car, Jayden in her old green truck. The sun had been shining that day, too. Wildflowers bloomed in the medians, and her mother’s roses were thick with blooms. She had picked a huge basket of red, pink, and yellow roses and set them at the end of the casket. Skyler had sneered at the basket, but she hadn’t brought a single flower with her.
She’d held the tears back to be strong for the girls, but the dam broke on the way back to the dining room. Tears streamed down her face, dripped off her jaw, and made wet circles on her shirt. When she reached the dining hall, she squared her shoulders, forced herself to stop sobbing, and went inside.
Diana and Novalene had put the kitchen and dining room to rights and made a new pitcher of sweet tea while she was gone.
“What’s going on out there?” Novalene rushed to her side. “Are you okay? Is Ashlyn all right? We started to come on out there, but we figured you’d call if it was serious.”
“Dynamite died,” Jayden answered.
“No!” they chorused.
“Is Keelan all right?” Novalene asked. “She’s awfully attached to that horse and has been fussing about Ashlyn thinking he wasn’t doing well. I think she knew he was on his last legs but was just in denial.”
“They’re all taking it hard, and”—Jayden poured herself a tall glass of sweet tea, and slumped down into a chair—“they’re going to bury him and have a funeral this afternoon.”
“They are going to do what?” Diana’s eyes almost popped right out of her head.
Jayden repeated what she’d said. “They’re out at the half-mile marker digging a hole right now.”
“Those girls have never done anything like that,” Diana gasped. “We should go supervise and be there to comfort them.”
“Exactly.” Jayden laid out her plan. “I’m going to take bottles of water out with me for the first shift.”
“Let us take care of that,” Novalene suggested. “You need to cook. Elijah can drive us out there. Maybe they’ll have the grave done by lunchtime, and they can have their little service right after they eat.”
“Are you sure?” Jayden asked. “I don’t mind taking the first couple of hours.”
“Of course we are.” Diana laid a hand on Jayden’s shoulder. “We’ll get some water and maybe put some of those leftover cookies that you made into a bag. Digging is tough work, and they may need a little snack about midmorning. Poor darlin’s, the death of a pet is tough, and Dynamite has been a friend to all of them.”
Novalene bent down and slipped an arm around Jayden’s shoulders. “How are you holding up? It couldn’t have been a party out there with all eight of them, was it?”
“I’m fine,” Jayden answered, but she wiped a hand across her wet cheeks. “No, I’m not fine, but I will be. It hurts to see the girls in pain, and to tell the truth, Dynamite was my sounding board, or maybe I should say ‘sounding horse.’ I used to go out there at night and tell him my troubles.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Diana said as she and Novalene gave her a three-way hug.
Family doesn’t have to share DNA, her gramps’s voice came to her mind. He was so right. These folks—the counselors, girls, and even Elijah—were family even if they didn’t share a drop of blood.
“For some of them, it might be their first time to deal with death,” Jayden said.
“Poor things.” Novalene took a step back. “They’ll learn today that their parents’ money can’t buy a cure for death and the pain of losing something or someone dear to them.”
“Ain’t it the truth.” Diana picked up a tissue and wiped Jayden’s cheeks.
Jayden whipped up two applesauce Bundt cakes. While they baked, she made gazpacho and put it in the refrigerator to chill. Cold soup served with chunks of homemade Italian bread, wedges of cheese, and chicken salad sandwiches would be good for hot, sweaty girls who’d used up a lot of energy and emotion that morning.
The whole time she worked, she worried about all the girls, but even more about her three—Ashlyn in particular. They hadn’t discussed the death of grandparents or pets, but Ashlyn had said something about her nanny dying, and that was when she turned to alcohol. When the cakes were out of the pans and cooling, she chopped up peppers, onions, and tomatoes to sprinkle on top of the gazpacho and sliced the warm bread when it came out of the oven.
“French fries and hamburgers,