Page 22 of Smoke and Roses

Chapter Eight

I’ve been to the Strongs’ ranch before. I’ve never felt twitchy about an invite before tonight. It only got worse when Travis told me he’d been ordered to drive me here.

Not that I minded.

Travis is wearing a clean shirt. A blue button-down. Ironed. When he came across the lot to get me, he tugged at the collar like it was choking him, and I almost teased him, and then I got a look at the way it fit across his shoulders and kept my mouth shut.

Lord help me, the man is hot as hell and he irons.

“Travis, you’re next to Lindsey. Devin, you’re next to me.”

Nolene points with her wooden spoon, and nobody argues with this woman when she’s holding a spoon. Travis sits down next to me. His knee bumps mine under the table. He moves it.

I put mine right back against his.

He glances down at me, but his face gives nothing away.

It’s a small Sunday at the Strong ranch, just Martin and Nolene, Caleb, Rob and Cassia, and the two new boys, with Martin’s spaghetti sauce on the table next to the roast chicken.

“He puts it on everything,” Nolene explains when she catches Travis looking at the red sauce.

The seats are filled until there’s only one empty place left. A spot set at the end of the table, plate and fork and all, for whichever Strong son couldn’t make it home.

“So, Travis,” Martin says, passing the potatoes. “Rob says you can swing an axe.”

“Some.”

“Splitting maul?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Four cords out back, and all my sons are suddenly real busy.”

“Dad,” Caleb says.

“Real busy.” Martin points his fork at Travis. “I’ll teach you right. Legs, not shoulders.”

On the other side of Nolene, Devin is telling a story about a Kodiak bear that broke into a Coast Guard supply shed and ate forty pounds of powdered eggs.

Travis doesn’t tell any stories. He eats and listens and says thank you when things are passed. But his shoulders come down a little at a time, and he almost smiles at the bear story. When his eyes land on that empty plate at the end of the table, something careful moves across his face.

When Nolene gets up for dessert, he leans close.

“The empty plate,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Who’s it for?”

“Whichever son isn’t home. She’s done it every Sunday for thirty years while they were deployed or on duty.”

“My mom used to do that,” he says. “When I was deployed.”

“Does she still?”

He swallows, voice dropping another degree. “She passed. Four years ago.”

I don’t say I’m sorry. I slide my hand under the table and put it on his thigh, just above his knee, and he doesn’t move. Then he puts his big warm hand over mine and keeps it there until Nolene comes back with a cherry pie the size of a hubcap.

When the pie plate gets to Travis, there’s one slice left. He looks at it. Then he looks at me, and without a word, he puts it on my plate and passes the empty one on.

“You didn’t get any,” I whisper.