Deb walked into the cheerful country kitchen of the house that had always been her home. The hopeful sun of a late-March morning streamed through the windows and showed scant motes dancing in midair. The weather was already fair and warm enough that her father had opened the windows; the chintz curtains fluttered lazily, and she could hear her hens clucking happily in their yard, like gossiping neighbors.
After breakfast, she’d go out to her greenhouse and check on her seedlings; it would be time to put them and her seeds into the ground soon.
Per a family tradition that predated her own life, Deb’s father made breakfast on Saturday mornings. The savory aroma of frying bacon and hot coffee that had drawn her downstairs now had a backup chorus of sizzle and chug; her father stood at the big old Caloric range and pushed strips of meat around a cast iron skillet, and the old percolator that he insisted they use sat on the counter and did its work. A small stoneware plate was already stacked with toast made from the wheat bread she’d baked earlier in the week.
Deb stopped for a second and took it all in: the wafting curtains, her cheerful hens, the spring light, the smell of good food, the beloved shape of her father’s back: his worn Wrangler jeans that she pressed every week, his faded chambray shirt, the lace of deep creases across his leathered neck, the sharp edge of his thick, neatly-trimmed white hair—and his familiar stance, with his left hip hitched slightly up to ease a temperamental sciatic nerve.
She’d gone to bed deeply depressed, spent a short, restless night, and woken still feeling that heavy ache in her chest, knowing she’d lost something important when she’d driven away from Simon’s house. But this was what she’d saved, this life she loved.
Her father looked over his shoulder. “Mornin’, sunshine.”
“Morning, Dad.” She crossed the room and kissed his cheek—it was smooth, but for its wrinkles; her father never came down to start his day until he was showered and shaved. He’d worn the same prodigious mustache for all her life. In those years, it had changed, like his hair, from black to white, but in no other way. Her father hated change. She supposed she did, too.
“Bacon’s done. Eggs up next. Coffee should be ready to go. Pour us a cup and lay the table for me.”
Deb made their coffee and set the table while her father drained the bacon on carefully folded paper towels and cracked fresh eggs into the grease left in the skillet. “You were in late last night. You and Aly have a good time?”
She stopped laying out silverware and turned to him. “You waited up?”
He kept his attention on the skillet. “You’re a grown woman, Debra. I don’t wait up. Just so happened to be up when you got in. This old plumbing doesn’t go a whole night anymore.”
Shaking off that jolt of guilt, like she’d been caught doing something she oughtn’t have been, she laughed. “Yeah. I had a good time.”
With Aly, she’d had the good time they always had together. After that, she’d had a tumultuous and ultimately disheartening time with Simon.
To understand that their feelings—their mutual feelings—went deeper than physical attraction and friendship and then to cut everything off right there…it hurt. A lot. She didn’t question that they were right to stop, but it was like God saying, Here. You didn’t think you’d have this or that you wanted it, but this is how good it feels to love someone and be loved back. Nice, right? Okay, as you were. You were right—it’s not for you.
She’d get over it; greater pain and loss than this lay in her past. She just needed some distance and some time to put it behind her. But this morning, it hurt.
The breeze kicked up and set the wind chimes outside the window tinkling. Deb turned and watched the multicolored glass discs dance. This was the life she wanted. She was happy and fulfilled. Even if she weren’t, she’d seen enough of life with the Bulls to know that it was the very antithesis of this quiet world of wafting chintz curtains, hearty farmhouse breakfasts, vegetable gardens, and the contented chatter of her hens.
“Debra?”
She blinked and returned to the room. Her father stood at the table, holding the skillet. The plate of bacon sat on the table already. “Yeah?”
“I asked you to get the orange juice.”
“Oh, sorry. Faded out there for a second.” She went to the refrigerator.
“I don’t doubt it. I don’t know how less than five hours of sleep is gonna hold you today. There’s lots to do before the sowing. A healthy body needs eight good hours of sleep every night, and especially when it faces hard work.”
“I know, Dad. I’ll be okay.” She brought the juice over and sat beside him at the old oak table.
Her father folded his hands together, and Deb followed suit. “For this and all we are about to receive,” he intoned, his voice low and reverent, “make us truly grateful, Lord. Through Christ we pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” Deb echoed, and they dug in to their breakfast. Eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast for sopping, coffee, and orange juice: their breakfast every Saturday of her life, with the brief exception of her truncated college adventure, so long ago that it seemed more dream than lived memory.
