Four days.
She’d had four days to talk to the cats about the skinny-dipping event, to relive every word and feeling that she’d experienced sitting next to Brody with nothing but water between their naked bodies. For the next three days—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—she’d watched for him every single moment of the day. And that night she’d thought he might be at church but he wasn’t.
After services, she’d driven out to the cemetery and laid a wildflower bouquet wrapped with a bright red ribbon in front of her father’s tombstone. She removed her sandals, sat cross-legged on the grass, and ran her fingers over the engraving: BILLY HARRIS, 1962–1999.
“Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.” She wiped a tear from her cheek.
She felt a presence before she got a whiff of Brody’s shaving lotion, but before she could turn around he’d sat down beside her. They were as close as they’d been when they were skinny-dipping out at Hope Springs. His bare skin wasn’t touching hers but the heat still flowed through his jeans and plaid shirt just as well as if it had been.
Brody took her hand in his and rested it on his knee. “I’ve missed seeing you, but we’ve been so busy on the ranch that I couldn’t even get away for an hour. Thought I could make it to church tonight but Sundance got out of his pen again. Sometimes I’m ready to let Jace turn him into dog food. I finally got things finished and remembered that it was Father’s Day. I didn’t bring flowers but I had to come see Dad and Gramps.”
“It’s been years since I got to visit my dad on his special day,” Lila said softly.
“I remember when he died in that oil rig accident. We were in the seventh grade and it was the first time any of us had lost a parent. I didn’t know what to say to you.” Brody’s sincere voice reached deep into her heart, making her forget the angst over the past four days. It had been like that when they were in high school. She was constantly watching for him, disappointed when he wasn’t around, and then when he was, everything was all right.
“You hugged me at the dinner they had at the church after the funeral. You didn’t say a word but that hug meant the world to me right then,” she said. “You must have been totally devastated to lose both your grandpa and your dad the same summer.”
“It was the toughest year of my life,” Brody said. “You left and then I lost them. Mama wanted me to go on to college that fall, but I couldn’t leave her and Granny both with big ranches to take care of. We had a foreman on both Prairie Rose and Hope Springs but…” He shrugged.
Lila waited a few seconds while he collected his thoughts. He swallowed hard several times before he said, “Even more than being tough, it was the loneliness that was horrible. I threw myself into the work and that was that.”
Lila nodded. “I did the same with college. Turned my DNA completely around and became more like Mama.”
He drew his brows down. “How’s that?”
“Mama was the stable one. Daddy was the fun parent. Probably because he was gone a lot of the time and we all wanted everything to be happy when he was home. When we moved, I made a complete switch and went from the fun Lila to a more serious girl. Looking back, it was a form of coping and escapism, I guess.”
Brody gently squeezed her hand. “Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
“I still miss him.” She swallowed hard and a lonely tear found its way down her cheek.
He let go of one hand and gently brushed it away. “I’m sorry if I brought back sad memories.”
Her mind flashed back to that day. She had come home from school and found her mother sitting on the sofa crying with her Sunday school friends surrounding her. There was already food everywhere, more than two people could use in a month. She knew before Daisy even stretched out her arms what had happened. She dropped to her knees and put her hands over her ears. If no one said the words, then it wouldn’t be true.
He took her hand back in his and made lazy circles on her palm with his thumb. “And right after that, y’all moved to the back of the café. My family was there on the first Sunday to eat dinner and you were helping by serving the drinks. It was the first time I ever really noticed how pretty you are.”
“I hated it,” she whispered. “It was like we left Daddy behind in that trailer. I knew he was dead but his spirit lived and we didn’t move it to the new place with us. He was back there with strangers. I used to sneak out at night and go sit in the backyard and pretend that he came outside to talk to me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Brody said.
She stared at the tombstone and visualized her father sitting beside her in those old metal lawn chairs in their postage-stamp-sized backyard. Sometimes they didn’t talk at all but if she had a problem concerning anything, from snotty girls to pre-algebra, they’d discuss it.
“Then we left him again when Mama made us move. I didn’t want to leave Happy. I even offered to not go to college and to help her run the café if she wouldn’t make me leave. It took a long time for me to forgive her.” Lila’s voice sounded hollow even to her own ears. “Her only sister was out there in Pennsylvania and she wanted to get me out of this atmosphere and for me to go to college. She was afraid I’d never get an education if we stayed here. She was probably right.”
He dropped her hands, wrapped both arms around her, and pulled her close to his chest. With an ear pressed right next to his heart, she could feel the steady rhythm of the beat—not just hear it, but actually feel him doing his best to ease the pain they both felt in remembering.
“This is always an emotional time of year for me too,” Brody whispered hoarsely.
