by Nora Roberts
refrigerator.
"I was just going to get a—"
"No, you're not. I want you to set the table—"
"It's Kev's night to set and clear. I'm on dish duty."
"Tonight you set and wash."
"How come I have to set and wash? I didn't invite some dopey girl to dinner."
"Because I said so. Set the table in the dining room. Use the good dishes."
"How come we're eating in there? It's not Thanksgiving."
"And the linen napkins," she added. "The ones with roses on them. Six place settings. Wash your hands first."
"Jeez. She's just a girl. You'd think the Queen of England or somebody was coming over."
He stalked to the sink, ran water while he curled his lip, exactly as his father had done. "I'm never bringing a girl over here."
"I'll remind you of that in a couple of years." Because the idea of her little boy bringing a girl home to dinner made her eyes sting, Anna sniffed and poured marinade over chicken breasts.
"I'll think twice about it myself," Seth muttered under his breath.
"I beg your pardon?"
He winced. "Nothing. It's just, well hell, Anna, I've brought girls over before. Dru even ate here before and you didn't go into a fit over it."
"That's different. She dropped by unexpectedly, and you barely knew her."
"Yeah, but—"
"And you may have brought girls here before, but you never invited the woman you're in love with to dinner before. Men don't understand anything. They understand nothing at all, and I don't know why I've been plagued by a herd of them."
"Don't cry. Oh man. Oh God. Please, don't do that."
"I'll cry if I want to. You just try to stop me."
"Nice going," Jake muttered and fled to the dining room.
"I'll make the chicken." Desperate, Seth abandoned his potatoes and rushed over to stroke Anna's hair. "You just tell me what you want me to do with it. And the rest of it, too. And I'll do the dishes after, and… " He stepped back. "I never said I was in love with Dru."
"What, now I'm blind and stupid?" She grabbed the olive oil and Dijon to mix up her special sauce for the potatoes. "Get me the damn Worcestershire sauce."
Instead, he took her hands, then ran his up her arms. "I barely finished telling her. How come you know this stuff?"
"Because, you stupid idiot, I love you. Get away from me. I'm busy."
He laid his cheek on hers, and sighed.
"Damn it." She threw her arms around him. "I want you to be happy. I want you to be so happy."
"I am." He pressed his face into her hair. "A little spooked along with it."
"It's not real if you're not a little spooked." She held tight another moment, then let go. "Now get out of here. Guest soaps, towels. Toilet seats down. And find a pair of jeans that doesn't have holes."
"I'm not sure I have any. And thanks, Anna."
"You're welcome. But you're still doing the dishes." From the dining room came Jake's enthusiastic woo-hoo.
"I APPRECIATE your letting me impose this way. Again."
Anna chose a dark blue vase for the cheerful black-eyed Susans Dru had brought her. "We're happy to have you. It's no trouble at all."
"I can't imagine a last-minute dinner guest, after you've worked all day, is no trouble at all."
"Oh, it's just chicken. Nothing fussy." Anna smiled thinly as Jake rolled his eyes dramatically behind Dru's back. "Is there something you want, Jake?"
"Just wondering when we're going to eat."
"You'll be the first to know." She set the flowers on the kitchen table. "Go tell Seth to come open this lovely wine Dru brought for us. We'll have a glass before dinner."
"People could starve around here," Jake complained—in a whisper—as he trooped out of the kitchen.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Dru asked. The kitchen smelled fantastic. Something, she assumed it was the chicken, was simmering in a covered skillet.
"We're under control, thanks." With a deft hand, Anna lifted the lid on the skillet, shook it lightly by the handle, poked with a kitchen fork, then set the lid back. "Do you cook?"
"Not like this. I've gotten very adept at boiling pasta, nuking up jarred sauce and mixing it together."
"Oh. My heart," Anna said, and laughed. "Raw clay. I love molding raw clay. One of these days I'll show you how to make a nice, basic red sauce, and see where we can go from there. Seth." Anna beamed at him when he came in. "Open the wine, will you? Pour Dru a glass. You can take her out and show her how my perennials are coming along while I finish putting dinner together."
