Eleanor put an arm around each of her granddaughters. “You’re such a good team. You should all find a way to work together.”
“Funny you should say that.” Corie, the basket now over her arm, picked up one of the flowers and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger. “Last night, when I had rampant insomnia, I had an idea.”
Her companions waited.
“What if...” she began cautiously, “we all went into business together?” She touched Sarah’s arm. “Well, you can’t, of course. You’re busy doing important things. But we could commandeer Jack to work with us when he’s between restorations.”
“To do weddings?” Sarah asked doubtfully.
Corie laughed. “No. Designing clothes. Showing clothes. Selling clothes. I have a few pieces made and ideas for a complete line. Cassie knows the skinny on how designers present their work, what’s required to mount a show and approach retailers. Grandma ran a store and knows how to sell. Every good designer also has a shop. Jack can do anything—back us up at presentations, schmooze prospective buyers...”
Eleanor’s face lit up and she pressed her hands together. “We can do that!”
“I know you’ll still be working,” Corie said to Cassie, “but you’ll be coming back from time to time, and when you return for good, we could have a line ready to go. What do you think?”
“I think you’re brilliant.” Cassie wrapped her arms around her tiny sister and reached out for their grandmother. Sarah closed in to join the hug.
Loud conversation and laughter announced the arrival of the men.
“I’m making more coffee!” Grady shouted from the kitchen.
“Good,” Sarah shouted back. “We need some! We’ve been working while you guys were partying.”
Jack appeared shortly with two coffee mugs in each hand. “Here you go,” he said. “You’re all working so hard...” He stopped at their obvious emotion. “What’s going on?”
Sarah took two mugs from him and passed one to Eleanor. He distributed the other two.
“You’re going into business with your sisters and your grandmother,” Sarah told him.
He looked surprised but didn’t object. “Oh, good. Tell me we’re buying a gym or a bike shop.”
“It’s women’s clothing.” Corie laughed, tucked her arm in his, and explained what each of the women would be doing.
“Great.” He pretended to worry. “I’m the silent partner, right?”
“Of course not, sweetheart.” Sarah kissed his cheek. “It’s impossible for you to be silent. You’re the big brother who makes it all work. Security, companionship, encouragement. And you could restore some pretty little building for them to work in. Something with retail space on the bottom floor.”
He nodded, pleased. “I can do that.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS AFTER eleven o’clock by the time the chairs were finished and the chandeliers had been set up in two neat rows to test the spacing. A friend of Grady’s from the station had connected the hanging chandelier from the loft overhead. It was the only one that couldn’t be battery powered. Pizza had been consumed and dozens of topics had been discussed over wine, coffee and chai while everyone worked. They now all stood around, eager to see the fruits of their labors.
The entire family had been there to help—Helen and Gary, Jack and Sarah, Corie and Ben and the kids, Grady’s mother, Cassie’s father, Eileen and Oliver, and Cassie and Grady.
Cassie set the scene. “Corie will come down the stairs and walk up the aisle we’ve created with the chandeliers, then stop right here under the hanging chandelier, where Father Eisley and Ben and all the attendants will be waiting.”
She went to a sort of worktable that separated the great room from the smaller space under the loft. “There’ll be flowers here and the wedding cake.” She walked around the room and pointed to several small tables, one in a conversation area near the fireplace, one that held a lamp and one near the stairs that at the moment held mail and a potted Christmas cactus. “There’ll be bouquets on all these flat surfaces and flowers strung and added to the sparkle tulle. Now, if someone will turn off the lights, I’ll turn on the chandeliers and make sure it all comes together.”
Grady moved to flip the switch and she went from chandelier to chandelier to turn them on.
A collective gasp went up from the family and then applause. Even she was impressed by the absolute gorgeousness of all the beautifully placed lights in the darkness. It was like a path made of star clusters fallen to earth.
Playfully, she took her bows. Corie came to hug her and Ben to wrap his arms around both of them.
“I can’t believe how hard you worked for us,” Corie said, her dark eyes brimming.
“It’s been my pleasure,” Cassie said sincerely. “How cool that I got to do this for you after all the years of separation.”
“You’ve been so generous,” Ben praised. “We’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
Eleanor came to join them. “Can a grandmother get in on this?” she asked. “I can’t believe that I found all of you at such a wonderful time. I’m so happy to be part of this.”
Grady turned on the television. “Okay, everyone, gather ’round, I’m going to pour champagne—and apple juice for the kids. It’s almost time for the countdown. Since this new year is so...significant to all of us.”
Ben indicated Soren and Rosie, fast asleep on the sofa. “I think you can save the apple juice.”
Ben and Jack lifted the still-sleeping children so they could sit tightly on the couch, cradling them in one arm, and accepted a glass of champagne with the other hand.
“Anyone making resolutions?” Helen asked. Gary sat on the arm of the chair she occupied. “Or is it bad luck to talk about them?”
Ben sent her a teasing smile. “I think that’s birthday wishes, Mom. Are you going to lose twenty pounds again this year?”
