"Fine."

"Is Maisie back here?"

"Nope." She continued to run the steel comb through Redeye's mane. His accent had a drawl to it. Texas, she guessed.

"Know where she went?" He squinted his coffee brown eyes against the warm afternoon sun and rested his hands on his hips. Though she hated that she noticed, he was attractive, good-looking in that Eddie Bauer-L.L. Bean male-model way. All he needed was a rake in his hand, a yellow Lab at his feet and a bar code across his feet.

"Last I heard she was headed toward the house."

"No one's in the house."

Mel shrugged. "That's all I know."

She waited for him to go away, but he didn't. She could feel the tension start in the pit of her stomach, reminding her of the feeling when she was a patrol officer, that millisecond she knew that the person she'd pulled over was going to be a pain in the a.s.s.

"You must be Mel," he said, his voice friendly, deliberately ignoring her not-interested signals.

"Yep." She started vigorously working at a knotted place in Redeye's mane. When she tugged too hard, the horse tossed his head in annoyance. "Sorry, boy," she murmured.

"You're taking lessons from Benni too," the man said. "Maisie talks about you all the time. Says you're the bomb. That's good, I think. But you're young. I guess you'd know that. Actually, Maisie just talks all the time, so don't take it personal. She used to be shy as a kid, then something happened when she hit p.u.b.erty, and it's been magpie city ever since. Sometimes I put on my Bose headphones and tell her I'm listening to music when all I'm doing is listening to the quiet. I'm her dad, by the way." While he talked, he'd moved over to the other side of the horse.

Mel peered at him over Redeye's back, unsmiling. "Like daughter, like father."

Without missing a beat, he threw back his head and laughed. "Touche, Ms. Melina Jane LeBlanc. I've been known to bend someone's ear once in a great while."

His use of her full name caused her neck to stiffen. She didn't like it when someone knew more about her than she did about them. Then again, he was a cop and an obviously protective father, so it made sense that he'd do some checking on a person who was around his daughter, even peripherally. She reluctantly gave him credit for that. A parent couldn't be too cautious these days, what with pedophiles on practically every street corner. Still, his familiarity grated on her nerves.

She gave him a cool look. "That all you need, Maisie's dad?"

He grinned at her, a c.o.c.ky smile that she was certain always worked for him with the badge bunnies who flocked around the diners and bars where law enforcement officers hung out. "Sorry, name's Hud. Short for Ford Hudson. Don't laugh. My late, not-so-great father was crazy as a drunk barn rat. Story goes if I had been a girl, my name was going to be Cadillac."

Mel didn't smile back. He gave the spiel so easily that she knew it was his go-to line for picking up women. It probably worked more times than not.

"Daddy!" Maisie's voice rang out when she walked around the corner of the barn and saw them. She was carrying a mewing calico kitten. Benni followed behind her. "Dove's house cat had kittens . . ."

"No," he said, automatically. Then added, "Ask your mama."

"I will," Maisie said, cuddling the kitten against her chest. "And she'll say no. But I thought I'd try."

"Boo is too old to be getting used to a kitten," Hud said. He looked back at Mel. "He's her corgi. Half uncle or cousin twice removed or something to Love Johnson's dog, Ace."

"Oh," Mel said, untying Redeye's lead. She looked over at Benni. "Pasture or barn?"

"Barn," Benni said. "Give him an extra measure of grain. He worked hard today, and we've been having some cold nights."

After Mel settled the horse in his stall, she walked back out into the backyard, relieved to see that everyone was gone. Up on the front porch of the ranch house, she hesitated before walking in. Though Dove had admonished her many times to feel free to come on in whenever she needed to use the bathroom, get a drink or something to eat, Mel didn't feel right about entering someone's home without knocking. She couldn't imagine someone doing that in her little house. She compromised by making it a habit of opening the screen door and calling out, "Anyone here?"

"In the kitchen." Benni's voice was a m.u.f.fled reply.

Inside the warm red and yellow farm kitchen, Mel found Benni standing next to the large stainless steel stove stirring a pot that sent a wonderful nutmeg-infused scent throughout the room.

"There's your pumpkin bread." She nodded at the four green gift bags tied with red and white curly ribbon.