She watched her father use his fork to poke his eggs until the yolk ran, then dip a wedge of toast into the yellow ooze. As always. “I love you, Dad.”
He stopped and met her eyes, a curious smile spreading under his heavy mustache. “I love you, too.” They weren’t an especially effusive family; their love for each other permeated all parts of their lives, hovered over them everywhere, but its formal expression was infrequent. Deb wasn’t surprised when her father cocked his head and asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she assured him, and herself. “Yeah, I’m good.”
~oOo~
Two weeks later, she almost truly was good again. The work of preparing the farm for spring had kept her relentlessly busy, and she’d taken up crafting projects to fill any idle moments left in her days. The rhythm of the life she wanted kept her heart steady.
Thoughts of Simon still snuck up on her, and she knew if she saw him again too soon, the hurt would be just as strong as that first night, but there was no reason she would. It would be Memorial Day before the Bulls would throw a big bash that Max would expect her and their dad to be at—and maybe, this year, not even then. Things were tense with the club. They barely saw her brother these days, much less anyone else in the club. It was like he was trying to keep them away from the Bulls, including him.
On this Saturday afternoon, she walked behind the gas-powered tiller and turned the soil on her vegetable garden. Though she wasn’t a fan of the smell of gasoline, she enjoyed this work. The roar of the tiller lulled her mind, and the strength needed to control the beast focused her body. While the blades churned the earth, she put her brain to the task of planning out her summer. She had the schedule set for her stand, and had her little staff of two on board, but this year, she thought she’d branch out and put a small cart at a farmer’s market in Tulsa, too. She’d sold at shows and markets before, but never in an especially organized way—just rented a table and set out a few crates, mainly on a whim.
Every year, she tried to expand the business in some way. She didn’t want it to become too large to manage, but she didn’t want it to be stale and dull, either. Taking a permanent spot at the Tulsa market seemed like a good way to grow just enough. Max had already offered to build her another, smaller cart, but she’d need to hire an extra person, maybe.
She was deep in her consideration of the financial pros and cons when brisk movement at her side drew her attention outward. Justin Walsh stood at the edge of her garden, waving his hands. He wore the grey coverall that was the Wheaton Feed & Seed uniform for deliveries. But her father had taken his seed delivery more than a week earlier.
Curious, Deb turned off the tiller. “Hey, Justin.” She lifted her battered straw cowboy hat and wiped her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. “What’s up?”
Far too well trained in country ways to do otherwise, she crossed the mounded rows of overturned earth, pulling off her gloves as she went.
Justin took her offered hand and gave it a friendly—and slightly too long—squeeze. “Hey there, Deb.”
He had a nice, wide-open smile, the perfect complement to his harmless good looks. Wearing that coverall, and with his Feed & Seed cap on backward, he looked like just about the most regular Joe on the planet.
When he let her hand go, he said, “Workin’ hard today, I see.”
She looked back at her tiller, dug into the earth like a predator claiming its prey. A half acre was a lot to work with a tiller like that, walking behind it back and forth, but Deb liked the work, and the hot ache in her muscles after it.
“Every day.” She nodded at the Igloo cooler sitting on the picnic table under a peach tree in full flower. “Looks like you’ve been working, too. You want some lemonade?”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
They walked over, and Deb pulled a plastic cup from the dispenser on the side of the cooler and drew lemonade from the tap. She handed Justin the cup and then drew one for herself. It was just powdered mix—she wasn’t devoted enough to anyone to make five gallons of lemonade from actual lemons—but it refreshed during a break from hard work.
She swallowed half of the sweet liquid before she asked, “What brings you by, Justin? I didn’t think my dad had a delivery coming.”
Justin finished his cup and set it down, leaning close to Deb to do it. “He doesn’t. I was down the road, delivering at the Dreyson’s place. Just stoppin’ by on my way past.” He flashed that grin. “That’s okay, right?”
He was flirting, and not well. But she supposed his friendly-neighbor routine was better than some slimy pickup line. Remembering her thought of a few weeks back, that what she needed to do to forget about Simon was to focus on someone else, Deb again evaluated Justin Walsh for the role of ‘someone else.’ Decent looking. Her age. Employed. Conveniently located. As far as she knew, he was a nice enough guy, and he wasn’t an idiot. Not a genius, either, but somewhere around the top of the bell curve. A good prospect for a fuck buddy, if he were interested.
