She glanced over at Chase. She hadn’t seen him move in her direction. “Your sister did the right thing. I just finished it off. And the story was God’s truth.”
“That was a good thing,” he repeated. “Just like this memorial. I want to say you put it together just the right way, and maybe you knew her better than you think.”
“I had a sense of her, and I talked to people who knew her well.” She looked around the space, at the photographs, the flowers, the faces. “All this has taught me a couple of things. I wish I’d spent more time sitting at the bar when she was working it. And she was—we all are—part of a whole, not just employees of a good company. Bodine told me some who came here today are seasonals, and some of them drove a hundred miles and more to come. That’s what family does. And that kind of sensibility comes from the top. Your family set that tone, and it rings true.”
“I’m going to apologize.”
She aimed those blue eyes straight into his, raised her eyebrows over them. “Are you?”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel you don’t belong.”
“You just don’t think I do?”
He shifted his feet. “I’m apologizing.”
“And I should be gracious enough to accept it. So I will. Bygones.” She held out a hand.
“All right.” Though it felt awfully damn small in his, Chase shook her hand. “I need to get back, but—”
“Miss Fancy’s sitting over there, and Rory’s due any minute. It’s fine if you go.”
“Then I’ll … ah…” Since he’d run out of words, he nodded, escaped.
As he made his way out, exchanging more words with some who sat at tables set up on the main floor, he saw Callen coming toward the Mill.
“Couldn’t get away before now,” Callen said.
“More than enough time. We had some drama when Chad came along, had a say.”
“Is that so?”
On a sigh because he knew the tone, Chase settled his hat down further on his head. “You’re still mad.”
“You broke an oath.”
“You weren’t there. I’m sorry I let temper get in the way of it, but it did. And it’s done. You want to even it up, I’ll give you leave to break the oath we took about me pouring whisky into a Coke bottle and sneaking it out of the house, and the pair of us trying to drink it up at the campsite, and getting sick as dogs instead.”
“You got sicker.”
“Maybe. You puked your share. You can tell that one if it levels this.”
Considering, Callen hooked his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans. “Picking what you say I can tell doesn’t level it. I should be able to pick one.”
Because he couldn’t argue with the logic, Chase frowned out at the mountains. “Go ahead then. Pick one and let’s put this away.”
“Maybe I’ll pick how you lost your virginity when Brenna Abbott lured you into the hayloft at your sister’s thirteenth-birthday party.”
Chase winced. It might not have been his proudest moment—considering his whole family and about fifty others had been within shouting distance—but it had been a seminal one.
“If that’ll do it.”
Callen stood hipshot, studying the mountains along with his friend, listening to the music and voices from inside the Mill.
“Hell, it’d just make me feel like an asshole, and stop you from feeling so much like one. I’d rather you feel like one awhile more. Whatever happened to Brenna Abbott?”
“Last I heard she was living in Seattle. Or maybe Portland.”
“How quickly we forget. Well, bygones,” Callen said, offering a hand.
Chase stared at it, then let out a laugh. “That’s the second time in under ten minutes somebody said that to me. I must be making it a habit to mess things up.”
“Nope, not a habit. Just a blip on the screen.”
“I got something else. Clintok starts something, you come and get me before you finish it.”
“I’m not worried about Clintok.”
“You come and get me,” Chase repeated, then spat on his palm, stuck out his hand.
“Jesus.” Touched, amused, and struggling not to think of Bodine’s comment about twelve-year-olds, Callen mirrored the gesture, clasped hands.
“All right then. I’ve got to get back.” Chase sauntered away.
Rubbing his hand on his jeans, Callen walked inside to pay his respects to the dead.
*
Bodine wouldn’t rank herself as a top cook. She might not rank herself in the top fifty percent of cooks. But on Thanksgiving, she did her duty.
She chopped, peeled, stirred, mixed. And following a tradition set years before, bitched that neither of her brothers served in the duty.
“It’s not altogether fair.” In her placid way, Maureen basted the turkey. “But you know as well as I do there’s not a man in this house who’s anything but a nuisance in the kitchen. Clementine and I both did our best to teach them, the same as we taught you, but Rory could burn water, and Chase turns into a bull in a china shop.”
“It’s on purpose,” Bodine grumbled as she and Cora peeled a mountain of potatoes.
“Well, sweetie, I know that, too, but the results are the same. Grammy, can you take a look at this ham?”
Miss Fancy, wearing an apron that stated WOMEN AND WINE IMPROVE WITH AGE, peered into the lower oven, nodded. “I’d say it’s about time for me to make the glaze. Don’t fuss too much, Bodine. You got the men out there doing the beef on the grill. And they’ll be hauling the second turkey and all the fixings over for the bunkhouse boys. I’d as soon not have them in here, crowding me.
“I like the smells and sounds of a Thanksgiving kitchen,” Cora added as she plucked up another potato. “Remember, Reenie, how I used to make extra pie dough and let you and Alice…” She trailed off, let out a sigh. “Ah, well.”
“I remember, Ma.”
Maureen spoke briskly, turning to stir something on the stove that didn’t need stirring.
“I’m not going to get maudlin,” Cora said. “I like to think Alice is smelling and hearing Thanksgiving today, too. That she found whatever she was looking for that we couldn’t give her.”
Miss Fancy opened her mouth, then firmly shut it. Bodine carefully said nothing. On the rare times her mother’s sister’s name came up, the grannies seemed to square off in separate corners. One heavy with sorrow, the other sharp with resentment—and her mother ranged on the resentment side.
“I think the whole kitchen staff deserves a glass of wine.” Maureen walked to a cupboard, pulled out glasses. “You can bet your butt those men have cracked more than one beer by now. Bodine, wash off those potatoes and let’s get them boiling. Ma, these sweet potatoes look about ready for your magic.”
“Just a couple more white ones to skin.”
Maureen set down the glasses, gave her grandmother’s hand a quick squeeze. In response, Miss Fancy jerked her shoulders.
“You think I can’t hear what you’re both thinking?” Cora demanded. “Don’t the pair of you start pandering to me.”
Bodine popped up at the sound of the doorbell. “That’s the door.” Relieved, she dashed to answer.
She opened the door to Jessica, said, “Perfect.”