got nothing better to do than play with the telephone, c’mon over here. I’ll be glad to—”
Laughing, Adam cut in. “Whoa, there. Easy, big fella.”
Lamont could almost see him, grinning like a hyena, hands in the air as if he were the victim of a holdup.
“I’m just calling to see if you’ll help us celebrate Mom’s birthday tomorrow.”
Birthday? But hadn’t she just celebrated her birthday recently?
“Julie invited some of the folks from church, but mostly, it’ll be neighbors. I’ve been scrimping and saving, but she’s got some harebrained idea that this will show Mom how much we appreciate the way she let us move in here. And it just wouldn’t be a party without Mom’s best beau.”
The term echoed in his head. He’d give just about anything if that were true, but Nadine’s attitude when she canceled dinner echoed louder. Lamont took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. “You’re not too old to take over my knee, y’know.” Just for good measure, he tacked on, “Whippersnapper.”
Adam snickered. “You’ve been saying that since I stood eye-to-eye with a rooster.”
Lamont thanked God for old memories that, for the moment, anyway, blotted out Nadine’s last phone call. The boy had seemed to prefer hanging around the ranch to staying home, and had enthusiastically performed mundane chores. The price to pay for Lamont came in the form of a few dollars—and pranks of every shape and variety. Adam had been about seven when he coated the door handle of Lamont’s pickup with honey. The boy was eight or nine when he put salt in the sugar bowl. Once, he’d outfitted one of Lily’s piglets in a doll’s raincoat and hung a sign around its neck: “LONDON HOG.” And after reading Tom Sawyer as a homework assignment, he tried to steal one of Cammi’s fresh-baked cherry pies, cooling on the countertop. Startled when Lamont snuck up and seized his wrist, Adam’s fingers pierced the crust. Instead of cringing or crying, the then-eleven-year-old grinned and shrugged. “Guess you caught me red-handed this time, Mr. London!”
If he’d had a son, Lamont would have wanted him to be just like Adam—bighearted and hardworking with a “Never say quit” spirit. “When’s the party?”
“Tomorrow, Mom’s house, three o’clock.”
He’d earmarked tomorrow for mending fences and painting the front porch trim, but given a choice between chores and seeing Nadine?
“Be there with bells on.”
“And carrying a bouquet of daisies?”
Daisies? As if he were courting her? “Adam, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were still a knock-kneed young’un instead of a grown man with a wife and daughter of his own.”
He heard the grin in Adam’s voice: “Remember what Mom says.”
Lamont shook his head as Adam quoted her: “God and nature have decreed that I must age, but I refuse to get old!”
He also remembered that, as a teenager, Adam had worked at the Flower Cart in town. “So,” Lamont said, “if I wanted to bring roses, instead, what color should I buy?”
“Lemme see if I recall…” Adam cleared his throat. “White stands for purity, red means love, yellow is for friendship, pink is—”
He didn’t hear anything after love. “Should I bring anything?” Lamont asked. “Beans? Ketchup?” He grinned. “Salt for the sugar bowl?”
“For an old guy, you have a pretty good memory.” He quickly added, “Ladies Auxiliary is taking care of the food. Lily’s making iced tea and lemonade, and Cammi’s bringing the cake, so, thanks, but we’re all set.” Adam hesitated. “And just in case you run into her between now and tomorrow, Mom has no idea we’re throwing this bash. I can hardly wait to see her face when everybody bellows, ‘Happy Birthday’! She’s liable to blow a gasket.”
“Let’s hope not. Remember what happened when my old tractor blew one.”
The younger man chuckled. “Gave me nightmares for weeks. See you tomorrow,” he said, hanging up.
“Well, Obnoxious,” Lamont said, “looks like you ’n’ me are goin’ to a birthday party.”
Sitting on his haunches, the dog cocked his head, as if to say “I’m invited?”
“Yeah, you can come,” Lamont said, hoisting himself onto his horse Barney’s back, “but only if you promise to coax Nadine into a corner so I can give her a birthday kiss.”
Obnoxious stared for a moment, then woofed his consent and raced alongside the horse. Lamont led it in a gallop toward the back pastures. “You arrange that for me,” he added, “and I’ll grill up the thickest filet mignon in the freezer, just for you.”
The dog stopped running so fast that dirt and grit spewed out behind him. Standing stock-still, he blinked up at Lamont, doggy grin as big as ever, then ran full speed toward the house.
Lamont leaned forward and patted the horse’s mane. “Barney, m’boy, sometimes I think that mutt understands every word I’m saying.”
By Lamont’s count, there were at least sixty people in Nadine’s backyard, mostly women, but none compared to the birthday girl. Not even his gorgeous daughters—and that was saying something.
He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her since she stepped off the back porch and slapped both dainty hands to her cheeks. “I can’t believe it!” she chanted half a dozen times. “How’d you guys pull this off without me knowing about it?” The surprise turned her cheeks bright pink, making her look more like a college cheerleader than a grandmother.
She’d pulled her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail and secured it with a ribbon that matched the blue of her eyes. White sneakered feet seemed too tiny to hold a full-grown woman upright and, in his opinion, her jeans-clad legs were way too curvy to belong to any woman over twenty-one. Nadine topped off her outfit with a bright white T-shirt that said, “Beware: Picture-packin’ Granny.”
She was like a female Pied Piper, with no fewer than half a dozen tots hugging her knees, tugging at her pockets. As she balanced a chubby baby on one curvy hip, she held a toddler by the hand. Obnoxious pranced around, waiting for a pat on the head, and Julie’s cat wove figure eights between Nadine’s ankles. Yet amid all the squealing and giggling, barking and meowing, she smiled serenely, which only made her more beautiful to Lamont.
Woman like that should’ve had half a dozen kids, Lamont thought. Funny, but until that moment, he’d never wondered why she and Ernest quit after just one. Adam had been a handful, to be sure, but if Nadine could control this mob at the age of fifty-one, surely she could have handled two or three young’uns while she was in her twenties.
She looked up just then, and as their gazes locked, Nadine smiled and waved with the only appendage left: her pinky. Immediately, his heart started knocking against his ribs. What was it about her that could set his pulse to pounding and his palms to sweating? Not even his wife had been able to do that, and he’d loved Rose with all his heart.
Nadine’s granddaughter darted up to Lamont and grabbed his hand. “Will you push me on the swing, Mr. London?” Without waiting for an answer,
