“I’m the Sunday-school teacher for the twelve-to-fifteen-year-old group. Are y’all just going to church or to—” he started to ask.

She butted in. “We’ll be going to both. Sunday school still starts at ten, right?”

He nodded. “Then church right after at eleven.”

“Just like when I was a kid,” she said.

“Things don’t change too much in Comfort.” He grinned back at her.

“Thank God for that,” she sighed. “Have you eaten yet? I checked last night and found everything I need to make sausage and pancakes. I’ll replenish the grocery supplies tomorrow morning.”

“I haven’t had breakfast, and you’re welcome to use whatever is here whenever you want,” he told her.

“We need to talk about your rent, too.” She set her coffee on the counter and got the sausage out of the refrigerator. “I figure since we’re staying here, it’s not fair to charge you rent.”

Mack got the flour and other ingredients for pancakes from the pantry. “That’s pretty generous of you. How about I still pay all the utilities, and we split the cost of the groceries?”

“That’s more than fair.” She found her mother’s cast-iron skillets right where Vera always kept them and got out two—one for sausage and the other for pancakes.

“I like to cook, so I don’t mind sharing the workload,” he said. “I’ve got a roast thawed to put in the oven this morning. It should be ready when we get home from church.”

“Mama always made roast for Sunday dinner.” The memory put another smile on her face.

“My mother still does, and until they moved to be near Dad’s doctors, I ate with them on Sunday. It’ll be nice to have family around me again.” He reached into the cabinet for a bowl to stir up the batter for pancakes, and his arm brushed against Lily’s shoulder. Sparks flew, but Lily attributed them to the fact that she hadn’t been in a relationship in years. She’d be crazy not to be attracted to a good-looking man like Mack.

Lily had worried about how things would work with Mack in the house, but it looked like she’d fretted for nothing. He was agreeable to a really good financial arrangement, and he liked to cook. She couldn’t ask for anything more out of a roommate—unless he also liked to wake up grumpy and belligerent kids.

While the sausage cooked and Mack flipped pancakes, Lily set the table for four. She waited until breakfast was cooked before she went to get the kids. Dreading even talking to Holly, she decided to rap on Braden’s door first. He threw it open and sniffed the air.

“I smell food.” He ran down the stairs in a blur.

She crossed the hall and knocked on Holly’s door, but there was no answer. She cracked the door open and saw that her daughter’s bed had been slept in, but she was gone. Lily’s heart rose up in her throat, and her chest tightened.

“What are you doin’?” Holly asked right behind her. “Already inspecting my stuff to be sure I didn’t sneak any pot in with my things?”

Lily turned around. “No, smarty-pants, I came to call you to breakfast. We’ll be having three meals a day around the table from now on.”

Holly frowned and unwound the towel from her wet hair. “I haven’t even got my makeup on yet.”

“Breakfast first, then makeup and getting dressed for Sunday school and church.” Lily put her hands on Holly’s shoulders and turned her toward the stairs. “We’re having pancakes.”

Holly set her heels and shrugged off her mother’s hands. “I’ll bring mine up to my room after I get my makeup on, and I’m not going to church or Sunday school.”

“Joining the rest of us around the table was not a request. Neither was church.” Lily pointed to the stairs. “If you aren’t sitting in your place in three minutes, I’ll be taking all of your makeup away for a week. Your choice on that matter. But you don’t have a choice about church. We will be going as a family every week. I’d hate for you to have to show up your first two times without a drop of lipstick or eye shadow on.”

Holly threw the towel at the bathroom door and stomped into her room.

“Towels go in the basket in the utility room, not on the floor,” Lily said as she started down the stairs.

“What happens if I don’t pick it up?” Holly called out. “Will you lock me in my room and give me nothing but bread and water?”

“Maybe water, but don’t push your luck about bread. You’ve got three minutes, starting right now.” Lily didn’t remember being so sassy at Holly’s age. She thought about Ophelia again and wondered if Henry ever got over that rebellious stage.

Holly pushed it to the last fifteen seconds, but she was sitting in her place within the allotted three minutes. She reached for a sausage patty with her fingers, but Lily shook her head. “Grace first, and then you’ll use a fork.”

They bowed their heads, and Lily said a short prayer. “We’ll take turns saying the prayer before meals. If it’s okay with Mack, either he or I will say the breakfast prayer, and you two will alternate on supper.”

“I’m not prayin’,” Holly declared.

“Then you don’t eat.” Lily put two sausage patties on her own plate and handed the platter to Mack. Then she took three pancakes from the stack and sent them around the table.

“If I’d known that smokin’ a joint would cause this much trouble, I never would have done it. I might as well be a nun.” Holly slathered butter on four pancakes and topped them off with lots of maple syrup.

“I never knew a pot-smokin’ nun,” Braden said. “Are you going to start a brand-new church where all the people smoke pot on Sunday?”

“Sure, I am, and all your little friends will have to put their cigarettes and beer in a big box at the front door before they can come into my church,” Holly shot back at him.

Lily ignored the both of them, but she noticed that Mack was chuckling under his breath. It might be funny today, but wait until he had to put up with it for weeks on end. He’d be ready to load up his goats and leave Texas altogether.

Mack thought about Lily all the way to church that morning. He’d left half an hour early so he could get his Sunday-school room put in order and think about the week’s lesson. When he saw her get out of that car on Friday, something stirred in an area he thought for sure was stone-cold dead. Sure, he’d known her—kind of, sort of—in high school. In a town the size of Comfort, with only three thousand people, everyone knew everyone else. The big joke was that they read the local newspaper just to see who got caught because they already knew what had gone on in town all week.

Lily Miller—as she was back in those days—had been a sophomore when he was a senior, but he’d forgotten how pretty she was with that mane of blonde hair flowing down her back and those big, beautiful brown eyes. When she spoke to him in that husky voice, he’d definitely felt something, but he told himself that it was useless. Adam had stolen the love of his life—twice. It could happen again, if his brother thought he was interested in Lily.

He set up the folding chairs in a circle and tried to put Lily’s full lips out of his mind and think about the Sunday-school lesson. Of all things, it dealt with loving your brother as yourself. It might be a lively discussion with Holly and Braden in the mix. They squabbled about anything and everything. He didn’t mind. Actually, he kind of enjoyed listening to them.