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  He and Mom did the bulk of the cooking, and she and her sisters took turns providing salads and desserts. Unless CeeCee came. Dad’s mother, at eighty-four, fancied herself a mother hen to them all. And CeeCee had dibs on dessert duty—unless her bridge club got changed to Tuesday night. Then all bets were off.

  The dinners were a nice idea, and Corinne appreciated that not every family was blessed to live close enough to each other that they could do this—or liked each other enough that they’d want to. But she wondered how long it could continue. Already she and Jesse had needed to bow out of some church activities and rearrange Sari’s dance lessons to clear their Tuesdays. Things would only get crazier as the girls got older.

  But at least Jesse was amenable to the idea—probably mostly because Mom was a much better cook than she was. And CeeCee’s dessert offerings got more elaborate every week, making Jesse’s sweet tooth very happy. He’d dubbed CeeCee the Dessert Diva. Oddly enough, Jesse’s favorite part of Tuesday nights—next to CeeCee—was that the men did the dishes. Not that he was crazy about kitchen cleanup, but he was crazy about her dad and her brother Link, and Danae and Landyn’s husbands, too. That affection had only grown stronger since Jesse’s father had died. With his mom staying indefinitely at his sister’s out in California, the Whitmans were the only family Jesse had in the state.

  It warmed Corinne’s heart to see the way he fit in with her family. Especially when she knew some of her friends’ husbands couldn’t stand their in-laws and made elaborate excuses to get out of spending time with them.

  She loved spending time with family too. But being together with her family, even just being on Chicory Lane where she’d grown up, also brought back memories of Tim. Things would never seem quite right at a Whitman gathering without her youngest brother. Tim’s wife—widow—would be here, and they loved Bree like a sister. And yet her presence also emphasized the empty place at the table.

  If only Tim hadn’t gone to Afghanistan . . . Corinne was proud of the sacrifice her marine brother had made for his country. And in many ways, his death had brought their family even closer. Still, where Tim was concerned, even after four years, she was still smothered in if onlys.

  She brushed off the thoughts and pushed up her sleeves. “What can I do, Mom?” Turning on the faucet in the deep kitchen sink, she let the water run until it was warm, then washed and dried her hands.

  “You can cut up some celery and green peppers for a relish tray. I think Dad invited our guests to supper tonight. We might need to stretch things a bit.” She looked toward the staircase that led to the upstairs guest rooms and made a face that said she wasn’t crazy about the prospect.

  Corinne lowered her voice. “Is it someone you know?”

  “No. Complete strangers from Ohio. And they’ve got their kids with them. Good kids though,” she added quickly. She looked across the kitchen through the window to the backyard. “Looks like Jesse already has something organized out there with them.”

  Jesse had shed his hoodie and was directing some sort of game that involved a giant bouncy ball from Walmart and a whiffle ball bat. No doubt some crazy game he and Link had invented on the spot. Sari and Sadie were playing with the two boys from Ohio as if they were favorite cousins.

  Corinne rolled her eyes, grinning. “I married the Pied Piper of Chicory Lane.”

  “You married well,” Mom said, shaking a finger at her. “He’s so good with the kids. Not only yours, I mean, but he just has a way with children.”

  “He does.” Pride swelled her heart as she watched him out the window. “I hope they don’t get too dirty before—”

  “Are we the last ones here?” Danae and Dallas appeared in the kitchen door, each bearing a covered bowl. Danae went immediately to the refrigerator and within seconds had deposited her bowls and shut the door.

  “Hey! How did you do that? I couldn’t get my dish in there with a shoehorn.”

  Danae shrugged, smiling. “Just talented, I guess.”

  “The guys are in the backyard, Dallas,” Mom said. Again, she glanced upstairs and lowered her voice. “Just to warn you, we have extra guests tonight. Your dad hit it off with some people who had reservations for graduation this past weekend. Apparently he invited them to join us for dinner.”

