was only 4:30 in the morning meant nothing to him. He liked the fact that the Myles brothers preferred to be on the road well before anyone else.
Sally Jo and her brother-in-law had agreed to manage the truck stop and diner while they put together financing to buy it. Ziggy would have just given it to them, but Sam refused to let him do that, reminding Ziggy that his father would have hated him not to have anything, and if nothing else, he could save it for his eventual retirement.
“Settle down, Z-man. We have plenty of time,” Harry said, smiling at Ziggy’s enthusiasm.
“But, Harry, it will be my first day back at home. I want to get there now.”
“Back at home?”
“Yeah, the truck stop was never my home. At least not after Dad married the stepmonster. The road became my home. It was where I was happiest, where I felt most like myself, and I cannot wait to get back there.”
“All right, lover. But you do know that if we leave now, we’ll get to the depot way before they open for pickups.”
Ziggy turned with a grin and winked at the man who was now his world. “Maybe so, but I’ll bet we can figure out something to do to pass the time. After all, isn’t that why we’re partners on the road? To keep one another from getting bored while waiting in lines.”
Harry’s laughter harmonized with his own as they continued toward the truck that was packed and ready to roll fortheir next three weeks on the road.
The End