"I'm glad to help," Dru protested. "I may not cook, but I follow instructions well."
"Next time. Just go out with Seth, enjoy your wine. We'll be ready in ten minutes."
Anna shooed them out, then, delighted with herself, rubbed her hands together before diving into the rest of the preparations.
In fifteen minutes, they were seated in the rarely used dining room, a half dozen tea lights flickering. The dog, Dru noted, had been banished.
"These are beautiful dishes," Dru commented.
"I love them. Cam and I bought them in Italy, on our honeymoon."
"If you break one," Jake put in as he attacked his chicken, "you get shackled in the basement so the rats can eat your ears."
"Jake!" With a baffled laugh, Anna passed the potatoes to her left. "What a thing to say. We don't even have a basement."
"That's what Dad said you'd do, even if you had to dig a basement. Right, Dad?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Eat some asparagus."
"Do I have to?"
"If I have to, you have to."
"Neither of you have to." Anna prayed for patience.
"Cool, more for me." Kevin reached enthusiastically for the platter before he caught his mother's warning look. "What? I like it."
"Then ask for it, Mr. Smooth, instead of diving across the table. We don't let them out of the kennel very often," Cam told Dru.
"I always wanted brothers."
"What for?" Jake asked her. "They mostly just pound on you."
"Well, you do look pretty well battered," she considered. "I always thought it would be fun to have someone to talk to—and to pound on. Someone to take some of the heat when my parents were annoyed or irritated. When you're an only child, there's no one to diffuse the focus, if you know what I mean. And no one to eat the asparagus when you don't want it."
"Yeah, but Kev swiped half the good Halloween candy last year."
"Jeez, get over it."
Jake eyed his brother. "I never forget. All data is stored in my memory banks. And one day, candy pig, you will pay."
"You're such a geek."
"Thesbo."
"That's Jake's latest insult." Seth gestured with his wineglass. "A play on thespian, since Kev's into that."
"Rhymes with lesbo," Jake explained helpfully while Anna stifled a groan. "It's a slick way of calling him a girl."
"Clever. I enjoyed your school play last month," she said to Kevin. "I thought it was wonderfully done. Are you thinking of going on to study theater in college?"
"Yeah. I really like it. Plays are cool, but I like movies even better. The guys and I have made some really awesome videos. The last one we did, Slashed, was the best. It's about this one-armed psycho killer who stalks these hunters through the woods. Carves them up, one by one, in revenge because one of them shot off his arm in this freak hunting accident. It has flashbacks and everything. Want to see it?"
"Sure."
"I didn't know you went to Kevin's play."
Dru shifted her attention to Seth. "I like to keep up with community events. And I love little theater."
"We could've gone together."
She picked up her wine, smiled at him over it in a way that made Anna's heart swell. "Like a date?"
"Dru has a philosophical objection to dating," Seth said, with his eyes on hers. "Why is that?"
"Bec
ause it often involves men who don't interest me. But primarily I haven't had time for that sort of socializing since I moved here. Starting up, then running the shop have been priorities."
"What made you decide to be a florist?" Anna asked her.
"I had to ask myself what I could do—then out of that, what I'd enjoy the most. I enjoyed flowers. I took some courses, and discovered I had a talent with them."
"It takes a lot of courage to start a business, and to come to a new place to do it."
"I'd have withered if I'd stayed in Washington. That sounds dramatic. I needed a new place. My own place. Everything I considered doing, everywhere I considered going, kept circling back around to Saint Christopher and a flower shop. A flower shop puts you right in the deep end of the pool."
"How is that?" Cam wondered.
"You become instantly intimate with the community. When you sell flowers, you know who's having a birthday, an anniversary. You know who's died, who's had a baby. Who's in love, or making up from a fight, who got a promotion, who's ill. And in a small town, like this one, you invariably get details along with it."
