Rett was digging through her backpack for her last stick of sour orange gum when Magnolia walked up to her table and plopped a big plate of lasagna in front of her.
“Eat,” she said. “No argument. Your grandmama’s paid for it already.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rett said automatically, grateful for the food and even more grateful that someone made a decision for her.
She was halfway finished with the pasta when the door to the café opened, and a tall, kind of bony woman with reddish hair walked in. When Rett heard a couple of men call out her name—Love—she knew it was her grandma. The woman glanced over at Rett, her pale eyes lingering for a split second. Before Rett could react, her grandma turned to speak to the woman that Rett had flipped off.
Great, she thought. They’re probably best friends or something. Her grandma would hate her before they even met. Rett immediately started thinking about where she could go from here. Her money wouldn’t get her far. She hated thinking about it, but she might have to pawn the banjo. Though the thought of pawning the gorgeous instrument kinda killed her, it also made her smile. Dale would bust a vein. Would serve him right. Maybe she’d send him a postcard with a little cartoon showing the banjo in a jail cell. Just like all those cute little cartoons he drew on Hampton Inn stationery and sent her when he was on the road. All the time he was probably sending Patsy the same cartoons along with love notes reliving what they’d done.
Just thinking about Dale and Patsy made her eyes burn. She bit the inside of her cheek, making herself concentrate on the physical pain, so she wouldn’t think about the ache in her chest. She’d sung he-done-me-wrong songs since she was barely five years old, but this was the first time she understood what those women were talking about.
She pushed the lasagna away, her appetite gone. Forget about Dale, she lectured herself. You’ve got to figure a way to make some money and get out of here. She was certain she’d used up whatever good girl, spiritual savings she’d acquired with the Mister upstairs, so she doubted whether someone like Brother Dwaine would show up and drive her to L.A. Maybe she could get a job bartending, though she didn’t have any idea how to make any kind of drink except a sloe gin fizz. She tried to remember the ratio between sloe gin and fizzy water. Was lemon juice involved somehow? Maybe she could Google it. She’d need to find a fake ID too.
“Hello, Loretta.”
Rett looked up, surprised to see her grandma standing next to her. She was struck dumb for a moment. She looked right into her eyes, then back down at the table. “I go by Rett now.”
She looked back up to see her grandma’s reaction. For some reason, she knew this moment would be one she’d remember her whole life. She tasted the sweet-tangy marinara sauce in the back of her throat. The contents of her stomach crashed and broke like an ocean wave. It suddenly struck her that this was her father’s mother. She’d given birth and raised the man that was Rett’s dad. What would this woman think of her? What if her grandma didn’t want to have anything to do with her?
“Rett Johnson.” Her grandma cocked her head and rolled the name off her tongue as if she were tasting it. Her voice was pitched low, like a blues singer. “I like that.” A soft Kentucky twang still echoed in the shadows of her vowels. Her thin, pale lips turned up into a smile. “Well, Rett, welcome home.”
FIVE
Mel
M
el had finished her riding lesson and was currying the sweat and dirt off Redeye’s back when Maisie came up behind her.
“Benni says you were a cop,” Maisie remarked, leaning against the metal hitching rail where the horse was tied.
Mel kept grooming and didn’t answer.
“In Las Vegas,” Maisie persisted.
According to Benni, Maisie’s father had called and said he’d be late, so she had hung around during Mel’s lesson supposedly helping Gabe build a new chicken coop. Throughout her lesson, Mel had heard the young woman’s clear voice talking a mile a minute to Gabe.
“
Were
being the operative word,” Mel said, glancing over at the curious young woman. Strands of Maisie’s hair had worked their way loose from her braid, causing tiny curls to form around her heart-shaped face. She appeared to be the same age as Love’s granddaughter, but the two girls seemed as far apart in looks and attitude as Mel was from the actress Reese Witherspoon.
“My daddy’s a cop,” Maisie replied. “He says, ‘Once a cop, always a cop.’ ”
Benni walked around the corner in time to hear Maisie’s statement. “Amen to that. Though I have to admit, since Gabe retired, he’s becoming a little less suspicious of every person who looks crosswise at him.”
Mel didn’t answer, just kept currying the horse’s broad back.
