“I’m mad at you for saying that about not missin’ my mama. I might even stomp on your hat,” she said.

“You never did tell me what happened about that. See, she doesn’t even confide in me anymore, Marva Jo. She doesn’t love any of us,” Blaze teased.

“Children, this is no time to fight. We’ve got work to do and lots of it,” Tressa said. “Blaze, get back to the Ferris wheel. And you, young lady, come help your mama work on the fortune wagon so we can visit. We’ve got to have this show up and ready before we go to bed tomorrow night, because the people will start arriving at ten o’clock on Thursday morning.”

Liz didn’t realize how much she had missed the smell of oil and dust as they got everything ready for the opening. She loved the sounds of the drills and hammers, the horses complaining about being cooped up in a truck, and the people all talking at once as they worked. She looped her arm through Marva Jo’s and they headed off toward the brightly colored fortune telling wagon together.

“All we have to do is check the electricity and snap down the wires,” Marva Jo said. “Blaze couldn’t wait to see you. He says your friends are okay, that one named Colleen is knock-down gorgeous, and that Raylen is not what he expected.”

Liz waved at everyone they passed: vendors, hawkers, ride managers, and the maintenance crews. She knew them as well as their kids’ and grandkids’ names. Knew where they went home to winter after they had parked their wagons in Claude the week before Thanksgiving. And she had missed every one of them.

“Did you hear me, Lizelle?” Marva Jo asked.

“I was listenin’,” Liz answered. “I just want to see everything and everyone and can’t do that and talk, too. What did Blaze expect out of Raylen?”

Marva Jo was six inches taller than her daughter, had strawberry blond hair and blue eyes. She was heavier than her sister but still looked good in tight jeans and a fitted Levi’s jacket.

Marva Jo threw an arm around Liz’s shoulders. “The way you’ve talked about Raylen, Blaze thought he’d be six feet tall, bulletproof, and sitting on a big white horse.”

“He’s five feet ten inches tall, has dark hair with red highlights when he gets in the sun, the clearest blue eyes you’ve ever seen, even lighter than yours, and he fell off his pedestal the first time we had a big fight,” Liz said.

“And what was that over?” Marva Jo asked.

“Blaze. I was talking to him on the phone and ignored Raylen who was putting up my Christmas lawn things so everything would be beautiful for y’all. And he stormed off to his truck in a fit of anger, forgetting his hat that he’d hung on the porch railing. I threw it at him. He got mad because of that precious hat, so I stomped it, too!”