Except that she wasn’t. Not in Justin, and not in a fuck buddy. The thought made that grey cloud of depression blossom in her chest.
She hadn’t moved on from Simon at all yet; she’d simply turned her back and pretended those feelings weren’t there. But it had only been two weeks. She simply needed more time.
Maybe someday, she’d be interested in Justin. Maybe someday, she’d be looking for that new focus. She didn’t want to lead him on, because she had a conscience, but she didn’t want to turn him off completely, either.
Friendly neighbor it was, then. Simple enough.
“Of course it’s okay,” she answered him. “Always have time to offer a neighbor lemonade.”
He grinned at that and picked up his empty cup. “Would a second cup be pushin’ my luck? It’s delicious.”
If he’d intended to press his advantage while he partook of a second cup of instant lemonade, he didn’t get the chance. She was saved when her father and their farmhands, Jock and Ben, came up together from the east field. Then she was surrounded by men drinking lemonade, and Justin had lost his opening to make his case with her. Deb watched his face as he puzzled out whether he could wait the interlopers out.
Finally, he gave up. “Well, my uncle’ll be wonderin’ where I am. I’ll see you folks tomorrow morning, I suppose.”
Easter Sunday. Deb and her father hadn’t attended church regularly since the Grant Tornado had destroyed Heartland Baptist Church; her father didn’t like Reverend Allerton, the pastor of the Wheaton Baptist Church, nearly as well as he’d liked the late Reverend Campbell. But they wouldn’t miss Easter service.
“Sure, you will.” Holding out his hand to Justin, Deb’s father threw her a quick, perceptive glance, and Deb knew he’d caught onto Justin’s interest and her lack of it. Ever her hero, he stepped up. “Let me walk you to your truck, Justin. Got a question for you about that new horse feed we been usin’. Seems a little heavy on protein to me.” He put his hand on Justin’s back and led him toward the house and the driveway beyond it.
When they were clear of sight, Jock and Ben broke out in harmonic chortles. “Justin Walsh?” Ben asked through his hilarity. Clearly, Justin’s interest had been apparent to everyone. “Everybody in a twenty-mile radius of this place’s been wondering when Deb Wesson would finally go sweet, and it’s for Justin Walsh? Heck, if I’d’a known your standards were that low, I’d’a asked you out myself.”
Brothers Jock and Ben Branson had worked the Wesson farm for nearly a decade. They worked year-round, helping with the animals and the property maintenance when the fields were fallow. By now, they were closer to family than hired help, no matter that she printed out paycheck for them twice a month.
That didn’t mean she appreciated them nosing around in her love life. In fact, their laughter and Ben’s teasing bit at her hard.
“Nobody’s standards are low enough to reach you, Benji,” she teased back, careful to sound more playful than she felt. “Justin’s a nice guy. But I’m not sweet on him, either.”
“Looks like he’s sweet on you, though, honey.” Jock, quieter than his younger brother, offered more seriously. “You’re right—he’s not a bad guy. You could do worse. Like with Ben.” His brother punched his shoulder in mock outrage. Brushing him off, Jock laughed and went on. “You deserve somethin’ like that, you know—a man who’ll take care of you.”
Deb knew perfectly well that she was the source of talk. A healthy, thirty-four-year-old, single woman who lived with her father disturbed the natural order of things. They spoke of her as a martyr, telling a sad story that began with the death of her mother and continued in the death of her independence. People would flap their lips and say what they would, fact or fiction, and there was nothing she could do about it. But she didn’t like being confronted by it, certainly not in the form of advice from her father’s field hand.
Still, she knew he meant well, so she covered her real irritation with a mocked-up version. She set her hands on her hips. “I don’t think Dear Abby has anything to worry about if you’re trying to break into the business of romantic advice, Jock Branson. I take care of myself just fine. You ought to concern yourself with how well you take care of Tunie and leave me to myself.”
He smiled, and Deb had the sense that he understood that he really had crossed a line. He held his hands up. “Yes ma’am, you do, and I should.”
