She's about sixty, wide-hipped, gray hair in a braid down her back, wearing a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled.
She climbs out of the truck and pulls the pie tin off the dash and hands it to me before she's even said hello.
Then she hugs me with the pie still in my hands the way Texas grandmothers hug, hard and all consuming. "You must be Hadley."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thunder told me you sent peaches home with him yesterday. The man's mama doesn't forget a kindness. Figured I'd return the favor and meet you while I'm at it."
She holds me at arm's length and looks me over for a half second like she's reading a recipe card. "You're prettier than my son said you were. Don't tell him I said that."
I laugh. The first laugh I've had since yesterday afternoon.
"Mama!" Raine hollers from the back seat. "Can I get out?"
"You can get out, baby, but don't go runnin' off without sayin' hi to Miss Hadley."
Raine spills out of the truck like somebody opened a paddock gate.
Long brown braids, scuffed boots, a t-shirt with a horse on it that's already too small for her.
She comes up the porch steps two at a time and stops in front of me and sticks out her hand like a grown woman. "I'm Raine."
"I know. Nash has told me about you."
"Where is he?"
"Inside. Doing dishes for me, but I'd bet he'd let himself be interrupted."
She is gone through my screen door before I finish the sentence, and a second later I hear Nash whoop from the kitchen.
Mama Lou shakes her head and smiles. "She's a force of nature, that one."
"Sounds like Nash."
"Lord help us both."
Two minutes later the kids are out of the cabin and headed for the kennel hand-in-hand to go see Diesel, who Nash has been telling her about over the phone according to Mama Lou.
Spur sees them from the round pen and tips his hat.
Thunder is already at the kennel, working with the dogs, and I watch him lift Raine onto his shoulder when she gets there and walk her toward the chain link with Nash skipping beside them.
I watch them until they're past the barn.
Mama Lou is still on my porch, looking at me. "Rogue's a good man, you know."
I look at her. "I know."
"I've known him for nearly a decade. The first night Phantom brought him to the ranch, my boy was the one helpin' carry him from the truck to the main house. Rogue's been somethin' close to family since. He doesn't make a fuss about it. He's not the fuss-makin' kind. But he's a good man, and I want you to hear me say it before you decide what you're gonna do about the way I’ve heard he looks at ‘ya."
She pats my arm, climbs back into her old Ford, and rumbles down the gravel drive with a wave.
* * *
I'm hanging laundry behind my cabin at two in the afternoon when I see the black Explorer.
Todd’s vehicle.