Page 29 of Nomad

As she dropped into the chair he spooned a large helping of ‘dirty’ eggs onto her plate.

“Hey!” she said. “You said taste. Not consume a dozen eggs.”

“There’s not more than two eggs there, missy. And you need the protein.”

She gaped. “Now it’s missy?”

He chuckled. “This mornin’ it is. Keep up.”

“I’ll see what I can do, pumpkin.”

He laughed out loud. She’d done it again. Made him forget for a second that he was a hapless man overdue for a meeting with suicide.

Bud took a long, long look at a tiny bit of scrambled eggs on her fork before she put it in her mouth, but her expression quickly changed from revulsion for the food to respect for Cann.

“This is good.” She said it like it was a miracle.

“Yeah. I know.”

While Bud looked on, Cann used a spatula to separate a biscuit and delivered it to her plate. She supposed the last time she’d been fed by another person was before her earliest memory. He rose and grabbed the open butter container he’d used to grease the biscuit pan.

“Hunted around in there.” He meant the ice chest. “But I didn’t see any jam or jelly or honey.”

“Butter’s fine.”

“Okay.”

She took a bite of hot buttered biscuit and moaned softly. “This is so good. I don’t know. Maybe the best food I ever had.”

“Well, you know what they say.”

“What?”

“That the best food is the food you don’t have to cook yourself.” He chuckled.

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Might be something to that.”

Bud didn’t hear anything, but Cann’s head suddenly jerked toward the front of the house. It only took his long legs three strides to reach the windows. He relaxed visibly.

“Must be Maria.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the vehicle is not exactly this year’s model. Or last year’s.”

Bud nodded. “I get it.”

By the time Maria was knocking at the door, they were finished with breakfast and clearing the table.

After hellos, Cann had a conversation with Maria in Spanish. She appeared to be in her forties and had an engaging smile which she turned toward Bud three times during the conversation with Cannon Johns.

“What size shoes do you wear?”

“Seven. Why?”

“Maria’s goin’ to go into Presidio and get you a pair of hikin’ boots, just in case we end up walkin’ around. You can’t wear those…” He waved at her feet. “Whatever those are.”

“Keds.”