"There's no loving way to be interrogated, Brody."
He came around and opened my door before I could do it myself, which I wasstillgetting used to. The screen door swung open before we'd made it halfway up the porch steps, and there she was.
Colleen Lancaster was a small woman with a big presence. Gray-blond hair pulled back, same green eyes as both her boys, wearin' an apron over a floral blouse that saidHead Chef. She had the look of a woman who'd buried the love of her life and decided, every single morning, to get up anyway.
I recognized that look. Saw a version of it in the mirror more often than I'd like.
"Well, get on up here," she said, hands planted on her hips. "Let me look at you without a hot dog in your mouth."
I barked out a laugh. Friday night's party was a blur of tequila and ketchup and Brody's arm around me. The brief introduction to his mama had been somewhere in the middle of all that—nothin' that would've made a lasting impression beyondmy son's new girlfriend is hammered.
Great first impression, Calvin. Real classy.
I climbed the last two steps and stopped in front of her. She was maybe five-three, which meant she had to tilt her head back a bit to take me in. She did it without a shred of self-consciousness, studying me head to toe—not unkindly, just thorough.
Then she pulled me into a hug so fierce it damn near cracked a rib.
She smelled like flour and lavender and the warmth of a kitchen that had been feeding people for decades.
I hugged her back. Couldn't help it.
When she released me, she held me at arm's length and gave a sharp nod, like she'd made a decision about something in that exact moment. "Alright. Come in, come in."
The inside of the house was exactly what I'd expected and nothin' like anywhere I'd ever lived. Family photos lined the hallway. Brody and Luke as kids, gap-toothed and sunburned. A wedding photo that made my chest ache: a young, beautiful Colleen beaming up at a man who looked at her the way Brody looked at me. School portraits, rodeo ribbons tacked to a corkboard, a framed drawing in crayon that saidHappy Mother's Daywith an upside down and backwards lowercase E.
I slowed in front of one photo near the kitchen doorway. Two boys—couldn't have been more than eight and nine—sitting on a fence rail, arms around each other, squinting into the sun. Brody's grin was enormous, taking up half his face. Luke's was smaller, almost reluctant, but there. Behind them, a man in a Stetson had one hand on each of their shoulders, looking at the camera like he couldn't believe his luck.
"That was the summer Brody convinced Luke they could ride a pig," Colleen said from behind me. I hadn't heard her come up. "Hospital visit. Four stitches. Luke's idea of revenge was to tell everyone at school that Brody cried."
"Did he?"
"Like a baby." She patted my arm. "Don't tell him I told you."
"Wouldn't dream of it."I absolutely would be using this information at the earliest opportunity.
The kitchen was small and warm and smelled like roast beef and something sweet baking in the oven. Colleen had set the table for four with nice plates and cloth napkins that weren't as fancy as the Bozeman ones but were pressed and clean. And there was a vase of wildflowers sitting in the center that looked freshly picked.
"Is Luke comin'?" Brody asked, clearly noticing the same thing.
"He said he'd try." She sounded concerned, the way mothers did—a guess, really, because what would I know about all that. "Sit, sit. It's almost ready."
Brody pulled out my chair. I sat. He dropped into the seat beside me and immediately reached under the table to rest his hand on my thigh, warm and steady and grounding in a way I was trying not to need.
Colleen bustled between the stove and the table, declining all offers of help with a firm, "You're a guest in my house, Calvin Jennings, and guests sit." So I sat, watching this woman move through her kitchen with the ease of someone who'd done it ten thousand times.
This was what it looked like. A kitchen that someone cooked in because they wanted to feed the people they loved. A table set with care. Flowers picked because somebody thought they'd be nice to look at.
A life well lived.
My daddy's trailer had a hot plate and a mini fridge. We ate off paper plates when we ate at all.
I pressed my thumb into the cloth napkin in my lap and smoothed it flat.
"Now," Colleen said, setting a plate of roast beef in front of me that coulda fed three of me, "Brody tells me you've been workin' over at Wild Acre."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And how's Rhett treatin' you? That boy works too hard and forgets other people need things, like water and lunch breaks."
