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“I doubt I’ll be staying that long.”

“Where else do you have to be?”

Now wasn’t that the question of the year?

5

At seven o’clock sharp, I was out of the motel and at the Down Home Diner. It was already open, and half the tables were full. My stomach started rumbling as soon as the smells hit me. There was bacon and coffee, that was for sure, but there were other things that had me almost salivating. The protein bar I’d had at four o’clock that morning wasn’t cutting it.

I walked up to the hostess station and grinned. The little old lady sitting on the stool beside the station grinned back at me, then she frowned.

“Wait just a dog-gone minute. Is that you, Beau?”

I tilted my head and looked at her. My heart beat a little faster. “Beau?”

“Don’t be giving me any of your sass, boy. I might be old. Real old, but my eyesight is just fine.” She gave me a mischievous grin. “Well, good for a girl one-hundred-and-one years young. Now you answer me, Grady Beau Beaumont. Have you finally decided to come home? Because it’s about dang time.”

“Ma’am, my name isn’t Beau. My name is Kai Davies. To my knowledge, I’ve lived up in Alaska my entire life, but I found this photo in my aunt’s possessions after she passed.” I pulled out my wallet and handed her the photo that said Grady and Brady, Jasper Tennessee.

She sucked in a loud breath as she looked down at the picture.

“Little Grandma, are you going to let us in, or what? We’re hungry.”

I turned around to see five people standing behind me. One man looked very impatient, and I recognized him from yesterday afternoon at Pearl’s. He was the gravy guy.

“Hold your horses, Harvey. This is important.” Little Grandma waved her hand at him.

She looked down at the picture in her hand, then looked back up at me. “Kai Davies, Brady Beaumont disappeared almost thirty years ago. So did his daddy, Arthur. Arthur was a mean sumbitch. We never did know what happened to him, or that little boy. Beau joined the Marines when he turned eighteen. He came back a few times to sort out his mama’s things and start renting out his house on Dogwood. After that we ain’t never seen hide nor hair of him again. That’s been nigh on fourteen years. You’re the spitting image of Beau.”

“Little Grandma,” Harvey growled.

“Lettie,” Little Grandma hollered out. “Come seat Harvey before he gnaws a leg off a chair. Then seat the others. Will you, Darlin’?”

A pretty, curvy, middle-aged woman came over and plucked some menus out of Little Grandma’s hand and glowered at Harvey. “This way, you overgrown horse’s behind. Just for causing trouble, you’re not getting a cinnamon roll with your meal.”

“Lettie, that’s just not fair,” I heard him whine as she took him to a table near the back of the restaurant.

Little Grandma looked up at the others. “Here’s the menus. The rest of you can seat yourselves. You’ll get a free cinnamon roll with your meals today for waiting so patiently, so eat hearty.”

I was in a daze as I watched her customers thank her profusely, take the menus, and go into the dining room. All I could really think about, all I could really concentrate on, was that I had a brother. And his name was Beau.

“What’s your daddy’s name?” Little Grandma asked.

“Ronald. Ronald Davies. His sister’s name was Sheila. She died three years ago.”

“That’s a shame, son. I’ll say a prayer for her. Do you have a picture of your daddy?”

I shook my head. There was never a reason to take a picture of Ronald. Never.

“Well, welcome home, Brady Beaumont.”

She reached up and enveloped me in a hug that smelled like cinnamon and roses. I found myself hugging her back. When she released me, it was like my entire world had turned upside down.

I have a brother.

My name was Brady Beaumont.

I have a brother.