CHAPTER ONE
Promise me,” Annie whispered.
“I promise.” Zedekiah nodded with tears in his eyes.
“You’ll bring them all home where they belong.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “They need to heal.”
“I’ll get them here. You rest now.” Zed cradled her frail body in his arms.
She’d been in and out of consciousness for two days, and each time she awoke she made him promise all over again that he’d bring her granddaughters home to the lake resort. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, and she cupped his cheeks in her hands.
“You . . .” Tears flowed down her face.
“I know, Annie.” His salty tears mingled with hers when their cheeks touched.
“I’ve loved you since we were kids.” She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.
“Oh, Annie—” he started to say, but then he realized that she’d taken her last breath.
Time stopped as he hugged her closer to his chest. One heart beat steadily as it silently shattered. The other heart that had kept perfect time with his for decades had entered into eternity without him.
“Why, God!” he moaned. “I was supposed to go before her.”
Stop it! Annie’s voice was so real in his head that he watched her lips to see if she might start breathing again. I told you that there would be no mourning. We’ll be together again before long—remember when we were separated while you were in the military. You’ve got work to do now. So suck it up, Zedekiah, and call the girls.
They’d talked about this moment for three months and gotten all the pieces in order. Even though they’d argue about things sometimes, the plan was in place for the next step, as she called it. And now it was up to him to make sure that her wishes were carried out. But dear sweet Jesus, he’d never thought about the pain when he’d have to let her go for good.
He laid her gently on the pillow, laced his darker fingers with her paler ones, and bent to kiss each knuckle. “Oh, Annie, life without you isn’t life at all.”
The girls will help, the voice in his head said sweetly. Now let me go, Zed. You’ve got things to do.
“I can’t,” he groaned.
He sat with her for half an hour before he made the call to the doctor, who was also the coroner for the county. When they came to get her, he accompanied the gurney to the van with his hand on hers.
“I understand that she made arrangements beforehand. Do you want to come to the funeral home and see her once more before . . .” The doctor hesitated.
Zed shook his head slowly. “She said that I wasn’t to do that, and I’ll abide by her wishes. I can’t say goodbye. Never could say that word to her and still can’t, but we’ve come to terms while I waited on you to get here. Call me when her ashes are ready.” He choked on the last words.
The doctor patted him on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry. She was a great lady and a good friend to you, Zed.”
“My best friend.” He wiped his eyes. “We made a lot of memories.”
“If you need anything, call me.”
“Thank you. Right now I have to go call the girls, and I’m sure not lookin’ forward to that job.”
“They should’ve been here.”
Zed raked his hand through his curly salt-and-pepper hair. “She wouldn’t let me call them. No tears. No fussin’. That was Annie.”
“Yep, it was.” The doctor nodded. “I’m so, so sorry, Zed.”
“Thank you.” Zed watched the van until it was completely out of sight, waving the whole time, just like he did from the window of the bus that took him away all those years ago when he joined the army to get away from Annie and her new husband. He’d thought he’d forget her, but distance and time did nothing to ease the pain of watching her marry his friend Seamus Clancy and wishing that he’d been born with white skin and blond hair so he could marry his beautiful Annie. But the ache on that day was nothing compared to the one in his heart now as the coroner’s van disappeared while the sun rose over the bridge crossing the lake that morning.
With every single mile, Harper’s head pounded harder. She’d been driving the same old burnt-orange truck two years ago when she came to the lake briefly on her way up to Oklahoma to work at one of the casinos just across the Red River. She hadn’t spent a night on the property in ten years. Not since that summer that changed her whole life.
Ever since then, a rock the size of a Buick landed in her chest every time she got near the lake. The boulder in her heart wasn’t as big as what had been there the day she signed her daughter away, but it was still painful.
She slowed down at the liquor store but didn’t stop. Her sisters, Tawny and Dana, would judge her as it was. If she came in with a brown paper bag under her arm, they’d have a field day. First right-hand turn before the bridge and there it was—twelve cabins located behind the combination convenience store and café. Then just a short distance from the cabins was a small white two-bedroom house. That’s where Granny Annie lived and where Harper and her two sisters had come to visit for a month every summer—but that all came to a screeching halt the summer before Harper’s sixteenth birthday in August.