  Danae shot Corinne a look that said she felt the same as Mom about the outsiders. “Is that who the little boys running around outside belong to?”

  Mom nodded.

  “I wondered.”

  Dallas winked at Corinne. “I thought maybe you were trying to arrange marriages for your girls.”

  “Please! According to Jesse they aren’t even allowed to date till they’re thirty-five, so don’t let him hear you say that.”

  Her brother-in-law made a motion of zipping his lip before he headed out to the backyard to join the others.

  Landyn and Chase arrived with the twins and enough paraphernalia in tow to open a Babies“R”Us franchise.

  “Dibs!” Corrine called, quickly drying her hands and racing to relieve Chase of the infant he was holding. “Come here, sweetie. I can’t believe how much you’ve grown already.” She cooed at the tiny girl. “This is Emma, right? Or wait . . . is it Grace?”

  The twins weren’t identical, but at one month old and both with heads as slick as cue balls, it was hard to tell them apart.

  “That’s Grace. You can tell by the G on her shirt.” Chase gave her a sarcastic thumbs up. “Emma’s got an E. Oh and”—he tapped his daughter on the top of the head—“this end goes up.”

  “Okay, smart aleck.” She rolled her eyes at her brother-in-law. “I think I can figure it out from here.”

  Landyn helped her settle in the living room with the twins, and twenty minutes later Corinne had worked her magic, and the babies were sleeping side by side on a pallet of quilts behind the sofa.

  Mom came to the doorway. “Everything’s ready. Can you girls come and eat?”

  Huckleberry came over to sniff at the quilt. “No, Huck,” Corinne said gruffly, pushing the Lab’s head away from the makeshift bed. “Don’t you dare wake those babies up.”

  “Come on, boy.” Mom lured the dog away with the promise of scraps.

  When everyone had straggled in from the backyard and gathered in the great room, Dad made introductions to the inn’s guests he’d invited.

  The Pattersons seemed like a nice family, but it struck Corinne that her dad might’ve had an ulterior motive in inviting them to stay for family dinner. The man loved to show off his family. She curbed a grin and thought Dad might literally burst his buttons with pride.

  She only hoped her girls behaved during dinner. Simone had been a bit of a brat these last couple of weeks while Jesse was gone. She shouldered the blame for a lot of it. She hadn’t kept the girls on their regular bedtime schedule, and she’d let them watch way too much TV. She might pay for it now. She shot up a quick prayer that they’d make their Poppa proud tonight.

  After she’d fixed the girls’ plates and gotten them settled at the kids’ table with the Patterson boys, she slipped in line at the buffet beside Jesse. She was filling her own plate when his cell phone chirped the tone he’d assigned to his office.

  She gave him a questioning look. “Please tell me they’re not going to ask you to come in to work.” It was getting ridiculous how many hours they expected him to put in.

  Jesse shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I’d better take this. Save me a place. I’ll be right back.” He put the phone to his ear and headed out to the front hall, swinging his still empty plate at his side.

  Mom slipped in line behind her, eyeing the hall. “Everything okay?”

  “It is unless they make Jesse come in and work tonight. They seem to think he has to do the marketing guys’ jobs too.”

  Thankfully, he was back a minute later. He loaded his plate and took the seat Corinne had reserved for him. “Do you have to go in?”

  He shook his head, not meeting her gaze and instead, stuffed h
is mouth. “Somebody just had a question,” he said over a forkful of barbecue.

  “Thank goodness.” She was relieved, yet something seemed odd about Jesse’s refusal to look her in the eye. She hoped he wasn’t just telling her what she wanted to hear for now.

  After the guys finished the dishes and it was beginning to get dark, Corinne found Jesse in the front yard pointing out the constellations to the girls—and to the Patterson boys, who apparently lived in LA and had never seen a starry night sky. Jesse had a rapt audience, and Corinne was grateful he hadn’t had to go in to work.