"Thanks," Mel said and closed her eyes for a second, inhaling deeply. The smell reminded her of her tenth Christmas, the last one her mom and dad were still together. They'd driven to Idyllwild, California, a small town in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs, at the invitation of her dad's mother. Her grandmother Suzette worked as a baker for Wes & Laura's Chowdown Inn, a local cafe and bakery. They stayed with Grand-mere Suzette for four days. Every day except for Christmas, Mel rose at two a.m. and went with her grandmother to work. She helped make scones, donuts, oatmeal cookies and Grand-mere Suzette's famous pie plate cinnamon rolls. But it was her grandmother's nutmeg donuts that people drove up the mountain to buy, ordering dozens of them to take home, especially during the holidays.

"You a good little baker, you," Grand-mere Suzette told her. Her faint Cajun French accent fascinated Mel. "And my perfect lat.i.te fille." She smiled at Mel. "That is how you say granddaughter in Cajun."

Her praise and Mel's feeling of accomplishment when they slipped the large metal pans of baked goods into the gla.s.s cases was something that Mel forced herself to remember when she felt like her life was worthless.

"Je t'aime, Melina," Grand-mere Suzette had said, kissing both Mel's cheeks when they left, the day after Christmas. Her father had a two-week gig at a casino in Reno that started at eleven p.m. that night. "You be a good girl, you. A happy girl. Come bake with me again, no?" She pressed a tissue-wrapped package in Mel's hands. It was the red and white checked ap.r.o.n that her grandmother had tied around Mel's neck when they sprinkled cinnamon and rolled out cookie dough.

"Let's go, Varise," Mel's mother, Genetta, had said to her father, impatient to leave the small town. She'd been complaining about being bored since they arrived.

"Au revoir, Mama," her father said. "I'll call."

Grand-mere Suzette glanced over at Mel, her eyes sad. Mel was beginning to realize that her father promised many things but carried out few of them. "Take care of Melina, Varise and Genetta. Don't forget her."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Suzette," Mel's mother said, rolling her eyes. "She's our daughter. How could we forget her?"

"Good-bye, good-bye!" Mel hung out the window of their new 1981 Cadillac, the car that would be repossessed two months later. "Don't forget me, Grand-mere!"

"Dieu te beni, sweet Melina," her grandmother called back. "G.o.d bless you."

Eight months later, her mother told her bluntly that Grand-mere Suzette had died of a heart attack. They'd found her one morning lying next to the bakery's refrigerator, a pound of wrapped b.u.t.ter in her hand.

"Good memories?" Benni said, bringing Mel back to the present.

Mel opened her eyes, embarra.s.sed to be caught in such a vulnerable moment. But this was Benni, someone she almost considered a friend.

"Nutmeg reminds me of my grandmother Suzette," Mel said. "She was a baker. Her specialty was nutmeg donuts."

"Sounds delicious," Benni said. "I'm stirring this for Dove. She's making peach cobbler. No one makes it like she does. I think grammas have something special they add to food that just makes it taste better. Magic gramma seasoning."

"You may be right. Who are all these for again?" She nodded at the gift bags lined up on the tile counter.

"One's for you, one's for Love, one's for August and Polly. You said you're going there next, right?"

Mel nodded.

"The last one is for Rocky and Magnolia. Can you drop it by the church office when you get back to Morro Bay? He loves Dove's pumpkin bread. Don't tell Shug, but he says he likes Dove's better."

"Want to bet he tells Shug the same thing about his pumpkin bread?" Mel said, gathering up the bags by their white handles.

Benni laughed. "You're probably right. Guess when you're a minister you learn the fine art of food complimenting early, or you find yourself another gig. Our church found out the surest way to divide a congregation is to have a pie contest. The one time we tried it, our two judges, Jo Ellen and Goldie, practically had to go into the witness protection program."

"Tell Dove thanks for the pumpkin bread. See you Sat.u.r.day."

"No doubt. Stay safe."

"You too."

On the ten-minute drive to August and Polly's ranch, though Mel mentally fought it, Sean came to mind. She'd been proud of the fact that sometimes she went for days without thinking about him. After three years, Cy's wise words to her were finally beginning to come true.

"Whatever horrible thing you went through," he'd said once when she told him only that she left the force because someone she respected let her down, "it will soften with age. I'm not saying it'll ever stop hurting. G.o.d knows that whenever I think about Tommy dying all alone on that street in Nashville, my heart hurts like it happened yesterday. But, to be honest, there are weeks that go by when I don't think about it. I don't mean that I don't think about Tommy. I think about him every day, but I remember the good things. I don't know when that will happen for you, but if you had any good times with this person, then someday those times will maybe equal whatever bad happened between you."