Beer, bait, and bologna—that’s what Granny Annie called her store. It did offer a little more than that, with bread and other snacks and a shelf of over-the-counter medicine like sunblock or sunburn lotion, for those folks who forgot to bring those items with them. They also had milk and soft drinks in the refrigerator section, a big minnow tank, and a special fridge to hold stink bait, plus two gas pumps out front to keep the boats as well as the cars and trucks all fueled up and ready to go.
She could see each shelf in her mind’s eye as she drove around the back of the store to the café entrance. Uncle Zed cooked up the best food in all of North Texas at the café, and Flora took care of the cleaning. Three old folks had kept the place going for decades, and now one of them was gone.
She parked her truck and leaned her head back, shutting her eyes. She’d made it. No spare tire and the gas tank, as well as her wallet, was empty. “On fumes and prayers,” she whispered as she inhaled the pungent aroma of the lake water along with the smell of freshly mown grass and the first roses of spring, all mixed together with cigarette smoke. Lake Side Resort, as the faded sign above the door proclaimed, had not changed a bit.
Uncle Zed rounded the end of the porch and waved. His green eyes looked out of place in that ebony-black skin. His curly hair, once black as coal and cropped short, now had a heavy mixture of white sprinkled in it and was a little longer, but he would be at least seventy by now—maybe even seventy-one or seventy-two. He and Harper’s grandmother and late grandfather were all the same age. He still looked like he needed rocks in his pockets to keep a spring breeze from blowing him into the lake, but he’d always been a beanpole and he’d always worn bibbed overalls. Some things didn’t change with time—thank God.
A fresh wave of pain pounded through her head when she slid out of the seat and her feet hit the ground. “Mornin’, Uncle Zed.”
He wasn’t really her uncle, but he’d been more like one, or maybe even a grandfather. He’d been far more than an employee at Annie’s Place, that’s for sure. Dana, the oldest of the three, had given him the uncle title, so Harper and Tawny followed suit.
She’d vowed when she drained the last drop of whiskey from the bottle the night before that she was through crying, but seeing him brought on a fresh batch of tears. She grabbed him in a tight hug. “What are we going to do without her?”
“I don’t know, but I’m glad you’re here. We’ll all need one another to lean on.” His voice was raspy as his tears mixed with hers.
Smoke filled her nose, wiping out all the other scents. She backed up a step but kept a hand on his shoulder. “Did she suffer?”
“No, darlin’. She was talkin’ to me one minute and gone the next. The Lord took her quick.” He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped her cheeks and then his own.
“The others here?” she asked.
“Dana and Brook are in the house,” Zed answered. “Got here about an hour ago. That Brook is growing up in a hurry. You can sure tell that she’s your niece. She reminds me of you when you were her age—maybe not in looks, but in her attitude. Want me to take your things to one of the cabins?”
“I’ll do it later if I decide to stay. Is Tawny coming?” Harper asked.
Zed folded the hankie and returned it to his pocket. “She called last night and said she’d be here. Your granny has things set up to help you three Clancy sisters, and you shouldn’t let her down.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that she’d already let her grandmother down more than a decade before, but snapped it shut. Now wasn’t the time to peel back the lid on that can of worms. This wasn’t the day to start baring her soul, especially when she’d never told anyone.
“I’ll do my best. Maybe I’ll unload my things in the number one unit,” she said.
“That one is already booked. Fishermen are comin’ in tomorrow mornin’. I’ll put you in number twelve. It’s closer to the house and the café anyway.” He glanced over into the back of the truck at all the boxes. “Looks to me like you come to stay whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Never could get anything past you, Uncle Zed.” She smiled. “The question is whether or not this is where I will land permanently. I can pack and be gone in an hour if it’s not.”
“Well, we’ll hope that you stick around here for more than an hour. My old bones can’t run this place all by myself, and Flora is only stayin’ on for a little longer. She wanted to leave at Christmas, but that’s when—” He rolled his light-colored eyes toward the sky and finally got control. “She promised Annie she’d stick around long enough to get you girls in the groove of things. Now drive this truck on around to cabin number twelve, back it up as close as you can get it to the front door, and we’ll get you unloaded.”
