Luella set the table for dinner. Both Isla and Ingrid had returned to Fuego after a long time away.

Life had a way of drawing people back to their roots, whether they wanted to return or not.

Isla’s career as a show jumping medalist had ended abruptly when she took a fall during competition. Ingrid’s rock climbing endeavors were on hold so that she could recover from a fellow climber’s death.

Both girls…now women, Luella reminded herself…had a difficult road ahead of them.

She smoothed a wrinkle from the warm red tablecloth. It was fall. She’d tried bringing the aesthetic into her and Ellis’s cozy cabin at Eaton Edge. His older brother Everett’s family lived in Eaton House less than a mile away. But Luella preferred the close-knit feeling of the cabin to the big house. It was far enough away from the lights of the barn, stable, and work buildings for stargazing on clear desert nights.

Having an empty nest for so long had been bittersweet. On one hand, Luella missed her stepdaughters terribly, and she knew Ellis did, too. But having a house all to themselves for the first time in their marriage, they had decidedly eased into an enjoyable second honeymoon phase.

She took the casserole out of the oven and set it on the stove. The smells were rich and homey, just as she wanted them. Comfort food could help restore bonds and ease the start of the long healing process Isla and Ingrid both faced.

A knock on the door had her dropping her potholders. She checked the time.

Ellis wouldn’t knock, and he wasn’t due to come away from working cattle for another hour. And Isla and Ingrid were on the road back from Taos with Ellis’s sister, Eveline and her daughter, after a day’s shopping.

Luella approached the door slowly. The cabin was on the outskirts of the workers’ living quarters at The Edge. It was closer to the family cemetery than the house built for foreman, Javier Rivera, his wife, Grace, and their children. Luella remembered living at Ollero Creek on the other side of Fuego alone on the outskirts and all the strange and terrible things that had come to pass there.

She eyed the shotgun hanging high on a rack above the empty space where Ellis’s rifle rested when it wasn’t sheathed on his saddle.

If she had need of it, she could get to it. It had been over a decade since trouble had come for the Eatons at The Edge. But trouble had once been Luella’s shadow. It was hard to forget what living that kind of life entailed.

The half-light door was chiseled in frosted glass, distorting the silhouette through the curtained pane. Luella heard the knock again. She unlocked the deadbolt then the knob. Turning it slowly, she pried the door back from the jamb enough to peer out onto the wraparound porch.

A man stood in a neon patch of low-slanting late afternoon sunlight. The light caught his hair, washing it with flame. His eyes peered dark through golden lashes.

He was prettier than any man had a right to be, she thought. And in his gray suit, black button-up shirt, and black boots, he seemed unsure of himself.

Despite the clean, black Stetson cradled between his hands, he wasn’t from Fuego. Or anywhere near it. He had city and money written all over him.

“Ma’am,” he said, reaching up to tip the hat he’d already removed. Nerves flashed in his eyes and they lowered slightly, embarrassed. “Are you…Luella Decker?”

She jerked her chin in a nod. “I am.”

His gaze raced across her features and his mouth parted. It hung that way as he stilled.

“Can I help you?” she asked, nerves batting around in her belly. One of her cats nuzzled against her ankle. She rearranged her feet to keep it from escaping through the parting of the door.

The man cleared his throat, recovering himself. “I’m sorry to intrude. But I was passing through the area and thought you might be home. Or I hoped you would be, in any case.”

“Do I know you?” she asked, wondering if they had met before. She had that strange déjà vu feeling she got when she saw someone who seemed familiar but who she’d never actually met before.

“My name’s Kai,” he answered. The brim of the hat bent under his grip. He licked his lips, and shuffled his feet. “Kai Strickland. From Odessa, Texas.”

He might as well have clubbed her over the head. She remembered the letter in her dresser drawer upstairs she’d kept there and taken out often over the years, running her fingers over the name.
She gripped the edge of the door as the world shifted and the light around him wavered.

“You know me?” he probed, unsure.

She nodded again. “I do.” Making herself take a long deep breath in through the nose, she opened the door wider. “And I think you’d better come in.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking around her at the living space within. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

“You could…” She stopped when her voice broke and made herself start over. “You could never. Please.” She gestured for him to enter.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. Still, he hesitated before crossing the threshold, his boots knocking against the treads of the floor.

“Make yourself at home,” she said as he veered slowly into the den, passing a window. That orange light touched his hair again. It was thick and red.

There was a mirror on the wall to her right. She paused to look at her reflection.

Her hair, too, was red. The same shade, in fact, even if the grays chased it more and more these days.

Pressing her hand to a womb that had long been empty—since the baby she’d carried at eighteen had been stolen from her—she fought against a towering wave of mixed emotions.

Stepping into the den, she found him standing with his back to her, studying the wall of framed photographs starring her, Ellis, the girls, various horses, and the Eatons at large. He was tall, she realized. Tall and slim, much as Ellis’s brother Everett was. As Ellis’s father had been.

She swallowed. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

He turned to look at her. Uncertainty painted his face. “I’m all right. Thank you.” He paused then gestured at the furnishings. “You have a nice house.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. She did her best to strengthen it. “Odessa. You’ve had quite the journey.”

