Cherry Pie by Samantha Kane Page A

could mean it, Johnny,” he said quietly, his voice muffled. “I don’t know if I can ever mean it.”
    John didn’t know what to say or do. But he knew he had to say something. “I’m sorry about what you told me yesterday,” he said quietly.
    Connor straightened from the wall, his back to John. He brushed his hands over his cheeks, and John pretended not to notice. “We gonna do anything with the gardens?” he asked roughly. “They’re lookin’ pretty bad.”
    “I don’t really have a relationship with plants,” John confessed.
    Connor let out a weak laugh. “You don’t really have a relationship with anything, John.” John took a step back as Connor looked at him over his shoulder, his eyes red. “Do we need garden tools?”
    John shook his head. “I got that far.”
    Connor nodded. “I guess you had to, to fix up Digger’s grave.”
    John walked past Connor, resisting the urge to throw his arms around his broad shoulders and hold on for dear life. “I deal better with the dead.”
    Connor grabbed his arm, and John’s coffee sloshed onto the floor. He turned to glare at Connor.
    “I’m coming alive, Johnny. One of these days you’re going to have to deal with me.” He turned again and walked out the back. He must be getting dizzy.
    “No one calls me Johnny,” he hollered after Connor.
    “I do,” Connor yelled back.
    John hated when someone else got the last word.

Chapter Nine
     
    Conn heard her before he saw her. A tap, tap, tap on the sidewalk. He remembered that sound from his childhood. Miss Priscilla Jones was coming to visit. He used to run inside and wash his hands right away and yell for his mother. She’d come bustling down the path and open the gate for Miss Priscilla and help her up onto the porch, where they’d sit for hours talking, drinking lemonade and eating cherry pie. Miss Priss didn’t drink liquor. Not once that he’d known her. But she was addicted to his mama’s cherry pie.
    She came for her weekly manicure. Barbara Meecham gave them on weekends to most of the ladies in the town for extra cash. Pedicures too. Usually she went to their houses, but Miss Priss always came to theirs. Conn liked that best. He could run and play and do what he wanted here. He had to behave himself at everyone else’s house. When he was a teenager, he’d sit on the steps and strum the guitar while they gossiped, the smell of nail polish making his nose itch while the click of forks on plates made him hungry.
    He set down the shovel he’d been digging up the weeds with. There weren’t any flowers left here along the front fence. He was just digging it all up and starting from scratch. If Johnny wanted to buy all new lumber, he could get all new plants too. Conn had done some gardening work at jail. He liked those bright yellow daylilies. He wanted to line the fence with them and put a couple of rosebushes by the gate.
    He wiped his hands on his new shorts and then cursed himself. He was trying to keep them nice for a while. They were camo cargo shorts. And a damn sight more comfortable than his jeans in the heat. He couldn’t do anything about the white T-shirt. It was smudged with dirt, but he had a good excuse. He fought the urge to run inside and wash his hands. Instead he just stood there, watching the intersection of Justice and Goodman Streets, waiting for Miss Priss to come into view.
    When he saw her, it was like a punch to the gut. He’d had way too many of those in the last few weeks. Damn if this coming home wasn’t harder than he’d thought. She paused at the corner when she saw him. She didn’t wave, just turned and walked his way. She looked older, which surprised him. He’d thought she was ancient when he was little. She was walking so slow he felt self-conscious just standing there. She wore all white, making her brown skin look like dark chocolate. When he was six, he asked her if she tasted like chocolate. Conn had thought his mama was going to have a heart