That might not be entirely true, since Bill had never answered the voicemail he’d left explaining the situation, but there was no reason to tell Mama that. Jobs were easy enough to find if you weren’t particular about what you did or how much you got paid to do it. He’d always found them, even when there wasn’t a plug in the city feeding electricity, and you couldn’t drive through the streets without plowing your bumper into a sandbar or a house.

“When’s your lady coming down?” She reached for a tissue on the bedside table and blew her nose. His fingers clenched in his lap when he saw how thin her arms had gotten. When he took her to the doctor after he’d gotten home, she didn’t even make it over the hundred-pound mark.

“Andra had to work.” He glanced away. “Besides, you told me to stay away from her. I didn’t think you’d want her to visit.”

“I tell you to do lots of things.” She sank back into her pile of worn-out pillows. “I sure didn’t think you’d choose now to lose your contrary streak and start listening to your poor old mama.” She was trying to glare, but her eyelids loosened anyway, drooping shut against her will. LJ brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. It was still soft, not the papery brittleness he associated with the elderly. She wasn’t old enough to be so sick, but maybe when you had as much personality as she did, you could pack eighty years into forty-five.

LJ watched her slip into sleep, a smile tipping up his lips. It was good to be home.

Almost too good.

He closed the door to her room and headed through the kitchen. New Orleans fit like an old boot, clasping the lumps and calluses of your foot so easily you forgot you were wearing it until you stepped into the shower and remembered you hadn’t meant to wear it quite so long.

When he woke up this morning, he hadn’t jumped out of bed, eager to get to the barn. Instead, he’d lain there, his sheets wet with summer sweat, irritated at the second-rate air conditioner that had been all they could afford when they’d rebuilt the house. Mentally, he had counted the bills left in his wallet and wondered if there was anything he could pawn to get a leg up on a new AC unit. If there were any odd jobs he could do to pay it off before the buyback slip expired. Trying to make those numbers work out just pissed him off, so after he fixed Mama’s breakfast, he played his sax on the porch for an hour, letting the music wash all the mad out of his veins.