~oOo~
When they got back from church the next morning, Max’s Harley was parked on the grass beside the garage. Deb’s brother hadn’t gone to church regularly with the family since he’d left home fresh out of high school. There’d been a time when he’d join them for Christmas and Easter services, but not since Heartland had been lost.
His fiancée, Leah, was Reverend Campbell’s daughter, so she’d grown up at Heartland Baptist. As far as Deb knew, Leah hadn’t been to church at all since her father’s death in the same tornado that had taken his church.
Max and Leah no longer honored holidays in church, but they celebrated with family. Often, Deb and her father joined the Bulls for their family gatherings, but Easter had always been just for true kin.
As the lovebirds came out of the house to greet her and their dad, Deb realized that it had been weeks since she’d seen her brother. Longer than that since she’d seen Leah—only once since Christmas, come to think of it. And they lived only an hour or so apart.
She’d seen Simon vastly more often; they’d routinely gotten together two or three times a month since they’d started up whatever it was they’d just finished. In fact, it now occurred to her that she hadn’t been invited to a clubhouse party since Christmas.
Little evidence about the wide chasm between the quiet life on the Wesson farm and the chaotic life in the Brazen Bulls clubhouse was as compelling as Max’s insistence now that those lives be separated. The same evidence underscored how completely impossible a relationship with Simon would be.
“Hey there, loser. Long time no see,” she said as Max came to her with his arms outspread.
“How’s tricks, skank.” He wrapped her up snugly and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Missed you.”
“Yeah, me too. Everything good?”
He set her back. “Everybody’s whole. So far, it’s all under control. But we’ll talk. I got something to run by you and Dad.”
“Trouble?”
“We’ll talk.” With another kiss to her cheek, Max took her hand and led her toward the house.
Their dad had Leah’s hand, too, held in both of his as they walked to the porch. Max’s girl had enchanted both Wesson men. She’d calmed the frantic heart of Deb’s brother and revitalized their father’s weary step.
Like the Wessons, Leah had lost much early in her life, but those losses seemed to have made her stronger. Just barely old enough to buy liquor, she harbored an old, graceful soul in her young body.
“Hi, Deb.” Leah smiled as they all met at the porch. “I got the roast in the oven. I hope that’s okay.”
“That is fantastic. I was hoping you would.”
In a tradition shared by most families Deb knew, the Wessons ate their holiday meals early. Lunch was generally the biggest meal of any day; farm work was hard physical labor and demanded a good refueling well before sunset. On days off, that habit perpetuated. Breakfasts were early and full, lunches were dinners, and suppers were light. So Easter dinner would happen by one o’clock.
Deb and Leah made a good team in the kitchen. Both country cooks who’d been the domestic heads of their fathers’ households, raised in the same small town, they shared a way of thinking about and preparing food that made cooperation nearly seamless.
“Come on, son. Let’s let the women get our feast on. I want you to take a look at the seeder, make sure it’s ready for tomorrow. Don’t want a repeat of last year.” When the seeder had broken down in the middle of their largest field and put the schedule off by two days.
Max gave Leah’s arm a squeeze before he headed off toward the equipment barn with their dad. “You have Arnold out to check it over?” he asked as they walked away.
“Yeah, sure I did. I’d feel better if you took a look, though.”
Deb watched the men as their voices faded away. Though Max was more than thirty years younger than their father, and a few inches taller, even from the back they looked like father and son. Something in the way they carried their shoulders, the way their arms moved as they walked, the way their heads canted toward each other at the same slight angle.
“Gun’s so glad to finally get out here,” Leah said at her side.
Deb had never gotten used to her brother’s preferred name. From the day her parents had brought two matching bundles of boy home, he’d been Max. It had only been the last six years or so, since he’d joined the Bulls, that he’d decided his name was ‘Gunner.’ At first, she’d tried to call him what he’d wanted to be called, but it hadn’t stuck for her. He was Max, and she felt almost offended that he’d had cast aside the name their parents had given him. Max and Martin, her twin brothers. The M&Ms. Gunner was…somebody different.
Their father hadn’t even tried to call him Gunner. Max didn’t seem to mind being Max at home, so she’d stopped trying, too. He answered to both names, and Deb felt like their bond was stronger because he was still and always Max.
She started up the porch steps. Thinking about how little she’d seen of her brother lately, she asked, “Is everything okay, Leah? In town? With the club?”
