Zeke laid the menu to the side and took a drink of water. “And we’ll all play Dirty Santa. I love that game.”
“Me too, Daddy,” Lottie said with half a smile.
“Were you disappointed to hear that Jack was retiring?” Darlene asked.
“Of course, but not as shocked as I was when he told us that y’all and Mandy’s siblings were all moving into Swan Song Estates,” Lottie answered.
Darlene reached across the table and laid a hand on her daughter’s arm. “We’re tired of moving, and even more so, we do not like being so far from family.”
Zeke added his hand on top of Darlene’s. “Honey, we’ve got more years behind us than we’ve got in front of us. We want to spend years or even moments with you and your brothers.”
“And with Jack and that side of the family,” Darlene added.
Lottie’s eyes misted over. She had never given a single thought ahead to the days when she wouldn’t have her parents. They had always been there, no matter where they lived, and she figured they always would be. Reality set in that very instant. Her dad’s thinning hair was now all gray with no dark brown left, and his wrinkles had deepened. He didn’t have the spring in his step that he had had ten years ago, and the glitter in his eyes had dimmed a little.
Darlene’s blond hair was almost all gray now. She and Lottie used to be the same height, but now her mother was at least two inches shorter than Lottie. They had shared clothing on occasion, but these days her mother looked to be two sizes smaller than she was.
“Well, now that the shock and surprise is over, I’m glad you’ll be living here,” Lottie said around the lump in her throat.
Billy June returned with their drinks, a basket of steaming hot biscuits, and a plate stacked high with fried green tomatoes. “Are y’all ready to order?”
“I am,” Zeke said. “I’ll have the chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and white gravy, candied carrots, and a side salad with ranch dressing.”
“Make that two,” Darlene said.
“No, make it three.” Lottie smiled, and this time it was real.
Chapter 12
The quacking noise of at least fifty ducks filled the air as they floated down from the blue sky to land on the still lake water that evening. Knox sat in the grass on the bank and watched their heads dip into the water, looking for small fish for supper. Their actions reminded him of bobbing for apples at the church festival during Halloween when he was a little boy. Tripp had been good at getting his teeth into one, but not Brodie or Knox. Most of the time, all they got was a nose full of water.
“I wonder what kind of luck Lottie had in that game,” he whispered.
The ducks closest to the bank glared at him.
“Okay, even though I was here first, I will be very quiet,” he said.
He wondered where Lottie was at that very moment and how things were going with her parents. He imagined her sitting at a booth or a table across from her father. She would be fidgeting because she had let him believe that she was in a semi-serious relationship. Knox knew that because he had felt the same way when they were in Spanish Fort—especially with Mary Jane and Joe Clay.
Thinking about her brought on visuals of her the past week. There she was in her overalls and braided hair, holding a board for him to nail in place. Then a picture of the wind on Easter Sunday, blowing the sleeves away from her dress and showing her toned arms. Last was a vision of her coming out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her body every evening. Lately, the desire to take the towel away had been so overpowering that it took every bit of his willpower to keep his hands to himself.
“It would be so easy to take this from friendship to the next level,” he whispered.
Several ducks’ heads swiveled around to glare at him again.
“Sorry, guys. It just slipped out.” He chuckled.
The next picture that filtered through his mind was her holding the bouquet that Willa Rose, his new sister-in-law, threw at the wedding. She’d acted a little embarrassed since she was one of only a handful of strangers at the event. Knox didn’t know her name at that time, but he had thought she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. It had probably been nothing more than what his seven sisters calledwedding fever.
The ducks suddenly took flight and landed so far across the lake that they were nothing but dark-colored dots. He hadn’t said a word or even moved a muscle, so they couldn’t lay the blame on him for getting spooked like that. Was this area poor picking grounds for supper, so they left to find food elsewhere?
A movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye, and he whipped around in time to see Cheeto flying low to the ground and coming right at him.
“You are late to the party,” Knox said. “The ducks are gone, and I doubt if they would have wanted to be your friend anyway. They weren’t very friendly, and one of the prerequisites to getting into their club is that you have to be able to swim.”
Cheeto strutted down to the edge of the lake, threw back his head, and crowed.
“No use in cussing them,” Knox told him. “They are gone.”