Lila nodded and then repositioned the side of her face so that she could hear his heart again. “It was a bad summer for both of us, wasn’t it?”
“You leaving broke my heart, Lila.”
“Sure didn’t seem like it at the time.” She leaned back and their gazes met in the few inches separating their faces.
“Men don’t cry. Cowboys don’t cry. Boys don’t cry.”
“And that has to do with what?”
He gulped a couple of times. “I wanted to be with you that last night but I couldn’t bear to see you in tears again. When you told me you were moving away—well, like I said, boys don’t cry and I would have carried on like a little girl.”
“But I did cry, remember? When Mama said that we were moving in a week, I cried until my face hurt and your shirt was wet.” She looked even deeper into his eyes.
He nodded. “So did I when I got home but I couldn’t go through it again. So I went out with the guys and was miserable all night. I was going to apologize to you the next day but you wouldn’t roll down the window. Not that I blame you one bit.”
“I thought I would die just looking at you in the rearview mirror,” she said.
He buried his face in her hair. “I sat down behind the café, put my head in my hands, and thought the worst thing ever had happened. Then…” He hesitated again.
She wrapped both arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. If she’d lost her mother and Aunt Tina that summer in addition to leaving Brody behind, she might have truly stopped breathing. How Brody had survived was a mystery.
She had shared things with him that evening that she’d kept closed off from the therapist she’d started seeing last winter in Florida. Raw things that brought about pain and yet, there she was sitting in a cemetery telling Brody about them.
“Have you forgiven and forgotten?” he whispered.
“Who? You or Mama?”
“First, your mother.” He inhaled deeply. “I love the smell of your hair.”
“Forgiven.” She nodded. “She was only doing what she thought was best for me and she let me finish school here with my class. She’d wanted to be near her sister for a long time.”
Lila loved Aunt Tina and all her kids and grandkids. Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas was fun at her house, but Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, would never be home, not like Happy, Texas. Not even if they moved her father’s body out there and she could visit him every week.
“And your dad’s family?” Brody asked.
“Dad was a foster child from the time he was about two years old. Thrown about from place to place until he was eighteen and then he went to work in the oil fields. He didn’t talk about his life but he did say that all those drunk driving tickets he hadn’t paid was the best luck he’d ever had.”
“How could unpaid tickets be lucky?” Brody asked.
“They put him in front of the judge, who said that he had a choice of six months in jail or he could join the service. He chose the army and got stationed over in Lawton, Oklahoma. A guy invited him to go home with him one weekend and it turned out the fellow was from Tulia. He was dating my aunt Tina and they introduced Dad to my mother. He and Mama married when he got out of the service and he moved here so he could work in the oil wells again. My aunt Tina didn’t marry that soldier but she did marry an oil man and moved back east the next year after Mama and Daddy married.”
“I can’t imagine going through those tough years without my dad. Thinking about losing him even now makes me so sad,” Brody said. “I should go and let you have your time alone.”
“Stay.” She held on to his hand when he started to pull it away.
They sat engulfed in their own memories for a long time before she finally said, “What happened to your grandpa?”
“Heart attack. Doctor said he was gone instantly. Granny ran the ranch until this spring. Then she turned it over to us.”
So much had happened between that last night out at Henry’s barn and that moment and she wanted to know everything. “Do you ever wish for one more hour with him to ask him important questions?”
“Oh, Lila,” Brody sighed. “Him and my dad both. Daddy died in a tractor accident. I couldn’t talk fast enough if I had another hour with either of them, especially right now. After he was gone, I threw myself into the ranch work. That’s all I know or ever wanted to do anyway. My folks and Granny both had huge places with plenty to do, so I never had to worry about a paycheck.”
“Lived with your folks all this time until you moved over to Hope Springs?”
“I moved into the bunkhouse when Grandpa died. When Jace graduated from college, he moved into it with me,” he said.
“So Jace went and you didn’t?”
“He’s kind of felt guilty about that but Mama and I insisted. And he’s really smart when it comes to agriculture business. What did you do after you graduated from college?”
“I took a job in Memphis for a couple of years, then moved over to Little Rock for a while and I’ve been in Panama City Beach since then.”
The therapist told her that she moved so often because she was searching for happiness but until she found peace within herself, happiness would always be a step ahead of her.
Happy, Texas. Maybe she wasn’t searching for the elusive euphoric happy but the place that was a tiny town in the panhandle of Texas.
“Come home with me,” Brody finally said after several minutes of silence. “It’s my night to read bedtime stories to the kids and I don’t want to miss it. It’s the second Father’s Day without Adam and you of all people understand. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“Not tonight, Brody. You go on and read to those babies. They need you.” She pushed away from him. “But for the record, I don’t want you to leave either.”