The identical cabins were separated by enough space to park a vehicle. Yet years ago Annie had planted a weeping willow tree between each cabin, so folks parked out front these days. The trees now reached the cabin roofs, and new feathery leaves were pushing winter out of the picture and welcoming spring. Painted white with different-colored trim, each cabin had a tiny porch with a vintage metal lawn chair on the front. It seemed fitting that Harper would be staying in number twelve, with its red trim and door and red chair on the front porch.
It was her punishment for all those nights when she’d sneaked out of the house and met Wyatt in that very cabin, and red—well, that color did bring her sins home to haunt her. But Zed couldn’t have chosen the cabin for those reasons—he had no idea what happened that summer. Maybe it was simply available for long term when the others weren’t. She scolded herself for trying to analyze the whole thing.
Zed was already opening the tailgate when Harper crawled out of her truck for the second time. He pulled a real key on a big fob with the number twelve embossed on it from the pocket of his overalls and tossed it toward her.
She caught it in midair and stuck it in the lock but couldn’t make herself turn it.
The tailgate squeaked as he got it completely down. “This thing needs some oil applied to it. What’re you waitin’ on, girl, Christmas?”
“Maybe Easter,” she tried to tease, but it fell flat.
“Well, that’s still two weeks away, and the nights are cold. You’ll get your death of the pneumonia if you sleep on the porch. Open that door.” He set two suitcases on the porch and went back for boxes.
She sucked in so much air that her chest ached and then let it out slowly as she unlocked the door. Drapes were open on the big back window overlooking tall pines, willows, and a few scrub oak trees. She crossed the floor and watched a bunny rabbit hop along the edge of the wooded area and a couple of squirrels chase each other through the tree limbs. Birds flitted around, singing songs about spring.
Zed shoved the suitcases inside. “Lake living at its best. None of that cable television crap or Wi-Fi stuff, either.”
She turned around quickly. “That’s enough for you to lift and carry, Uncle Zed. I was woolgathering. I’ll get the rest. Thank you for all you’ve done. Especially being with Granny Annie in her last weeks. I’d have been here if you would have called.”
“She wouldn’t let me, and you know how she could be once she set her mind to something.” The sigh that escaped from him sounded as if it came all the way from the depths of his soul. “It sure won’t be the same without her.”
Harper swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat refused to go down. “I thought she’d live forever. She was my rock.” She didn’t want Zed to leave her alone in the cabin—not yet. She needed just a few more minutes before the memories came flooding in like she knew they would.
“She was everyone’s rock, darlin’,” Zed whispered.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “She told me more than once that you and my grandpa Seamus and she had always been great friends. I bet you could tell us all some stories.”
Zed eased down into a straight-back chair on the other side of the room. “Maybe someday. Only time I was ever away from her was those years I was in the army. She wrote me a letter every day when I was in Vietnam. I still got them all.”
Harper laid her sunglasses on the bed. “Never knew you was in Vietnam.”
“I don’t talk about it much. I didn’t like bein’ away from family. When I came home, Annie hired me to be the handyman, since my daddy passed away that year. It was 1966. I thought I’d stay in the army when I enlisted right out of high school, but that first six-year hitch was enough for me. I came home and Seamus and Annie put me to work. Then, less than two years later, in 1968, my mama died and I took over in the kitchen. Been cookin’ for almost fifty years now.”
“I don’t ever remember you not bein’ here,” Harper said.
“Of course you don’t. I remember the first time your daddy brought you here and me and Annie got to hold you. Lord, that was a wonderful day for sure.” A weak smile turned up his mouth. “I always liked it when you girls called me Uncle Zed. Y’all with your blonde hair and all.”
Harper crossed the room and patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes blood ain’t a bit thicker than water. You’ve been a wonderful friend and a great uncle.”
Zed laid a wrinkled hand on hers. “Thank you, child. Now I’d best get on over to the café. I’m makin’ hamburgers and fries for everyone to eat before the lawyer gets here. Tawny should be here by noon herself.”
“Please tell me that you won’t leave until . . .” Harper let the sentence trail off.
“I’ll leave when the undertaker takes my body away or else when one of you girls fires me.” Zed rose up from the chair and grabbed his handkerchief to cover a wicked cough. “This here is my home, Harper. If I live until the end of next month, it’ll be seventy-two years since I was born right out there in a little frame house.” He pointed toward the lake. “And I’ll die here. I’ll see you at noon, right?”
“I’d crawl through broken glass to get to one of your burgers.” She smiled. “Uncle Zed, that cough sounds serious. Have you seen a doctor?”
