could I say anything without hurting her feelings?
“I’d love a piece,” Willie said as he moved his empty saucer aside. “I was hoping you made buttermilk tonight.”
I relaxed, seeing him look as excited about this piece as he had been about the last one.
Nana smiled. “I did, I did.” She cut him a big slice and handed it over. “Now if that ain’t enough, you just let me know.”
Willie took a bite and made the same sounds he’d made ten minutes before when she’d served him his first piece.
“I’ll take a chocolate, ma’am.” Paul stood and stepped to the counter to wait for his piece. “And I think Miss Mary Lynn would like one of those buttermilk slices.”
“A small one,” she said. “I’m full from the potpie.”
One by one everyone ordered and said almost the same words they’d said before. I stared, meeting their eyes and hating what no one said. I’d been ignoring Nana’s lapses in memory for months. They didn’t have to tell me anything, I knew that I could turn a blind eye no longer. Nana’s mind was slipping.
A half hour later, when they all filed out, I hugged Nana so tightly, she asked me what was wrong.
“Nothing,” I lied. “I just think you are the best.”
“Ditto.” She giggled as if she were still a girl.
“How about we turn in and do the dishes tomorrow?”
Nana shook her head. “Luke’s in the kitchen eating. I thought I’d have a cup of tea and talk to him awhile, then call it a night. You go on up.”
I nodded, not wanting to face anyone else tonight. No one had said a word about Nana serving double dessert, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they did.
And once they did, I’d have to deal with it.
For the first time in a long time, my mother crossed my mind. I wondered if Carla Daniels would come home if she knew her mother needed her. Would she drive in, throw her arms around us, and say she’d help?
I knew the answer and was mad at myself for letting an old dream creep into my mind. The Landry brothers were more likely to help.
The memory of the two of them squeezed into the corner, their hats still on their heads, their forks always moving, made me smile. There was nothing I could do tonight to help Nana remember better, but I could draw. I grabbed my ledger and climbed the stairs. I’d sit by the window and feel the night cool while I tried to catch their likeness on paper.
The Landry brothers…who ordered seconds twice and ate every bite.
Chapter 24
Luke ate the last piece of chocolate pie. “That was great.”
“I know.” Nana smiled. “I’m better than Flo at baking, but we all say hers are good because no one wants to hurt poor Flo’s feelings, you know.”
“You said you had two brothers?”
“Frank and Charlie.”
He could almost see her mind moving back to the present. “They were both killed in the War.”
“And Flo?” Luke asked, testing to see if she’d been pulled into the present.
“She died before she had time to marry.” Nana looked up at him. “I still miss her, you know.”
Luke’s big hand covered her wrinkled fingers. “I know. I don’t have a single clear memory of my mother, but sometimes I miss her. Kind of like I know there’s a piece of me that would have been different if she’d lived. I think about what might have been.”
Nana looked younger when she smiled shyly. “I think about what might have been sometimes. It’s like there’s another life I’m living along a road I chose not to travel. When times get hard, I think about that other place and I go there in my mind.”
“I know what you mean,” Luke answered. When he’d been shot he’d thought about every time in his career when the path had split and how each time he’d taken the more dangerous way. He’d told himself it was because, unlike some of his friends, he had no family to mourn him, but maybe it was the other way around. Maybe he had no loved ones because he always took jobs involving the most risk. Even his apartment in Dallas, the address he called home, looked more like a hotel than a home.
When Nana stood and said good night, Luke said he’d wash up his plate before going.
She patted his arm and asked, “Could you lock up tonight? Allie went up to bed early.”
“She had a rough night Friday night with the fire across the lake,” he said. “She must have been beat.”
Nana shook her head. “I think she wanted to draw.” She laughed as if sharing a secret. “She’s drawing again. I’ve always loved her pictures. When she was little I used to put up postcard pictures of all the great artists and she’d spend hours looking at them. I’ll bet she’s drawing every detail of that fire.”
He walked Nana to the foot of the stairs, then watched her climb slowly. She could work all day, but her age crept in when she had to climb.
After locking up, Luke walked out to the dock and watched a storm moving in. The night chilled around him and fog moved like a shadow across the lake. If it rained tonight, there would be little evidence left from the fire. He’d thought of calling a team in to sift through the ashes earlier, but he knew there wouldn’t be much to find. He already knew there had been a drug lab set up in the cabin and he’d bet a month’s pay that the tag on that SUV was stolen. His best chance of catching those three was to stay low and wait until they relocated. If they thought no one was investigating, they’d be more likely to move in faster.
Drug dealers were a strange lot. They always wanted to produce more, faster. The longer they were in the business the sloppier they got. He’d make sure they didn’t get away the next time.
Standing at the far end of the dock, he began stripping off his clothes. In a few more weeks it would be too cold to swim the lake. His grandfather used to swear that he swam across year-round as a boy. He’d say, “Luke, the Navajo blood is too watered down for you to swim all the way across.”
Luke pushed himself for weeks, that summer, before his muscles and stamina developed enough to cross the lake. When he finally made it without stopping to rest, his grandfather hadn’t said a word, but Luke had seen the pride in his eyes.
Even five years ago when Luke returned to recover from a wound he’d taken in the line of duty, he’d known he wouldn’t consider himself well until he was able to cross the lake. Those first few weeks he swam, Jefferson would follow in the boat with a spotlight tied to the front, ready to pick him up when he could push himself no farther. But each time he made a few more yards before he gave up and crawled into the boat. Swimming laps in a gym just didn’t bring him the satisfaction of crossing with the moon and proving his bloodline.
Tonight as he swam, he didn’t enjoy the movement of the water or the night. His thoughts were filled with Allie. She wasn’t like the women he usually met. With her there would be no casual affair. She wasn’t guarded, dishing out feelings in small doses. She led with her heart. If he had any sense, he’d stay away from her.
An hour later, when he climbed back on the dock, he sensed Allie even before he saw her standing in the shadows by the porch watching him.
Pulling on his clothes, he stepped into his boots and walked up the dock.
She didn’t move when he neared.
Maybe it was the night, all dark with rain hesitating just above him. Maybe it was the way his senses always felt stronger when he’d done something he knew the men of his lineage had done for hundreds of years. Maybe need just outweighed reason. But Luke didn’t stop to talk.
He walked up to her, lifted her up, pressed her back against the wall, and kissed her hard with need. To hell with having any sense. For one moment in his life, Luke just wanted to feel.
She almost buckled his knees when she kissed him back.
The need for her was something primal within him. Something he’d felt from the first day. She didn’t fit in the mold of women he occasionally dated. He liked them tall, sophisticated. The kind who played no games and made
