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CHAPTERSEVEN
Lee woke up on Sunday morning, the house dark and quiet. If he laid really still and held his breath, he could hear his son’s fan blowing down the hall, even with both bedroom doors almost closed. When Lee lived in the cabin alone during the week, he closed his door all the way. When Ford was here, he didn’t. He wanted to be able to hear more and get to his son if he needed to.
Nothing all that exciting ever happened around Sweet Water Falls Farm. Nothing that would require Lee to bolt straight up out of bed and go heroically rescue his son at least.
He opened his eyes, his misery shooting through him the same way a sharp pain echoed through his back. A hot shower would take care of one of those, and Lee hoped a huge breakfast of Dutch pancakes would ease the other.
As he scrubbed and then stood in the hot water to allow his muscles to relax, he knew breakfast wouldn’t solve the silence between him and Rosalie. He’d told no one about her, not even Cherry. His sister had called a couple of times, but thankfully, Lee had been with clients both times.
He’d put her off by promising to call later or text after he got home. He’d done neither. If he was lucky, she’d call today instead of showing up on his doorstep, demanding to know what had happened on Thursday night’s date.
He’d humiliated himself by going in for the kiss, that was what had happened. Lee had lost his mind for five seconds, that was all. It happened to other people, he was sure.
Every time he thought about Rosalie, it was of the weight of her hand in his. Or maybe the way she laughed at some of the corny jokes he’d told after dinner, while they’d been walking through the park. Or even maybe the way she leaned right across the table, her mouth open and waiting for the piece of steak he’d said she should try.
She felt fearless to him, and Lee wanted her in his life. “Not enough to pick up the phone,” he muttered, giving the device a glare as he dried his hair with a towel. The sounds of life met his ears from down the hall, and Lee moved over to the door and opened it all the way.
“Ford,” he called, and his son skipped into view wearing his pajamas. “I’m making Dutch pancakes for breakfast.”
“Okay,” his son said. “Can you make that blueberry syrup?”
“If there’s blueberries,” he said. “Check the freezer. Grandma put some in bags for us, I think.”
“Okey dokey,” Ford said, already skipping out of sight. Lee smiled to himself, so glad he hadn’t had to wake up alone this morning. Not only that, but Ford always brought a ray of sunshine to Lee’s soul, even if he was in trouble for falling asleep in the hay loft when he should be sweeping it.
Lee returned to his bedroom closet and got dressed. He wasn’t going to church today, not that anyone would be surprised. He believed in God, but he preferred his own private way of worshipping Him. Lee wasn’t sure how to hear the Lord. He talked to Him all the time, but it felt like there was some sort of muffler between Lee’s lips and God’s ears.
The date on Thursday only proved that completely, and when Mama texted Lee and told him that he and Ford could sit by her and Daddy in the pew, Lee would just send her a heart back. She invited him every week, bless her soul. Lee loved her back every week.
He didn’t let his mind dwell on his mother. He should probably go to church with her every week so she could pass in peace, knowing her oldest son believed. Daddy had told him to follow his heart, and that he knew what kind of man Lee was. Lee wished he could sit down with his father again and ask him what kind of man that was. He hadn’t quite dared to bring it up again, however.
He made it into the kitchen, where Ford had indeed found a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer. He’d put the bag in a bowl and put that in the sink and had cold water running over it. He, as a person, wasn’t there to make sure the sink didn’t overflow. Not that it was even close to doing that, but Lee flipped the water off anyway.
“Ford?” he yelled.
“Out by the stream!” his son’s tinny voice came back. Lee lifted up onto his toes and looked out the window that showed the back yard. There was no fence, and their cabin bordered woods and fields with a stream drifting right through the middle of it. In the fall, Ford could stand twenty-five feet from the back door and catch fish for dinner.
The boy crouched down at the stream’s edge right now, peering at something. Lee wondered if he needed glasses, because Lee hadn’t been much older than Ford when he’d gotten his spectacles. He adjusted his now and got to work in the kitchen. The syrup could wait until the cast iron skillets were in the oven, so he put together the Dutch pancake batter first, poured it into his individually-sized skillets, then slid them into the hot oven.
He’d just set a pan on the stove to boil the blueberries with a lot of sugar when the front door of his house opened. Ford had not come in from the back, and honestly, Lee expected to see Travis or Will walk inside. If someone came out to his cabin without a text or a call, it was one of his brothers.
This morning, it was both. Will wore slacks, a white shirt, and a tie, but Travis had on jeans, his cowboy boots, a plaid shirt in red, orange, and yellow, and a hat. He swept that from his head and nodded to Will.
“What’s goin’ on?” Lee asked, his heart starting to bob up in the back of his throat. If Gretchen sold him out, Lee was going to lose his mind. He’d kept her secret as professionally as a lifelong thief, and it had only been two full days.
He turned back to the stove with the sugar canister and didn’t bother to measure. He simply poured some into his palm and then tilted it into the pan. He’d learned to cook from his mother and grandmother, and he hadn’t seen a measuring cup until he was fifteen years old. Even then, it was only for candy-making. Grandma did everything else “by feel.”
Feel the weight of that sugar, Lee? That’s about half a cup. In it goes.
He did another half-cup and lidded the canister. Neither of his brothers had spoken yet, and that wasn’t a good sign. He turned and set the sugar on the island, facing them in the process. “Is someone gonna say something?” He certainly wasn’t going to give anything away.
Trav and Will exchanged another glance, and Lee wished they all wore cowboy hats in the house. Mama would kill them with her bare hands, cancer or not, and Lee wasn’t sure he could wear a hat indoors now at all.
“Rumor has it you went on a date last week,” Will finally said.
Lee’s lungs iced over, making breathing difficult. “Is that against the law?”
“Is it true?” Trav asked. He definitely possessed one of the sharper tongues in the Cooper family. He made up for it with the biggest heart.
