Levi quickly spotted the green awning that had been set up with the casket underneath it and drove down the gravel pathway toward it. When he parked, Skip left the bus first with Benjy at his side.
Faith nudged Retta and whispered, “I ain’t never been to one of these things. What am I supposed to do?”
“Not a thing but listen and maybe sing if they want us to,” Retta answered softly. “And afterward, maybe be nice to Benjy while he adjusts to the idea.”
Faith nodded and grabbed Alice’s hand.
Benjy went right to a woman who was sitting in a wheelchair at the end of a row of seats. “Aunt Rosie, my granny is dead.”
She put up her arms, but he took a step back. “Yes, she’s gone but she didn’t suffer. One minute she was reading your letter to me over the phone and then she was gone.”
Benjy wiped tears from his cheeks with his shirtsleeve. “I’m scared to go where people don’t know me.”
“I would let you live with me, Benjy, but I’m going to a nursing home, sweetheart. I’ll be checkin’ in next week but I’ve rented a storage unit near here and I’m having all your granny’s things moved into it. When you get settled you can come visit me in the nursing home and I’ll give you the key so you can get whatever you want from it,” she said.
Cade walked up and extended a hand. “I’m Cade and we’ll take good care of him on the ranch until…”
Aunt Rosie grabbed his hand and held it to her face. “I know you will. My sister spoke highly of what you are doing for these kids. Will you keep me informed about him?”
“I promise,” Cade said.
Aunt Rosie pointed to a chair. “You sit right here, Benjy, beside me.”
They all moved forward to sit down and then Rosie nodded at the preacher, an old guy with bushy eyebrows that matched his snow-white hair and a long, wrinkled face.
“Maudie Green was born Maud Charlotte Anderson on July tenth, 1943, and passed from this earth…” he started.
When he finished, he said, “Let us pray.”
He could have recited a chapter from Job or Exodus instead of asking God to deliver Benjy’s grandmother into the angel’s hands. Retta could never be sure what he’d said because she was feeling every emotion that Benjy did. Denial, sorrow, and anger all mixed up into one ball of fear.
When he finished praying, he nodded toward the funeral director, who opened the casket, being careful to lay back the satin so that Benjy’s grandmother, Maudie, was visible. She wore a pink dress with a little corsage of silk blue bonnets pinned to the pocket.
“She liked them flowers, bein’ from Texas and all.” Rosie sniffled.
“Anyone that would like to pay last respects will have a few minutes,” the preacher said.
“Will y’all go with me, Mavis and Retta?” Benjy whispered.
They stood up at the same time. He put one hand in Mavis’s and the other one in Retta’s. Together they took a couple of steps and he gazed inside the casket for a long time.
“Good-bye, Granny,” he whispered. “You are really dead and I have to live with someone else. Cade will fix it though. I know he will.”
Retta had to swallow half a dozen times to get the lump down that closed off her throat. Then she felt Cade’s strong arm slip around her shoulders and noticed that Skip was on the other side of Mavis.
Benjy inhaled deeply, let it out slowly and motioned to the other kids. “This is my granny. If you want to see her, you can.”
One by one they circled around the front and ends of the casket.
“Now we’re goin’ to sing ‘I’ll Fly Away,’” he said. “Because that was her favorite church song.” He started it in a little boy’s voice and the others sang along on the parts that they knew. Cade, Justin, Levi, and Skip carried the words all the way through. Retta knew every word but she couldn’t make a peep through some of it.
It’s time to let me go now, Retta Jo. I’m ready to go be with your mother and I can’t until you say the words. Her father’s words the day before he died came back to her.
“Oh, Daddy, I can’t,” she’d said around the pain in her heart.
“Please, baby girl,” he’d gasped.
“I can’t imagine living without you in my life,” she’d said.
He gripped her hand as tight as he could and slipped off into a coma. The next morning he took his last breath.
I won’t be at peace until you are. She could hear his voice in her head.
Okay, Daddy, I’ll try harder, she promised.
After they finished singing, the preacher stepped up beside Benjy. “We’ll wait to close this until everyone is gone.”
“Thank you.” Cade shook hands with him.
Benjy tucked his hand into Skip’s and without looking back headed toward the bus with all the kids behind them.
“I hope this works out with Mavis and Skip.” Cade’s voice was deeper than ever and his eyes so filled with sadness that Retta wanted to hug him right there in front of everyone.
“I hope so. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll both have to b-be…,” she stammered.
“Brave?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Nothing has ever brought me to my knees like thinking of that boy in a foster home with people that don’t understand him,” Cade said.
She wanted to ask if Julie hadn’t done a pretty good job of bringing him to his knees too, but she kept her mouth shut.
Chapter Seventeen
On the way home, Levi stopped in Sunset at a little barbecue place and Cade treated everyone to lunch. The kids sat together at a long table and whispered to each other the whole time they ate.
“What do you think they’re talkin’ about?” Skip asked.
“Who knows? Maybe they’re just trying to help Benjy,” Cade answered.
