Luke’s Ride

She slapped his hand away, a ritual performed many times. “Don’t call me Red.” She settled in and latched her seat belt. “I brought chicken fricassee and biscuits plus a peach pie, enough for a small army.”

Shelby tapped Jake’s shoulder. “Home, driver.”

Half an hour later they rolled under the Cameron’s Pride ranch sign, and Luke sighed with relief. He would have kissed the ground if he’d been able to get up off his face afterwards.

He noticed at once that modifications had been made for his benefit. A blacktop parking pad had replaced the graveled area by the back door and a ramp sloped up along the side of the house. He swung himself into his chair and wheeled up the ramp and into the spacious kitchen.

By the time Lucy had unpacked the food, Luke heard his brother Tom’s voice outside, answered by his wife, Joanna. The kitchen door slammed and running footsteps clattered on the wood floor. Luke locked the wheels on his chair just as a small red-haired whirlwind flung herself at him.

“Uncle Luke, you’re home! I missed you! I lost a tooth, see?” His seven-year-old niece, Missy, stretched her mouth in a monkey’s grin to demonstrate. “Can I ride in your chair with you?”

“Sure you can, Shortcake.” He pulled her more securely into his lap as her four-year-old brother, JJ, pounded into the kitchen and scrambled up to join her.

Dang, it was good to be home!

CHAPTER FOUR (#ue79c903c-b6ca-5deb-8908-9871437f3ec4)

A HOWLING MARCH wind woke Kathryn during the night. She shivered and snuggled closer to Brad to sleep again.

The morning’s first light revealed at least six inches of fresh snow covering grass that had begun to show hints of green. Flakes still swirled, almost hiding the woods behind the house. Judging from the low hum of the standby generator, power lines must be down.

Brad strode into the kitchen dressed in the clothes he wore to construction sites and pulled boots and a heavy coat from the closet. “No time for breakfast,” he said. “I need to get to the office. We’ve got projects in trouble from Stamford to Providence.” He slammed through the door to the garage and Kathryn heard the roar of the snowblower.

She watched from the front window while he blasted a path down the driveway and then returned to gun his Mercedes out onto the unplowed street.

She sighed and returned to the kitchen. She had scarcely filled her mug with coffee when she heard the garage door opening again. Brad stamped in, running his hand through his hair so that it stood in stiff spikes like an angry cat’s fur.

“There’s a big pine down across the end of the street,” he said. “No telling when the town will get around to moving it.”

“The downside of a secluded country setting,” she said, hoping to defuse his anger and frustration. Theirs was one of only six houses on a cul-de-sac bordering a conservation area. Although Kathryn wasn’t fond of the house, she loved the easy access to the woods and swamp just out their back door.

“At least you’ll have time now for a decent breakfast,” she said. “Pancakes or waffles? And I still have some of that good bacon we got from Vermont.”

He scowled but then took a deep breath. “Waffles, I guess.”

“Waffles coming up.” She took his coat from him, pausing to pat his shoulder as she carried it to the closet. “Being marooned could be kind of fun.”

The scowl returned, with interest. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I used to know, when I was working for you and your dad,” she said, stung by his curt reply. Since Brad’s father had retired and an architect had joined the firm, she didn’t feel welcome in the new glossy chrome-and-glass offices. “Now I’m not so sure.”

He stared at her for a long moment before turning away.

She prepared breakfast in silence. He caught her wrist as she set the plate before him. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. This snow has hit at the worst possible time. We’ll have to wait till the ground dries out before we can start excavating or the heavy equipment will bog down. We’ll be behind before the season even gets underway.”

The spring construction start-up was always stressful, but a mini break like this would be welcome. Kathryn had been working hard to ready her mother’s house for its next occupants. She couldn’t bring herself to put it on the market. Instead she had offered it for the cost of upkeep to her cousin Greg Gabriel, newly out of the Marines—little enough to thank him for his service.

She bent and kissed Brad’s cheek. “We’ve both been under a strain,” she said. “Enjoy your waffles while they’re hot. We’ll hope the snow lets up and they get the road cleared soon.”

The snow persisted most of the day, and they heard no chain saws working on the downed tree. Brad paced laps around the kitchen island, barking instructions into his phone and muttering curses at the end of each call.

Kathryn cooked Brad’s favorite dinner, pot roast from his mother’s recipe. She held him close in the night but lay awake sad and frustrated when she wasn’t able to penetrate his angry preoccupation.

When the town plow finally ground its way up their street late the next day, she was glad to see Brad roar out of the driveway. Once he resolved all the construction crises, maybe she could talk him into a brief getaway, a few days on Cape Cod or at an inn on the Maine coast. She laughed at her fantasy—she wouldn’t be able to pry him loose until construction wound down in late fall.

She saw little of Brad during the next week. He left the house early and returned late, usually eating dinner somewhere between job sites and falling into bed with only a few words to her.