Ahead of her on the porch, Leah stopped at the door and turned back. She glanced after the men, then focused a serious look on Deb. “It’s weird. I have a bodyguard now, all the time. All the old ladies do. Gun keeps halfway asking me to drop out of school and then backing off. I was going to do summer session this year, but he did tell me not to do that. He’s happier when I just stay home, and he doesn’t even like me to open the windows. We hardly go to the clubhouse anymore, except when they’ve called a lockdown. It’s hard not to be scared, when he’s so worried. He doesn’t tell me much, and I don’t ask. But I don’t think things are okay, no.”
Deb didn’t know what to say. She and Simon had never talked about club stuff. He’d seemed extra cautious lately, but nothing more than that. She’d had an impression that things had gotten tense with the club, but what Leah had described was a siege mentality.
She gave Leah a hug. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know. Is there anything I can do?”
Resting on her shoulder, Leah shook her head. “He wants you guys away from it all. I think he would have canceled today, except he couldn’t stand being away anymore, and I convinced him we both needed a break for a while.” She stepped back. “He needed to be here today. But he’s afraid you’ll get hurt if you’re around him.”
“What about you?” Deb asked.
Leah tried to smile, but her lips trembled instead. “He’s afraid of that, too.”
Deb took her hand. “Come on. Today is Easter Sunday. We’re together, the day is beautiful, and we get to cook together. I made my mom’s lamb cake last night for dessert.”
Now a real smile succeeded, lifting Leah’s cheeks. “I saw. I had to bat Gun away from it, but he snagged some coconut off its ears before I could.”
Deb rolled her eyes. “Typical.” They went into the house and left those troubles on the front porch.
~oOo~
For everyday meals, Deb and her father ate at the round oak table in the kitchen, a sturdy hunk of wood that showed all the years of its life as a surface for eating, food preparation, homework completion, gin-rummy-playing, and laundry folding. When Max and Leah came for a casual supper, they ate in the kitchen as well.
For special dinners—holidays, birthdays, important guests—and family meetings, they went to the dining room and sat at Grandma Wesson’s cherry-wood, Queen Anne-style table, with its two extension leaves and its eight matching chairs with gold-striped silk damask seats, arm chairs at the ends and side chairs in the center. The tall matching china hutch that they called the ‘breakfront’ held Deb and Max’s mother’s wedding china, the Lenox ‘Kingsley’ pattern that she’d picked out special for her registry, and they served and ate their special meals on plates, bowls and cups with a robin’s-egg blue band and dainty blue flowers in the center. Grandma and Grandpa Wesson had bought them the whole set for a wedding gift, service for twelve.
Before every special dinner they celebrated at home, Deb took her grandmother’s embroidered white linen tablecloth and napkins out of the matching Queen Anne sideboard, ironed them smooth, and dressed the table with family heirlooms. These days, Leah was there to help.
As far as Deb knew, they’d never had cause to lay out all twelve place settings. Eight, a few times. Six, often. Five, regularly, before the tornado that had sliced through their family. Then it had been three. Sometimes, only two. Now, they laid a table for four.
A tornado had sliced up Leah’s family as well, and destroyed all the mementos of that family and her life in it. She had no heirlooms, no history but that which lived in her memories. But now she was part of the Wesson family. Someday, she’d share their name. Now, Deb was happy to share their traditions with her.
~oOo~
Max chewed his last bite of Easter cake—the butt end of the resting lamb, made of chocolate cake with creamy white frosting and coconut—and then set his fork on his plate and pushed it away. “Before we clean up, I need to talk to everybody.”
Deb had been about to get up and start clearing. Tradition was, the men did the dishes after a family meal, but she liked to clear and stack before they did, or they’d wash the pots and pans first and try to wash glasses in greasy water.
She stopped and tucked back in at the table. A glance at Leah suggested that Max’s fiancée knew no more than anyone else what he had on his mind.
With everyone’s attention, Max sighed. “I know you don’t like to talk about club shi—club business, Dad.”
“No, I do not. But I’m no fool, and both my eyes work, so I know there’s trouble with you and your brothers. If you need to talk that out, you go ahead. If it’s important enough to bring up at this table, then I guess we need to hear it.”