“Or they’re plotting against the adults and they’re all going to run off together to keep him from going to a foster home.” Justin chuckled. “Remember when you and I ran away from home?”
“I think that’s a story worth tellin’,” Retta said.
“I was eight and Justin was six and we decided we’d join the circus after we’d seen a show on television. We snuck out one night and we were walkin’ down the road about midnight,” Cade said.
“I was terrified of the dark and we couldn’t really remember how to get to Skip’s house so we could talk Levi into going with us.” Justin laughed.
“I wouldn’t have gone, believe me.” Levi shook his head. “I was even more afraid of the dark than Justin, and besides I’d just rescued a puppy from getting killed on the road about then and I wouldn’t have left it.”
“But we never made it to Skip and Mavis’s house. A neighbor came by and offered us a ride and he turned his truck around and took us right back home,” Cade said. “We were grounded to the yard for a whole week and then we had to wash dishes for the whole next week.”
“And that was the biggest punishment of all,” Justin said. “I hated it because Cade always washed and I had to dry them. He was slow as molasses and it seemed like he was trying to wipe the roses right off Mama’s dishes instead of just getting the food cleaned off.”
“If they weren’t clean, then Mama added another week to our punishment,” Cade explained. “But back to the kids. We might want to keep an eye on them this afternoon just in case they’ve got something crazy up their sleeves.”
“I agree,” Skip said.
“Me too,” Retta said. “They’re bonding together since all this happened and they very easily could be planning to try to whisk Benjy away to the city and take care of him themselves.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t we put them all busy tomorrow at the cabin? Y’all said the porch railing could use a coat of paint. If they’re having fun, maybe they’ll forget about doing something stupid,” Skip offered.
“Great idea,” Retta said.
It only took fifteen minutes to go from the café to the ranch and the minute Levi opened the bus
doors, the kids scattered to their bunkhouses. They’d changed from their good clothes into shorts and T-shirts and were circling around Skip when he got off the bus.
“Can we all go to the barn and check on Little Bit? We’ve been talkin’ about it and we don’t want a contest. We want that to be his real name. And will you go with us, Skip, because we need to practice our ropin’ and after that we want to get in some football practice,” Kirk asked.
“Please, please, please,” Benjy begged.
“Let me get changed and I’ll go with you,” Retta said.
Faith quickly whispered something into Skip’s ear, and he nodded.
“I was wonderin’”—he rubbed his chin—“if you’d like to drive to Bowie and pick up groceries. It’s been a couple of weeks and Mavis has a grocery list made, but she’s too tired to shop today, especially with that hurt arm. And she needs a rest, both physically and emotionally. If you don’t want to go, one of the guys can.”
Skip grinned and the children all beamed. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that they were up to something when Faith grabbed Alice’s hand and they skipped together toward the barn with everyone else following after them.
“Don’t you have to go into Bowie this afternoon to the vet’s office so we can work some calves tomorrow?” Levi asked Cade.
“I don’t mind doing the shopping at all but I can go by myself,” Retta said.
Cade tossed his pickup keys to her. “I’ve got to take this bus back to the preacher. You can follow behind me, and then we’ll get whatever Mavis or you and Skip need for the bunkhouses.”
“Give me five minutes to talk to the girls,” she said.
“Sure thing.” He nodded and headed into the ranch house. He went straight to his room and opened the bottom drawer where the wedding rings were still stored. He flipped it open and there wasn’t the usual pain attached to the memories they created—they were just rings. Still, there was something not quite settled because he wasn’t ready to let them go completely. He slipped them back in the drawer and picked up Mavis’s list from the kitchen table on his way out.
Retta drove up beside him when he parked the van at the church. By the time he got out, she’d changed from the driver’s to the passenger’s seat.
“You could’ve driven. I’m not so macho that I can’t ride with a woman driver.” He grinned as he strapped the seat belt across his broad chest.
“Your truck,” she said.
He turned north on the highway toward Bowie and she tried to think of something—anything—that would start a conversation. She didn’t want to bring up the funeral because that reminded her of the last one she’d gone to, and thinking of her father made her sad. They’d already discussed how great the kids were behaving when it came to taking care of Benjy.
“Okay,” she finally said.
“Let’s,” he said at the exact same time.
“I’ll go first,” she said. “I think we should talk about the elephant sitting in the truck between us.”
“I’m attracted to you,” he blurted out. “And have been since you walked into that first interview.”
Well, now that was bold enough, she thought.
“Me, too, but—” she started again.
He butted in for the second time. “But why start something that has no finish line?”
“Exactly.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Unless we agree that it’s only a fling and there’ll be no regrets or tears when I leave.” Before he could speak she said, “But I’m really not…”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Me either.”
“So you treat every date like she could be your soul mate?” she asked.
“Do you?” he shot back, as if he was avoiding the question.
“Haven’t had much time for dating.” She fidgeted with her hands. “I was so busy with my job and then taking care of my dad.”
“Which leaves very little time for fun, right?” he asked.