“Lots of times, my child. Me and Annie always went together, every three months until she got the tumor, then we went more often. Don’t you worry your pretty head about me,” he said as left the cabin.
She threw a suitcase on the bed and shut her eyes. A vision of Wyatt wearing nothing but lipstick kiss marks on his face floated behind her eyelids. The only thing she had on was a cowboy hat, and he chased her around the bed until she finally let him catch her. Then they fell back on a god-awful green plaid bedspread and made that kind of wild love reserved only for teenagers with raging hormones. When she opened her eyes, she realized that the bed was now covered with a puffy white duvet. That thing wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to wrap around her body and pretend that she was a medieval princess when Wyatt declared he was a knight in shining armor.
“Flora might be gettin’ up in years, but she still knows how to make a room look nice,” she mumbled as she made her way to the bathroom. She noticed that the television on top of the chest of drawers had been upgraded to a flat screen, but she’d be willing to bet it still only got two channels.
Crossing the floor in a few long strides, she found the bathroom the same. She and Wyatt had taken lots of baths together in the old claw-foot tub. A picture of both of them on the floor with towels wiping up the water flashed into her mind.
“It was fun at the time,” she muttered.
The vanity looked new, but if it was, it had been ordered from the same place as the old one. Little soaps along with shampoo, conditioner, and hand lotion were placed in a basket with fancy folded white washcloths. Towels were rolled and stuffed into slots on a wall-hung cabinet.
She turned away and groaned at the boxes stacked inside the door. If she unpacked and then couldn’t get along with her two bitchy sisters, it would be a big waste of time. Finally, she decided to unload the suitcases and shove the boxes into the oversize closet, built originally to hold a foldout twin bed for a child.
When one side of the closet was filled, she set about hanging up her clothing. She’d packed in a hurry when Uncle Zed called to tell her that her grandmother had passed and that she should come prepared to stay a spell.
Harper had always gone into a job with the attitude that she wouldn’t take bullshit from anyone. This would be no different. Just because Dana was her smart half sister and Tawny was her beautiful younger sister, it did not mean they could lord anything over her. Her attitude might have gotten her fired more than once from California to Texas and up into Oklahoma, but bartenders were always needed. If she couldn’t get along with her two sisters for more than an hour, she might even drive a few miles up the road and apply for a job at that bar she’d passed. That should tilt Tawny’s halo.
“Hey, Mama, you sure you want to sleep in this room? Uncle Zed said that Granny Annie died in that bed.” Brook shivered.
“I’m very sure,” she answered. “I loved her so much that I hope her spirit visits me from time to time.”
“You do know that she was cremated, right?” Brook’s big brown eyes got wider with each word.
“That was her body. Her spirit lives on in her granddaughters.” Dana organized her jeans in the closet by dress, work, and almost worn completely out. Zed, God love his soul, had already emptied out Granny Annie’s things from the room.
Although she hadn’t come around nearly enough, Dana had visited Granny Annie more often than the two “legitimate” granddaughters, so by damn she deserved the right to stay in the house.
They could each pick out a cabin—that would keep the two snooty little princesses out of her hair while she tried to run this conglomeration of businesses.
Dana’s father, Gavin, wouldn’t acknowledge that she was his child, but her Clancy blue eyes said differently. She was the bastard sister—the product of a wild night of drinking during her mother and father’s senior year at a party on the lake. They’d won a basketball game against their rival team and all the players were celebrating. Granny Annie had taken her in like the blood-kin granddaughter that she was and made her a part of the family. And it had been Granny Annie who’d insisted that her mother put Gavin Clancy’s name on the birth certificate and make her an official Clancy even if her parents weren’t married.
“Cinderella and the two mean stepsisters,” Brook giggled.
“The sometimes sisters,” Dana said. “That’s what we called ourselves when we came to see Granny in the summertime. I’m sure not Cinderella, and they are my half sisters, not my stepsisters.”
“Okay, then.” Brook sighed. “But I’m glad you’re stayin’ in here and I get the room where we always slept when we came to visit. It’s strange, her not being here.”
Dana thought she’d cried until there were no more tears, but when she noticed that old, familiar quilt folded and lying across the foot of Granny’s bed, the dam wouldn’t hold. She sat down in the wooden rocker where she’d seen Granny rock both Harper and Tawny so many times and let the grief surface again.
