Sloan came into the house through the kitchen door. His dark hair was stuck to his forehead and was flattened at the place where his hat had been. “I’m going to help myself to a glass of lemonade. Any of y’all want one?”
“Pour up four and bring them in here,” Connie said. “Want to take a break and decorate eggs with us?”
“No, ma’am,” he called out.
“We always ask him, but I reckon he’d soon as be out there sweatin’ on that tractor as gettin’ his hands all messed up with glitter and paint,” Kate whispered softly across the table toward Ginger.
Ice crackled in the glasses filled with homemade lemonade as he carried them to the table and set one at each place. Ginger’s breath caught in her chest when he pulled out a chair at the end of the table and sat down. His biceps strained the sleeves of his chambray shirt, and sweat had mussed up his hair. The temperature in the house seemed to rise by at least ten degrees, and Ginger’s hands shook when she dipped another egg, this time in green dye.
Dammit! She thought. I’m pregnant and ugly as a mud fence right now, and I vowed I’d take care of my own self and this baby first. I don’t need a man in my life—not after Lucas.
“The rest of the field is plowed, and corn is in the ground.” Sloan took a long drink. “Anything else y’all want me to do this afternoon?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Kate said.
“Then I’ll be goin’ on home. Tinker will be missin’ me,” he said.
“That’s his dog,” Betsy explained to Ginger. “It’s an ugly little mutt that his grandma adopted when it showed up on her porch one day several years ago.”
“The eggs will be in the refrigerator tomorrow when you get here, and you might turn off the oven so the ham doesn’t get too done,” Betsy reminded him.
Connie looked up and said, “Don’t forget your phone. Past two years have been the best pictures we’ve had to go in our album, and you got them with your fancy-shmancy cell phone.”
“Got to have it so I can listen to music. I’ll see y’all tomorrow a little after noon,” he said as he stood up and started for the door.
“You could come on back up here for supper after a while,” Betsy said. “We’re havin’ waffles and chicken, and I know how you like that.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Me and Tinker need to get some things done around the house, but I sure appreciate the offer.” He pulled a camouflage cap from his hip pocket and put it on as he left by the kitchen door.
Tinker came from around the house, tail wagging and head down, wanting to be petted when Sloan got out of his truck. The dog looked like maybe one of his parents had been a Chihuahua and the other a small poodle. The hair on his sides was smooth, but what was on his back was kinky curly, and he had a tuft on his head. He probably didn’t weigh more than seven or eight pounds, but he had a big bark, especially when someone was coming around the house. Sloan stooped down and scratched Tinker’s ears. “Did you hold the place down for me today, old boy?”
Tinker yipped and led the way up onto the porch and then rushed inside when Sloan opened the door. He went right to the sofa and jumped up on his favorite spot. Sloan hung his cap on the rack inside the door and sat down on a ladder-back chair to take off his combat boots.
“The sisters have taken in a new stray. She’ll be gone Monday. I guess since they don’t go to town except on Thursday, they’ll ask me to take her to the bus stop. ’Course, they’ve started talkin’ about getting a new cat, so it could be that they’ll make an exception and go twice in one week.”
Tinker’s tail thumped on the worn sofa.
“I agree with you. It is what it is, whether I take Ginger to the bus stop or they do. She’ll be gone. I kind of feel sorry for her. There she is pregnant and no family. At least when I hit rock bottom, I had Granny to come home to . . . and you.” Sloan laid his phone on the coffee table, picked up Tinker and gave him a kiss on the head. Then he set him back down on the sofa. “What’ll it be tonight? You want some classic country or new modern country?”
Tinker looked up at him with big round brown eyes.
“All right, classic country it is.” Sloan touched the screen and Waylon Jennings began singing. He pulled his shirt up over his body and carried it with him to the bathroom, where he put it in the hamper and adjusted the water in the shower. A visual of the rush to the showers after he and his team had been out on a long mission flashed through his mind. A cold shower and a bottle of bootleg whiskey sent from home in a mouthwash bottle were the two most important things in those days. He finished getting cleaned up and went to the kitchen to open a can of dog food for Tinker. Then he poured himself a glass of sweet tea and carried it to the living room. Surfing through the few channels on the television, he finally settled on reruns of NCIS.
Somewhere in the middle of the last half of the episode, he turned off the television. “I’m restless tonight, Tinker. Let’s go for a walk. I need to clear my head of all these thoughts rumbling around up here. It’s a jumble of things that happened over there in the sandbox and what’s going on at the Banty House with that new girl.” He touched his forehead with his forefinger.
The dog hopped off the sofa and headed toward the door. He waited patiently until Sloan got his boots on and tied and slipped on a hooded jacket, but when the door opened, he bounded outside and ran toward the end of the short lane.
County Road 4404 was a little less than half a mile long and ended at Cottonwood Cemetery. The tiny community of Rooster was set just off County Road 442, and that was where he and Tinker usually went if they felt like an evening walk. The dog was getting up in years, so Sloan always gave him a rest at the halfway mark, where an old scrub oak had fallen over beside the road.
Sloan kept an eye on the dog when he chased a rabbit into a mesquite thicket, but he didn’t seem to be panting too hard when he came back to the edge of the road. He was sure enough ready to flop down and catch his breath when they reached the log, though, and Sloan sat down. They weren’t there but a few seconds, when Tinker’s head popped up and he growled down deep in his throat.
“What is it?” Sloan glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a squirrel or maybe even a slow-moving possum. A movement to his left startled him, and he whipped around to see Ginger not ten feet from him.
“Well, hello.” She sat down on the log about two feet away. “Is that Tinker? He’s kind of cute.”
“Beauty must be in the eye of the beholder,” Sloan replied. “But to answer your question, yes, this is Tinker. He’s gettin’ up in years, so when we take a walk from our place to Rooster, we take a little rest right here.”
Ginger nodded but didn’t say anything more for several seconds. Other than the sisters at the Banty House and their occasional guest, Sloan hadn’t socialized since he’d come home to Texas. Sitting there with Ginger so close should have been awkward, but it wasn’t, and that surprised him.
“You just out for an evening walk?” he finally asked.
The setting sun put sparkling highlights in her blonde hair when she nodded. “The way the ladies are feeding me, I figured I’d better get out and get some exercise, or I’ll be rolling by the time this baby is born.”