Welcome to Last Chance (14 page)

“You're not going? You barely got here.” Ray seemed genuinely disappointed.

“I told Elizabeth I wouldn't stay long. She'll be looking for me.”

“I'll walk you out.” Ray placed his hand in the small of her back and moved through the doorway with her. When they were outside, he pulled her into a shadow and slipped his arms around her waist. He smiled into her upturned face. “Sunday's all I've got. Let me pick you up after church. Maybe we could go over to Hatch. The chile festival is this weekend, I think.”

“Wow. Chile, huh? That's original.”

“Hey, don't knock it. The whole world knows about Hatch chile. People come from everywhere for this festival.” He dropped a soft kiss on her nose and another on her lips.

“Then I don't see how we can pass it up.” Lainie smiled up at him.

Ray didn't answer. His arms tightened around her waist and his mouth covered hers. Lainie stood lost in his arms and the scent and the taste of him. Vaguely, as from a long distance, she became aware of an approaching vehicle, but only when the jeers and coyote howls began did she pull away.

“Get a room!” The long, low Chevy screeched to a stop in the parking lot. Two boys fought for window space from the backseat, and Lainie could see the shadows of several more in the darkness of the car. When Ray turned around, they spun out, still hooting and laughing.

“Was that Matthew?” Ray sounded incredulous.

Lainie took a deep breath and held it before slowly exhaling. “I don't know. It's awful dark. The one making all the noise wasn't Matthew. I don't know about any of the others.”

Ray watched the taillights disappear in the distance. He was still scowling when he turned back to Lainie, but a slow smile spread over his face as he pulled her to him again. “Now, where were we?”

Lainie put her hands against his chest. “As Elizabeth would say, we're standing out here in front of God and I don't know who all, that's where we are. And I need to get home.”

He leaned in for another light kiss. “Okay then, see you Sunday.”

“After church, or during?”

“I'll pick you up at Elizabeth's about one.”

“Still hiding from the church ladies, huh? Ray Braden, you're a chicken.”

He grinned. “You got that right. But one of these days I might just surprise you.”

Lainie headed across the parking lot, but when she reached the road, she looked back. Ray was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching her.

She was almost to the street that turned off toward Elizabeth's when she saw the headlights of the approaching car. It slowed to a stop next to her.

“Hey, honey, want a ride?” One of the riders in the same Chevy she had seen earlier leaned out the window and made kissing noises while the driver shoved the gear shift into Reverse and slowly backed down the road, keeping pace with her quick step.

“Come on, baby. If you think that old man was good, you ought to try me.”

He opened the front door and started to get out. With one swift kick Lainie slammed the door shut.

“Hey, watch out! You coulda chopped my hand off.”

“Then count yourself lucky. It could have been worse. Now get lost.”

“C'mon, guys. Let's get outta here,” one of the boys, hat pulled over his eyes, muttered from the backseat.

Lainie leaned down and peered into the car. “Matthew, is that you?”

The others hooted in laughter. One called in falsetto, “‘Matthew, is that you?' Oooh, Matthew, you're busted.”

The road out of town was long and straight, and she watched the taillights even after she could no longer hear the laughter, the catcalls, or even the souped-up engine.

A
s the days till Thanksgiving grew fewer and fewer with still no word from Steven, Elizabeth's jubilant mood was replaced by a nonstop bustle, as if by working hard she could put the silence and the longing from her mind. It was still dark on Thanksgiving morning when faint sounds from the kitchen woke Lainie. Elizabeth was in the kitchen, of course, where she had been baking and peeling and stirring for the last three days. A tiny twinge of guilt nudged Lainie as she turned over and snuggled back beneath her covers. She really should get up and go see if Elizabeth needed help, but the diner was closed today, and a day to sleep in was so rare. Surely, if Elizabeth really needed her she would have come to wake her. She didn't need to come up with another excuse because by the time she had recited these to herself, she had drifted back to sleep.

When Lainie woke again, the sun was up, and this time she slipped into the robe Elizabeth had given her and wandered to the kitchen looking for a cup of coffee. She stopped in the doorway. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with serving dishes containing who-knows-what nestling under plastic wrap; baking pans full of rolls, some hot and golden brown, some pale and awaiting their turn in the oven; and pies—lots and lots of pies.

“Wow. Got enough food?”

Elizabeth jumped and turned around to face her. She brushed
a white curl from her forehead. “My lands, Lainie, you scared me out of five years' growth. Grab a couple of rolls off that tray there and get yourself some butter and jam out of the icebox. I'm afraid that'll have to be breakfast this morning. The coffee's on the stove.”

Lainie pulled a mug from the cupboard and reached for the coffeepot. “How many people did you say were going to be there?”