Brook rushed over to her and cried with her, right on the floor in front of the chair. “We’ve got to stop this, Mama. This is going to wear us both out. Let’s talk about something else, like where I’ll be going to school.”
“Frankston—it’s a public school.” Dana dried Brook’s face with the sleeve of her knit shirt.
“That little bitty town that we came through?” Brook’s voice squeaked on the last word.
“It’s where I went until I finished eighth grade. It didn’t kill me to go there, and I don’t expect that you’ll suffer, either.” Dana managed a weak smile. “Change is good. Remember that. You’ve got your own room, and we have a house instead of an efficiency apartment at the back side of the stables.”
“But Mama, I’ve never gone to public school. I bet they don’t even have uniforms,” Brook groaned.
“And you’ve made friends wherever we lived,” Dana countered. “Maybe if things work out, you’ll get to spend all of your high school years here.”
“I hope not!” Brook exclaimed. “This is right on the edge of nowhere. Granny don’t even have Wi-Fi, Mama.”
“Get used to it, kiddo. We could be here for a long time,” Dana said. “Go unpack all your things and settle in. We’re supposed to be at the café at noon. If we are lucky, we’ll get to start running this business tomorrow. And be glad you get to go to school, because you could be cleaning cabins all day.”
“No!” Brook’s hands went to her cheeks. “You’re kiddin’, right?”
“If you want a little paycheck like you got on the horse ranches, you’ll work at whatever needs done around here weekends and in the summer. It’ll probably be either cleaning rooms or else helping in the café, but it’ll be work.”
“But I hate housework,” Brook groaned.
“Think of it as a paycheck.”
Another groan escaped her daughter as she left the bedroom and headed across the hallway to her own new room.
“I hate dishes worse than any other housework,” she called out.
Dana sniffed the air and couldn’t pick up even a whiff of Granny Annie’s trademark floral perfume. She drew in another long breath, but it was all gone. How could that be? There should be a little of it left in the house a couple of days later. She stuck her head inside the closet . . . still nothing.
“Are you about to sneeze or something?” Brook asked from the doorway. “It seems strange to have this much space, Mama.”
“No, I was trying to get a little scent of Granny’s perfume. I guess she stopped wearing it when she got sick,” Dana answered. “You can’t be unpacked this fast.”
“No, but I heard you sniffling and thought maybe you were going to cry again and I can’t let you do that alone. It’s not what daughters do,” Brook said.
“Well, thank you, darlin’, but I think I might be finished with the crying for a few hours.” Dana went to the window and pulled back the curtains. An older-model orange truck sat in front of the cabin closest to the café. A tiny bit of pride shot up and whispered that if that was either Harper’s or Tawny’s vehicle, then the bastard child had done better than either of them. At least she drove a newer-model club-cab truck that didn’t have rust spots around the bottom of the passenger door.
“So what part of the business do you want to run, Mama?” Brook asked.
“The store.”
“With that minnow smell? And having to touch worms?”
Dana nodded. “I’ll do any of the jobs that Uncle Zed gives me, but that’s the one I want.”
“Well, good luck.” Brook went back to her room.
Dana couldn’t see the youngest sister, Tawny, dipping up minnows without gagging. Lord, she might break one of her fancy fingernails stocking shelves. That girl had always been spoiled. She might not even have time to leave her fancy college and come see Zed until summer. And Harper would kill the tiny fish with her breath if she was still throwing back booze like she was the last time Dana saw her. Had to have been five years since she showed up at Granny’s for ten minutes on Christmas Eve.
What are you going to do if your grandmother left the whole caboodle to Zed and Flora? God knows they’ve been loyal to her when you girls didn’t have time to even call. Dana hated it when she could hear her mother’s voice in her head.
“Then I’ll ask them if they’ll hire me,” she said without hesitation.
The call from Zed couldn’t have come at a better time for Tawny Clancy, the youngest of the three sisters. Her mother, Retha, had cut her off financially when she was kicked out of college back in December. She’d managed to keep herself afloat with a job in a coffee shop while she did her community service for drug possession, but picking up trash on the highway and working with the senior citizens on bingo night had ended a week ago. She had enough money to buy gas from Austin to Tyler and a hundred dollars to spare. But that was before she got a flat tire outside Centerville. She hadn’t cried when she had to sleep in her car and wait for a tire repair shop to open the next morning. In fact, she vowed she wouldn’t cry at all, but guilt and grief combined when she parked her car at the resort and realized that Granny wasn’t there anymore. She laid her head on the steering wheel of her fancy little red Camaro and sobbed uncontrollably.
