Bo sidled closer and gave Lucky a smile.
With Bo at his side, he’d face down a hundred drug lords. Or family.
Lucky opened the screen and rapped on the front door. The scent of coffee teased his nose. Once more he knocked. His pounding heart kept time with the beat.
Bo clutched his hand, an anchor to hold fast to.
Curtains fluttered in the living room window. The door screeched open a few seconds later.
Lucky stared into eyes so much like his own. Folks called him the spitting image of his father, but his eyes? He’d gotten those from Mom.
Her worn apron spoke of the many meals she’d cooked, and the scent of bacon clung to her like a living advertisement for breakfast.
She launched herself in his direction. Lucky wrapped his arms around her, steadied her trembling. “Oh God, Richmond. My son. My son.” Her back and forward swaying took him with her.
This woman gave him life, raised him, loved him, tucked him in at night, punished him when necessary—not nearly enough—and though she went silent for a while, eventually accepted the prospect of Lucky never bringing home a wife.
Home. He’d finally come home.
“I’m so sorry for… so many things,” she choked out.
A hand too large to be his mother’s found the middle of Lucky’s back. He absorbed support from his lover and tears from his mother. As long as she stayed, he’d hug her, whisper, “It’s okay, Mama. I’m here now. Everything’ll be just fine.”
All too soon, his mother stepped back, wiping her face with her apron. “Look at me, keeping y’all on the front porch. Come in, come in.” She held the door open.
Taking a deep breath, Lucky entered a house he’d never dared hope to set foot in again. Family pictures lined the walls in the foyer, many of him and his siblings as kids. His Mama and Daddy’s wedding photo no longer hung in the same place it’d been for all of his time here.
And there, instead, hogging a wall by itself…
Oh, dear God!
An eleven by twenty-inch picture frame, the largest on the walls, displayed a photo of him, along with the newspaper write-up of how he’d died saving a fellow agent.
His knees buckled. Bo’s arm around his waist kept him standing.
Mom stood at his other side. “We’re so proud of you for turning your life around. And deeply ashamed of ourselves.” She stared at a worn spot on the throw rug at her feet.
Lucky nodded toward the picture. “You can take that down now. I’m not dead.”
His mother raised her head, but didn’t meet his eyes. “But you did save a man’s life.”
Words lodged in Lucky’s throat.
Bo answered for him. “Yes, he did. Mine.”
Strange being back here. Lucky never noticed the distinct smell of the old home place before, a combination of lemon-scented wood cleaner and an underlying hint of old house. And over all… bacon.
But something wasn’t quite right. His Mama shouldn’t be looking so guilty.
The acrid scent of something burnt hit his nose. “Mama? You got something on the stove?”
“Oh, Lord!” Mama threw her hands up and darted to the left, through the living room, and into the kitchen.
The closed door on the other side of the foyer caught Lucky’s attention. His parents’ room. More than likely, one oak panel separated him from his father, the same way a thin curtain had in the hospital.
He might prove to be a nasty surprise if Charlotte hadn’t talked to the old man yet. Lucky’d often stomped up the stairs to his room, but today he put his hand on Bo’s back and urged him toward the kitchen, stepping lightly. “Welcome to the farm.”
“You still like your coffee black and sweet, right?” Mama shoved a mug nearly as old as Lucky into his hand the moment he entered the kitchen.
