“I can do this,” Cat said. “It’s just going to take me a couple of minutes.” “Take your time,” Dorothy called.
So they did. By the time they reached the front steps, Cat was trembling and out of breath, but she’d made it. Still leaning on Wilson’s arm, she walked up the steps and into the house. The warmth of the house was second only to the wonderful smells filling it.
“Man, Mom, that soup smells great,” Wilson said.
“Vegetable beef, your favorite,” she said, and then pointed down the hall. “Wilson, take Cat to the extra downstairs bedroom.” Then she smiled at Cat. “There are loads of empty bedrooms upstairs, as well, but I didn’t want you to have to negotiate stairs all day.” She patted Cat on the arm. “Honey, take your time. You have your own bathroom in there. If you don’t feel like sitting at the kitchen table, I can bring a tray of food to your room.”
“No, ma’am. I’ll eat at the table, thank you. Just give me a couple of minutes to wash up and I’ll be right there.”
“Call me Dorothy, remember?”
“Yes, and thank you again.”
Wilson offered his arm again. She grasped it firmly, leaning on him as they went.
“Come on, honey. Just a few feet more. I’ll bring your bags to the room while you’re washing up.”
She nodded, but her focus was on the hallway and the array of photos lining the walls. Baby pictures, then school pictures, of six children, three boys and three girls. Pictures of them at their proms. Pictures that she guessed were their senior photos taken for the school yearbook. And loads of pictures that had to do with sports and holidays.
She searched for Wilson’s face among them and then settled on the tallest one in a family grouping. His hair was short, dark and badly in need of a comb, and he was grinning widely as he held up a trophy while his brothers and sisters looked on.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” she said, pointing to the boy in the photo.
“Yeah. I had just won a punt, pass and kick contest. I think I was about ten or twelve at the time.”
“What’s a punt, pass and kick contest?”
Wilson looked at her and tried not to let his surprise show. “Football, honey.”
“Oh. Never did get into it myself,” she said. “You would have made a real pretty cheerleader,” he said. Cat arched an eyebrow. “How sexist of you, Wilson.” “Thank you. I try.”
Cat actually laughed, then winced and grabbed her ribs. “Oh, crap. It hurts too much to laugh.”
“So let’s get you to your room,” he said. “You can look at all of my great pictures later.”
Cat was still smiling when Wilson opened the door, but as soon as she stepped into the room, she froze.
The walls were covered in a wallpaper dotted with tiny bouquets of lilac. The curtains at the windows were creamy sheers that would make it appear sunshine was streaming in even when the day was gloomy. The bedspread fabric was a pale butter-yellow with thin lilac stripes, and there was a crocheted afghan folded across the bottom of the bed in a lilac shade the same color as the walls. The dark hardwood floors gleamed as if they’d just been polished, and the lamp beside her bed had little pompons on the shade that jiggled as she walked across the room.
“Oh, Wilson,” Cat said, and then sat down on the side of the bed and closed her eyes.
He sat down beside her, then put his arms around her shoulders. “What’s wrong? Are you ill? I can—”
She clutched at his wrist. “No…no…it’s not that.”
She drew a slow, shuddering breath. “It’s just…when Daddy was still alive…my room was this color. It’s the last thing I had that was mine before I was swallowed up by the system.”
Wilson laid a hand on the back of her head, then pulled her close against his chest. She was trembling.
“So consider this karma, honey. Call this your full-circle moment for the
day.”
Cat leaned within the shelter of his arms, letting herself feel his strength, accepting everything he was offering as a blessing and not an attempt at control.
“I guess we better not keep your mother waiting too long,” she said, and reluctantly stood.
“I’ll go get your bags,” Wilson said, and left her to get to the bathroom on her own.
By the time he came back carrying her things, she was sitting on the side of the bed again, this time staring out the windows. She looked up as he came in.
“There’s a man coming toward the house. Is that your dad?” Wilson set down the suitcases and then glanced out. “Yep, that’s him, Carter McKay.”
Cat watched the older man for a few moments, then looked up. “You walk like him,” she offered.
“I act like him, too, which is why I’m in Dallas and he’s here.” “You two don’t get along?”
Wilson smiled. “No, nothing like that. We’re just both hardheaded and, as long as Dad can take care of the place on his own, he’ll be doing it his way. Someday I’ll come back here. I promised him.”
Cat’s eyes widened. She kept staring at Wilson’s face, past the scar on his cheek, the hair always in need of a cut and that tiny gold loop in his ear, and tried to picture him on a ranch.
A pirate cowboy? Stranger things happened. Why not? “Are you ready to eat a little?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He held out his hand. She reached for it. The action had been instinctive on his part, but it was a giant step toward trust for Catherine. Wilson led the way to the kitchen, where his mother had set out steaming bowls of vegetable beef soup and hot squares of yellow cornbread. She was at the counter slicing a fresh-baked pie.
“Umm, it smells good, Mom,” Wilson said. “No, it smells fabulous,” Cat said.
Dorothy beamed. “Have a seat and dig in before it all gets cold.”
Wilson was helping Cat to her seat when the back door opened. The man who came in was tall and vibrant, bringing in the scent of cold air and alfalfa hay with him.
“Hey, boy! ’Bout time you got yourself down here.”
The older man hung his Stetson on a peg by the door, then crossed the floor in two steps and engulfed Wilson in a big hearty hug. Then he looked past Wilson to Cat. His smile stilled as his dark eyes swept her face, then took note of the way she held her body. His eyes narrowed sharply as he fixed Cat with a steely glare.
“I hope the bastard who did this to you didn’t get away.” Cat flashed on the fire curling across Solomon Tutuola’s body.
“He didn’t go far,” Cat said, knowing by now he was probably six feet under.