She finally raised her head and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. Before she could dig her kit out of her purse, Zed opened her door, and the tears started all over again. He opened up his bony arms and flashed a smile laced with sadness. Tawny slid out of the seat and laid her head on his chest.
“Uncle Zed, this isn’t happening. Please tell me I’m dreaming,” she whispered.
“Sorry, darlin’, it’s real.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Zed patted her on the back. “She never was one to worry her girls.”
She took a step back and sniffed the air. “You’re still smokin’ those unfiltered cigarettes, aren’t you? Last time I was here, Granny was fussin’ at you about those things.”
“Man’s got to have a little vice.” He attempted to grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He pulled a key with the number seven on it from the bib pocket of his overalls. “I was takin’ a little smoke break before I get food on the table for y’all. It should be ready in about fifteen minutes. This is for you.”
Tawny took it and frowned. “I thought I’d be stayin’ in the house.”
“You girls need your own space. You got all your stuff in that fancy car?”
“Back seat and trunk are full,” she said. “Which one will Harper and Dana stay in?”
“Dana and Brook have the house. Harper is in number twelve. Annie left instructions about where you are all to stay. Drive on up to it, and I’ll help you unload,” Zed said.
“She’s still tellin’ us what to do, is she?”
“Yep.” Zed nodded. “Nice ain’t it?”
“Why number seven?” Tawny asked.
Zed shrugged. “Rest of them is going to be full come Friday night. I’d offer to help you unload, but I got to get the food ready.”
“I’m glad you are still here, Uncle Zed,” she said.
“Ain’t no place but here for me, girl. This is my home.”
“Harper drunk?” Tawny asked.
“Didn’t appear to be. Maybe tired and a lot sad,” Zed answered.
“Dana bossy?”
“She comes by that honest enough through Annie. But mostly she was feelin’ bad that she hadn’t been around in a while, just like you’re feelin’. You stayin’ out of trouble?”
“Tryin’ to, Uncle Zed, but it seems to find me. I’m hopin’ this place might reform me. There ain’t nothin’ to do out here except fish.”
“And work. And both of them are four-letter words.” Zed left with a wave of his bony hand. “I’ll see all y’all in the café at twelve sharp. If you ain’t there when I serve them up, then you can eat your burgers and fries cold.”
“I’ll be there. That’ll give me time to get my stuff out of the car. And thanks, Uncle Zed, for not putting me right next door to Harper.”
“Y’all need to be friends, not enemies,” Zed said. “Annie’s biggest wish was that you’d be close family someday.”
“Ain’t damn likely,” Tawny said as she got into her car and drove the short distance to her cabin.
An older truck was parked in front of cabin number twelve and, from where she was parked, she could see a crew-cab pickup down by the house. “So that’s what Harper is driving these days. Looks like maybe Dana has been a little more prosperous, but then, she’s older.”
Who are you to judge anyone after the trouble you’ve been in? The voice in her head belonged to her granny for sure.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Tawny said out loud as she pulled into the spot in front of number seven.
I told you about that rotten boy. I knew he was trouble when y’all stopped by here last summer. Pompous and egotistical and downright rude, but you wouldn’t listen. So it was your fault. Now it was her mother’s voice in her head.
“Well, now that’s a first. Mama and Granny agreeing on anything might bring on a tornado right here on the lake.” Tawny checked the skies, but there wasn’t even a white fluffy cloud up there in all the clear blue.
She stepped out of the car and unlocked the cabin door.
“Twin beds,” she groaned. Granted, the cabin was bigger than the one-room apartment that she’d had in Austin, and either of the beds would be better than the lumpy mattress she’d slept on the past three months, but she’d hoped that she’d get a unit with a queen- or king-size bed.
“I guess beggars can’t be choosers, right, Granny? You used to tell us that all the time when we were kids.” She choked up, and her lower lip and chin quivered. Why, oh, why hadn’t she made time to come see her grandmother in the last three months?