“Do you still carry a gun?” Maisie asked Mel.
Mel glanced over at Benni and arched one eyebrow. For a cop’s kid, this one was awfully snoopy.
“Hey, Maisie,” Benni said. “Would you go inside and help Dove pack up the pumpkin bread for Mel and the others? You know my gramma. She’ll probably be trying to do it herself, and she’s not supposed to use that arm.”
“In other words, quit asking questions and get lost.” Maisie gave Mel a wide grin and wiped her hands down her tight Wranglers. “Sorry if I’m a pain. Daddy says I should have come equipped with a snap on my mouth.” She gave a high giggle.
Maisie had an infectiously cheerful way about her, an innocence that Mel envied. She exuded the easy confidence that a person seemed to acquire only if they’d been cherished early in their life. Mel wanted to dislike the girl for it, but instead, she found herself smiling back.
“No harm, no foul,” Mel said, tossing the currycomb into the metal bucket. She pulled a hoof pick from her back pocket.
“Thanks! See you later.” Maisie ran toward the back door of the ranch house, giving a little skip every third step or so.
“She’s a good kid,” Benni said. “She reminds me of myself at that age.”
“Well, lucky you.” Mel felt a twinge inside. She hadn’t meant the words to sound quite so sarcastic.
Benni cocked her head, not appearing to be insulted. “Yes, I was. But I can’t take any credit for it. I didn’t pick my family, I was born into it. Lucky sperm club, as Gabe would say.” She smiled. “I always correct him. Lucky sperm
and
egg club. I didn’t deserve my good fortune any more than someone deserves a bad family. I just thank God for it.”
Mel gently tugged at Redeye’s back fetlock until he lifted his leg. She pulled his foot between her knees and dug at the mud and debris caught in the frog of his hoof. It always made her uncomfortable when someone talked about God in such a familiar way, like he was a person they just called on their cell phone, one of their five favorite people, as one phone company advertised. She didn’t know how to respond. The whole concept of a being who created this screwed-up world seemed beyond rational belief, though she’d have to admit, if pressed, that she didn’t have any better explanation for how or why humans existed or what made them do things, good and bad.
“Are you going to the lighted boat parade on Saturday?” Benni asked.
“Yep. Bert and Ernie and four of their buddies are attempting some kind of kayak formation.” She let Redeye’s leg down carefully and moved to the next one.
“I’ve seen single kayaks in the parade,” Benni said. “They always cover themselves with Christmas lights. But I don’t think there’s ever been a whole fleet of them. Is that what you’d call it, a fleet of kayaks? A bevy? A cartel?”
Mel didn’t look up from Red’s hoof. “In this case, I’d probably call it a foolishness of kayaks.”
Benni’s clear laugh rang out. “Mel, you are a hoot. Are you going to paddle with them?”
“With how cold it is out there on the water? No way. I’m the official photographer and designated cheerleader.”
“Smart lady.” Benni checked her watch. “I’d better go inside and make sure Dove isn’t doing something she’s not supposed to be doing. Same time next week?”
Mel nodded. “I’ll practice with opening and closing gates before then. I’m going over to August and Polly’s after this.”
“You’re doing great, but riding a horse is like riding a bicycle. You need to do it enough that it becomes second nature. That’s the best way to avoid a wreck.”
Ten minutes later, Mel had finished with the horse’s last hoof and was combing out his tangled mane when a man came strolling around the corner of the barn. She swore softly to herself. Grooming Redeye was her favorite part of her lessons with Benni, and she really preferred doing it alone. There was a certain rhythm to the brushing, combing, picking his hooves, checking his body for sore spots. Making another creature feel comfortable and calm seemed a worthwhile task and settled something inside her in an uncomplicated, peaceful way.
So it annoyed her when the man, whistling an off-key tune, walked right up to her. He was average height, five eleven or so, middle to late forties, short brownish silver hair parted on the side, dark eyes. He had a self-assured, slightly aggressive walk that instantly gave him away. Cop or career military. Maisie’s dad, she guessed.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked. He wore a faded plaid flannel shirt, jeans and round-toed brown boots. His black ball cap read Tulane University.
“Fine.”
“Is Maisie back here?”
