Getting on the wrong bus changed Sam Parker’s life.

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He had walked away from his family twelve years earlier, trying to find his place in the world. His wanderings uncovered things he hoped to find and others he wanted to forget. Surrendering to his demons brings him to rock bottom, with nowhere to go but up. After falling in love with the woman who saved him, an overpowering dream compels him to finish his journey. Knowing he might never see her again, it was heartbreaking when he had to leave her. When he reaches his destination, the startling news awaiting him turns his life upside down. It leads to a future he could never have imagined, including helping his estranged brother fulfill a promise neither of them wants to keep.

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Sam grabbed his backpack and stumbled off the bus into the fading twilight of a cool Montana evening. He dropped his bag onto a bench outside the station and sat down. It was quiet, not many people moving around and only a few cars driving by. A couple of teenagers wandered into the pizza place across the street. To his right, he saw cars pulling into a parking lot. The neon sign for a drugstore cast a red glow on a pickup truck parked in front.

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He cocked his head back and looked at the sky. He saw the evening star glittering in the deepening night to the east. It was the only star visible. As he contemplated the heavens, he chewed on the word home. It had been banging around in his head since Wayne threw it at him. For some folks, it’s warm memories, happy times, family fun. For others, the word makes them wince, for there was always unpleasant and unspoken shit bubbling just below the surface.

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Returning to the place of his festering youth, Sam wasn’t sure which memories would flood him first when he stepped through the door, assuming he made it that far. The bad seemed to outweigh the good, but he wasn’t sure that was true. He wasn’t sure of much these days, but one of the few things he was certain of was that although you could go home again, they didn’t have to take you in.

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