Read Online Potter Springs by Britta Coleman - Free Book Online Page A

trying to get rid of me?” Mark took another drink.
    “No, son. Trying to help you. Besides, aren’t you from the Panhandle? Lubbock, right?”
    Not technically the Panhandle, but close enough. “Yep.”
    “So, in a way, it’d be like going home.”
    Home. To windswept plains and broad fields of dancing yellow grass. Sky wrapped around the earth like a quilt, thin and high.
     Weather riding up like a herd of horses, clouds thundering in, seeing lightning from forty miles away. A land where sunsets
     were gifts brought from afar in colorful and glorious splendor.
    No city smog, no traffic, no mother-in-law or failed ministry. A new start.
    With no history. No credentials.
    Mark shook his head, the idea too overwhelming to be tempting. “I can’t think about moving right now. I’ve got enough on my
     plate getting Mandy better. Finding a job.”
    “In advertising.”
    “Yes.”
    “Sales and things.”
    “Along those lines.”
    “Sounds fulfilling.” Ben revealed no hint of sarcasm. “Really working with people.”
    Mark’s heart twitched. A whisper of the call tickled his spine. He felt no call at all to advertising amongst the slick and
     shiny. But maybe that’s what he’d been doing all along.
    He sighed. “Enough already. I’ll call Ervin, see if the job’s still open. But I’m not promising anything.”
    “I’m not the one you owe your promises.” Ben creaked out of the chair to check the simmering brew. “She’s inside. And she
     needs you now more than ever.”

CHAPTER 9

goliath
    H ere, put this in on the side.” Ben Thompson grunted, sweat streaming from his forehead as he jostled the bed frame up the
     U-Haul’s ramp.
    “Don’t you think over there, where there’s more room?” Mark gripped the other end, the metal pinching his palm.
    “Nah, this’ll work.” Ben gave a mighty shove and the bed frame tugged a tear in the corner of the couch. “What else we got?”
    “That’s about it.” Mark looked away from the fresh gash in the furniture. “One more lamp, I think. Honey, do you have anything
     left inside?” Mark called to Amanda, who sat with Dragonlady under the shade of a magnolia tree. He couldn’t hear their words,
     but the women’s postures crackled with tension.
    For all Mark knew, Katy was orchestrating a last-ditch effort to keep Amanda in Houston.
    Thankfully, it didn’t look like it was working.
    “No, just my purse. I’ll go get it.” Amanda stood with effort, looking none too steady.
    He hated they had to leave so soon, without the luxury of time that Amanda needed. But with the apartment lease up, and Ervin
     Plumley raring for their arrival, postponing the inevitable seemed foolish. They’d have to pay more to stay, and Mark figured
     he could take care of his wife just as well in Potter Springs as in Houston. Maybe better, without Dragonlady hovering, ready
     to strike.
    “No, let me.” He halted Amanda’s progress, squeezing her shoulders. “You say good-bye to your parents and we’ll head out.”
     He went inside and made a final check of the apartment, then locked the door behind him. Holding her purse in one hand, he
     balanced the lamp and a fake plant under his arm.
    In the parking lot, Ben embraced Amanda. Great tears rolled down his face as he hugged his daughter tight.
    She kissed his cheek, her own eyes dry, and whispered, “Bye, Daddy.”
    After closing the back of the rig, Mark started the U-Haul and blasted the air-conditioning. He retrieved Mr. Chesters’ carrier
     and shoved it in the small space behind the seat, and received a heated hiss in response.
    Clearing Amanda’s side, he set her new atlas on the console. He’d bought it at Wal-Mart for five dollars, a little treat for
     the road. He had wandered in the store-what do you give a woman who leaves hearth and home to follow you out west, to chase
     after your dream when hers died in a hospital in Houston?
    He sensed something had broken in her that day, had flowed out with