“I’m not gonna say much. Just that I’m sorry we’re not around much. Things’re a little hard right now, in town. I need to keep away so you don’t get pulled into it. I want to keep you safe.”
“And what about you, Maxwell?” their dad asked, quietly, his eyes level and calm.
Max laughed. “You know me, Dad. I’m good when things are nuts. I’ll be okay, and things’ll calm down again. Just”—he dashed a look at Leah, then reached for her hand on the table and clutched it hard—“hear me out, baby.” He turned back to their dad. “I need Leah to come stay with you while it’s nuts in town.”
“What?!” Leah cried, and yanked her hand from his. “No!”
“Yeah, Lee. It’s too hot in Tulsa. I need you safe.”
“No. I’m not leaving you alone. It’s not happening, Gun.”
“Leah.” Their dad’s voice kept the same calm tone. “Let’s hear what Max has to say. You know you’re welcome here with us, and if it keeps you safe, maybe that keeps him safer, too.”
“It does,” Max agreed. “Lee, please. I’m going crazy, worried about you. If something happened—” He cut off abruptly and dropped his head. “I need you safe. Out here, you’re safe.”
“So you mean to put me out here and then stay away, right? So we’re all safe? Like we’ve stayed away from here all this time? How long do you mean for us to be apart?”
“Leah, please.” Max was simply begging now. Deb could see pain tightening his shoulders, and his hands were shaking fists on the table.
“I thought I made you calm. I thought you were stronger with me. That’s what you’ve always said. Now I make you weak?” Her expression crumpled, but she didn’t cry—tears loomed, though, on the near horizon, and they wouldn’t be pretty. Deb knew that feeling intimately well. It was infuriating, to hold off tears with all one’s might, and then finally to fail.
Leah tossed her linen napkin to the table and stood. Without another word, she bolted from the room and slammed through the front screen door.
“I’ll talk to her.” Deb stood up. “Max, I love you, and I know why you want her to be here. It’s probably the right thing. But it was terrible form to spring this on her here. I know why you did that, too, and it was chickenshit. You need to apologize, as soon as she can hear it.”
Staring down at the rumpled tablecloth, he nodded. Their father indicated, with only a tip of his head, that he’d handle Max while she talked with Leah, so Deb followed her someday sister-in-law outside.
~oOo~
Leah was down in the yard, sitting on the stone bench by the strawberry pyramid bed. When Deb sat beside her, she tensed and swiped at her cheeks. “I can’t lose him.”
“You won’t, Leah. I know he feels the same way. He’s a different man since he’s been with you. More like he was when we were growing up. He’s happy. If he wants you here, it’s important.”
“He’ll be on his own. For how long? He comes home now and just puts his head in my lap for hours at night. Just holds on until he stops buzzing. How’s he going to stop buzzing if I’m not there?”
“What’ll happen to him if you get hurt because of whatever’s going on with the Bulls right now? You think he could deal with that?”
She didn’t answer, except to sigh and stare out across the yard.
“Did something happen, Leah? Recently?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t say. But he’s been out late a lot, and that crease between his eyes never goes away. The past couple of weeks, something’s been worse. We haven’t had another lockdown, though.” She sighed again. “I just don’t know.”
“Then we have to trust that Max does. He knows what’s going on, and he says you need to be here. When are your classes up for the semester?”
“Just one more week of class, and then finals week. I don’t have any finals, though—everything is papers this semester, and I just need to turn them in.”
“Okay. So let’s tell him that you’ll come out here next weekend, after your classes are over. You can finish your papers here, and we’ll drive you in to turn them in. Then you can help me around here until he says it’s safe to go home. I’m gonna guess you won’t lose your job at Joanna’s shop.”
Leah managed a chuckle at that. “That’s a pretty secure job, yeah. Deb—I don’t want to be without him. He makes me calm, too.”
She put her arm around Leah’s shoulders. “You won’t be without him. He’s all over this place, honey. This is our home.”
The screen door creaked behind them, and they both turned. Max stood on the porch, his hair flopping over his forehead and his hands sunk deeply into the pockets of his jeans. He stared their way, and Deb knew he wasn’t looking at her.
Leah stood and walked toward the house. Max came down the porch steps. They met midway and coiled themselves together.
Her heart bruised by concern and a bittersweet longing, Deb went back into the house and left them to heal their rift.