Chapter 46

• The Lawson kitchen smelled like home — butter and onions sweatin’ in a cast iron, gravy warmin’ on the back eye, the hush of beef ribs slow-cookin’ so long they fell off the bone before the first fork touched ‘em. It smelled like her mama, like late August nights when all the windows were open and the boys’d run in with grass stains and stories about who won the creek race this time.
• Sadie leaned against the counter, hair pinned soft off her neck, old apron tied at the small of her back. She had Beau’s big hand braced flat on the small of her spine while he helped Cade carry in the last tray — one-armed, easy, like that whole house had been built around his shoulders.
• When they all settled — her brothers elbow to elbow, her daddy at the head with his rough palm braced on the old oak — Beau sat right there next to her, thigh warm against hers under the edge of that worn tablecloth.