Leaving the suitcases and boxes inside the door, she headed to the café. A strong wind whipped her long, honey-blonde hair around in her face, so she worked a ponytail holder up from the pocket of her skinny jeans. By the time she had her hair pulled up, she’d reached the door but couldn’t force herself to go inside, so she sat down on the bench.
Lake water mixed with a stronger minnow smell floated on the wind, but it didn’t overpower the aroma of grilled onions coming out of the café. Bless Zed’s heart, he had to be heartbroken. He and Granny had been friends their whole lives, and instead of the sisters taking care of him, he was in there cooking for them. If he could do that, then she could damn sure face Dana and Harper. With new courage, she popped up off the bench and ducked inside, only to find the dining area completely empty. A dozen tables were arranged with four to six chairs around each one—just like they’d always been. The only difference was one covered with a white cloth that had been pushed into a corner. It was laden with desserts of all kinds.
“Have a seat anywhere.” Zed stuck his head through the serving window between the dining room and the kitchen. “Dinner’s almost ready. The ladies of the church brought all them desserts to you girls. Don’t know why. Annie hadn’t set foot in that place in more than thirty years. Maybe they’re tryin’ to get rid of the guilt they’ve been carryin’ around about the way they treated her. But that’s between them and their God.”
“Chocolate cake sure looks good,” Tawny said. “What guilt?”
“Whole bunch of them was ugly when your grandpa died,” Zed answered. “Don’t you be eatin’ one bite until you finish your real food.” He shook his finger at her and set a platter with eight big burgers on the serving ledge and followed it with another of tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles. “You take that on out to one of the tables. I’ll bring the french fries. Reckon you can go on and eat. I told everyone twelve sharp, and well, now, there’s Harper, and I believe that would be Dana and Brook right behind her.”
Harper pulled off her sunglasses, and a quick glance around the café let her know that nothing had changed in that area. The menu was above the counter where Flora usually took orders until right after the lunch rush—if there was one. Burgers, hot dogs, fries, and the daily blue-plate special. Mainly good old-fashioned home cooking that folks came from miles around to get. Harper suddenly wished it was Friday, because that was the day that Zed made his famous pot roast and hot rolls. And on Sunday he always made chicken and dressing, cranberry sauce from scratch, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob. That day drew folks in by the droves, and there was always a long line.
Chrome tables with yellow tops could seat four to six people or be pushed together for a bigger crowd. Napkin dispensers, salt and pepper shakers, and a bowl of small packets of sugar and sweeteners were arranged in the middle of the tables. Chairs used to match the tables, but they’d been recently recovered in shiny red plastic. Black-and-white tile covered the floor and was so shiny that Harper wouldn’t have a problem eating off it.
“Hamburgers smell amazing. Why’d you make all these desserts?” Harper asked.
“Done told Tawny. She can explain it to you,” Zed answered as he headed back into the kitchen.
She whipped around to see Tawny on the other side of the room. The precious daughter who did no wrong—according to their mother—looked like hell. Tawny’s blonde hair, usually perfectly styled, with not a long curl out of place, was pulled up in a ponytail. And her eyes looked like she hadn’t slept well in weeks.
“What are you staring at?” Tawny snapped.
“Not much.” Harper turned away from her younger sister at the same time that Dana and Brook pushed their way through the door and sat down at the table where the food waited. “What’s going on with the dessert table?” Dana asked.
“Evidently Tawny knows.” Harper sat down across from Dana.
“Did you make all that, Aunt Tawny?” Brook asked.
“Humph,” Harper snorted. “If she tried to boil water, she’d burn down the whole house. The kitchen is as foreign to her as—”
“Being sober is to you,” Tawny smarted off as she crossed the room and settled into the fourth chair.
“Put the claws away.” Zed brought a basket of sweet potato fries to the table. “Or I walk right out of here for good.”
Dana gasped.
Tawny’s eyes got wide.
Harper laid down her burger and touched his arm. “Please don’t do that. We’d be lost without you, Uncle Zed.”
“The church ladies brought the desserts. Evidently they did something to upset Granny Annie a long time ago, and they’re feelin’ guilty,” Tawny explained.
“I wish they’d ride that guilt trip for a week or two,” Brook laughed. “That stuff over there looks epic.”
“Epic?” Harper asked and then bit into a burger.
“It’s the new ‘awesome’ or ‘fabulous,’” Dana explained.