He kissed her on the forehead and straightened up. “Good night, Lila.”
“Night, Brody,” she said.
Was Kasey right? Could Lila really have both sides?
Brody sat in the middle of Rustin’s bed with Silas in his lap, Emma hugged up to his left side and Rustin leaning over his shoulder as he read Bedtime for Dogs. There were lots of pictures and only a few words on each page but it still took almost half an hour to get through the book. Rustin and Emma had dozens of questions about each page and Silas wanted to point to the dog and jabber about it.
Finally, Kasey rescued him and put Silas into his crib, tucked Rustin in, and led Emma to her bedroom. While she got them settled, Brody went to the kitchen and popped the tops on two beers. He carried them to the living room and set Kasey’s on the coffee table.
She plopped down on the other end of the sofa. “Thank you. I need this tonight. Father’s Day is tough on me. Even worse than Christmas and his birthday.” She took two long swallows before she set it aside. “I miss him so much, Brody.”
“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” Losing Lila was one thing but she was still alive and able to come back. Kasey’s loss was final, down to standing in front of a closed casket.
“Hasn’t yet. After the initial shock wore off, I thought it would get better with the passing of time. It hasn’t,” she said. “Did you go see Grandpa and Daddy?”
“I did,” he answered. “Lila was there at her father’s grave. We talked.”
It wasn’t the first time that they’d held hands and talked for hours but in the past it had been either in the barn, under the willow tree, or in her bedroom. They’d talked about things that teenagers did in those days. Today had been different in so many ways and he’d used his words like Jace said. Not to banter or to tease, but emotionally.
“Argued or talked?” she asked.
“The latter. I can’t imagine what you’re going through but I know that I missed her horribly when she moved away. I’d finally given up on ever seeing her again when she came back to Happy.”
“I knew that you had a crush on her, but I had no idea that you missed her like that,” Kasey said. “Does she know?”
He shook his head. “There was chemistry between us back then that is still there but, Kasey—”
“When you get past everything that’s keeping you two apart, there will be no more buts. However, you’ve got to work on all those things. Like talking to her. Like not keeping secrets from Mama. Like not caring what Mama or Granny thinks or anyone else for that matter. You have to let the past go and dwell on the future.”
“That’s a lot to do in one summer,” he said.
“Yes, it is. We can’t bring back the water that’s already flowed under the bridge, can we? If we could, Adam would still be with me and I’d be in Lawton where folks treated me like I had a brain instead of looking down on me like I’m nothing but your kid sister,” she sighed.
“You miss that life, don’t you?” Brody asked.
“Yes, I do sometimes. I wasn’t the odd Dawson kid with red hair who wasn’t as pretty as all the Dawson girl cousins or even as her older brothers. I wasn’t the only one who got married right out of high school. I was Kasey McKay who could organize a picnic or take care of the Fourth of July party at the recreation hall for the guys who stayed on base. And I was the woman in charge of ordering all the fireworks for the display,” she said.
“And then Adam was gone and you had to move right back here,” he said.
“Like Lila.” She nodded. “Only she’s come back where people remember her as that crazy kid who was always gettin’ into trouble, not the teacher with a responsible job. Neither of us knows who we are anymore. Difference is that she gets to leave at the end of summer. I’ve got nowhere to go and three kids who are better off on this ranch than anywhere else. What can I do? Flip burgers or check out customers at a grocery store?”
Brody slid over next to her and put his arm around her. “Kasey Dawson McKay, this ranch is your army base. Without you, Jace and I would be lost. You’re our rock. And as of right now, you can do whatever you want for a ranch picnic and fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Just don’t leave us, darlin’ sister. We’d be runnin’ around like chickens with their heads cut off without you.”
“I know you’re just sayin’ that to make me feel better, but thank you.” Kasey smiled, her eyes watery.
“It’s the truth. Cross my heart. When someone wanders onto the ranch and steals your heart, we’ll have to hire five women to replace you,” Brody said. “And I’m not whistlin’ Dixie, sister.”
“I don’t reckon you’ve got a thing to worry about there. It’d take a big man to sweep me off my feet and he’d have to love my kids. Not many men are willing to take on a ready-made family.”
“You never know,” Brody said. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that life has a way of surprising you sometimes.”
“Well, whatever comes our way—you, me, Lila—we’ll figure it out as we go.”
“Of course we will.” He grinned. “Want to watch a movie? I’ll even let you pick it out.”
“And you won’t bitch if it’s a romance?”
“Not tonight,” he answered.
He and Jace both had been protective of their little sister since the day their mama brought her home from the hospital. At three and five, they had no idea what to do with a girl baby but their mama said they had to watch out for her and they’d done their best. Now it was time for them to recognize that she wasn’t a kid anymore.
