tittered at that, well aware that he was joking, but probably a little bit flattered to be thought capable of walking on the wild side, too. “I do declare,” she said, and he could actually hear a blush in her voice.
That was when the screen door creaked on its hinges, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brody step out onto the porch. “You know you’re my best girl,” he told her. “What’s the favor?”
Natty was warming to her subject; there was a sense of revving up in the way she spoke—it reminded him of the toy cars and trucks he and Brody had as kids, the kind a kid winds up by rolling them fast and hard on the floor before letting them speed away. “Nothing big,” she said. “I’d like you to check on my house now and then, that’s all. Just to make sure everything’s all right with—well—with the plumbing and things of that sort.”
Conner raised his brows slightly, avoiding Brody’s gaze, though he could see out of the corner of his eye that his brother was leaning idly against the porch rail, rain dripping from the eaves in a gray curtain behind him, his arms loosely folded. He wasn’t even trying to pretend he wasn’t listening in.
“The plumbing?” Conner echoed, searching his memory for any occasion when Natty had expressed concern about the pipes in her house, to him, anyway.
It crossed his mind that the old woman might be up to some matchmaking between him and Tricia, but he quickly dismissed the thought as unworthy of Natty.
“Pipes can freeze, you know,” Natty fretted, her voice still picking up speed. “And I would hate to come home and find that there had been a flood in my kitchen or something like that. Those floors are original to the house, and it would be a pity if they were ruined, being irreplaceable and all—”
“Natty,” Conner interrupted gently.
She paused, drew an audible breath and let it out again. “What?”
“I’ll be happy to check on the plumbing at your place,” he said.
Brody grinned at that. Shook his head slightly, as if he was at once bemused and disgusted.
“It’s mainly the pipes under the house that I’m concerned about,” Natty went on. “I couldn’t ask Tricia to crawl around under the house. There might be spiders.”
“I’m on it,” Conner reiterated, “but I do have one question.” He’d never known Natty to miss the annual rummage sale/chili feed. She was, after all, the Keeper of the Secret Recipe. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Natty said briskly.
He suspected that she was fibbing, but challenging an old lady’s statement hadn’t been part of his upbringing. Elders, be they friends, like Natty, acquaintances or total strangers, were to be treated with respect—particularly if they happened to be female.
“You’re sure?” he ventured just the same, slanting a glare at Brody then. Go away.
Brody, being Brody, didn’t budge an inch. He just broadened his grin by a notch.
“I’m absolutely sure, Conner,” Natty replied. Then she gave a trilling little laugh that sounded almost bell-like. Years fell away, and Conner could easily picture her as a young woman, and a pretty one, not unlike her great-granddaughter. “I’m perfectly fine. Fit as a fiddle.”
“It’s just that the rummage sale is coming up,” Conner pressed, still concerned.
Brody frowned comically at this.
“I’ve stepped down from chairing the committee,” Natty told him. “I am getting on a little, you know.”
She’d been ninety-one on her last birthday, Conner knew, though he’d missed the party because he was down in Stone Creek at the time, helping Steven paint the nursery before the twins were delivered.
“You’re younger than springtime,” Conner said, recalling the line from one of the old songs Natty liked to play on her stereo.
“And you’re full of beans,” Natty shot back, always ready with another cliché. She was getting tired, though; he could hear that in her voice.
The chat ended soon after that and, for all Natty’s insistence that she was “just fine,” Conner was still worried. He sat there frowning for a few moments, then decided he’d head for Natty’s house as soon as the chores were done the next morning. Take along some insulation and some duct tape to wrap around the pipes under the house.
Tricia probably wouldn’t be around, of course. She’d be over at the campground, working, or maybe at the drive-in theater—a spooky place, closed down long before the multiplex movie houses in Denver came along—doing whatever might need doing.
He’d track her down, ask her if she’d spoken to Natty recently.
Brody, still lounging against the porch railing, shifted his weight from one side to the other, distracting Conner from his thoughts. “For a minute there,” Brody said, in a low drawl, “I had high hopes that you were lining up a hot date.”
Conner realized that he was still holding his phone and dropped it back into the pocket of the clean but worn flannel shirt he’d put on, along with a pair of jeans, after his shower. Then he reached for his beer and took a long draw of the stuff before answering, “There are other things in life besides getting laid, you know.” The statement sounded prissy-assed even to him, and Conner immediately wished he could take it back.
“Like what?” Brody joked.
Conner didn’t reply, but simply sat there, holding his beer and wishing Brody would go away. To another state, say. If not another planet.
“Once upon a time,” Brody said easily, determined to push, “you had a sense of humor.”
“I still do,” Conner said, staring past Brody, into the gray drizzle. “When something’s funny, I laugh.”
Brody heaved a sigh. Pushed away from the porch rail, finally, to stand up straight. His arms fell to his sides. “It’s hard to imagine that,” he said, very quietly, and then he went back inside the house. The screen door shut behind him with barely a sound.
And Conner felt guilty. How crazy was that? If Brody had expected to just pick up where they’d left off—before their knock-down-drag-out over Joleen—he’d been kidding himself. Conner swore under his breath and used the heels of his boots to thrust the ancient porch swing into slow, squeaky motion.
Brody wouldn’t stay long, he thought, trying to console himself. His brother was bound to get bored with Lonesome Bend and the ranch, sooner rather than later, and hit the road again, following the rodeo. Or some woman.
The rain picked up, and the wind blew it in under the roof of the porch, and Conner finally had to give up and go inside. He climbed the front staircase, noticing that the crystal chandelier was dusty, and headed for the master bedroom. The suite had belonged to Kim and Davis before they moved into the new house, and it didn’t lack for comfort. There was a big-screen TV on one wall, and the private bath was the size of an NFL locker room, with slate-tile floors, a big shower with multiple sprayers and a tub made for soaking the ache out of sore muscles.
While all that space might have made sense for his aunt and