She filled her days with sorting through the contents of her mother’s house. The work might seem a sad occupation, but she rediscovered forgotten memories, taking comfort that her mother’s suffering was over.

Kathryn’s last chore was rearranging the top floor of her grandparents’ Victorian to accommodate any furniture Greg and his wife Allie might want to store there to make room for their own possessions. The attic had always been a magical place for her. When she was very small, she had played with her dolls under the south-facing window while her mother hung bundles of herbs to dry under the rafters. On Kathryn’s sixth birthday, her mother had placed an old bridge lamp and a bookcase beside a shabby wing chair to create a private reading nook. From her aerie, Kathryn could look out into the top of the copper beech in the backyard. Now in early spring the budding branches framed a view of the old carriage house still holding her mother’s gardening tools and where her father had restored a succession of antique autos and refinished secondhand furniture.

She began sorting through the trunks and boxes shoved under the eaves. In a camel-back trunk she found a white tin bread box decorated with red and yellow tulip decals. Inside were letters tied in bundles with the gardener’s twine from long-ago herb swags. Arranged in chronological order beginning nearly twenty years earlier, each bore the letterhead Cameron’s Pride, Hesperus, Colorado and were signed by Annie Cameron.

Kathryn began reading the earliest one.

Dear Elizabeth,

Too bad we met under such sorry circumstances, but I’m glad you felt well enough to travel to the Grand Canyon. Like you, I’m always grateful when the Red Wolf lets me do something I’ve looked forward to. Thanks for letting me know what a great time you and your husband had the rest of your trip.

She laid the letter down. Her parents had taken a driving trip to the Southwest her freshman year in college. Her mother’s lupus had flared up, landing her in the hospital in Albuquerque, but a simple adjustment in medication had solved the problem. She must have met Annie Cameron there. Her mother often spoke of her struggle with lupus erythematosus as “fighting off the Red Wolf.” Had she thought up the expression or adopted it from Annie?

The afternoon sunlight was beginning to fade, so Kathryn switched on the old lamp and continued reading. Annie’s letters carried her into a foreign world of cattle and horses, mountains and desert, introducing her husband, Jake, their young daughter, Lucy, and their sons, Luke and Tom, both involved with the sport of bull riding. Annie hadn’t written much about her illness except in one of the last letters, telling Kathryn’s mother the disease had damaged her kidneys to the point she needed a transplant.

My sons are mad at me because I won’t accept a kidney from either of them. I don’t know whose job is more dangerous, Tom riding bulls or Luke fighting them, but I can’t leave either of them with only one kidney in case they get injured. Luckily my Jake is a good match, so he draws the short straw—he would move heaven and earth to help me.

The sun had almost set by the time Kathryn unfolded the last letter, dated more than ten years ago. Jake Cameron had written a brief note saying his wife had died from complications following the kidney transplant. Tears filled Kathryn’s eyes for Annie, for her own mother’s long decline and for the suffering both women had endured.

Kathryn wondered if Annie’s family would like to have these letters, this wonderful chronicle of their lives, but she didn’t recall seeing the name Cameron in her mother’s address book. Then she remembered she had given her mother a new book five Christmases ago; inactive addresses wouldn’t have been transferred. Maybe she could call the post office in Hesperus, Colorado, for an exact mailing address or check online. She carried the letters downstairs, thinking to show them to Brad.

The attic had been warm enough as heat rose from the lower floors, but the kitchen seemed unnaturally chilly. She turned up the thermostat and heard no answering hum from the cellar. Frowning, she peered down the stairs. She’d had the furnace serviced in the fall, but it was almost twenty years old. A quick inspection showed no flicker of flame from the boiler.

She sighed and dialed the heating contractor’s number.

“Not till tomorrow morning?” she said after describing the problem. “I guess that’s no big deal—the temperature won’t drop enough for the pipes to freeze.”

Next she called Brad. “The furnace just quit,” she said. “Someone’s coming over first thing in the morning. I don’t know how early that might be, so I guess I’ll sleep here. I’m sorry—I had a nice dinner planned.”

“Don’t worry about it. Looks like we might have a thunderstorm, and I know you don’t like to drive in the rain. I’ll grab something to eat and put in a couple more hours at work. You sure you’ll be warm enough?”

“I’ll be fine. I bought an electric heater for Mom’s room.” She’d always felt cold. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

“I may be late,” he said. “The Springfield project has turned into a hairball. I’ll be there all day, maybe into the evening.”

“Just don’t drive too tired,” she said. “I’ll have supper waiting.”

She ended the call and took a can of chili from the pantry. While it heated, she finished the list she’d been compiling for her cousin—whom to call for plumbing and electrical problems, who delivered oil and repaired the furnace, how to jiggle the light switch beside the front door to turn on the porch light. Greg could call her with questions, of course, but she wanted to make his occupancy go as smoothly as possible.

She finished her meal and was peering into the freezer in search of ice cream when a knock sounded at the back door. She switched on the porch light and recognized Frank Dutton, who had serviced the furnace ever since its installation.