It’s been three years. Surely Carla’s forgotten the whole thing by now. Surely she and Cash and I can be an almost family again, the way we used to be.

God, I’ve missed the sound of her laughter and the way her smile used to light up the whole house.

"Hey, Luke, are you taking root in there?"

"I’m still trying to get your Jeep out from under my fingernails," Luke retorted to Cash. "You ought to trade that damn thing for a dog and shoot the dog."

The bathroom door opened. Cash’s big body filled the frame with little left over.

"Give me your shirt," Cash said.

"Why?"

"The Jeep drooled all down your spine."

Luke made a sound of disgust that Cash didn’t take seriously. But then, neither did Luke.

"The things I do for you," Luke muttered.

With quick, deft movements he rinsed his hands, stripped off the black shirt and fired it at Cash’s head. Another shirt came flying back at the same speed. Luke pulled it on with a small smile; the shirt fit as well as one of his own. Cash was the only man Luke knew whose clothes he could wear without feeling as though he were in a straitjacket.

"Much better," Cash said. "Can’t have you looking like something the cat dragged in and didn’t eat What would Carla think?"

"She’s seen me looking worse."

"Not on her twenty-first birthday. Hurry up. I can’t decorate cake worth a damn."

"What makes you think I can?"

"Desperation."

Grinning, Luke tucked in the shirt and followed Cash to the kitchen, feeling very much at home. In many ways Carla and Cash were as close to a real family as Luke had ever come. His mother, like his grandmother and great-grandmother before her, had hated the Rocking M. Even worse, his mother had feared the land and the wind as though they were alive and hunting her. Finally she had had a nervous breakdown. Her parents had swept in from the East Coast, picked up the pieces of their daughter and removed her from the Rocking M. They had also taken Luke’s seven-year-old sister, whom he loved as he hadn’t permitted himself to love anything since. Neither mother nor sister had ever been heard from since that day.