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Dale felt his eyes go wide. “The what?”
“You’d think living in Texas all our lives that wouldn’t be such a big deal, right?” Chase said. “But believe it or not, that was the first tornado to touch down in Lusty—well, since there’ve been Benedicts and Jessops and Kendalls here, anyway.”
“Was anybody hurt?” Dale asked.
“Minor injuries.” Brian said that, and he smirked. There were a few snickers, and Dale immediately had the sense that there was a story here.
“Let’s get these pies cut up and passed around,” Cord said. “Then we’ll tell you all about our little dustup with Mother Nature.”
“You won’t forget the part about how it was mostly the women who saved your bacon, will you, sweetheart?”
Cord looked at his wife and then leveled a look at every other woman at the table. Then his laughing eyes landed on Ari again. “Red, y’all are making real sure none of us ever forget that part—for which we’re all grateful, of course.”
“Wow, Cord.” Laci’s smile looked huge—and teasing. “That ‘y’all’ sounded downright Texan!”
“Thank you, cousin. I’m working on it.” His smile was accompanied by a wink.
Dale noticed three extra dessert plates were set on the table at about the same time the front door opened and then closed.
A feminine voice said, “I hope we’re not too late for pie!”
Dale and Parker—and all the other men—got to their feet as the woman entered with two strapping men in tow.
“Addison! You’re looking good!” Dale was the first to reach her. He held out his hand intending to shake, and she hugged him instead. Then she reached for Parker and hugged him, too.
“These are my husbands, Mike Jones and Terry Jessop.”
Handshakes instead of hugs followed those introductions, more chairs were brought to the table, and people adjusted to make room for the newcomers.
When they’d first come into the house, Dale had thought this was one huge table. Now he saw while it was still big, it was nicely big enough for the Benedicts seated around it.
“You are in time for pie and a story.”
Addison grinned. “Oh, goodie.” She rubbed her hands together and smiled at him and Parker. “We weren’t here when it happened. Michael builds furniture, and we were at a trade show in Oklahoma and then were taking two days for a mini vacation afterward—so we missed all the fun.”
“You have a sick definition of fun, sister,” Jesse said. He was smiling, and Addison stuck her tongue out at him in response.
Then Jackson ruffled her hair before he took his seat.
Dale could never recall his cousins—his Uncle George’s kids—all getting along as well as they were right then. I think I might be witnessing a miracle.
“The fun started when a bachelor party we were having at our ranch had a party crasher—Mother Nature.” Chase grinned as he looked around the table. “Some of the men sitting here—namely, Jackson and Lucas—were on the volunteer firefighter roster that day. There’d been a call in the afternoon, a grass fire caused by a lightning strike, at the other end of the county. So they missed all the fun, too.”
“Lusty has a well-equipped fire department, and our full-time firefighters, Grant and Andrew Jessop, are very well trained,” Brian said. “They’ve even taken smoke jumper training in California. Most of the men of Lusty spend a month or so a year on that list, which includes training and practice time. Not many of us have actually had to fight a fire.”
“They organize the lists so that, usually, only one husband per household is on the roster at a time,” Cord said. “Which was why Jackson and Lucas were, but Trace and I weren’t.”
“And neither of us went—our cousin Steven went in my place—because the man we were honoring was our long-time foreman, Ricoh Stone,” Chase said.
“While some of the men were off playing Smokey the Bear and the rest were eating, drinking, and playing poker at the foreman’s house at our ranch, most of the women, except me because junior here was acting up, were at the Big House attending a shower for Ricoh’s fiancée, Angela.” Carrie shook her head. “Sorry, the Big House is what we call the house where Grandma Kate and her sons and daughters-in-law live.”
