Free Finding Home (Montana Born Homecoming Book 2) by Roxanne Snopek Page A

Sam, he thought, knowing how much she despised pity.
    “Bob’s trained for autistic kids, isn’t she?”
    She froze. Had he gone too far?
    Then she began pulling off crumbs and putting them in rows.
    “She’s not certified,” she answered finally. “But, yeah. She’s had some training.”
    Jade seemed immature in some ways, and she had definite socialization issues, but that could be said about some of his students, too. And none of them were autistic.
    “Seems to me she’s everything Jade needs.”
    He suddenly remembered a day from that one summer they had together. He’d convinced her to join a group of them who were hanging out by the cookhouse on Yellowstone River, swimming, sunning, sharing a few purloined beers. She was excited until they insisted – not unkindly – that they drive across town so she could grab her contribution to the snack pool.
    A buzz sounded from Sam’s bag.
    She pulled out her smart phone and scanned the screen, her eyebrows furrowed.
    On that long-ago day, when they bumped over the tracks to the tumble-down rented cracker-box where she lived with her parents, the truck grew quiet. Two men sat on the concrete steps leading to her front door, a couple of empty six-packs littering the dead grass around them. Her father, he knew without being told, and old man Goodwin, Flynn’s dad and the town drunk.
    Samara returned, stepping over the intoxicated men with an opened box of saltines and three soda cans in her hands. As she walked between house and truck, her flaming face tight and hard, she’d been more alone than anyone he’d ever seen. His friends adjusted their smiles, tucking her into the not-our-kind-but-we’ll-be-nice-for-Logan’s-sake category.
    An almost-forgotten guilt twisted hotly in his gut. He should have leapt off the back of the truck and walked beside her, proudly, to the truck full of shallow, immature, self-absorbed people he’d thought were his friends.
    He’d loved her then, or thought he did, but he’d been a shallow, immature, self-absorbed boy, himself.
    A boy with a boy’s love.
    All Sam had wanted was to be included. To fit in.
    No wonder her daughter’s uniqueness triggered such fear. By definition, unique meant alone.
    “I have to go,” said Samara, stuffing the phone back into her purse. “Jade’s tired. She needs me.”
    Logan held out his hand. “Can I read the text?”
    It was from Eliza.
    Jade said Bob needed to go to bed. Figured it meant she was tired herself. :) Aunt Mabel just tucked her in. All fine. No need to rush back.
    “No need to rush back?” He raised his eyebrows at Samara. “I’m not sure what subtext you read into it, but to me, it sounds like there’s no need to rush back.”
    “You don’t understand-,” she began.
    “Here you go,” said Mardie, writing up their check.
    “False alarm,” said Logan. “In fact, can we see a dessert menu?”
    “Logan,” said Sam, getting to her feet, “this isn’t your decision. I need to go and thanks to the beer, you need to drive me. No dessert, thank you, Mardie.”
    The waitress looked between them.
    “Give us a minute, will you?” he said gently. Mardie left, shaking her head.
    Their interaction had drawn a few eyes, which wasn’t helping calm her.
    Logan touched her arm and she grew still. “Samara.”
    Tension like steel wires ran just beneath her skin. He remembered sixteen-year-old Sam’s determination to stay with him at that party, despite the thinly-veiled pity from the other girls, the special voice they spoke to her with, different from how they spoke to each other. How the boys followed her with a bit more familiarity, winking at Logan as if the fact that she was a pretty girl from the wrong side of the tracks, poor as dirt, automatically made her an easy lay.
    He tugged her back into her seat, gently.
    “If Eliza says Jade is fine, then Jade is fine. Hell, Mabel tucking her in is the headline here.”
    That tendon in her neck was jumping again, and she