He grimaced. “It’s been a roundabout trip. I left over a week ago. I’ve been doing some traveling. Taking some time off…”

She nodded though she knew that couldn’t be the whole truth. People didn’t come by a place like Fuego without a purpose. It was too far off the beaten path. He’d sought the town and Eaton Edge.

He’d come to find her.

At last, her son had found his way home.

“I need to sit down,” she announced, sinking to the cushions of the couch.

“Are you all right?” he asked, taking a step toward her.

She held up her hand. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t fine. She was the furthest thing from fine she could remember being in a long time. “Have a seat. You and me… We’ve got some catching up to do.”

*

Ellis smelled dinner upon entering the house as dusk took hold. He was fair to starving and looking forward to seeing his daughters and Luella around the dinner table like a family again. He was ready to wrap each of them in his arms, grateful despite the circumstances that home was where they had come to dwell again.

“Lu?” he called when he found dinner on the stove in the kitchen but no one around the dinner table. He started to go up the stairs then heard voices spilling through the open window near the back door.

He crossed to the door and opened it, stepping out. “Luella, honey,” he said and stopped.

She was sitting in the swing not with the girls but with a man. A stranger.

They both froze. Luella’s nervous smile grabbed his attention and Ellis scrutinized the man in the sharp suit and boots too fine for ranching. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’re the girls?”

“Ingrid called,” Luella said as she stood to greet him. “She said they were running behind.”

He touched his lips to hers. Settling his hand on the back of her hips, he frowned at the man. “Who’s this?”

She clutched his shirt. “Ellis. This is Kai.”

It had been a minute since Ellis had been bucked from a horse’s back. But he knew it felt something like this. He hung suspended somewhere in the freefall between saddle and ground.

Kai stepped forward. He stuck out a long-fingered hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

When Ellis only looked at him and the hand in question, Luella dug her elbow into his ribs just enough to bring him back to the moment. He rubbed his dirty palm on the thigh of his jeans before taking Kai’s—his son’s—hand in his. As he stared into dark eyes identical to his own in color and shape, he sought the right words. “I’m speechless,” he said at last.

Kai chuckled. “That makes two of us.”

“You’re taller than I imagined,” Ellis blurted. He shook his head quickly. “I don’t know why I said that. Maybe because I always imagined you…” Leveling his hand at his sternum, he indicated the height of a child. “I shouldn’t have. You’re a man now.” The words stuck in his throat. The muscles around it ached, and the upsurge of emotions struck him. His son. The one he and Luella should’ve been allowed to raise. “You’ve…come home.”

Kai’s eyes widened at that. “Home?”

“To The Edge,” Ellis expounded. “It’s the place all Eatons come back to, eventually…even those who have no memory of it.”

Kai frowned over the sentiment. “I’m here,” he settled for.

That was enough, Ellis thought. He smiled, drawing Luella close against his side. “How long will you be staying with us?”

Kai thought about it. Before he could get an answer out, the sound of honking blasted through the night.

“That’ll be the girls,” Luella said, patting Ellis on the shoulder as she smiled. She exchanged a significant look with him before ducking back into the house, no doubt so she could be the first to tell the girls that their half-brother had come.

Kai started to follow her, but Ellis stood his ground, holding up his hand. “One question,” he said. When Kai stopped, he said, “We tried to contact you—years ago. Your mother and I… When we found out you were alive, you were seventeen. We attempted to establish contact with the permission of your adoptive parents, and we were told that you didn’t wish to know us. Not at that time.”

Kai dropped his gaze to somewhere around Elli’s throat. His brows came together. “I…wasn’t ready.”

Ellis lifted his chin in acknowledgment.

Kai went on. “I was just a kid. Until then, they hadn’t told me I was adopted. As far as I was concerned, they were my parents—in name and blood. They were my family.”

“You lost them both,” Ellis recalled. His friend at the Fuego Police Department had kept tabs on Kai and the Strickland family for him and Luella for years. It had been hard to accept that the child they had lost wanted no connection to them. But they had needed to know that he was okay.

He’d gone to law school, and excelled there. The Stricklands had supported him, in every way a mother and father should. That had made things easier, Ellis could admit. Their son couldn’t have been brought up by a better couple.

Kai nodded. “Car accident. Almost a year ago.”

“Is that why you’re here now?” he asked.

Kai seemed to struggle with what to say exactly. “That’s part of it.”

Ellis could see discussing it was hard for him. He lifted his hand to his shoulder. “We’ll talk it over later. For now, you’ll need to come inside and meet your sisters.”

“Sisters.” Something of a smile teased the corners of Kai’s eyes. “I’ve been an only child all my life. Now I’ve got sisters.”

“Two of ‘em,” Ellis warned, “who’re bound to keep you on your toes. They sure as hell keep me bouncing on mine.”

Kai released a quiet laugh, eyeing the light in the windows.

Ellis gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Are you ready, son?”

The name snatched Kai’s gaze back to Ellis’s. It pinged from Ellis’s left eye to his right, searching. At last, he nodded.

Ellis opened the door. Together, they joined the rest of the family in the kitchen.

© Amber Leigh Williams