Good times. Yes, she and Sean had those. But they seemed vague and fuzzy in her memory, still overshadowed by the sight of his gla.s.sy marble eyes, not seeing her, not seeing anything. In her dreams his blood-splattered hand reached out to her, fingers splayed and stained red brown, wanting her help, wanting her to join the nightmare his life had become. Those first few minutes when she discovered his body was time she'd give away everything she owned to wipe from her memory.

Stop it, she commanded herself. There's no point in thinking about it. It's over. She slowed down when she spotted the avocado grove. The tractor-shaped mailbox, orange Morro Bay Post-Gazette newspaper holder and a hand-painted sign stating Eggs for Sale announced the entrance to the quarter-mile driveway to the Johnson ranch. The avocados were August's latest attempt to keep the ranch solvent. He'd said he broke even on the deal, though she and Love suspected he lost money, even with all their volunteer help. The truth was that August and Polly couldn't make a living off the ranch any longer, and they didn't want to admit it. Mel thought they should just sell the place, take the million dollars or more it had to be worth and enjoy the end of their life.

"August is eighty-four years old," Mel complained to Love a few weeks ago. "Polly's eighty and with no one to . . ." She instantly closed her mouth, realizing a split second too late how cruel her comment would sound to Love. What was she thinking? Open mouth, insert size-nine foot, chew vigorously.

"Oh, man, I'm so sorry," she said, dropping her head to stare at her plate. "That was truly one of the stupidest things I almost said."

Love patted Mel's hand. "It's okay. I understand your frustration. And I agree with you. Now that Cy is gone, they don't have anyone to save the ranch for, but I think the real problem is they just don't know what to do with themselves. August and Polly have ranched their whole lives. I can't picture them sitting in a house in town playing Scrabble at the senior center."

Mel nodded. "Still, what happens when one of them dies? Neither of them can stay out there alone."

Love's face darkened with worry. "I know, I know. I'm being absolutely foolish by not facing reality. But, to be honest, I don't have any idea about how to talk to them about changing their lives. I'm sure they'll fight me on it."

They had left it at that, unresolved, and went on to discuss Love's column two months ago about banana pudding, which she was still hearing about. The photo showed two bowls, one clear red, one clear blue. The blue bowl had banana pudding with whipped cream topping, the red bowl brown-tipped meringue. Her caption read, "What difference does it really make?" Both bowls were surrounded by packages of bologna. The photo had apparently started a huge controversy about what she "meant" when she a.s.signed meringue to the red bowl.

"Another letter to the editor in yesterday's Post-Gazette said I was implying that people who vote red are lightweights and people who vote blue have substance." Love shook her head. "Clint's loving it, of course. And, get this, someone said I was making a statement about racism with the brown tips on my meringue! You know why I chose the red bowl for the meringue? It was closer! And meringue browns when you bake it! And no one even mentioned the bologna part of the photo, which is what my real statement was. People are nuts."

"You're preaching to the choir," Mel had said, smiling.

She was right about August and Polly, Mel thought, as she drove up the narrow gravel driveway. There was no way the couple would voluntarily move away from the house they'd lived in their whole married life, sixty years come February. August had been born and raised in that house, only leaving once to serve in WWII.

"I missed this old place every minute I was fighting those Germans in Italy," he'd told Mel one time when they were picking corn in Polly's garden. "It and Polly were the reason I made it home. No one was going to keep me from them."

Polly was sweeping the two-story farmhouse's deep front porch when Mel pulled up. Her short gray hair was tied up in a red bandanna, knotted in the back, like an outlaw motorcycle rider. She wore a flowered cotton dress and a full ap.r.o.n like the kind Mel had seen on housewives in 1930s movies.

"Hey, Miss Polly," Mel called, climbing down from her truck. She grabbed one of the green bags of pumpkin bread. "With that do-rag on your head, all you need is some black leather chaps, and you'd be the queen of the bikers on some old guy's thirty-thousand-dollar hog."

Polly stopped sweeping and came down the three wooden porch steps and gave her tinkly music box laugh. "I have no idea what you just said. The only hogs I know are the kind you raise for ham. And there's not a one of them I'd ride, not even for thirty thousand dollars." Then she paused a moment, thinking. "Well, maybe for thirty thousand dollars. The barn needs a new roof."

Mel handed her the green bag. "Pumpkin bread from Dove."

"Oh, good," Polly said, opening the bag to look. "She makes the best in the county. Don't tell Shug."

