Welcome Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

“You
can go back to your evening.” He turned to the bartender. “About
the table—”
    “Is on me.” A man, Joe Bob Cleburne, pushed
through the crowd and handed the bartender his credit card. “Best
entertainment I’ve had in a long time.” He turned to Tommy and held
out his hand. “Welcome home, Tommy Joe. Good to have you back.”
    Tommy turned red and stammered his thanks. He
endured a few more minutes of handshakes and greetings from the
other bar patrons before he sent a silent signal to Christi, who
swooped in for the rescue.
    “Gosh, just look at the time,” she said.
“Tommy, we really do have to get up early tomorrow morning. I guess
we better go.”
    Tommy nodded, and they wished everyone a good
evening.
    Rory followed them outside to the van and
waited until Tommy was inside. “Tommy Joe, are you going to be all
right?”
    “I’m fine,” Tommy mumbled. “Sorry I ruined
your engagement party.”
    “You didn’t ruin anything. It’ll be a great
story to tell the grandkids. It’s just…that wasn’t like you, Tommy.
Even provoked like you were, you wouldn’t have handled it like that
before.”
    Tommy shrugged, and Rory and Christi
exchanged a worried glance over the hood of the van. Rory went back
inside, shaking his head. Suddenly exhausted, Christi climbed in
the van and laid hers on the wheel.
    “Christi, I—”
    “Shut up, Tommy Joe.” She could feel Tommy
flinch at the harshness in her voice.
    “Christi—”
    “I said shut up. I’m not having this
conversation with you in the parking lot of a bar.”
    She slammed the van in gear and roared down
the highway back to the ranch. Parking in front of the house, she
got out the chair for Tommy then walked away and waited for him on
the front porch. He wheeled up the ramp, pulled the wheelchair in
beside her rocking chair, and they sat for a few minutes.
    “Okay, can I talk now?” Tommy asked
quietly.
    Christi turned and stared at him. “What the
hell got into you tonight?”
    “He was manhandling you, and I stopped him,”
Tommy said.
    “Tommy, manhandling me or no, you have never
in your life punched out anybody, even a drunk ass-hat like Doug,”
Christi said. “You could have grabbed his other arm and jerked him
off me or just waited for Rory and Hutch to take care of him.
Tommy, there was a lot more going on tonight than just Doug pulling
me out of that chair, and you know it.”
    “You’re damned right there was more going on
than that!” Tommy snarled. He turned the wheelchair to face her,
and Christi was horrified at the tears pouring down his face. “You
want to know the truth? Everything that happened in that bar
tonight punched my buttons. In fact, everything that’s happened
since I got home has punched my buttons.”
    He stopped and took a moment to wipe the
tears off his cheeks. When he finished, he added, “Damn it, I was
so happy to be getting out of that effing hospital. I thought that
maybe, just maybe, I could come home and everything would be all
right. Then we got here and I couldn’t even open the damned gate
for you.”
    “Gate? You’re upset about the gate?”
    “Silly, huh? But that’s when it really hit me
just how little I can do anymore. I can’t drive my truck, I can’t
ride Muffin, I can’t chase down a loose calf or fix a fence or do
jack shit around this place.”
    “But there’s lot you can do,” Christi
protested.
    “Like what? I’m useless and you know it! But
you want to know what really set me off tonight? Every God-damned
man at the table, Rory and Hutch and that asshole Doug, were
sitting there gloating over their hot monkey-sex lives, bragging
about all the horny women they’ve screwed and the horizontal
marathons they’re having. And so were the women. Everybody was but
me and you. How do you think I felt when Rory talked about the
‘angel in his bed’? I have an angel in my bed, too, and I don’t
know if I can even get it up for her! Hell, I can’t even take