She thought for a moment, then spoke in a lazy Shore accent. "Old Mrs. Wilcox died—would've been eighty-nine come September. Came home from the market and had a stroke right there in the kitchen while she was putting away her canned goods. Too bad she didn't make things up with her sister before it was too late. They haven't spoke word one to each other in twelve years."
"That's good." Amused, Cam propped his chin on his hand. More than looks and brains, he thought. There was warmth and humor in there, too. Once you tickled it out of her.
Seth was toast.
"And I thought it was just pushing posies," he added.
"Oh, it's a great deal more than that. When a man comes in, frantic because he just remembered his wedding anniversary, it's my job not to simply put the right flowers into his hands, but to remain discreet."
"Like a priest," Cam put in and made her laugh.
"Not so far from that. You'd be amazed at the confessions I hear. It's all in a day's work."
"You love it," Anna murmured.
"I do. I really do. I love the business itself, and I love being part of something. In Washington…" She caught herself, a bit amazed at how easily she'd rambled. "Things were different," she said at length. "This is what I was looking for."
HE FOLLOWED her home, where they sat on her porch steps in the warm summer night, watching fireflies dance in the dark.
"You had a good time?"
"I had a wonderful time. The dinner, getting to know your family a little better. The sail."
"Good." He brought her hand to his lips. "Because Anna's going to pass the word, and you'll be expected to repeat the performance at Grace's, and at Sybill's."
"Oh." She hadn't thought of that. "I'll need to reciprocate. I'll need to have everyone over for…"
She'd have to have it catered, of course. And she'd have to determine how best to keep a number of teenagers entertained.
"I'm out of my league," she admitted. "The kind of dinner party I'm used to hosting isn't what's called for here."
"You want to have everyone over?" The idea delighted him. "We'll get a grill and cook out. We'll toss on some steaks and corn on the cob. Keep it simple."
We, she thought. Somehow they'd slid from individuals into we. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about it.
"I've been meaning to ask you something." He leaned back on the step so he could study her profile. "What's it like to grow up filthy rich?"
That eyebrow winged, the way he loved. "We preferred the term 'lavishly wealthy' to 'filthy rich.' And obviously, it has its points."
"I bet. We sort of established why the lavishly wealthy society chick is running a flower shop on the waterfront, but how come she doesn't have household help, or a staff of employees?"
"I have Mr. G, who's worked out perfectly. He's flexible, dependable, and he knows and loves flowers. And I plan on hiring someone else, to work part-time in the shop. I needed to make certain there'd be enough business to justify it first. I'm going to start looking very soon."
"But you do the books."
"I like doing the books."
"And the ordering, and the inventory, whatever."
"I like—"
"Yeah, got that. Don't get defensive." It amused him when her shoulders stiffened. "You like manning the rudder. Nothing wrong with that."
"Speaking of rudders, I like the sloop design. I like it very much. I'm going to contact Phillip and have him draw up the contract."
"Good, but you're evading the subject. How come you don't have a housekeeper?"
"If this is a plug for Grace's service, Aubrey's already nagging me about it. I'm going to talk to her."
"It wasn't, but that's a good idea." He ran his fingers down her leg, an unconscious gesture of intimacy. "Spread the wealth, and free up your time. A twofer."
"You're awfully interested in wealth all of a sudden."
"In you," he corrected. "Sybill's the only person I know, really know, who came from money. And I get the drift that her family's pretty small potatoes compared to yours. Your mother comes down to see you, driven by a uniformed chauffeur. Snazzy stuff. You don't even have somebody coming in to scrub the john. So I ask myself how come that is. Does she like scrubbing Johns?"
"It was a childhood dream of mine," she said dryly.
"Anytime you want to fulfill the dream in the studio bathroom, feel free."
"That's very generous of you."
"Well, I love you. I do what I can."
She nearly sighed. He loved her. And he wanted to understand her. "Money," she began, "great amounts of money solve a lot of problems. And create others. But one way or the other, rich or poor, if you stub your toe, your toe hurts. It can also insulate you, so that you don't meet or develop friendships with people outside that charmed circle. You gain a great deal, you miss a great deal. Certainly you miss a great deal when your parents feel so strongly about shielding you from a variety of things out of that circle."