She shrugged in mild embarrassment. “I doubt it, though that is my resolution.”
“I’m resolved to be patient,” Ben said. His gravity startled everyone. “What?” he asked, surprised by their surprise. He looked down at Soren, fast asleep in his arms. “Kids need that, and I’m already reminding myself that my children are people in their own right and not a smaller version of me.”
Diane, now comfortable in this group, said, “That’s very true.” Then she admitted candidly, “I’m resolved to do a little less meddling.” There was laughter and she said quickly, “Just a little less. Or Grady wouldn’t recognize me.”
“I almost don’t recognize you these days, anyway,” Grady said. “With your new clothes and your new ’do, you should be walking the runways with Cassie.”
She blushed when everyone concurred.
Ben pinned Grady. “What’s your resolution? I mean, your whole life had been turned upside down for Corie and me, you must be promising yourself that you’ll never go through anything like this again. Or have you enjoyed the chaos? Sometimes when you can’t control anything else, your brain and your heart put your thoughts and feelings in order instead.”
Grady pretended surprise at the accuracy of Ben’s observation. He didn’t want anyone to know he was right on. “Wow. You’re some kind of Bob Dylan, all of a sudden.”
Ben ran a hand over his eyes, taking the teasing with good grace. “I know. I’m exhausted. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Look, look!” Eleanor pointed to the television with her champagne glass. “Only two more minutes before the ball falls.”
Cassie topped up champagne glasses and everyone stood, leaving the sleeping children on the sofa, and gathered in a semicircle around the television. They counted down from ten as the ball fell, toasted each other and the new year, then embraced, making sure no one was missed.
Grady
took Cassie from Sarah and hugged her. Then, looking into her eyes, he leaned in to kiss her. She met him halfway, her hands on either side of his face.
“I’m learning to deal with the chaos,” he said quietly.
“Good. I think I’m learning to deal with you,” she returned softly. Then her grandmother stepped between them and he turned to have the wind squeezed out of him by his mother.
“I’m so glad you talked me into getting something to wear to the wedding,” she said. “I love these people.”
* * *
JACK WRAPPED HIS arms around Cassie. His eyes were full of things he didn’t seem to be able to say. Everyone was collecting coats and preparing to leave. “I love you, too, Jack,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Thank you for working so hard to find Corie and me.”
“I couldn’t imagine a lifetime without the two of you. Good night, Cassie.”
“Good night.”
Grady stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder as they listened to the laughter, quieter now that the hour was late, and watched everyone climb into their cars.
Don carried a giant salad bowl Diane had brought and placed it in the back seat of her car. They stopped to chat.
“There definitely is something there,” Grady said under his voice.
“I think you’re right.”
“Tidy for us.”
“That’s what I said.”
Sarah called out as Jack drove slowly away, “You two do look good together! Good night.”
There was honking and waving, and Don came back to the house.
* * *
CASSIE COULDN’T RESIST the private smile at how beautiful Grady’s great room looked. Corie and Ben’s wedding was going to be stunning. She was so thrilled that her sister’s life had come to such a happy pass. To have helped just a little to make it happen delighted her.
“Did you get any sleep on the sofa last night?” Donald asked Grady. They were carrying the standing chandelier to the back wall. “Because you can have your room back. I assure you I’ll be fine. During the mess in Bangkok, I slept on the floor of a government office.”
“I’m fine on the sofa. Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
The job done, Donald wrapped Cassie in a bear hug. “Good going, Cass. You could go into wedding planning when you come back here to live. It’s going to be quite an event.”
“Actually, Corie, Jack, Grandma and I are talking about going into business together.”
“You are?” Grady stopped in the act of hauling blankets out of the guest closet.
“We are. Corie’s a wonderful designer, and I have a lot of contacts in fashion. Grandma knows about shopkeeping, and Jack’s just good to have around.”
“Wow. So, Grandma’s staying?”
“I’m pretty sure.” She turned to her father. “Helen told her she can stay in the guesthouse as long as she wants. What about you, Dad? Are you staying?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. I saw a little bar for sale on the waterfront. I know nothing about it and have no experience, but it’d be fun to do something where people come in to relax, rather than in IT where they call you because nothing’s working and they have a deadline in an hour, and you have to help them make it.”
Donald helped Grady spread a flannel sheet over the leather sofa. “I’m sure your workday is a lot worse than that, but sometimes I think I’ve had enough of people hanging over my shoulder, pointing to their watches and telling me to hurry up, to last a lifetime.”
Grady tossed a pillow to the end of the sofa. “Usually, life is pretty calm around here.” He grinned at Cassie, who watched them with a smile. “Until this week.”
Donald laughed. “Wedding wonderland, huh? Well, it’s almost over. Then your life will get back to normal.” He glanced from Cassie to Grady. “Or will it?”
Grady threw a thick thermal blanket on top of the sheet on the sofa. “Normal’s not what it used to be. Anything I can get for you before I go to bed?”
Donald offered his hand. “Nothing at all. I so appreciate your hospitality. Good night.”
“Good night, Don.”
