Texas Homecoming Read Free Page A

didn’t know why he was thinking about that. Neither of the old men could cook, at least not what most people would consider cooking. They could manage to burn some beef over an open fire or fry it hard in lard, but that was about it. Greens were another matter entirely.
    “How are you taking care of yourself, Gramps?” His uncle’s clothes seemed to have been recently washed, and he was fitter than many men Cade had seen.
    “We got us a woman to do the cooking and washing,” his uncle said. “She takes care of us pretty good.”
    “I didn’t want her here at first,” his grandfather said, “but she didn’t have no place else to go.”
    Cade imagined there had been a lot of women displaced by the war, particularly those whose husbands hadn’t come home.
    “Here I’ve been worrying about you, and you’ve got some poor soul catering to your every whim,” Cade teased. “I bet you even make her bring the water from the well.”
    “Sure as hell do,” his grandfather said. “You won’t see me toting water for no woman.”
    Some things never changed.
    Cade paused when they reached the ranch yard. It felt good to be back, even better than he’d anticipated. The air was hot and dry, clean with the tangy odor of mesquite, cedar, and oak. Familiar. Friendly. No thunder of guns, scream of shells, cries of men and animals, no stench of death and rot. He couldn’t put into words quite what it meant to be back on the soil of his birth, but he meant to find a way. He didn’t want to forget. Ever. He wanted his children to know.
    “You’d better introduce me to your housekeeper,” Cade said to his grandfather. “I don’t image she’ll be happy to see us.”
    “She will if she’s got good sense,” his grandfather said.
    “And she
does
have good sense,” his uncle said. “Don’t know how we’d have gotten along without her.”
    “Where’s she staying?” Cade asked.
    “In the house,” his grandfather said. “There weren’t no other place but the bunkhouse.”
    “Call her out,” Cade said. “She might as well get the bad news.”
    But there was no need. The door flew open, and a young woman came out of the house and started toward them.Cade’s breath caught in his throat. It couldn’t be. There was no way Pilar diViere would ever set foot on this ranch, much less cook and wash for his grandfather.
    “What’s Pilar doing here?” Cade said, turning to his grandfather.
    “Squatters took over her ranch. Nobody in town wanted anything to do with her grandmother. Can’t say I blame them. I never did see such a poisonous old bat.”
    “Do you mean Senora diViere is here, too?” Cade asked, struggling to make sense of this. At least now he understood why Laveau had been so angry.
    “That’s why we’re living in the bunkhouse,” his grandfather said. “I gotta eat, but I can’t stand that woman.”
    Cade turned his stunned gaze back to Pilar. She had grown even more beautiful since he’d last seen her. A quarter French, she had her Spanish grandmother’s black hair and eyes, her English mother’s fair skin, the diViere height. Looking at her caused Cade’s heart to lurch in his chest even though he knew that the years of anger and hatred between their families formed a barrier that made friendship unlikely, anything else impossible.
    She looked uncertain of his reaction to her. “Where is Laveau?” she asked. “Did he come with you?”
    Cade’s heart thudded to a halt. She didn’t know of her brother’s treachery. She didn’t know that seven of the eleven men who had taken an oath to bring him to justice were coming to Texas to hang him.

Chapter Two
     
    Pilar didn’t know why she should feel so awkward. She was just asking Cade for news of her brother. The flood of eager volunteers that had flowed out of Texas had come back a trickle of disheartened veterans. Across the state, women cried for men they’d lost, prayed for those yet to come home, gave thanks for the ones who