“Nope.” She continued to run the steel comb through Redeye’s mane. His accent had a drawl to it. Texas, she guessed.
“Know where she went?” He squinted his coffee brown eyes against the warm afternoon sun and rested his hands on his hips. Though she hated that she noticed, he was attractive, good-looking in that Eddie Bauer-L.L. Bean male-model way. All he needed was a rake in his hand, a yellow Lab at his feet and a bar code across his feet.
“Last I heard she was headed toward the house.”
“No one’s in the house.”
Mel shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
She waited for him to go away, but he didn’t. She could feel the tension start in the pit of her stomach, reminding her of the feeling when she was a patrol officer, that millisecond she knew that the person she’d pulled over was going to be a pain in the ass.
“You must be Mel,” he said, his voice friendly, deliberately ignoring her not-interested signals.
“Yep.” She started vigorously working at a knotted place in Redeye’s mane. When she tugged too hard, the horse tossed his head in annoyance. “Sorry, boy,” she murmured.
“You’re taking lessons from Benni too,” the man said. “Maisie talks about you all the time. Says you’re the bomb. That’s good, I think. But you’re young. I guess you’d know that. Actually, Maisie just talks all the time, so don’t take it personal. She used to be shy as a kid, then something happened when she hit puberty, and it’s been magpie city ever since. Sometimes I put on my Bose headphones and tell her I’m listening to music when all I’m doing is listening to the quiet. I’m her dad, by the way.” While he talked, he’d moved over to the other side of the horse.
Mel peered at him over Redeye’s back, unsmiling. “Like daughter, like father.”
Without missing a beat, he threw back his head and laughed. “Touché, Ms. Melina Jane LeBlanc. I’ve been known to bend someone’s ear once in a great while.”
His use of her full name caused her neck to stiffen. She didn’t like it when someone knew more about her than she did about them. Then again, he was a cop and an obviously protective father, so it made sense that he’d do some checking on a person who was around his daughter, even peripherally. She reluctantly gave him credit for that. A parent couldn’t be too cautious these days, what with pedophiles on practically every street corner. Still, his familiarity grated on her nerves.
She gave him a cool look. “That all you need, Maisie’s dad?”
He grinned at her, a cocky smile that she was certain always worked for him with the badge bunnies who flocked around the diners and bars where law enforcement officers hung out. “Sorry, name’s Hud. Short for Ford Hudson. Don’t laugh. My late, not-so-great father was crazy as a drunk barn rat. Story goes if I had been a girl, my name was going to be Cadillac.”
Mel didn’t smile back. He gave the spiel so easily that she knew it was his go-to line for picking up women. It probably worked more times than not.
“Daddy!” Maisie’s voice rang out when she walked around the corner of the barn and saw them. She was carrying a mewing calico kitten. Benni followed behind her. “Dove’s house cat had kittens . . .”
“No,” he said, automatically. Then added, “Ask your mama.”
“I will,” Maisie said, cuddling the kitten against her chest. “And she’ll say no. But I thought I’d try.”
“Boo is too old to be getting used to a kitten,” Hud said. He looked back at Mel. “He’s her corgi. Half uncle or cousin twice removed or something to Love Johnson’s dog, Ace.”
“Oh,” Mel said, untying Redeye’s lead. She looked over at Benni. “Pasture or barn?”
“Barn,” Benni said. “Give him an extra measure of grain. He worked hard today, and we’ve been having some cold nights.”
After Mel settled the horse in his stall, she walked back out into the backyard, relieved to see that everyone was gone. Up on the front porch of the ranch house, she hesitated before walking in. Though Dove had admonished her many times to feel free to come on in whenever she needed to use the bathroom, get a drink or something to eat, Mel didn’t feel right about entering someone’s home without knocking. She couldn’t imagine someone doing that in her little house. She compromised by making it a habit of opening the screen door and calling out, “Anyone here?”
“In the kitchen.” Benni’s voice was a muffled reply.
Inside the warm red and yellow farm kitchen, Mel found Benni standing next to the large stainless steel stove stirring a pot that sent a wonderful nutmeg-infused scent throughout the room.
“There’s your pumpkin bread.” She nodded at the four green gift bags tied with red and white curly ribbon.