Texas Iron by Robert J. Randisi Read Free Book Online Page B

rewarded —With the smells of Serena’s wonderful cooking. If she had succeeded in replacing her dead mother in no other way, Serena
     was almost as fine a cook as her mother was.
    Actually, Miller wished that Serena would stop trying to replace her mother. At twenty-eight she was much too old to be living
     at home with her father. True, at that age she was considered something of an old maid in Vengeance Creek, but to Miller she
     was still a beautiful young woman who should be married and giving him grandchildren.
    “Father?” Her voice came from the kitchen.
    “It’s me,” Miller said, removing his top coat and hanging it on a wall rack that he had built.
    Serena came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. A tall woman, she needed only to lift her chin slightly to kiss
     her father, who was six feet tall. Along with being tall she was slender, almost rangy. To his prejudiced father’s eye she
     was a beauty, with hair the color of corn, smooth, unblemished skin, naturally rosy lips and very white, even teeth. He was
     glad that he made enough money at the store that she didn’t have to work unless she wanted to, and then it was not work that
     would weather her skins or her hands, or give her a weary look. Her mother, God rest her, as beautiful as she was, had to
     work hard almost all her life, and paid for it. When she died she was tired looking, and slightly stooped; her hair had lost
     its natural luster and her flesh its resiliency. A finer woman had never lived, though, and Miller loved her with all his
     heart to the day she died—and more that day than ever before.
    “What smells so wonderful?”
    “You should be able to tell,” she said, smiling. “It’s your favorite.”
    “Yes,” he said, sniffing the air, “it is’meat loaf!”
    “It’s ready,” she said. “Just go upstairs and clean up and I’ll put dinner on the table.”
    “Have you eaten?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You should have.”
    “I knew you’d be home soon. Go and clean up.”
    “All right, all right,” he said. “Next you’ll want to check behind my ears.”
    “I’m not trying to be your mother.”
    “No,” he said, “you’re trying to be yours.”
    Her smile disappeared and she said, “Let’s not go through that again, please?”
    “You’re right,” he said, raising his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I’m sorry. I’ll wash up.”
    While cleaning up he chided himself for the remark. They had had many hours of arguments over her staying to live with him,
     and he should have known by this time that further argument was futile. Just like her mother, Serena was doggedly stubborn
     when she set her mind to something.
    At sixty-three Miller felt he still had many years on this earth. He despaired at the thought of Serena staying with him for
     every one of them. Once he was gone she’d be in her late forties or early fifties, and it would be she who was alone. The
     thought of his beautiful daughter wasting her youth and then living the final thirty or forty years of her life alone made
     him shake his head. If only he could think of a convincing argument.
    If only she’d fall in love…and all right, old man, he told himself, that’s another reason you want the McCall boys to
     come home. None of them would remember Serena as anything but a little girl. Maybe when they met her now, all grown up, she’d
     fall in love with one of them. Lord knew they were strong men and would certainly not beunattractive at this point in their
     lives. Sam had to be in his early forties, Evan in his late thirties. Jubal, the youngest, would only be several years younger
     than Serena; it was certainly not an insurmountable age difference.
    Miller could imagine the kind of grandchildren a union between Serena and Sam McCall would produce.
    “Father,” her voice called from the kitchen. “Dinner is on the table.”
    “I’m coming,” he called out.
    Drying his hands, he thought, and so are the McCall