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me that hardware will wait for a man?”
    Phae grinned. “You know what I mean.”
    “Don’t look now, but I think we’re getting more visitors.” Kent motioned toward three teenage boys nearing the table.
    Phae sighed. Family. She had way too much of it in Zeke’s Bend.
    “Hi there, cuz,” said the tallest of the three, Jackson. “Whatcha doin?”
    Phae introduced Jackson, Tonio and Neptune. They were fourteen years old, cousins, good-looking kids and about the biggest scoundrels in the entire Jones family. Good thing they were likable or everyone might have worried more over them.
    Tonio had a mischievous gleam in his eye. “You don’t need to tell us who this guy is. We’ve heard all about him.”
    “That’s right,” Neptune added. “So, Kent, you run into any poles lately?”
    The three boys burst into laughter. Kent smiled.
    Phae leveled a scolding look at them. “Get out of here, you jokers. Don’t you have a lawn to mow or something?”
    “We’re just having some fun, Phae. Don’t get all mean on us,” Jackson said, cowering in fake fear.
    “So Kent,” Tonio said, “we heard what Uncle Leon was telling you and—”
    “Heck, people on the sidewalk heard him,” Neptune said.
    “Uncle Leon’s right, you know,” Jackson continued. “Phae sends all the men running. We like her okay, but she can be pretty mean when she gets going. If you thought that pole was hard, wait until you butt heads with Phae.”
    The boys roared in glee, Phae got half out of her chair. The scoundrels ran out of the cafe, still laughing like hyenas.
    “My family is loaded with comedians,” Phae said.
    “And this cafe is filled with your family,” Kent said. “How many more can I expect?”
    “No telling. Half the town is related to me in some way or other. You do know, don’t you, that it was an ancestor of mine who founded this town, Zeke Jones.”
    “I didn’t know. So I’m sitting with local royalty, am I?”
    “That’s right. And I’ll appreciate it if you bow next time before you speak to me.”
    “Warning heard.”
    “But not heeded, I bet.”
    “So who was Zeke Jones?”
    Phae liked to tell the story of her family in Zeke’s Bend. It was part of the connection she felt to the town and the people in it. “He was a trapper and trader. He’d winter in the hills and in the summer he’d sell his furs out of a little trading post he set up on a bend in the Elk River. Did a decent business with the river traffic they had back then.”
    “Eventually, he got married and had lots of children,” she continued, “and they settled the area. It’s a great place to live, so it grew into an actual town. And now you see it, heavily over-populated with Zeke Jones’ descendants, like me.”
    “You speak about it like you own the place, in a good way.”
    “I guess so. It feels like it belongs to me, small and podunky though it might be.”
    “I wouldn’t call it podunky,” he said. “Oh, looks like more Joneses are coming our way.”
    Phae glanced in the direction he was looking. “Two of my great aunts, Charmaine and Chelly. They’re sweet. They’ll probably flutter around you and pat your head. Hope we don’t run into Great-Great-Great-Aunt Elfleda. She’s ninety-six and still going strong. Sees through people like they’re screen doors.”
    Kent groaned. “Exactly how much family do you have in this town?”
    “Let me put it this way—don’t say anything bad about anyone in Zeke’s Bend. We’re practically all connected in one way or another.”
    “I’m beginning to see why you’re so mean and crotchety.”
    “I’m not mean and crotchety. I simply tell it like I see it.”
    “Too bad,” Kent said with an exaggerated forlorn expression on his face. “It so happens that I like mean, crotchety women. Now introduce me to your aunts.”
    Thirty minutes later, Phae signed with relief as the last of her relatives left the cafe. She’d endured three more aunts, a great-uncle, two