She held her arms out to him and he picked up her up by her waist, but where he thought he’d set her down on the ground to walk out of the corral, she had other ideas.
Ciela wrapped herself around him arms and legs and held on.
It felt like a hug.
The best kind of hug, actually.
Something, he’d seen but never had before.
The simple gesture was… eye-opening.
When Noelle lifted her daughter out of his arms to take her in to wash hands for a meal, he fought the urge to hold on and do the chore himself.
His mother put her hand on his arm and told him that she needed help getting everything out to the table from the kitchen.
He followed her inside to help, tying to ignore the curious sidelong stare from his mother.
Finola King might be getting older, but her eye sight, both physical and emotional was remarkably sharp.
He was able to put his own thoughts out of his head while they set up the table.
And when they started dishing out the food, the moon around the table pulled him in.
There were smiles all around and the food did not disappoint.
Patricia had brought more than dessert and together with what his mom had prepared they were likely to have left overs for days after the visit.
Halfway through the meal,Duval got up to refill glasses with lemonade and iced tea. When he set Patricia’s cup town beside her plate, Noelle’s mother turned to him with a curious look in her eyes.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, McCrae.”
He lifted his gaze to her and smiled. “Hmm?”
“Noelle said that the other members of your team call you Duval.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mom smile a share a look with Katie.
He could tell by Noelle’s posture that she was listening to him, but she was helping Ciela cut her barbecued chicken breast into bite sized pieces.
“It’s kind of a convoluted thing,” he started to explain.
His mother smiled at him.
He acknowledged her with a grin. “My mom and dad are big Larry McMurtry fans.”
His mother added in a comment. “My husband liked the books more.I,”she gave Patricia an outrageous wink, “more of the shows on the television.”
Patricia smiled and Duval was happy that the two women were getting along so well.
“So when they had me, they were looking for a name and while we’re not part of the big landowner King family-”
“We’re a long distant branch on the far side of the tree,” his mother added in.
“The King family is big enough that pretty much every name they thought of was already covered by someone else.”
Noelle turned her head to look at him. “They didn’t want you to be confused for one of the other Kings.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