“Something like that. I’ve had dates and I had one serious relationship in college, but we wanted different things so it didn’t last,” she said. “Now your turn. How many relationships have you had since Julie?”
“Nothing serious. Just a few dates here and there,” he answered.
Well, that was honest enough, but that would essentially make Retta the rebound woman. The one who’d finally gotten him past his heartbreak over Julie. Maybe kind of like a new puppy after one had died—loved but not the same or as deep as that first little guy who’d stolen a little boy’s heart.
“It’s strange to be talkin’ about this instead of just letting it go wherever it goes,” Cade said after a few moments of silence.
“Yep.” She nodded.
He snagged a good parking place in the Walmart lot and she quickly unfastened her seat belt and got out of the truck. She was halfway to the doors when she glanced back to see him still sitting in the truck with a phone to his ear. She lengthened her stride, grabbed a basket someone had left in the middle of the lot, and got a blast of wonderfully cold air when she pushed it inside the store.
She pulled the grocery list out of her hip pocket and started checking off the first one when she got in line at the deli to get three pounds of smoked ham. Before it was her turn to order, Cade was right beside her.
“Sorry about that. Skip called to report in about Benjy.”
“Is he all right? We can go back right now and do this later if he needs us.” Retta started to turn the cart around.
“He’s fine, real good in fact. The social worker called and said that they were pushing the foster papers through fast since Mavis and Skip had done this before and that Benjy can definitely go home with them when camp is over. It’ll take a while for the adoption, but now we know. But Mavis has decided to quit work when camp is over. I don’t know what we’re going to do without her.” Cade groaned.
“So you’ll hire someone else,” she said. “Unless you guys are going to do all the cooking.”
“You think I could ever replace Mavis?” His voice had a slight edge to it.
“That’s not at all what I said,” she bit back at him.
You are fighting because you don’t want to face your feelings for him and you are disappointed in him and in yourself, her father said so distinctly in her head that he could have been right in front of her.
I won’t be a rebound toy, she argued.
She waited for her father to say something else but he didn’t.
“While you get that list filled, I’m going back to the sports area. I need to get a couple more rods and reels so we can take the kids fishin’ this week.” Cade was gone before she could comment.
Her cart needed sideboards by the time she made it to the checkout lines. She’d already started to put items on the conveyor belt when he showed up again and added what he’d picked up to her things.
“Looks like you’ve found everything you needed,” he said.
“Did you?”
“Oh, yeah. We’ll be caught up enough after today that the guys and I can take the kids fishin’ sometime in the next couple of days. Did you get enough sandwich supplies so Mavis can pack a little picnic lunch for them?”
With a curt nod, she kept putting items on the belt as the cashier moved it forward and bagged the groceries. “Where do you fish?”
“Canyon Creek,” he answered as he pulled out the ranch credit card and stuck it into the chip reader. “It’s too far for them to walk. We’ll pile them into the back of a truck.”
“Is everything always spur-of-the-minute planning?” she asked.
He pushed the loaded cart toward the door. “Pretty much. We’re a working ranch, so if there’s time, we gladly give it to the kids. If not, then they can go with us and learn something new. And besides all that, we have to depend on the weather. Why are you so cranky?”
“Me? You’re the one who’s acting like it’s the end of the world because Mavis is quitting to take care of Benjy. I just s
tated the obvious and you got snippy.” It was well over a hundred degrees, but the weather wasn’t nearly as hot as Retta’s anger.
This is ridiculous. He’s done nothing to make you this mad. This time it was Tina’s voice in her head. You are just fighting against your own feelings. He doesn’t want a summer fling and neither do you. You want more and he’s not willin’ to give it, so back off, girlfriend, and settle down.
“What makes you think I was snippy?” Cade asked as they finished loading the truck and climbed into the cab.
“Didn’t you just walk away without finishing our conversation?” She didn’t even glance his way.
“Because I needed rods and reels and I’ve been to the store with Mavis before. It takes a while to fill the list.”
“Did you get bait for the fishin’ trip?” she asked.
“We dig worms.”
“Well, good luck with that.”
He stopped what he was doing and took a step forward. “And that means?”
“Not a drop of rain in several days. Worms are all down deep in the ground except maybe out in the shade of the barn. Grasshoppers would be better, and we’re still avoiding this chemistry between us,” she said.
“What do you know about fishin’?”
“I know enough about fishing to bait a hook.”
“Oh, well, you’re baitin’ this hook real well, darlin’,” Cade snapped back. “I thought we had this chemistry thing settled because neither of us wanted to start something we couldn’t finish. After all, you’ll be leavin’ in a few weeks.”
“I’m not baiting anything just because I think something needs a little more discussion!” She turned and her gaze locked with his.
“Well, I don’t see the point in talking things to death and then resurrecting them and talking about them some more.”
Retta huffed. “You ever go fishing with Julie?”
“No, Julie didn’t like to do anything that might make her sweat or get her hands dirty. She sunburned easily, so we usually did what she wanted, which didn’t involve being outside,” he answered.
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