“I thought everything was ‘dope’ these days. That’s what I’m used to hearing the college kids sayin’.” Harper raised her voice. “Uncle Zed, these are epic, dope, and fabulous. Come on out here and eat with us.”
“Naw, I’ll just take my meal in the kitchen where I can watch the ribs I got cookin’ for supper,” he yelled back. “Y’all go on and clean up that food and then you can get into them cakes and pies. The lawyer will be here at one thirty.”
“Yes, sir,” Brook said seriously. “So is that old truck yours, Aunt Harper?”
“Yes.” She piled lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles on her burger.
“It’s been a long time since I saw you, but I think you were driving that truck then and I was just a little kid,” Brook said.
“I’ve been driving it for a long time. Little kid, huh? What are you now, twenty-one?”
Brook giggled. “I’m fourteen. What kind of job have you been doing?”
“I worked as a bartender in one of the college honky-tonks up in Oklahoma this last time and lots of other bars before that,” Harper told her.
“Figures,” Tawny said under her breath.
“What? That I work in a bar or that it’s in Oklahoma?” Harper asked.
“Both,” Tawny said.
“Stop it!” Zed said. “Y’all ain’t been together here in nigh on to ten years. I ain’t havin’ you upset Annie with your bickerin’.”
“Uncle Zed, Granny Annie is gone,” Brook said softly.
“Honey, her body is gone, but her spirit is still here among us, so these three best be a little more civil to each other,” Zed scolded.
“I guess we can put up a front for him,” Dana whispered.
“Y’all need to remember that he’s lost his best friend,” Brook said. “And he don’t need a lot of arguing. What’s it between y’all anyway that you can’t get along?”
“Long story,” Harper said.
“Y’all here to stay?” Tawny looked up at her two sisters and niece.
“You?” Harper asked.
Dana glanced across the table. “It will all depend on what the lawyer says. If Granny Annie left the whole place to Uncle Zed, I’m going to beg him for a job.”
Zed brought out a pitcher full of sweet tea and set it in the middle of the table. “I don’t imagine you’ll have to beg.”
Harper refilled her glass and passed the pitcher to Tawny, who had always been the prettiest of the three. Petite and curvy, she had the lightest hair and those delicate features that made men follow around behind her like a little puppy dog. Surely she wouldn’t be leaving her fancy sorority her last year at the university to work at Annie’s Place and live in a cabin on the lake.
A bit of an old song played through Harper’s head. The lyrics talked about three friends and said that one was pretty, one was smart, and one was the borderline fool. Dana was smart. Tawny was pretty. That only left the latter for Harper to lay claim to, and with her past mistakes, it kind of fit her well. Besides, she’d always felt like a big old sunflower among the bed of cute little miniature roses that were her sisters. Standing at just under six feet, she had what her mother called dishwater-blonde hair and light-brown eyes. And she’d sure turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the three women around the table. Hopefully Brook would get Dana’s smarts, her aunt Tawny’s beauty, and not an ounce from the borderline fool.
Yet Tawny’s rough hands and nails hadn’t seen lotion nor polish in weeks. Those were not the hands of a sorority sister. They’d seen hard work. And where were her signature high-heeled shoes? When Harper saw her three years ago, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in those cheap athletic things on her feet. Just what exactly had her younger sister been doing the past year?
“Like Dana says, it depends on what the will says. I’m stayin’ if she left this place to us, at least until the end of summer. If she didn’t, then”—Tawny shrugged—“you goin’ to use this place for a rehab center to get sober, Harper?”
“Naw, I thought I’d turn it into a brothel,” Harper smarted off. “We could get us ten girls to work the cabins and . . .”
Dana’s finger shot across the table. “That’s enough. Brook is sitting right here.”
“And I know what a brothel is, and it sounds like a moneymakin’ idea to me,” Brook said with a gleam in her brown eyes. “Have y’all always hated each other?”
Harper grinned. “We are the poster children for real-life sisters. All that crap about blood kin loving each other is a crock of bullshit. We learned a long time ago that we don’t even like each other, but we managed to tolerate one another for a few weeks each summer for Granny’s sake.”
“I’m glad I don’t have a sister,” Brook declared.
“You are one blessed little girl.” Harper nodded, meaning every word.
“Amen,” Dana and Tawny said in unison.