  No sooner had the thought entered her mind than his phone rang again. This time, from the pocket of his jacket that he’d left flopped over the porch railing.

  She was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but this one wasn’t his office phone. It might be important. “Hey, Jesse. Your phone. Do you want me to get it?”

  He didn’t hear her, so she fished it out of his pocket. Michaela Creeve’s name was in the Caller ID, and a photo of her that looked like some attention-starved teenager’s Facebook profile pic. What was she doing calling Jesse after work hours?

  She debated whether or not to answer, not wanting to pull Jesse away from the kids. But curiosity ultimately got the best of her and she clicked Answer. “Hello?”

  The line instantly went dead. Interesting. Was it just a coincidence that Michaela had given up on Jesse answering just as Corinne picked up? Or did the woman just not want to talk to her?

  In the car on the short trip home, she tried to broach the subject casually with Jesse. “You missed a call when you were outside with the kids. After dinner.”

  “Oh?” Jesse seemed intent on the gravel road, familiar though it was. “Who was it?”

  “Michaela Creeve.”

  That earned her a glance. “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know. She hung up as soon as I answered.” She looked out her window, waiting for some kind of response. It didn’t comfort her that her husband didn’t reply.

  6

  Jesse put the car in Park and slowly opened his door. He’d never dreaded going in to work before, but he had an onerous task before him today. He’d wrestled with this decision ever since returning from Chicago, but last night had been the last straw. He couldn’t just ignore it any longer.

  Michaela’s car wasn’t in the Preston-Brilon parking lot. He wished she wasn’t always late getting in to work. He would rather have had the dreaded conversation away from prying eyes at work, but that would have made him a complete hypocrite about the very things he needed to discuss with her.

  He went down to the break room for a cup of coffee. When he came back upstairs, he was surprised to see her at her desk.

  “Good morning, Jesse.” She was all smiles as if they shared some secret.

  “Morning. Uh . . . do you have a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  He looked around the sales room. Larry and Wayne were on the phone and Delia looked engrossed in whatever was on her computer screen, but this conversation had the potential to get uncomfortable quickly. “Would you mind if we went into the conference room?”

  She raised a penciled eyebrow. “Sure.” She grabbed a lip gloss from her top desk drawer and coated her lips quickly before rising and following him down the hallway.

  Before he got to the conference room, he could hear that someone had beaten them to it. He turned on his heel and almost ran headlong into Michaela. He sidestepped and pointed the other way back toward his office. “It’s taken already. I guess we can use my office if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” The mild curiosity that had coated her voice earlier edged up a notch. “Am I in trouble?” But her playful laughter said it had never crossed her mind that she might actually be in trouble.

  He ignored her question and quickened his step. Once in his office, he cleared off the chair in front of his desk and motioned for her to take it, then went behind his desk and sat down.

  She looked behind her at the door. “You look pretty serious. Do I need to close the door?”

  “No.” Absolutely not. “I just wanted to talk with you about—” He’d rehearsed fifteen different speeches on the drive to work, but now they all sounded accusatory and a little ridiculous. “Corinne said you called last night. Was there something work related that—”

  “Oh, Jesse!” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Did I get you in trouble? I’m so sorry.”

  “Get me in trouble?”

  “With your wife. I wasn’t expecting her to answer and I guess I might have hung up on her. I just—”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by getting me in trouble, but no. I just wondered what you wanted.”

  She glanced toward the hallway again and her voice went sultry. “You needed privacy to ask me that?”

  “Was there something . . .” He cleared his throat and started again, making an effort to sound fully business-like. “Did you have a question about work?”

  “Last night you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not really. I just wanted to . . . talk. I was thinking about our conversation in Chicago, and I just had a few other thoughts.”

  “Our conversation?” They’d talked about a lot of things during the trip—most of them at dinner with other sales associates and clients.

  She gave him a coy look, as if he should remember the conversation.

