“Not anymore,” Jamie said.

“Let’s think about food and put off this conversation until later. I’m too big to dodge lightning bolts,” Amanda said.

“Why are these people being so nice?” Kate whispered as she carried more desserts out to the tables.

Amanda shrugged. “It’s simply the way things are done. Now, if there had been no Iris, things might be different.”

“Then thank you, Jesus, for Iris,” Kate said. “This food all looks scrumptious.”

“And I get to eat for two.” Amanda grinned.

“Lucky girl,” Jamie and Kate said at the same time.

Kate felt privileged to sit beside Gracie, who kept a running conversation going with Lisa on the other side of her. Across the table, Victor had finagled it so that Jamie and Paul were side by side. Of course, Hattie, Victor, and Amanda were all at the same table with them and close enough they could talk about summer, the upcoming festival, and the food.

No one said a word about Conrad, and Kate was glad for that. She had enough to think about with those letters in her suitcase and still no decision about whom to give them to or whether or not to share them with Amanda and Jamie or tell Waylon about them. She had sent the will by registered mail down to the legal department at the oil firm, and she’d gotten word that they had received it. Hopefully by the middle of the week, they’d know how to handle it, since Darcy was deceased.

“So how long have you been at the Bootleg school?” Jamie asked Paul.

“Twelve years. Came here right out of college and stayed. My grandmother lives in Seymour and owns rental property up here and down there, too, so I have family close by. I was raised out around Amarillo, and I got to admit it took a while, but I learned to like the rural way of life pretty quick,” Paul answered.

“And I was raised in this area and wound up in Dallas. Strange how we go looking for something different.” Waylon sat down beside Paul. Kate’s pulse quickened when he glanced her way. “Hello, Kate and everyone else.”

“Glad to see you here,” Paul said.

“How’d your students do at the spring livestock show this spring? Got any showing during the summer?” Waylon asked Paul.

“They did real well at the show. Several of the cattle and sheep got ribbons and trophies,” Paul said. “No one is doing anything this summer. I’m kind of glad. What with the fire and all, I’m pretty busy.”

“Got any guys that’d be willing to do some hay hauling, send them out to my place. Looks like I’ve got a bumper crop coming in,” Waylon said.

“Maybe. I’ll ask around, and if I find any, I’ll tell them to call you. You going to be in town all week or down in Dallas chasing bad guys?” Paul glanced at Jamie.

“Back and forth. Got hay to get into the barns, but we’re still looking into leads in the case,” he answered.

Well, la-di-da, Kate thought. That’s more than you’ve told us. We don’t get even that much when we ask. Until you start telling us something, I won’t share the letters, and believe me, what’s in those could help.

CHAPTER TEN

I love potlucks, but I will be so glad to get home and get out of my Sunday clothes,” Amanda said on the way home.

Potlucks all the time would be a disaster on the waistline. There was no way Kate could eat like that every week and not be the size of a small elephant by the time summer was over.

“I’m taking tamales next week.” Jamie parked in front of the cabin.

“When it’s my turn, I’ll get fried chicken from the deli at the convenience store,” Kate offered.

“Then we get to stay every time?” Gracie asked. “I love it here, Mama. Let’s not ever go home.”

“Who’s that on the porch with your aunt Ellie?” Kate pointed toward the porch. She was looking forward to a nap or maybe an afternoon with a book down under her willow tree. Hopefully, after a couple of nice to see yous, she could slip away.

“Our friend Wanda. This is a nice surprise.” Amanda hurried out of the car, kicked off her shoes when she got to the porch, and sat down in a rocking chair beside them.

A surge of jealousy shot through Kate. Her mother would never just show up unannounced and wait on the porch for her. No more than Kate would do that. That’s what phones were for and why appointments were made.

But the way that Amanda greeted the two women . . . her hands started moving around as she described the potluck and her day . . . well, Kate envied her that moment.

“Look, Mama,” Gracie said as she bounded out of the van. “There’s Lisa’s truck! I wish we could really stay here forever.”

Paul drove up beside Jamie’s van and crawled out of his truck. He threw his cowboy hat into the passenger seat and helped Lisa get free of her seat belt. Gracie grabbed her hand, and together they skipped across the yard and into the house.

“I’ll be back to get her in an hour. If you need me, here’s my number.” He handed Jamie a piece of paper. “And thanks for letting her come over and play awhile.”

“Anytime.” Jamie smiled.

It was evident that Paul did affect Jamie, just like Amanda teased her about. But Kate wasn’t Jamie’s keeper, and she had more pressing things to think about that day than whether or not Paul and Jamie had chemistry.

“Hello, I’m Kate.” She introduced herself when she reached the porch. She stayed long enough to be polite and then went inside, changed into shorts and a comfortable shirt, and left by the back door. She went a little farther down the shoreline, because she spotted a big weeping willow tree that offered shade. She pushed back the limbs and spread out her quilt, settled in with her Kindle, and chose a book by Heather Burch titled One Lavender Ribbon that had been on her to-be-read pile for a couple of years. The blurb on the back mentioned letters, and of course, that appealed to her right then.

She read a few pages, yawned, and laid the Kindle aside. She only planned to shut her eyes for a minute, but when she awoke the sun was low on the horizon and Waylon was sitting beside her, his boots off to one side and his knees drawn up with those big arms wrapped around them. She shut her eyes tightly and then snapped them open—no, it wasn’t a dream. He really was sitting there, staring out at the lovely sunset with all the colors in a painter’s palette.

“Good morning,” she said.

“More like good evening.”

She propped up on an elbow. “How long have you been here?”

“An hour or so. I’ve been protecting you from spiders and snakes.” He smiled.

“And how many did you shoot? Spiders and snakes, I mean?”

“Not any. I ran them off with my evil stare,” he answered.

“Well, thank you for that.”

He turned to face her. “I saw that dirty look you shot my way at dinner. If I had something I could tell you, I would. We really are following leads, but they keep taking us into dead ends. Look at the way the water is reflecting the sunset. Isn’t that beautiful?”

Kate didn’t give a flying flip about the colors in the water right then. “So is this going to be the case that you don’t solve and everyone will have doubts about me and those other two the rest of our lives?”

He shook his head, sadness in his eyes. “I hope to hell not. It wouldn’t be fair to my folks to do that.”

“But your parents have passed away.” She frowned.

“Yes, but they did not want me to be a policeman. They scrimped and saved my whole life to put me through college and help me become who I am, even though they wanted me to stay on the ranch and run it. I owe it to them to finish on top of the mountain,” he said. “I’m freezing my retirement and quitting the police business at the end of summer.”

“Why?”

“I’m tired of the city, of the commute back and forth to the ranch, and this past year I’m liking ranchin’ better than chasin’ bad guys,” he said.

“I know exactly what you are talking about. My mother is retiring in December. I step up at that time and take over the firm. My dad was a professor and died when I was twenty-nine.” She bit the inside of her lip in frustration at herself for volunteering anything at all.