“I did, and now I’m going to my cabin. Maybe I’ll even dream about him,” she said. “Playing in the rain reminded me of when I was a little girl and Granny let me catch raindrops on my tongue.”

“There’s a picture in her album of you doin’ that. She’d laugh every year when we got the pictures out and looked at them,” Zed said.

“Good night, Uncle Zed. I’m so glad that I’m here.” She kissed him on the top of his gray head and danced all the way to her cabin as she sang the lyrics to Blake and Miranda’s song, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma.”

Tears ran down Zed’s cheeks. “Annie, did you hear that? Did you see her kiss me? Oh, my darlin’ Annie, this is the best night I’ve had since you went on ahead of me. She’s happy like them other two.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It rained all day Monday and Tuesday and got serious Wednesday with lots of thunder and lightning thrown in. They’d had so many cancellations that the only two occupied cabins belonged to Harper and Tawny. No one was interested in spending time at the lake when the only thing to do was run through the rain three times a day to get something to eat at the café.

At noon a single fellow braved the weather to eat at the café, and Zed hurried back to the kitchen when he saw the man hang his raincoat on the back of a chair. Harper didn’t recognize the guy, so she raised an eyebrow toward Dana.

“Zedekiah Williamson!” The man followed him across the floor and through the swinging doors. “You cannot run from me. You missed your appointment this morning and there’s no excuse for it.”

All three sisters slid back their chairs and crowded into the kitchen. The stranger had a rim of gray hair, beady little blue eyes set in a big, round baby face, and a paunchy gut that hung out over his belt.

“Who are you?” Harper asked.

“Dr. Glenn Tipton. Zedekiah did not make his appointment this morning. I’ve been his and Annie’s doctor for thirty years. Why didn’t he even call to cancel? I thought maybe he’d died.” The doctor’s eyes shifted from one sister to the other and then came back to settle on Harper.

“We’re Annie’s granddaughters,” she explained. “Is it too late to get Uncle Zed in to see you today? I’ll bring him myself.”

“I ain’t dead and I can drive myself. I didn’t want to get out in this rain,” Zed fussed.

The doctor handed a card to Harper. “Friday afternoon at three o’clock. You’ll have him there, right?”

“I don’t need a chauffeur. I’ll be there. Now the bunch of you get out of my kitchen and let me make this man a cheeseburger,” Zed grumbled as he pointed toward the door.

“Is Uncle Zed sick?” Tawny asked outright when she took a glass of water to the doctor’s table.

Harper’s chest tightened at that thought. “Is this just a routine checkup, or is it something that he’ll need a driver to bring him home?”

“Are you doing tests?” Dana asked bluntly.

“Just a checkup, ladies. And I’ll have the biggest glass you got back there of sweet tea to go with my lunch. So y’all are the granddaughters that Annie talked about so often?”

“Harper.” She raised a hand.

“Dana.” She nodded.

“Tawny. And you would tell us if Uncle Zed had something wrong with him, right?”

Zed set a basket filled with sweet potato fries and a plate with a huge double-meat, double-cheese burger in front of the doctor. “He’s bound by some of them new privacy laws to keep his mouth shut, but I’m tellin’ all of you that this is just my three-month checkup. Last time me and Annie went, we was together for the checkup. Besides the rain, I just didn’t want to go without her. That’s all there is to it.”

Harper had lived on the edge long enough to smell a rat when there was one present, and Zed was not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If she made him place his hand on the Bible and raise the other toward heaven and swear that he was fit as a freshly tuned fiddle, she’d bet dollars to dead fish that there was something more to be said. Doctors didn’t check on patients in the pouring-down rain.

She touched each sister on the arm and nodded toward the outside. “I’m in the mood for a candy bar. Y’all want to go with me to the store?”

“There’s a whole stand full of umbrellas in the kitchen. Me and Annie got them when we had to close up the door between the store and the café,” Zed said.

Harper laid a hand on Zed’s shoulder. “Call me if we get a big rush?”

“Ain’t damn likely,” he said gruffly.

The rain had slowed considerably, so the umbrellas kept them from being drenched when they reached the store. They ducked inside and Harper went straight for the candy rack, picked up three of the biggest bars, and laid them on the counter.

Harper felt like she had a stone in her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. “I’m treating today. Put these on my bill, and be honest. Do either of y’all think Uncle Zed is sick? A doctor coming to the café? It don’t sound good.”

Tawny peeled back the wrapper and took a big bite of the chocolate. She held up a finger, which meant she needed time to think, and when she finally spoke, her voice cracked. “He’s lost weight and he’s coughing more and more. Oh, Lord, what would we ever do without him?”