“Of course!” she said, and hopped up, picking up hers and Luke’s plates.
Luke watched Madeline walk into the house behind Patti, looking pretty damn gorgeous in that yellow dress that hugged her hips. He thought of how her hair felt in his hands, how she felt beneath him, and he wondered if he was crazy for feeling like he did about her.
The woman had issues. Serious issues.
He wished he knew the first thing about how to fix those issues.
Madeline was assigned drying dishes while Patti washed. Patti chatted gregariously about life in Pine River. A new Applebee’s was going in on the Aspen Highway, which excited her because she’d heard they printed the Weight Watcher point values on their menus. She was sorry to see the Piedmont Tire Store close up in town, but it couldn’t be helped because old Mr. Piedmont had emphysema.
Marisol joined them, bringing in food to be put away, fitting it into a tiny little fridge that seemed absurdly small for three men.
“Did you hear?” Marisol said to Patti, pausing to bend sideways and look outside, where the men were now engaged in a game of poker. “Julie Daugherty has split from her husband.”
“Oh no,” Patti said. “I so hate to hear that. I thought she and Brandon were a cute couple. I mean, obviously I thought she and Luke were cuter, but if that couldn’t work out, I was happy to see her with a good man.”
“He is a dog,” Marisol said emphatically. “He has his thing in any woman who will bend to him.”
“Marisol!” Patti said, her face going bright red. She gave Madeline a sheepish look. “Sometimes, you just have to ignore her,” she said, with a pointed look at Marisol.
“I say only what is true,” Marisol said with a shrug. She covered a bowl of beans and said low, “Now, she wants to be again with Luke.”
Patti stopped washing and turned around. “What?”
Marisol nodded furiously. “She comes here, two, three times a week. Leo, he has heard this from Luke, that she wants to be together again. They sit on the porch and they talk long time. Long time.”
“Well, that’s their business, Marisol,” Patti said primly.
“Yes, of course it is their business,” Marisol said with shrug. “But I do not like to see her with him again, do you?”
“It’s none of our business,” Patti said firmly. “I want whatever makes Luke happy. That’s all.” She turned back to her washing.
Marisol frowned at Patti’s back. “Very well, pretend you do not hear me,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “But if they come together again, she will hurt him again. I know this woman. I know how she is.” Her gaze shifted to Madeline, and then to the plate Madeline held.
Only then did Madeline realize that she was not moving, that her towel was stuck to the plate, her body going cold. She slowly resumed drying, her thoughts racing now. She’d known when this affair with Luke began that it could never be more than it was, in spite of any fantasies she might have harbored that it could be. And now it felt as if her instincts to protect her heart, to cocoon it, had been right. Luke liked her, she knew that he did. But he didn’t love her, not like she was beginning to love him, she was fairly certain—how could he love her and Julie at the same time?
She took her time finishing up, stacking the dishes neatly on the bar, as there was no place in the two cabinets to put them. By then, everyone was eating pie and playing cards.
Madeline wrapped her sweater tightly around her and walked outside. Mr. Kendrick apparently had bowed out of the game and was sitting on the steps of the little porch.
“May I join you?” Madeline asked.
“Come on,” he said, and patted the wood step next to him.
She sat down on the step and fixed her gaze on a Chinese lantern.
“You don’t want to play?” Mr. Kendrick asked.
“No.” She smiled sheepishly. “I’m horrible at games, and there is nothing I hate more than losing money.”
He laughed. “Me, too.”
It was ironic for him to say, given how much he’d lost in selling Homecoming Ranch. He seemed a good man, and Madeline couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. How did one man bear so much loss? She looked at his creased face and imagined him striking his deal with her father, the devil. “May I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” he said.
“What was he like? Grant Tyler, I mean.”
Mr. Kendrick studied her for a moment, his gray eyes—Luke’s eyes—regarding her with the same casual interest. “Well, I can say that he wasn’t any good with women, but I guess you knew that.”
Madeline smiled. “That is the one thing about him I knew.”
“He thought he was some hotshot, some business brain, but I think he made more messes than anyone I ever knew. When Grant was on top, there wasn’t no one higher. But when he fell, he landed with a bang.”