Elizabeth counted on her fingers. “Well, I guess anything up to about twenty-seven or twenty-eight or so is a good possibility.” She looked at the table and her forehead furrowed. “I hope I made enough pies.”

“Are you taking the whole meal?”

“Heavens, no. This is just the baking. And I made a few other things just to fill in—ambrosia, scalloped corn, cranberry relish—just in case.” She dropped into a kitchen chair and surveyed the bounty spread around her. “Pour me a cup of coffee and hand me a plate, would you, sweetie? I believe I'll join you in a bite of breakfast. I'm at a good stopping place.”

Lainie cleared a spot at the table and pushed the butter and jam to where Elizabeth could reach them.

“This is a lot of stuff to get up to the ranch.”

“Fayette's going to come by. Between her big old trunk and her big old backseat, we ought to be able to get it all in. And if we have any that won't fit, I'll just send it along with you and Ray. When's he coming?”

Lainie shrugged and reached for another roll. “He said he'd call this morning and see what's going on. I think he had some paperwork he was hoping to get done this morning before we left.”

“Well, I hope he doesn't work too long. This is a day for giving thanks for all God's many blessings, not for working.” Elizabeth got up to pull another pan of rolls out of the oven.

“And you've been working since what time? Long before dawn,
anyway. And that's just this morning. I'm not even talking about the rest of this week.”

“This? This is just feeding folks, and I love doing it. It's one of the things I miss most about living on the ranch.”

“Well, feeding folks seems an awful lot like work to me.”

“I can see how it would, since that's what you do every day at the Dip 'n' Dine, but this is a labor of love, and I look forward to it.”

Lainie stretched her legs out in front of her and cradled her coffee cup in her hands. The early morning sun poured through the windows, and Sam stretched out in a patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor and half closed his eyes. The smell of freshly ground coffee mingled with the yeasty aroma of hot bread and the fragrance of the spicy pies. Lainie leaned down and rubbed a finger under Sam's chin, and his purr filled the kitchen. She got to her feet and gave Elizabeth a hug before she headed back to the bathroom.

Elizabeth looked up and smiled. “What's that for?”

“Nothing. Just feeling thankful, that's all. I'm going to go get a shower if you don't need me for anything.”

“No, you go on. Oh, there's the phone. Get that for me, will you? Now that I'm sitting down, I don't want to get up.”

Lainie answered the phone and smiled when she heard Ray's voice.

“I'm not calling too early, am I?”

“Are you kidding? Your grandma's been up since way before dawn cooking.”

“Sounds like her. Listen, things here are a little more complicated than I thought they'd be. Do you think you could catch a ride to the ranch with Gran and I could meet you there? I should be there by dinner, but I don't want to hold you up.”

Disappointment settled like a lump in Lainie's stomach. “I don't mind waiting for you. Is there something I could help you with so you could finish up sooner?”

“No, I wish you could. I'm the only one who can deal with it and it needs taking care of right away. If you waited I'd just feel bad about keeping you, so I'll just meet you there this afternoon.”

Lainie turned to Elizabeth, who sat listening to her side of the conversation with an ever-darkening scowl on her face.

“Can I ride with you? Ray's tied up till later.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips and held out her hand. “Let me have that phone.” Lainie handed it over without a word.

“Raymond Joseph? What's so important that you can't spend Thanksgiving with your family? . . . I don't care about your paperwork. I care about having my family together, and this is as near to my whole family as I've had in nearly a year. And now you say you're not even coming . . . When? We're sitting down about 2:30, you know . . . Okay, but I'm about as put out as I've been in I don't know how long. Bye-bye. I love you too.”

She handed the phone back to Lainie and sat puffing like a steam engine and batting back tears. “That blasted bar. Not one good thing has come from having that place in Last Chance. Not one.”

Lainie returned the receiver to its cradle, a little shocked at the force of Elizabeth's language. “Well, I guess I need a ride. Think there'll be room for me and all this?” She swept a hand around the kitchen.

Elizabeth put her hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet. She blew out a sigh and gave Lainie a resigned smile. “Of course there'll be room for you. It's all this food we need to figure out how to carry. I just pray I've cooled off by the time I see Ray this afternoon or I'm liable to snatch him bald-headed. Missing most of Thanksgiving Day because he decided to work instead. I've never heard of such a thing.”

Truth be told, Lainie's Thanksgiving had been colored by Ray's phone call too. Ray wasn't moody and unpredictable, was he? She didn't want moody and unpredictable, not now, not ever again.

By the time Fayette's old car pulled up in front of Elizabeth's house later that morning, Elizabeth's mood had turned sunny again, and she was humming to herself in the kitchen.

“Don't worry about Ray. I'm sure he'll turn up when he said he would and you can ride home with him. If his worst failing is that he's too responsible, I guess we can forgive him.”

