The Barefoot Summer(59)

“No, darlin’, your daddy did not die because you didn’t tell him good-bye. Some really bad men killed him.”

“Why?” Gracie’s eyes widened. “I heard all y’all talking about it, but why? I want to know why bad men killed my daddy, but everyone talks in whispers or in big-people talk when I’m there.”

Amanda hauled her heavy body up from the chair and hugged Gracie, then took her by the hand and led her to the sofa. “You didn’t have anything at all to do with your daddy’s death.”

“Promise?” Gracie snuggled in close to Amanda.

“Cross my heart.”

Gracie held up her hand. “Pinky swear and I will believe you.”

Amanda laced her smallest finger with Gracie’s. “I do hereby pinky swear.”

Gracie giggled. “That sounds funny.”

Sighing with relief, Amanda nodded.



Kate and Waylon were on the way from plowing fields all morning to the ranch house when Waylon hung back to answer the phone. She went on into the house and washed up in the bathroom. When she came out, he was still talking, and from all the gesturing, it was not a good conversation. She knew anger when she saw it.

He was probably mad about something with the investigation or with his paperwork concerning when he could leave the precinct permanently. It had nothing to do with her, she hoped. She kept walking right out the front door without looking back over her shoulder.

When she parked in front of the cabin, her phone pinged with a text from Waylon: Can we talk?

She turned off the engine and typed: For what and why?

The return message said: Meet me at the dock?

She sent back: One hour in the church parking lot.

Black clouds gathered in the southwest again that afternoon. The rain that they thought might be coming the day before had gone around Bootleg and Mabelle and hit around Archer City with severe wind and even marble-size hail.

If the rain materialized, she didn’t want to be on the dock when it hit. And if this was going to be a big black moment with Waylon, she sure didn’t want Gracie to hear it. Before she could get out of her car, Jamie pulled in right beside her.

Kate stepped out and pointed at the sky. “Looks like a storm coming our way.”

“Let’s go get a glass of sweet tea and a cinnamon roll and sit on the porch. I love the smell of rain in the air,” Jamie said.

Kate jogged from her car to the porch. “You haven’t eaten yet? It’s almost one thirty.”

Jamie hit the first porch step by the time Kate got to the door. “I wanted to finish a file drawer, so I worked an extra hour. I sent Amanda a text, and she sent one back to say that she and Gracie were making yeast bread and cinnamon rolls.”

Kate shook her head. “I smell cinnamon all the way out here.”

With hands on her hips, Gracie waited for them in the middle of the living room floor. Her hair had been french braided and her little faded shorts and shirt had the remnants of flour stuck to them.

“You scared me,” Gracie scolded her mother.

“I’m only an hour late. Didn’t Amanda tell you?” Jamie said. “Where is my welcome hug?”

Gracie squared her shoulders. “You can have it later. I’m mad at you and Kate both.”

“What did I do? Are you mad at Amanda?” Kate asked.

“Bad men killed my daddy. He didn’t die because I didn’t tell him good-bye. You should have told me, Mama, or you should’ve, Kate.”

“Oh!” All the wind left Kate’s lungs in a whoosh.

Amanda came out of the kitchen and shrugged. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Jamie sank down on the sofa and patted the spot beside her. “Come and sit beside me and we’ll talk about it.”

Gracie crawled up into her lap and laid her head on Jamie’s shoulder. “I been afraid for you to go anywhere if I didn’t tell you good-bye. I thought you’d die, too.”

“That isn’t why your daddy died. Some bad men came in the flower shop where he was buying roses and they shot him,” Jamie said. “This is really not your fault, sweetheart.”

Kate had been almost thirty when her father died, and she had not told him good-bye. They’d had a horrible argument the night before his heart attack, and she’d stormed out of the house in anger. Poor little Gracie was only six, and she’d been carrying this burden around the better part of a month.

“Amanda said it’s not my fault that he’s dead. And that it’s not Lisa’s fault that her mama is dead,” Gracie said.

Kate sat down on the other end of the sofa and held Gracie’s hand in hers. “Amanda is right. Sometimes bad things happen and it’s nobody’s fault.”

“It’s those bad men’s fault and I hope Waylon shoots them.” Gracie tilted her chin up a notch. “Now, let’s go have some cinnamon rolls. Me and Amanda worked hard all morning. She’s nesting, you know.”

“Oh, she is?” Kate smiled.

“I don’t know what it means, but I hope it lasts a long time, because I like cookies and cinnamon rolls,” Gracie said.



The first raindrops hit the windshield of his truck as Waylon pulled into a space in the church parking lot. He sat there for five minutes, hoping that Kate hadn’t changed her mind. When she finally pulled up beside him and motioned for him to come over to her vehicle, he wasted no time getting out of the truck. He started to open the passenger door of the Cadillac but noticed her long legs going over the seat.