of yours myself. In fact, I need to get some cream, some butter, and . . . You remodeled.”
Julia glanced around the main kitchen, the commercial range, double ovens. The big table remained, but they’d added more work space for baking days.
“It needed it, and we needed to step up to commercial grade. And now Mom and I don’t bump into each other when we’re working in here. Let me take those flowers—which are gorgeous—and your jacket.”
Gleaming stainless steel, shelves of important-looking tools that were beyond her comprehension, the massive, shining vent over what looked like a massive range. Yet a fire still simmered in the little hearth, pretty potted herbs thrived on the deep windowsill.
“It looks professional, but it feels the same.”
“Then it’s a success. Mom and I debated, argued, and occasionally came close to blows over the design and layout.” Julia crossed over to lay the flowers in a prep sink as she talked. Then went through the mudroom door to hang the jackets.
Cate moved through, trailing a hand over the table where she’d sat, where Julia had tended her cuts and bruises so long ago.
She stood, fascinated, in the wide opening that led to another kitchen. Not altogether a kitchen, she thought, though it had the range, the sinks, the work counters.
Bags of . . . something hung from wooden rods and dripped into glass bowls below. Big glass jars of—she supposed—milk stood on counters. Gram, orange braid bundled back, ran water in the sink, her shoulders moving as she pushed down. Red—yes, that was Red—poured milk into a small, shiny machine.
Through the big window over the big sink, Cate could see Dillon and the young horse.
Julia stepped up. “You won’t get fresher butter and cream.”
“Red’s starting the last of the butter,” Maggie said without turning around, “and I’m rinsing the last of the last batch. Check the curds on the stove.”
“Will do. We’ve got a customer.”
“Just have to wait until—” Still pressing, she looked over her shoulder. “Well, look here, Red. Somebody’s all grown-up.”
He switched on the machine, turned. “She sure is.”
He walked over, held out a hand. Cate ignored it, hugged him. “It’s good to see you, Sheriff.”
“Just Red now. I thought I retired, but these women work a man to death.”
“You look pretty healthy for a dead man.”
Maggie cackled at that. “It’s about time you came by, girlie. Once that last batch of butter churns and we finish it up, I’m ready to take a break.”
Cate eyed the machine. “That’s a butter churn?”
“You think we use a wooden bucket and stick?” Maggie cackled again. “We’ve come a ways since Little House on the Prairie.”
“These curds are ready. Cate, why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll all take a break as soon as we’re done here.”
“She’s got two hands, and we can use them. Are they clean?” Maggie demanded.
“I—”
“Wash them up anyway. You can help me wrap this butter.”
“No one escapes,” Red told her.
Curious, Cate walked to the sink, looked in. “Is that butter?”
“One more rinse and it will be. You’ve got to get the buttermilk out. Use the sink over there.”
A half hour later when Dillon came in to grab a cup of coffee, he found Cate, wearing a big apron, her hair pulled back in a tail, wrapping rounds of butter.
“Don’t you bring ranch dirt in here,” Maggie warned him.
“I washed up at the pump. Hi.”
“Hi.” Cate smiled as if she’d just won the grand prize in a raffle. “I helped make butter. And mozzarella.”
Transferring wrapped rounds of butter and cheese to the refrigerator, Julia saw her son’s eyes, what was in them. Sighed a little inside.
“Why don’t you help Red clean up the churn, and we’ll get something going for lunch? Do you still eat meat, Cate?”
She’d only meant to stay an hour. Work waited. But . . . Well, she’d work tonight, she decided. “I do.”
She sat down to leftover chicken stew with fresh dumplings.
“I saw you outside,” she said to Dillon, “with the horse going in circles.”
“Lunge line. It’s training, and communication. That was Jethro. It’s how they learn to switch gaits on command, to switch directions, stop, go.”
“It takes skill and patience,” Julia added, “which Dillon has in abundance.”
“I’d love to see the horses next time I come.”
“I can take you around after lunch.”
“Workday for me—or should’ve been. Who knew I’d make butter? You can really do it just by shaking a mason jar?”
“If you’ve got the arm and the patience for it. I made it that way