By carefully fitting some pans together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the trunk, balancing others on their laps, and holding still others between their feet, they managed to get all the food and themselves squeezed into the car.

“Here, be real careful with this. I don't want it sloshing all over.” Fayette handed a bowl to Matthew, who was slouched in a corner of the backseat with a sullen expression on his face. He rolled his eyes and gazed out the window while the dish wobbled precariously on his lap.

“Matthew! I said be careful!” Clearly, she and Matthew had exchanged words before they arrived.

“I said I've got it, okay?” Matthew muttered something under his breath.

“What's that?”

“Nothing.”

When they passed the church, Elizabeth broke the silence that shrouded the car.

“You know, I sure was sorry when they stopped having a Thanksgiving morning service. I never could come, of course, since I was up at the ranch trying to get dinner on the table, but now that I'm in town and could go, they up and stopped having them. Last night's service was nice, though. It did us all good to think about all our blessings.”

She looked at the sullen faces around her and broke into laughter.

“Well, I have to say this is the sorriest group I've ever been around
on Thanksgiving. Here we are with more to be thankful over than you can shake a stick at, and we sit moping like our last friend just took the dog and stole the car. Now, I for one am thankful I have a car full of good food and I'm going to my family. What about you, Fayette? Tell me something you're thankful for.”

Fayette didn't say anything for a moment. Then she sighed and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes I want to just shake him till his teeth rattle, but I thank God every day that he gave me Matthew.”

“Lainie? What about you?”

Lainie thought about all that had happened since her car started overheating out on the highway last summer. She surely wasn't grateful then, but gradually, almost without her noticing, things had begun to change. And this morning, in the warm comfort of Elizabeth's kitchen, for the first time she had recognized gratitude.

“I don't know. That I met you guys, I guess.” Just because she was aware of it didn't mean she felt comfortable talking about it.

“Well, we're thankful we met you too. What about you, Matthew?”

Matthew grunted something unintelligible and continued looking out the window.

Elizabeth acted as if he had spoken. “You're right, Matthew. You have a good roof over your head, plenty of food, and a mother who loves you and cares how you turn out. You have a basketful of blessings to be thankful for.”

“I didn't say any of that.” Matthew brought his attention back to the conversation.

“Didn't you? I'd swear that's what you said. That and the music lessons you've taken in my living room for the past eight years? Didn't you mention them too?” Laughter spilled from Elizabeth's voice.

“No.” An unwilling smile tugged at the corner of Matthew's mouth.

“Well then, what about this?” Elizabeth reached down, plucked a cinnamon roll from the pan at her feet, and tossed it over her shoulder into the backseat without looking. Matthew almost grinned as he caught it in the air. He stuffed it into his mouth.

“I'll take it that you're thankful for cinnamon rolls.”

“Matthew . . .” Fayette sounded tired and exasperated, but Elizabeth reached over and patted her arm.

“We're doing fine here, Fayette. Let's not go back to where we started. Now, why don't you give us something else that you're thankful for?”

Fayette thought a minute, then laughed. “Well, there are times you'd never get me to admit it, but I'm thankful I have that old diner. I don't know what Matthew and I would do without it. And I'm thankful for all the people who come in and keep me running my feet off all day.” She caught Lainie's eye in the rearview mirror. “And I'm thankful the Lord brought Lainie to Last Chance. I don't know how I managed without her.”

“Now, that's just what I was going to say. I'm thankful the Lord brought Lainie into my life too. And not just because I seem to be seeing more of my grandson, either. Lainie, you want to add anything?”

Lainie ignored the bantering tone. “I'm thankful I've got a job, I guess. And that you took me in.” She nudged Matthew's foot with her own. “Come on, Matthew. You need to come up with something too.”

“I'm thankful I'm not a turkey.”

Lainie grinned at him. “Well, that's a matter of opinion.”

Fayette hooted in laughter. “I am so thankful for Matthew's sense of humor. He can make me laugh like nobody else.” She
pulled the car up under the trees that in summer shaded the long, low ranch house and turned off the engine.

Elizabeth headed for the front door, balancing a pie on each hand, and Fayette opened her trunk. Lainie filled her arms with more dishes and followed her. Behind her she heard Matthew mutter, “Sorry, Mom,” and she smiled to herself. She had never thought much about Thanksgiving being all about giving thanks, but it did add a whole new dimension.

“Come in this house!” Nancy Jo, Joe Jr.'s wife, met them at the door wearing an apron that covered her brown pants and autumn print blouse. “My gracious, how much food did you bring? I thought you were bringing a couple pies and the rolls.”

Elizabeth turned up her cheek for a kiss. “I did. But as long as I was at it, I made a couple other things too. I don't think it will go to waste.”