Donald blew a kiss to Cassie and disappeared down the hall to Grady’s bedroom.
Grady wrapped his arms around Cassie. “You going to be able to sleep? Want a brandy or something?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” She hugged him tightly and he breathed her in, thinking what a wonderful way this was to start a new year. “I probably won’t sleep much, so, if you hear me moving around, don’t worry.”
“You’ve done everything you can to make the day perfect for Corie and Ben. You should relax.”
She kissed his cheek and drew away. “I’ll relax when they’re married. Go to bed. I have a few things to clean up in the kitchen, then I’ll turn out the lights.”
“Okay. Sleep tight.”
Cassie finished cleaning up then went to the stairs. Grady lay on his back on the sofa, an arm across his eyes. He was already breathing evenly in sleep.
She couldn’t resist going to the new switch that controlled the overhead chandelier. The tiered light came to life in the shadowy space. It was beautiful.
She suddenly remembered the extra batteries she’d bought for the standing chandeliers and went to her purse to retrieve them. She took them out of their packaging for easy access and stashed them in the little drawer in the designated wedding cake table.
She flipped off the light and went upstairs imagining Corie and Ben and the priest standing under the hanging chandelier.
Changing into her negligee, she climbed under the covers, thinking over tomorrow’s schedule. Sarah was picking her up at seven to meet Corie, Rosie, Helen and Diane for breakfast before they all went to Hair’s to You to be beautified.
The guys would be over in the morning to set up chairs and put up the food tables. It was all coming together. She felt reasonably certain Grady would be visiting her in Paris, and there, in the City of Lights and of romance, she could convince him that life could be unpredictable and still wonderful, that surprises weren’t all bad, and that she could make his life worth the long-distance logistics. She smiled to herself and drifted off.
* * *
BEN AND CORIE exchanged vows in front of a crackling fire while loud bagpipe music played. Cassie looked on, arms folded against involvement in this wedding that was not at all what she’d planned. They were supposed to exchange their vows under the chandelier that Grady’s friend had wired under the loft. It would have been beautiful. Instead there was this whining, crackling...
Cassie sat up in bed, wide awake. Her nostrils caught the acrid smell of smoke and her ear realized the whining sound wasn’t a bagpipe at all but a smoke alarm. She ran to the railing to see that the great room was on fire, black smoke filling the space, the sound of the alarm about to split her eardrums.
She ran through a litany of Oh, my God!s, took a second to slip on her tennis shoes and ran down the stairs, thinking in panic that when she’d gone to bed, Grady had been asleep on the sofa and her father was in Grady’s bedroom!
Halfway down the stairs she was brought up short by the darkness in the house and the thick black smoke. She could taste it, feel it burn her eyes. It wrapped around her in an evil caress, then tightened and tightened until she couldn’t get free, couldn’t move, couldn’t see in any direction. Panic started in the pit of her stomach and inched up her torso, constricting her heart, her lungs, her throat. She opened her mouth to scream and choked on smoke.
Making herself move instead of dissolving into a sobbing puddle took more effort than she thought she had in her. But there was Grady on the sofa and her father was in the back of the house and she had to get to them.
She used the handrail to guide her down the stairs, through the smoke, screaming Grady’s name th
e whole time. Hurrying toward the sofa, she collided with the coffee table, crying out, then using it to guide her around it to the sofa. “Grady! Grady, we have to get out!” she shouted, running her hands along the upholstery, expecting to feel his hair, his shoulders, his blankets. But she felt nothing. Just the sofa. Then her hands hit a stack of fabric. It took her a precious second to interpret that. He was already up and gone. Or somewhere in the house, overcome by smoke?
She turned to shout his name. Certainly, if he was in the kitchen or the bathroom, he’d have heard the smoke alarm.
For an instant she stared at the flames, unable to believe what she was seeing. Flames were eating up the table under the loft, had apparently ignited the bunting and an Oriental rug. Flames licked toward the edge of the sofa.
She ran around it and toward Grady’s room. As she did, burning tulle fell from the loft railing, igniting a lampshade. She stepped over something that glittered in the smoke and realized the hanging chandelier had fallen.
“Dad,” she shouted, feeling the walls on both sides of the corridor. They were hot to the touch. “Daddy!”
He met her at the door, his hair rumpled but his eyes clear. “My God. Fire?”
“Yes!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. “We have to go now!”
Her father stopped in his tracks. “Where’s Grady?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not on the sofa. Come on!” Cassie tried to push him in front of her, but he caught her arm instead and hurried through the kitchen and the foyer to the side door. She heard the shrill bleat of sirens as she broke free and pushed her father into the cold predawn air.
She ran back into the house, nagged by the fear that Grady might still be inside, overcome, unconscious.
Several steps into the room, she screamed his name again, the darkness and the smoke trying to overtake her. She felt that familiar constriction trying to take her down. She spread both arms and screamed in an effort to fight it as she made herself move toward the kitchen. Smoke burned her eyes and her nostrils and she had to lean against the door frame as the darkness swirled.
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