LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      He couldn’t do it. As Austin Bryant stared at the front of the older house where he’d grown up, his breathing grew tight. It was as if what lay beyond the front door was already suffocating him as it had threatened to do during his childhood.

      Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of an engine. The early May sun baked him like it could only in Texas, albeit not with the urban type of heat that came from that same sun beating down on metal and concrete. Even though sweat trickled from his neck toward the middle of his back, his feet refused to move.

      He took a deliberate deep breath. It didn’t matter how long he stood in the front yard of his grandparents’ house, the monumental task he faced wasn’t going to magically disappear. With his grandfather’s passing, the time that he’d dreaded for years had come—cleaning out the house so he could sell it.

      Austin inhaled another breath that felt as if it might scorch his lungs before he headed toward the front steps. He paused with the key in his hand, wondering if he could just walk away, sell the place as it was, let someone else deal with the cleaning and repairs. But that didn’t feel right. Despite everything, this had been his home when he was young. His earliest memories and dreams were formed here. No matter how hard it was, this was his task and his alone.

      He shook his head, telling himself to just get on with things. The sooner he started, the sooner he could put it all behind him and stop thinking about what might have been.

      The doorknob squeaked as he turned it, already making itself an item on his to-do list. He stepped across the threshold and into his past, the one he’d fled when he’d gone away to college. All around him, piled to the ceiling, was...stuff. Old magazines sat side by side with clothing that hadn’t been worn in decades. Shelves of ceramic dust-catchers—cats, cowboy boots, ladies in frilly dresses, bells and God only knew what

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