"Got it." Mel mimed zipping her lips. "So, what's on the ch.o.r.e list today besides exercising Duke and Daisy?"

"You'd best check with August," she said. "He's out back in the barn. Only thing I need done today is getting the Christmas decorations from the attic."

"I can help you with that."

"We'll see," she said, setting the broom against the porch railing. "August might have a long list for you."

"I'll just head out there then. Anything you want me to tell him?"

"Supper is at five. Chicken pot pie and . . ." She held up the green bag. "Pumpkin bread! You'll stay, won't you?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Mel said.

She walked down the path beside the house to the weathered brown barn set about fifty yards from the house. As she got closer, August's border collie, Ring, bounded out from the barn, barking his greeting.

"Hey, Ring-a-ding-ding," she said. He instantly rolled over and offered his black-and-white-spotted stomach. She was giving him an enthusiastic scratching when August limped out of the tack room.

"Hey, gimpy," she called, standing up. Ring jumped up and ran toward August, who was using a handmade wooden walking stick. Though he didn't have a beard and was a few inches shorter, he looked like what she imagined Cy would have looked like had he lived to his eighties. And, after seeing Cy's granddaughter this morning, she recognized the same wide eyes and high forehead pa.s.sed down through the generations. It suddenly occurred to her that she'd forgotten to ask Love whether she should mention that August and Polly's great-granddaughter was in town. She decided that, just like when she was a cop, when in doubt, keep your mouth shut.

"Hey, yourself, Miss Smarty Pants," he replied, good-naturedly. He'd stumbled while attempting to fix a broken gate a week ago, twisting his ankle and banging his head. A dark brown scab decorated his forehead along with a purplish bruise on his cheek. "What're you doing here?"

She paused for a moment, uncertain about what to say. This had been happening the last few months, and it vaguely worried her. She'd been coming to the ranch twice a week for months now. A few times in the last month or so when she came, August acted truly surprised to see her. Once she teased him about it, but without warning, he snapped at her, obviously embarra.s.sed, so she'd backed off. Now she just pretended every visit was spur-of-the-moment.

"Thought the horses might need exercising," she said. "Just had my lesson at Benni's, so I'm all loose and ready to ride."

He nodded. "They can always use some riding. How's things in the city?"

She smiled. Even after living in Morro Bay for almost three years, it amused Mel how differently people here viewed life. The first time Cy told Mel he was going to the city, the first week she worked at the feed store, she a.s.sumed he meant San Francisco or Los Angeles. It had floored her when she realized he'd meant San Celina, the county seat, a town of about forty thousand people.

So, a few weeks after that, when August asked her how things were going in the "city," she'd smugly replied, "Don't know. I haven't been to San Celina for a while."

"No, I mean Morro Bay," he'd said, his face completely serious.

"How's that ankle healing?" she asked, glancing down at his dirt-encrusted Redwing work boot.

"Put some of Polly's arthritis ointment on it at night and wrap it during the day. I'll live."

Though she didn't imagine the ointment would do much except heat up his skin and smell funky, it probably wouldn't hurt it. It was the b.u.mp on his head that worried her and Love, but August had brushed away their suggestion he see a doctor. "Polly said supper was at five p.m. Chicken pot pie and Dove's pumpkin bread."

His sun-browned face broke into a deep-creviced smile. "I love her pumpkin bread. I do believe it's even better than . . ."

"I know, I know, Shug's. And I won't tell him."

His eyes turned hazy. "Shug? What kind of name is that? You hire someone new at the feed store?"

Mel paused a moment, trying not let the worry she felt show on her face. "Shug's the cook at the b.u.t.tercream, August. Magnolia's cousin. He's worked there since they bought it."

August stared at her a moment, then turned his head and called Ring. "Here, you old hound. You want to chase this here stick?" He picked up a small piece of firewood and chucked it toward the corral. Ring bounded after it, grabbed the stick and ran off.

"Worthless mutt," August said, chuckling.

"So, horses first, then what?" Mel asked, sticking her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. It was cold today, and she'd forgotten to bring gloves.

"Got some fence down up on the pasture near Tripod Hill," he said. "It's kinda steep getting up there and . . ."

"Got it," Mel said. "I'll ride Duke up there and kill two birds with one stone. Anything else?"

"That'll take you a good little while," he said. "Daisy's a bit lame today, so it might be better if she rests." He leaned against his k.n.o.bby stick. "I tell you, Mel, seems like everything and everyone around this place is going to pot." He shook his head. "And I don't mean that stuff the hippies smoke."