Lonely Dove
When Jake woke he looked at her and grinned, and his hand, warm now, went right back to work.
“If I ain’t careful I’m apt to sprout up again,” he said.
Lorena wanted to ask him why his breath smelled like cedar but she didn’t know if she ought, since he had just come to
town. But then she asked him, a little shocked at hearing her own voice make the question.
“Why, I passed a cedar grove and cut myself some toothpicks,” Jake said. “There’s nothing that sweetens the breath like a
cedar toothpick, unless it’s mint, and mint don’t grow in these parts.”