rolled to a stop in the driveway and walked into the house, calling for Warren or Cora as he went.
Cora, in the kitchen as always, smiled big and welcoming as she ushered him into her frail arms, hugging him as tightly as she was able. “You’ve lost too much weight,” she exclaimed as if she weren’t the one looking as if a stiff wind might knock her over. “Just look at you, you’re wasting away to nothing. You need to find a good woman who can fatten you up with some good ol’-fashioned home cooking.”
“I’m not the one wasting away,” he countered, concerned at how small and fragile Cora appeared since the last time he’d seen her two years ago. Sudden tears pricked his eyes and he blinked them back, unprepared for the emotional wallop at seeing Cora so diminished. “What’s the doc saying?”
Cora waved away his question and said, “No talk of doctors or medicine. I’ve had enough of that nonsense. I want to hear about you and Rian. How’s that fancy new business going for you? Tell me all about it while I cut up a piece of pie. Peach still your favorite?” She knew it was, the crafty old girl. He nodded and she beamed, pulling a freshly baked peach pie from the oven, where she’d probably hidden it from Warren. “Ice cream?”
“The pie is good for me,” he said, not wanting to put Cora into further motion on his account. Slaving away in the kitchen was the last place she needed to be, but he knew from experience that Cora took orders from no one, not even if it was to protect her declining health. He took a dutiful bite under her watchful eye and there was no need to fake a reaction because it was heaven on a fork. “God, Cora, this is the best damn pie I’ve ever tasted.”
She swatted him lightly on the head with a sharp “Watch your mouth,” but she smiled as she slid into the chair opposite him. “Glad you like it. Too bad Rian couldn’t come with you. I miss him just as much.”
“I know, but someone’s got to hold down the fort while I’m here,” he said regretfully, but after seeing Cora’s condition, he wondered if he ought to have Rian meet him there for when Cora and Warren returned from out of state. “Tell me about this special treatment you’re gonna have.”
Cora, her soft little hands wreathed with faint blue lines, fidgeted as she shrugged. “Warren’s got it in his head that it’s gonna make a difference, but sometimes you have to accept that when your time is up, it’s up. There’s grace in that, you know. But he wants me to go, so I will because he’s a good man and an even better husband, but I want to spend what time I have left right here on the ranch. I have my vegetable garden and the animals and that’s enough for me.”
Kane swallowed the sharp lump in his throat that clogged his airway. He’d known Cora and Warren since he was a mangy, starving fifteen-year-old looking for summer work, but they’d become his only family. If something happened to Cora...hell, he just couldn’t bear it. He understood Warren’s insistence to try anything, even if sounded crazy, if it meant Cora might pull through this medical nightmare. “Pardon my language, Miss Cora, but that’s bullshit. Don’t be giving up on a cure. If Warren thinks there’s a shot, you gotta take it because there’s no one on this planet who can make a blue-ribbon-quality peach pie like you, ma’am, and that’s the honest truth.”
It was more than the pie and Cora knew it, but it made her smile just the same and her smile was worth a million bucks in Kane’s opinion. He finished the pie like a good boy, even scraping up the crumbs, just as Warren walked in from the fields, covered in dirt and smelling like a pasture.
Kane rose respectfully and clasped the older man’s hand, relieved to find it strong as ever in spite of the fact that he was nearing eighty. “Kane, you’re looking good, boy,” Warren said, smiling. “Any trouble getting the time off?”
“No trouble, sir. Happy to help.”
Warren’s proud smile said volumes. “Good, good. It’s too bad we leave tonight. It would’ve been nice to catch up.” He stopped and sniffed the air, then spied the pie on the kitchen counter. “Peach pie! Where’d that come from?” His expression went from excited to distressed as he looked to Cora with concern. “You been in here making that pie while I was tending to the chores? Woman! Are you trying to kill yourself before we even get to Florida? The doc said you need to rest before the flight and here you are working yourself to death.”
“Oh, hush,” Cora said to her husband, shaking her head as if he was being a ninny. “Baking a pie isn’t hard, you just throw the stuff in a bowl, mix it up and toss it in the oven. A child could do it. Now stop pestering me and go show Kane what he’s supposed to be doing while we’re gone and I’ll have your slice ready for you when you get back.”
Warren looked torn between wanting to chastise her a little more and needing to do exactly what Cora said, but eventually the ticking clock won out as he grumbled, “C’mon, Kane, let’s get this done so’s we can hit the road. I don’t want to chance missing our plane.”
“Lead the way,” Kane said, casting a short wink at Cora before they headed out. The old girl was still running the roost, no matter what anyone said about her health. If anyone could beat cancer, it was Miss Cora—that much he knew. It was a small but vital comfort to his worried heart as he followed Warren out to the cattle barn.
“I know it was hard for you to drop everything and come, but I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” Warren started once they were clear of the house. “She’s not doing so good and I’m not gonna sit by and watch her die without a fight.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kane said, shifting against the pinch of guilt for staying away for too long. “I should’ve been more helpful from the start. Why didn’t you tell me that Miss Cora was so bad off?”
“Troubles are private, son. No sense in burdening others with something they can’t fix,” Warren answered with quiet pride. “Besides, you have your own life to run. How’s that going?”
“Good.”
Warren grunted, accepting the one-word answer. “You ever hear from Laci?”
“No, sir. Not since we were kids.”
“That’s too bad. She was a good girl. I seen her on the television the other day. She always did have a pretty voice to go with that pretty face. She calls now and then, but with her schedule, it’s hard to break away, being famous and all that.”
Kane grunted as if agreeing, but he didn’t want to talk about Laci or speculate about her celebrity lifestyle. Warren sensed his discomfort and obliged him by switching tracks, moving to the list of chores that needed to be done to keep the ranch moving while they were gone. It was like riding a bike and, by the time Warren was done, it was dark and time to call it an early night. After a quick supper of cold chicken and freshly baked bread, washed down with cool lemonade, everyone said their goodbyes and the Bradfords hit the road.
When he and Rian had been boys, they’d slept out in the pump house, makeshift guest quarters that couldn’t have been more perfect for two teenage boys. Kane had offered to take his old quarters, but Warren wouldn’t hear of it and instead offered up the room that’d always been Laci’s. Kane scrubbed his hand over his face with a smothered groan. The worn hardwood floor creaked under his feet and memory sprang to life, vibrant as the day it was created.
“Laci, are you sure about this?” he asked. His seventeen-year-old voice broke, his nervousness at being caught only temporarily muted by the intense, overwhelming need to feel Laci against him. The floorboards creaked and it sounded like a four-alarm fire bell, clanging like the dickens, blaring a warning for all to hear that Kane Dalton was
