when the rain was going to stop, and then went on to the History channel, where he spent most of his free time in the evenings. He often thought that if he ever came across a woman who enjoyed military history, he might be coaxed into rejoining the social scene.
But then he remembered the woman he’d lost, and the ache started all over again. He turned up the volume and leaned back, his mind shifting to the recounting of Alexander the Great’s final successful campaign against the Persian king Darius in 331 B.C. at Gaugemela.
Violet was late getting home the following Friday. She’d stopped by the gym and then remembered that there was no milk in the house. She’d gone by the grocery store as well. When she pulled up into the driveway of the small, rickety rental house, she found her mother sitting on the ground beside the small flower garden at the porch steps. Mrs. Hardy wasn’t moving.
Panicking, Violet jumped out of her car without bothering to close the door, and ran toward her parent.
“Mama!” she screamed.
Her mother jerked, just faintly. Her blue eyes were startled as she turned her head and looked at her daughter. She was breathing heavily. But she laughed. “Darling, it’s all right!” she said at once. “I just got winded, that’s all! I’m all right!”
Violet knelt beside her. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Her face was white. She was shaking.
“Oh, baby.” Mrs. Hardy winced as she reached out and cuddled Violet close, whispering soft endearments. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to weed my flower bed and put out those little seedlings I’d grown in the kitchen window. I just worked a little too hard, that’s all. See? I’m fine.”
Violet pulled back, terrified. Her mother was all she had in the world. She loved her so much. How would she go on living if she lost her mother? That fear was written all over her.
Mrs. Hardy winced when she saw it. She hugged Violet close. “Violet,” she said sadly, “one day you’ll have to let me go. You know that.”
“I’m not ready yet,” Violet sobbed.
Mrs. Hardy sighed. She kissed Violet’s dark hair. “I know,” she murmured, her eyes faraway as they looked toward the horizon. “Neither am I.”
Later, as they sat over bowls of hot soup and fresh corn bread, Mrs. Hardy studied her daughter with concern.
“Violet, are you sure you’re happy working at Duke Wright’s place?” she asked.
“Of course I am,” Violet said stolidly.
“I think Mr. Kemp would like it if you went back to work with him.”
Violet stared at her with her spoonful of soup in midair. “Why would you say that, Mama?”
“Mabel, who works at your office, stopped by to see me at lunch. She says Mr. Kemp is so moody they can hardly work with him anymore. She said she thinks he misses you.”
Violet’s heart jumped. “That wasn’t how he sounded when I ran into him in the post office the other day,” she said. “But he was acting…oddly.”
The older woman smiled over her soup spoon. “Often men don’t know what they want until they lose it.”
“Bring on the day.” Violet laughed softly.
“So, dear, back to my first question. Do you like your new job?”
She nodded. “It’s challenging. I don’t have to deal with sad, angry, miserable people whose lives are in pieces. You know, I didn’t realize until I changed jobs how depressing it is to work in a law office. You see such tragedies.”
“I suppose cattle are a lot different.”
“There’s just so much to learn,” Violet agreed. “It’s so complex. There are so many factors that produce good beef. I thought it was only a matter of putting bulls and heifers in the same pasture and letting nature do its work.”
“It isn’t?” her mother asked, curious.
Violet grinned. “Want to know how it works?”
“Yes, indeed.”
So Violet spent the next half hour walking her mother, hy-pothetically speaking, through the steps involved in creating designer beef.
“Well!” the elderly woman exclaimed. “It isn’t simple at all.”
“No, it isn’t. The records are so complicated…”
The sudden ringing of the telephone interrupted Violet. She frowned. “It’s probably another telemarketer,” she muttered. “I wish we could afford one of those new answering machines and caller ID.”
“One day a millionaire will walk in the front door carrying a glass slipper and an engagement ring,” Mrs. Hardy ventured with a mischievous glance.
Violet laughed as she got up and went to answer the phone. “Hardy residence,” she said in her light, friendly tone.
“Violet?”
It was Kemp! She had to catch her breath before she could even answer him. “Yes, sir?” she stammered.
He hesitated. “I have to talk to you and your mother. It’s important. May I come over?”
Violet’s mind raced. The house was a mess. She was a mess. She was wearing jeans and a shirt that didn’t fit. Her hair needed washing. The living room needed vacuuming…!
“Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Hardy called.
“It’s Mr. Kemp, Mama. He says he needs to speak to us.”
“Isn’t it nice that we have some of that pound cake left?” Mrs. Hardy wondered aloud. “Tell him to come right on, dear.”
Violet ground her teeth together. “It’s all right,” she told Kemp.
“Fine. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up before Violet could ask him what he wanted.
She turned worriedly to her mother. “Do you think it might be something about me coming back to work for him?”
“Who can say? You should wash your hair, dear. You’ll have just enough time.”
“Not to do that and vacuum and pick up around the living room,” she wailed.
“Violet, the chores can wait,” her mother replied amusedly. “You can’t. Go, girl!”
Violet turned like a zombie and went right to the bathroom to wash her hair. By the time she heard Kemp pulling up in the driveway, she had on a nice low-cut short-sleeved blue sweater and clean white jeans. Her hair was clean and she left it down, because she didn’t have time to braid it. She was wearing bedroom shoes, but that wasn’t going to matter, she decided.
She opened the door.
Kemp gave her a quiet going-over with his pale blue eyes. But he didn’t remark about