“What if I’m not in the mood for something all sweet and sappy but I want some kickass stuff?” she asked.
“Then I might not snore.”
“How about that old Blue Collar Comedy Tour? Would you snore through some redneck comedy?” she asked.
“Never. If you’ll find it, I’ll make some popcorn and pour us a couple of Cokes,” he said.
“Laughter might help.” She stood up and stretched, then opened the door to the place where the DVDs were stored.
“Hey, did you ever watch this Lethal Weapon movie? Granny must have left it behind. It’s got Mel Gibson in it and he looks real young,” Kasey yelled.
“Nope. Heard of it but never watched it. Want to trade redneck humor for kickass?”
“I think I do. If we don’t like it, we can stop it and put in the other one.”
Lethal Weapon.
That was Lila in a nutshell. She could destroy a man’s heart or protect it, depending on how he treated her.
Lila padded barefoot from the bathroom to the living room of her apartment. Wearing boxer shorts and a tank top, she got comfortable on the sofa and towel dried her long hair and then tossed the wet towel on the coffee table. Duke and Cora took it as an offering and proceeded to use it to climb up on the table to play a game of king of the mountain, knocking each other off the table.
She got bored watching them and flipped through the old DVDs on the shelf below the television. Most of them needed to be tossed in the garbage but one with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover on the front caught her eye.
“Lethal Weapon Four. The last one.” She put it into the player. “I remember this, Daddy. You and Mama sent me to bed early so you could watch it. I was in the sixth grade and I snuck out of my room and crawled on my hands and knees over to the cabinet. I peeked out around the side and saw some of it before Mama caught me and sent me back to my room.”
The cats got tired of playing and flopped down on the edge of the towel they’d pulled from the table. She gathered both of them in her arms and laid them down beside her on the sofa. Her phone rang as the first scene of the movie started, so she hit pause. Duke grumbled in his sleep but he didn’t wake when she reached across him for her purse on the end table.
“Hello, Mama,” she said.
“Did you go to church tonight?”
“I sure did. Are you checkin’ up on my soul?”
“Did you go to the cemetery?”
“Yes, ma’am. Daddy and I had a visit and then Brody Dawson showed up and we had a visit too,” she said. “But I imagine that you already knew that and that’s why you’re calling, right? Who told on me?”
“It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that you stay away from him. He’s just flat out not the man for you,” Daisy fussed. “You’re lookin’ at another heartbreak. You went inside a shell and didn’t come out for years when we moved away all those years ago.”
“I thought I kept my feelings hidden pretty good,” she said.
“Honey, you don’t hide things from a mama. When you have kids, you’ll understand that,” Daisy said.
“I can handle myself, Mama.” She quickly changed the subject. “Guess what I’m fixin’ to watch?”
“Depends on where you’re going to watch it. Are we talkin’ about Henry’s old barn or television?”
Lila sighed. “Lethal Weapon 4. You remember when you caught me…”
Daisy giggled. “Yes, I do. That wasn’t long before your dad died. It was the last movie that we watched together. I’m glad that you went to see him today.”
“First Father’s Day I’ve been able to do that since we moved away,” Lila said seriously. “I know you miss him, Mama, because I do.”
There was a long, pregnant silence and then Daisy said, “Well, I’d best let you get to watchin’ the movie that you didn’t get to watch almost twenty years ago.”
“I wish you were here to watch it with me,” Lila said softly.
“Me too, honey. And if that café doesn’t sell by the middle of August, we’ll watch it together before you go back to Florida. I’ve decided to move back to Texas if it doesn’t have a buyer by the fifteenth of August.”
“Seriously, Mama? You’d leave Aunt Tina and all those kids and grandkids?”
“It wouldn’t be easy but I’m getting an antsy feelin’ since you’ve been there. Kind of like something is calling me back to my roots.”
“The café is going to sell. I just know it will. But I’ll take this movie with me when I go and when you come down for Christmas, we’ll watch it then, okay?” She would love having her mother right there with her that evening. December seemed so far away. By then nine months would have passed since spring break when she saw Daisy last. Then it had only been a short three-day visit and Daisy and Aunt Tina had worked every day except Sunday while she was there.
“It’s a date,” Daisy said. “Maybe I’ll buy the first three next time I see them on sale and we’ll have a marathon one day. Your dad would like that.”
“Sounds good to me. Good night, Mama.”
“’Night, kiddo.”
Lila wasn’t five minutes into the movie when she said, “Good grief! Mel’s character is every bit as cocky as Brody Dawson used to be. Maybe those fifteen minutes I got of this movie is what made me like the bad boys.”