She turned to look at him now. "That's not 'poor little rich girl' talk. It's just fact. I had a privileged upbringing. I never wanted for a single material thing, and will never have to. I had an exceptional education, was allowed to travel extensively. And if I'd stayed in that charmed circle, I think I'd have died by inches."
She shook her head. "There's that drama again."
"I don't think it's dramatic. There are all kinds of hunger. If you don't get fed, you starve."
"Then I guess we could say I needed a different menu. In the Washington house, my mother runs a staff of sixteen. It's a beautiful home, perfectly presented. This is the first place I've had alone. When I moved to my own place in Georgetown, they—despite my telling them I didn't want or need live-in help—hired a housekeeper for me as a housewarming gift. So, I was stuck."
"You could have refused."
Dru only shook her head. "Not as easy as you think, and it would have created more conflict when I'd just gone through the battle of moving out on my own. In any case, it wasn't the housekeeper's fault. She was a perfectly nice, absolutely efficient and completely pleasant woman. But I didn't want her there. I kept her because my parents were frantic enough at the idea of me no longer living at home, and kept on me about how worried they were about me, how much better they felt knowing I had someone reliable living with me. And I was just tired of the hammering."
"Nobody pushes buttons better than family."
"Not in my experience," she agreed. "It seems ridiculous to complain about having someone who'll cook, clean, run errands and so on. But you give up your privacy in exchange for the convenience and leisure. You are never, never alone. And no matter how pleasant, how loyal, how discreet a household staff may be, they know things about you. They know when you've had an argument with your parents, or your lover. They know what you eat, or don't eat. When you sleep, or don't sleep. They know if you've had sex, or haven't had s
ex. Every mood, every move, and if they're with you long enough, every thought you have is shared with them.
"I won't have that here." She let out a breath. "Besides, I like taking care of myself. Seeing to my own details. I like knowing I'm good at it. But I'm not sure how good I'll be at putting together a dinner party for the Quinn horde."
"If it makes you feel any better, Anna was a maniac for the hour before you got there tonight."
"Really?" The idea warmed her. "It does make me feel better. She always seems so completely in charge."
"She is. She scares us boneless."
"You worship her. Every one of you. It's fascinating. This is very new territory for me, Seth."
"For me, too."
"No." She turned her head. "It's not. Family gatherings, whether they're casual or traditional, impromptu or planned, are very old territory for you. You don't need a map. You're very lucky to have them."
"I know it." He thought of where he'd come from. He thought of Gloria. "I know it."
"Yes, it shows. You're all so full of each other. They made room for me because you asked them to. You care for me, so they'll care for me. It won't be like that with my family. If and when you meet them, you'll be very carefully questioned, studied, analyzed and judged."
"So, they're looking out for you."
"No, not so much for me as themselves. The family name—names," she corrected. "The position. Discreet inquiries will be made as to your financial stability, to ensure you're not after my money. While my mother will be, initially, thrilled that I'm involved with someone with your panache in art circles—"
"Panache. You do use those cool words."
"It's shallow."
"Oh, give her a break." He ruffled her hair as he might have a ten-year-old boy's. "I'm not going to be insulted because someone's impressed with my reputation as an artist."
"You may be insulted when your background is quietly and thoroughly investigated, when the credit line on Boats by Quinn is checked."
The idea of the background check had his blood chilling. "Well, for Christ's sake."
"You need to know. This is standard operating procedure in my family. Jonah passed with high marks, and his political connections were a bonus. Which is why no one was particularly pleased with me for calling off the wedding. I'm sorry. I know I'm spoiling the mood of the evening, but I realized with the way things seem to be moving between us you needed to know this sooner rather than later."
"Okay. Tell me this sooner rather than later." He took her hand, toyed with her fingers. "If they don't like what they find, do things stop moving between us?"