Free A Kiss for Cade by Lori Copeland Page B

their blistered skin and pungent odor, they were a handsome lot.
    He studied the handwritten daily specials on the menu. Everything looked good. “What do you like to eat?” he asked the children.
    “Peach pie,” they chorused.
    “Pie and what else?”
    “Cream!”
    He thought for a moment. “Don’t you usually eat something before having pie?”
    “Chocolate cake!” Brody answered.
    Cade leaned back in his chair. “Okay, cake and pie it is.” He was thinking more along the lines of the roast beef and potatoes, but they ought to know what they wanted to eat. After all, it was a special occasion.
    “Peach pie, chocolate cake, and a pitcher of cream,” he told GloriLee.
    The woman frowned. “Have they had their supper?”
    “Not yet. We’re ordering it now.” He’d sometimes eaten sweets for dinner, and it never killed him.
    “Pie and cake!” the kids chorused.
    Glori-Lee took the order and then stuck her pencil behind her ear as she ambled off toward the kitchen, grumbling, “Zoe ain’t goin’ to like this.”
    The smiles on the kids’ faces were worth a tongue-lashing. Cade laid his hat on the table. “Well, now. Tell me about yourselves. Got any pets?”
    Missy’s eyes lit up. “We got a tomcat, Womeo, and Butch. He’s ouw dog. And Bud.”
    “Bud? Who’s Bud?”
    “Bud lives in a jar,” Will explained.
    Missy solemnly nodded. “He’s a bug. He’s nice.”
    Cade lifted his brows. “A nice bug that lives in a jar. Anything else?”
    “Nope,” Brody answered. “Just Romeo, Butch, and Bud. I wanted a pony, but Zoe says she can’t afford to feed one more thing.”
    The statement “can’t afford” disturbed him. The general store had been in the Bradshaw family for three generations and should have left Zoe well off, but from the looks of the place, she wasn’t. Her dresses were old and faded, and the furnishings were the same ones Jim’s parents had had. She was still using the old cookstove.
    He temporarily set the thought aside. “What about school? What grades are you in?”
    Holly volunteered, “Third. Brody’s in fifth.”
    “Guess school will be starting before long.”
    “I might not go back to school,” Brody announced.
    Holly slapped him on the arm. “Yes, you will. Zoe’ll make you.”
    Cade intervened. “You have to go to school, son. You need an education.”
    Brody scooted forward in his chair. “Ma said you never finished school, and you know stuff.”
    “You need to know more stuff than I do. Besides, I had to quit. My pa got sick, and I had to go to work for a farmer to put food on our table.”
    Will sat up straighter. “You know plenty of stuff. Pa said you’re the best there is at shootin’ bad guys.”
    “Yeah,” Brody said. “A boy at school said you shoot ’em dead. You hardly ever bring ’em in alive.”
    Cade frowned, disturbed by the boy’s misconceptions. While he did what was necessary to collect a bounty, he’d always given his prey fair warning, and he’d never shot a man in the back.
    Holly stared at him with eyes so like Addy’s, it was chilling. “Ma said killin’s nothin’ for a man to be proud of.”
    “Your ma’s right, but there’re times when it’s necessary.”
    “Ma said she prayed for you every night, prayed you’d come home and we’d all be a family again.”
    “We are a family,” Brody insisted.
    “Yeah,” Will said. “Can I hold your gun?”
    Cade shook his head. “No one holds my gun but me.”
    Glori-Lee returned with a whole pie, a large cake, and a big pitcher of thick cream. “Help yourselves, young’uns. Heaven help you. You’ll all get bellyaches.”
    The children proved well mannered and polite, and Cade felt an uncle’s pride as the meal progressed smoothly. He had to admit that a meal of pie, cake, and cream was a change from his usual beans and hardtack.
    “I need to ask you kids something. We have to decide where you’re going to live.”
    Missy’s face clouded. “We don’t want a