Chapter One

      Burning Pear Ranch

      Kelman, Texas

      “You have to make a birthday wish, Gramma, before you can blow out the candles.” Four-year-old Petey scooted onto Mary Randolph’s lap as the family’s off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” drew to a close.

      “I don’t know what I’d wish for.” She hugged her grandson close. “I have all of you here with me at the Burning Pear for my sixtieth birthday. What more could a mother want?”

      She looked around the room. Her four sons, each so different, but all Randolphs through and through. And Ashley, her one daughter-in-law, but she loved her as much as she could have loved the daughter she’d always wanted but had never had.

      She blinked as a misty veil fell over her eyes. The moisture blurred the faces that surrounded her and softened the hard lines of rustic wood, Mexican tile and worn leather that characterized the ranch house where she’d lived all of her adult life.

      One lone tear escaped the corner of her eye, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

      “Do something nice for a woman, and here come the tears. I’ll never understand the gender,” Branson, her second son, said, only half teasing.

      “Yeah, and if you sit here teary-eyed too long, the melted wax from the birthday candles is going to be thicker than the icing,” Langley added, relighting one of the candles that had already gone out.

      Mary paid them no mind. She was used to her sons’ good-natured ribbing. “Sixty years of living gives a mother the right to a few seconds of melancholy,” she scolded them. “And a little candle wax never hurt anybody.” Her tears went on hold as laughter and echos of “You tell them, Mom,” rippled across the spacious kitchen.

      Her youngest son, Ryder, pushed the cake closer to her. “All the same, you better pucker up and blow—before the smoke alarm goes off.”

      “You want me to help you, Gramma? I can blow really hard.” Petey wiggled around to face her, the excitement dancing in his dark eyes.

      “Of course you can help,” she told him, lifting him so that his knees rested in her lap and he could lean in closer to the beckoning cake.

      Ashley Randolph grabbed her ever-ready camcorder and aimed it at Mary, Petey and the cake. Mary smiled, but kept her gaze low. A woman her age didn’t need to have her wrinkles and graying hair preserved for posterity. Besides, she hated to see herself on the TV screen. The woman who smiled back always seemed years older than the one who lived inside her.

      “Ready, set, go,” Petey announced. He took a deep breath and blew until the last flicker of a flame died. “We did it, Gramma! Your wish will come true.” He hopped down from her lap. “And now we can eat the cake. Right?”

      “Ashley’s chocolate cake, one of the best reasons I know of to grow older,” Dillon Randolph said, giving his wife a hug and tousling the hair of his son as Petey scampered past him to get closer to the cake-cutting operation.

      “Thanks to Mother Randolph,” Ashley said, her tinkling laughter brightening the room. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the way I cooked when I first moved to the Burning Pear.”

      “No way!” Langley set a stack of dessert plates on the table at Ashley’s elbow. “That’s the kind of thing follows a man clear to the grave.”

      “I can’t believe you said that,” she countered, playfully pointing the tip of the cake knife in his direction. “Even then, you were always sneaking into my cookie jar.”

      “Sure. Those sugar cookies were perfect for target practice. Unless you hit them dead center, the bullet wouldn’t even crack them.”

      The room burst into laughter again as Ashley sliced a large hunk of cake and placed it onto one of Mary’s flower-patterned dessert plates.

      Ashley could take the teasing of her three brothers-in-law with the best of them. She could dish it out, too. The perfect family. It was just too bad Dillon, Ashley and Petey had to live in Austin so much of the time—part of the price of being a state senator.

      Still, if Mary really were to be granted a wish tonight, it would be that Jack Randolph was somewhere in heaven looking down on them, that he would see what fine men their four boys had grown into. That he would know how twenty years after his death she still treasured the time they’d had together.

      “Who wants ice cream with their cake?” Ashley asked, handing the cake knife and cutting chores over to Dillon.

      “What kind of question is that?” Ryder said. “You can’t have birthday cake without ice cream. It’s not American.”

      “Worse,” Langley echoed. “It’s not Texan.”

      “I’ll get the bowls and spoons,” Mary said, stretching to a standing position.

      “You most definitely will not.” Branson left his post by the door to rest his strong hands on her shoulders. “The birthday girl does not wait tables.”

      “It’s been many a day since I was a girl, Branson Randolph,” she teased. “But I’m still a lot better at serving than I am at sittin’.”

      “You’re still my best girl. And the prettiest girl south of—”

      “South of the table and north of the door to the living room.” She broke in and finished the sentence for him, keeping him honest. “And it’s high time you found yourself a real ‘best girl.”’

      “Whoa.” He picked up a fork and handed it to her. “We need to feed this woman fast. She’s growing vicious.”

      “A piece of cake won’t convince me you don’t need a woman,” she said, though her words were practically lost amid the laughter and clatter of dishes.

      “Oh my Lord,” Langley said, chewing appreciatively on his first bite of cake. “Find me a woman who can bake a cake this good, and I’ll marry her tomorrow.” He smacked his lips and swallowed. “Nope. Make that tonight.”

      “Don’t say that in front of Mom,” Ryder cautioned. “She’ll be out combing the county, searching for women who are willing to come out to the Burning Pear and take cooking lessons.”

      “Now, that’s not a half-bad idea,” Ashley said. “It would sure give you a break in the kitchen, Mother Randolph. And any woman who’d put up with these guys would get my vote.”

      “I have a couple of requirements besides cooking,” Ryder said, forking another bite of cake.

      “Yeah, Ryder would have to make sure she could shine the silver on that World Championship belt buckle and feed his horse,” Langley added.

      “Now you’re talking my language of love,” Ryder said.

      The gang around the table exploded in laughter again. Mary joined in. Being sixty, she decided, was not too awful. Not as long as she had her family with her. All safe. All happy.

      She was chewing her first bite of cake when a soft knock at the front door brought an abrupt lull to the conversation and gaiety. “Now, who in the world can that be?” she said, wiping a smear of chocolate from her hands to the flowered cotton napkin.

      “Probably another well-wisher,” Ashley said. “Half the town’s already called or sent cards or flowers. “Of course, none of the bouquets were nearly as extravagant as the one from Joshua Kincaid.”

      “Good,” Dillon countered. “Let him spend his money on lavish flower arrangements. It will give him less money to spend lobbying against every bill I sponsor.” He started walking to the door.

      “I’ll get it,” Branson said,