Every Storm Runs Out of Rain

Chapter 5

Four weeks later, Stetson drove his half-ton Dodge down through the panhandle of Oklahoma. He'd decided on driving six hours a day. That would make it about a four day trip. Any more than that seemed to push Shay past her limits. He could hardly believe that he was really headed back to his hometown. He'd sworn to never return and yet here he was. He pulled off the freeway near Boise City, Oklahoma and searched his phone for the nearest gas station. He still had almost nine hours until he reached Quitman and he wondered if he should just drive through the night. It would be nice to finally be there. He was getting sick of hotel rooms even though it had only been three days. And he could sense that Shay was burning out. She'd always hated long car rides. He cringed remembering her screaming when she was a baby. The car seat was equivalent to prison back then.

"Daddy?" Shay asked. He opened the door while his truck was filling up.

"Yeah?" Stetson responded.

"When will we be there?" she asked. Was this the fourteen or fifteen thousandth time she asked? He was losing track.

"Two more days." He decided to keep his nighttime driving plans to himself. Why not surprise her? She said nothing more and he was grateful. Not because he didn't love to hear her talk, but because he was more than a little stressed out with the whole ordeal and pretending to be nice when he was in a bad mood wasn't his best trait.

Once he'd finished fueling up, he went through the drive-through at the local burger joint and ordered food for Shay and him. He'd skipped lunch for himself but not Shay so the burger hit the spot. Shay, he reasoned, would eat whatever you set in front of her. Which suited him just fine. He'd never understood picky kids. By the time eight rolled around, he was driving through Amarillo.

He couldn't help but hum a little tune from the song "Amarillo By Morning". George Strait had always been a favorite of his. He couldn't remember a time when he preferred any other artist. The mechanics that he'd worked with had groaned when he picked the radio station. At least most of them had. They seemed to prefer rock and roll. Old country was apparently distasteful to lots of folks. He would never understand it.

Lisa had rolled her eyes and whined every time he'd switched the channel to his favorite. He realized, with a small measure of regret, that he'd completely bowed to every one of her preferences. He'd thought it was loving but now he was realizing that, in striving to please her, he had lost himself. The confusion and horrible balance of love and compromise. It was exhausting.

A quick look in the backseat confirmed that Shay was sound asleep. Seven hours to go. He should be there at three in the morning. He couldn't help but wonder how his other brothers had aged. Wayne was much the same guy he'd always been—though much more mature. And he was a husband. And a father. The changes, he was sure, would be shocking. Between Luke and Hank, the Dalton and Sons Ranch was nearly forty thousand acres. His dad had built a monstrous house when he'd moved out in hopes of having a large family. Stetson often wondered why his father had only had five children. Luke Dalton had done the same thing. So far, the huge houses seemed to be working well. His grandmother had turned their house into a bed and breakfast once all of her kids moved out and it offered a nice supplementary income. Not that they were hurting in a financial sense. That would have been an entirely inaccurate statement. They just did it for fun. The men of the family all built their own houses and earned their keep by running the ranch.

The women did it by cooking. And the kids helped out wherever they were needed. They were unified. And that was something Stetson had always craved. Instead of being part of the family, he'd felt like the weird cousin that's always imposing. The thought made him smile. This turned his thoughts to one of his favorite cousins—Tucker. He couldn't help but wonder if he had a family of his own now too. If so, he wanted to meet the woman that had married the talented young cowboy. Tucker had always been the showman of the family. He'd won plenty of championships in reining and cutting and tended to be the most outgoing of all of them. Perhaps besides Austin, another one of Stetson's brothers.