  Not wanting to encourage her attitude, he cut to the chase. “Michaela, I’d prefer you not call me at home—or outside of work.”

  She crossed and uncrossed her legs, watching him intently as she did so. “That’s not the vibe I was getting last week.”

  “Wha—?” He drew back as if she’d slapped him. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but if I somehow gave the wrong—impression, I sincerely apologize.”

  “Oh, you gave an impression all right. But hey”—she held up a hand—“if Mrs. Pennington got a whiff of what was going on and I got you in trouble, then I apologize.”

  “Of what was . . . going on? Listen, I don’t know what you’re implying, but there was nothing going on.” He motioned between them. “Nothing between us, I mean.” He pushed back his chair and rose, eager to have her out of his office.

  He came around from behind his desk, but she didn’t budge. “So what exactly was this meeting about?”

  He took two steps backward and reached to steady himself with a hand on his desk. “I simply wanted to ask that you not call me outside of work hours—unless it’s an emergency, of course.”

  Her chin went up. “I resent what you are implying, Mr. Pennington.” She’d never called him that. He’d been simply Jesse to her from the first time they’d been introduced the day she started work at Preston-Brilon. And recently, the too-familiar Jess.

  “I am not implying anything. Truly. I’m just . . . requesting. That’s all.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “What?” What, indeed. What had he gotten himself into?

  Michaela jumped up and huffed. “Don’t worry. And you can tell your wife she has nothing to worry about.”

  “This has nothing to do with my wife.”

  “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes, looking more like a sixteen-year-old than the twenty-six she’d claimed to be.

  He balled his fingers into fists and counted slowly to himself, knowing he could not afford to let her get to him. Stepping around her, he gripped the door to his office, eager to close it behind her. When she didn’t budge, he said, “That’s all.”

  The look she gave him sent a shard of something close to fear racing through him.

  “Oh, you’ll wish that was all,” she said between clenched teeth. She rose, swept past him, and stormed down the hall.

  * * *

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Corinne put the bowl of scalloped potatoes in front of Jesse. “Did I get them too salty?”

  “No, they’re fine. I’m just full.”

  “How can you be
full? You barely touched your food and we’re eating later than usual tonight.” An hour later than they normally had supper. Simone was already in bed for the night and it would soon be the older girls’ bedtime. “Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”

  “No, I’m fine.” He pushed his plate away, then, as if an afterthought, patted her hand. “It was great. Really. I’m just not hungry.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself.” She turned to the girls. “Sadie, eat your beans.”

  “I did, Mama. See?” The four-year-old tipped her mostly untouched plate up for inspection.

  “You need to eat a few more. I can’t even tell you made a dent.”

  “Can I eat two and be done?”

  “Eat the two biggest beans and you can be done, or eat the five biggest ones and get dessert.”

  “Mo-om!” The whining started in earnest. “I don’t want to eat five.”

  “Fine, you don’t have to. You only have to eat two. I’m just saying if you want dessert, you need to eat five.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “Sadie!” Jesse banged a fist on the table. “Do as your mother says.”

  That put a stop to the whining, but Sadie slumped in her chair and sat with her lower lip pushed out as far as it would go.

  Something was eating at Jesse, and his foul mood was rubbing off on the whole family.

  “Mom brought over some leftover cobbler from the inn. Do you want some? There’s ice cream.” That was usually the ticket out of his moods.

  But Jesse pushed away from the table. “Maybe later.” He carried his plate and glass to the sink and scraped his food into the disposal.

  “Finish up, girls . . . Come on now. It’s time for baths.” Corinne rose and cleared her own plate, then followed Jesse into the living room. She studied him for a minute. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why?” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “You just seem . . . I don’t know . . . preoccupied.”

  “Just work stuff. It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t seem like nothing. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. It’s no big deal.” He turned and grabbed the newspaper off the end table. “I’m going down to watch the news and read the paper.”