The Summer Bones Read Free Page B

corn and stubby thick soybeans.
    It was the way home.
    Victoria drove absently, her mind wandering. Indiana in late summer was defined by dusty fields overlaying the countryside. Green and gold splattered the gently rolling hills, while insects hummed in exhausted chorus and dust sifted gently on the roadsides. It was a time of waiting, when the realization comes of the decaying breadth of summer and the lurking desolation of winter. July was already surrendering to the strangling grip of August.
    She let off the accelerator as she drove into the small town of Mayville, passing slowly into the ranks of houses and shops. There was only one stoplight, and she eased through the intersection, going past the grocery, the bank, the coppersmith shop. Little had changed since her childhood, barring a few modern improvements such as a new gas station and larger elementary school. Mayville remained a bastion of rural America—the persona of a small farming town. Frame houses lined tree-shaded streets where children rode bicycles and gardens sprouted proudly in nearly every backyard.
    There was comfort in the familiar sun-ripened landscape. She fiddled with the radio, patiently waiting as a tractor made a lumbering turn to the left in front of her.
    Michael was fond of making jokes about the farmer’s daughter. She was not the daughter of a farmer; she was the daughter of a professor of economics at Indiana University. But she was the granddaughter of generations of Paulsen farmers and had spent every summer of her life, until she entered college, living on the family farm.
    Six generations of her father’s family had worked 290 acres of some of the best land in Indiana, and her grandfather still rose before dawn to trudge off into the darkness and begin the daily ritual of living off the land.
    She was proud of being a Paulsen.
    The end of town was no more than a farewell to the last neat house and porch swing, and a return of the cornfields. Two miles along, Victoria came to the familiar battered black mailbox that signaled the lane leading up to the farm. The gravel had been freshly graded and the sound of her tires crunched deliciously into the still afternoon air. A small cloud of dust mushroomed behind the wheels, announcing her arrival.
    The house was tall, white, and spare. Two porches, one in back and one in front, were painted gray and had ornate railings running their length. Five shiny bedroom windows reflected sunshine on the second floor, and the big picture window in the formal parlor downstairs showed a froth of white lace curtains.
    The lawn was trim and intensely green, and a huge red barn hulked at the end of the drive, watching over the place like a decaying wooden guardian. Beyond were the fields and an endless vista of waving corn, punctuated here and there by small groves of distant trees.
    A battered pickup truck was parked in front of the barn. The hood was up and Victoria could see a pair of denim-clad legs braced against the fender. The rest of the man appeared to be eaten alive by the engine cavity. There was no one else in sight.
    Berthing her car carefully in the bank of shadow offered by the barn, Victoria got out and slammed her door.
    â€œHello,” she said loudly. Taking a breath was nearly painful; the heat of the afternoon rushed into her lungs like an invasion. “Whew, it’s hot.”
    â€œUh-huh. Hand me that wrench, will you, Tori?” A smeared hand emerged from the stomach of the truck, open-palmed, blindly reaching for the desired tool.
    Gingerly selecting one from an ancient toolbox lying on the ground, she handed it over. Whatever part of the engine required repair was a guess, as her view was solidly blocked by a muscular back that was streaked liberally with oil, dust, and sweat.
    â€œTime for a new truck, isn’t it?” Victoria commented critically. “This wreck never works, Damon. Seems to me the last time I was home you were out here, in the same