“Good job, missy,” Carter said, then eyed Wilson carefully. “Good eyes, son,” he said softly, before turning to Cat and holding out his hand.
Cat didn’t hesitate as she slid her hand into his.
“Call me Carter. Welcome to our home, Catherine.”
Cat heard the truth in his voice, and another layer of nervousness disappeared.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Carter said. “Dorothy’s soup will stick to your ribs and get you fit in no time. Ya’ll get after that food while it’s good and hot, now.”
“Thank you,” Cat said.
“Don’t say thank you until you’ve tasted it,” Dorothy said, then giggled.
Cat sat quietly after that, eating her soup and listening to the banter between Wilson and his parents. She had vague memories of her parents being like this—before her mother’s death. After that, her father had changed. He was more serious, less likely to kid around, although she knew she was loved. But she’d forgotten it. She’d forgotten all of it—until now.
As she took a slow drink of iced tea, Wilson reached across the table, snagged a square of cornbread and buttered it lavishly before laying it on her plate. Then, without a word, he kept on talking to his dad about one neighbor who’d filed for bankruptcy and another who’d been arrested for growing marijuana on his place.
Cat stared at the cornbread, then up at Wilson, trying to remember the last time someone had prepared food for her, doing it for no other reason than to make sure she was comforted and comfortable.
She picked it up and took a bite, savoring the crunch of warm cornbread and the salty taste of melting butter. As she chewed, her gaze moved to Wilson again—and another piece of the armor around her heart fell away. All the while she was eating and listening, she was wondering if this was what love tasted like—warm, comforting, delicious on the tongue.
Cat was asleep in her bed. Wilson had changed clothes and was in the truck with his dad, checking on the cows.
Carter liked having his first son with him, but it had been a while since they’d been alone. Usually, when his children and grandchildren showed up, it was a riot of noise and food. And while he loved the noise that his big family brought with them, he also liked the one-on-one times he could occasionally catch with his sons.
“The place looks good, Dad,” Wilson said.
“Yeah. We’re doing all right,” Carter said, then turned down a narrow lane that led to the far pasture. “Tell me about your woman,” he said.
Wilson hesitated. He wouldn’t lie to his father, but at the same time, he didn’t intend to give away secrets.
“She’s a bounty hunter.”
“Hell, boy, I already knew that. Is she special?” Wilson sighed. “Yeah.”
“Does she love you back?”
“I don’t know…. Sometimes I think so…sometimes I’m not so sure.”
“She’s been hurt before, hasn’t she?” Carter asked. “I saw that scar on her throat. That’s older than what she’s got now.”
“Her mother died in a car accident when she was six. Cat was with her.
She survived. Then when she was…I think thirteen…a man broke into their home, cut her throat and stabbed her father to death in front of her, then left her to die. She spent the rest of her years in the welfare system.”
Carter shook his head. “Damn shame. That explains the shadows I saw in her eyes.”
“Yeah, that and then some,” Wilson said, and let it slide. “So what are you going to do about her?” Carter asked. “Get her well, then marry her.”
Carter grinned. “Congratulations, son. I think she’s a winner.”
“Well, don’t go congratulating her just yet, okay? Right now, a marriage proposal isn’t something that can come out of my mouth. I’ve got to get past her distrust of the world first.”
“You will.”
Wilson grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Carter grinned back. “Your mama didn’t like me right off, either.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve heard the story at least a hundred times in my life,” Wilson said.
Carter shrugged. “Well, hell, it wasn’t all my fault that a skunk turned up in the home economics room when we were in high school.”
“No, but you’re the one who brought it to school, right?”
Carter chuckled. “Now, how was I to know it was still alive? It was laying on the side of the road by Daddy’s mailbox when I left for school. I just tossed it in the back of my truck, thinking it would be a good trick to put it under Billy Ray Johnson’s fancy Corvette for the day. Temperatures had been in the nineties all week. I figured Billy Ray’s car would be nice and ripe by the time school let out. But the damned skunk came to and staggered into the school, and the rest of what happened was the skunk’s fault, not mine.”
Wilson had heard the story off and on his whole life, and the telling was still funny to him.
“Yeah, and Mama was the first person who got squirted when it got into the home ec room, right?”
Carter grinned. “A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She has since forgiven me.” He was silent for a few moments, then added, “That’s all life is, a whole set of circumstances—some of them good, some of them bad. You get through the circumstances whether you like it or not, but it’s what you take from them that keeps you on an even keel.”
“Yeah, I’ve had a few circumstances of my own during the past few years. I suppose I learned from them, because I haven’t repeated any of them… except Cat. Every time she bats me down, I tell myself to hell with it and to hell with her. Then I find myself worrying about her and wanting to take care of her. If I had one wish for the rest of my life, it would be that Catherine Dupree never had another sad day for as long as she
lived.”
Carter eyed his son carefully. “Sounds like love to me.” Wilson just shook his head, then pointed out the window. “Hey, is that Old Gray?”
Carter glanced in the direction Wilson was pointing, then frowned. Their old horse had gotten out of his pen and was in the pasture with the cattle —again.
“Hell, yes. That stubborn cuss hates to be alone. He’s always finding a way to get out, and every time he does, he heads straight for the cattle. Horses are herd animals, you know. Looks like I would have learned by now what he’s been trying to tell me for years. That he doesn’t want to be alone.”
“Want me to catch him and ride him back to the barn?”
“Naw…leave him be. He looks plenty happy out there, and he’s not bothering anything.”
Wilson smiled as they drove to the pasture gate, while his Dad kept on talking. He listened absently as his thoughts wandered. Most of them wandered toward Catherine.
Cat woke up, dragged herself to the bathroom, then crawled back into bed. The wind had picked up outside. She could hear it gusting as it swept around the corner of the house, rattling the bare branches of the bushes against the wall.