“Not enough, I’m sure.” Aunt Mo patted his forearm. “Sit yourself down and tell me what’s what.”
This was his Wednesday routine. Every Wednesday, he’d fly his Cessna 350 from Houston, or wherever else he happened to be, to Austin. At eleven thirty sharp, Aunt Mo had lunch waiting. Not just any lunch either. To her, making sure he was well fed was her way of contributing to the team. Some days, he brought some teammates along—and Aunt Mo loved that. She’d cluck over them all, remind them of their manners, make them clean their plates, and send them all off with an invitation to come back anytime they liked. That was Aunt Mo. When his mother had left them, it was Aunt Mo who had stepped in to take care of him and his father. She saw a need and she filled it, no questions asked.
“Anything new and exciting happening?” She started pulling serving dishes from the top oven rack and placing them on the hot pads placed all over her nice linen tablecloth. “I could use some excitement.”
He took his time loading up his plate, waiting for her to make hers before picking up his fork. He scooped up some roasted sweet potatoes from a cast-iron skillet. “I almost ran over Emmy Lou King in the parking lot today.”
Aunt Mo’s eyes went round and she set her fork down. “What, now?”
He swallowed and took a sip of tea. “She was there, today. At the stadium. I was heading here.”
“Brock.” She placed her hand on his. “Land sakes, boy. What happened?” Her well-lined face creased with concern.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “It was raining hard, I wasn’t going fast—but she came out of nowhere. I slammed on the brakes and stopped close enough for her to put her hands on the hood of the truck. I…I didn’t see who it was.”
Aunt Mo pressed both hands to her chest. “Oh my. Goodness.”
“I got out and…it was Emmy.” He cleared his throat, cut a large bite off the grilled chicken breast on his plate, and started chewing. It gave him time to get the lump out of his throat and the image of Emmy, wide eyed and startled, out of his head.
“What did you do? She must have been in shock. Of course she was. What did you say?” Aunt Mo was watching him. “After you were done apologizing, I mean.”
Had he apologized? Had he said a thing? Once he’d seen it was her, he’d sort of blanked out. A damn fool, standing in the rain, staring down at her as if he’d just suffered a blow to the head.
“Brock?” Aunt Mo patted the back of his hand, the crease between her brows deepening.
“I’m not sure,” he confessed. “We both stood there, getting soaked, and then she ran off.” He shrugged, wondering why he’d decided to share this with Mo. The whole damn thing had a dreamlike quality to it. But it was no dream. If it was, he wouldn’t have her bright pink and white polka-dot umbrella on his passenger seat.