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Chapter Seven

Not in years had Ned Avery come home to a house fragrant with the twin odors of fresh bread and cinnamon. Ma had been dead so long he could not remember much about her, except her lovely eyes. Katie had eyes like that—brown and appealing.

Pete decided to sulk in the barn, so Ned shut the kitchen door and breathed in the pleasant fragrance, aware that this might mean something delicious to eat, but just savoring an unexpected, simple pleasure.

He watched Kate Peck come down the hall from her father’s room, carrying an empty plate. She smiled her greeting—another unexpected pleasure—and put the plate in the sink. Without a word, she cut off a slab of bread, slathered it with butter and handed it to him.

“Your father pretends to be asleep, but he ate a lot of bread and butter,” she said. “Your turn.”

He ate the bread, embarrassed to be uttering little cries of pleasure, but nearly overcome with something as simple as warm bread and butter. “Best thing I ever ate,” he said, and meant it.

“You’re an easy mark,” she teased, which made him smile. “I have something even better.”

What he couldn’t imagine, unless it was to strip and stand there naked in the kitchen. That thought earned him a mental slap. “Hard to imagine anything better,” he told her, grateful people couldn’t read each other’s thoughts.

In answer, she opened the warming oven and took out a cinnamon roll the size of a dinner plate. “Sit down.”

He sat. Without a word, he plunged in, wondering how lucky a man could be, to find out that he had inadvertently hired a cook, along with a chore girl.

“Words fail me,” he said finally. “I didn’t know we had any cinnamon.”

“It’s a little weak. I found it stuffed in the back of that cupboard, along with a stack of napkins, a hacksaw and a rope with dried blood.”

“That’s where it went!” Ned said. “I use that rope for pulling calves.”

He could tell she had no idea what he was talking about. “When Mama Cow has trouble, a little noose slipped around her calf, plus a mighty tug, finishes the job.”

Kate pointed to the rope, hanging from a nail near the door. “Keep it in the barn, the hacksaw, too.”

“You’re a bit of a martinet,” Ned replied.

She gave him a startled look that settled into a thoughtful expression. “Two days ago, I wouldn’t have imagined such a thing.”

He started for the barn, when she surprised him by walking along beside him. She stopped and he stopped, too, waiting for her to speak.

“Your father may have a bad heart, but he needs something to do,” she said. “I didn’t want him to hear me talking about him.”

Eyes troubled, she looked back at the house, which suddenly looked too small and shabby to him. Couldn’t they afford something better now?

“He’s lying there waiting to die,” Katie said. “How is that better than death?”

It felt like one accusation too many. “Do you have some bit of wisdom to change things? You think you’re telling me something I don’t know?” He didn’t mean to shout. He regretted the look in her eyes. “Sorry. That was unkind.”

“He still needs something to do,” she repeated softly, and left him there.

Ned Avery watched the sway of her skirt, wishing—not for the first time—that someone else was in charge of his life.

He stayed in the barn until the cold started to seep through his coat, watching his horse eat. Pete, still unhappy with his day spent riding fence, pointedly turned away from him, much as a cat with a gripe would.

I am satisfying nobody, Ned thought. “Pete, what would you really like to do?” he asked.

“Work someplace warm,” Pete said with no hesitation, as though he had been considering the question for years. Perhaps he had been.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ned told his brother. He patted Pete’s shoulder. “Come inside. Katie has made cinnamon rolls.”

“Will I like them?” Pete asked, as they walked toward the ranch house.

“Yeah, you will. If you don’t, I’ll eat yours, too.” He stopped. “Ride with me tomorrow to check the fence in the other direction, and then I really will see what I can do.”

Dinner was another unimaginable feast, nothing more than beef stew, but much more because of spices or whatever sort of alchemy seemed to be coming from a kitchen he knew too well.

“Tucked beside the cinnamon, I found some thyme. And do you know, there is bush after bush of sagebrush right outside your door,” Katie said.

He could tell she was teasing him, and it felt good, reminding him how long it had been since he had laughed about something, anything.

There was no humor in the last bedroom, where his father lay, staring at the ceiling. Ned helped him sit up to eat, but Pa said nothing about the wonderful stew. Pa seemed determined not to have anything good to say about Katie.

Stubborn old man, Ned thought. He imagined himself condemned to lie in bed until death finally nosed around and found him. He had to admit Kate was right—this was not living.

After helping his father through slow and painful bedtime rituals, Ned said good-night and wandered back through the house. In the next room, Pete was already asleep. He kept going, passing through the small sitting room now, and by the room he had built for Kate, who just wanted to feel safe.

She was drying the last of the dishes. He eyed the remaining cinnamon roll, which she pushed toward him, along with a just-dry fork. “I can make more tomorrow.”

She sat down, and he found himself enjoying the novelty of someone sitting with him. Before Pa got so weak, they sat at this table together and he missed that.

“I have to find something for Peter to do,” he said, halfway through the roll.

“You’ll think of something,” she said.

“I wish there was someone else around here who could think,” he said, ashamed to whine.

“The whole burden is yours, isn’t it?” she said, her voice soft. “That’s hard.”

She surprised him then. “Tomorrow, I’m going to start reading to your father.” She chuckled. “He’ll just pretend to sleep and ignore me.”

“Sorry about that,” Ned murmured, embarrassed at such stubbornness.

“No need. I’ll sit by the arch into his room, and read just loud enough to hear, but not easily. Maybe he’ll invite me into his room to read.”

“Could be a while,” Ned said. “He’s damned stubborn.”

“So am I.”