“Don’t you agree?”
She realized the question had been directed at her, and she looked over her shoulder at Hope, only to realize Jaimie had left the kitchen with her chips and salsa and she’d been replaced with another one of her sisters-in-law, Emily. Tabby racked her brains, trying—and failing—to recall their conversation. “Sorry?”
“Thanksgiving is an easier holiday than Christmas,” Hope repeated.
“Oh. Sure.” It was a lie, and she looked back down at the potatoes. “None of the Christmas gift shopping stress.” Just all the stress of knowing Justin would be back in town.
She huffed at her hair again and scooped the last of the potatoes into the container, making quick work of them before running the ricer under the faucet.
“Frankly, I don’t know what to get anyone this year for Christmas,” Emily was saying. She moved next to Tabby, holding a saucepan filled with steaming cream and melted butter. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas for my son-in-law, do you?”
Tabby made a face and left the ricer to drain while she grabbed a long-handled spoon from the drawer. “I don’t have any ideas for him, and Evan’s my brother.” She gestured for Emily to begin pouring the liquid into one of the bowls while she gently stirred the riced potatoes.
Hope stepped up behind Tabby, watching over their shoulders. “I swear, honey, watching you work is like watching a cooking show on television.”
At that, Tabby snorted outright. “Only doing the same thing your grandmother taught me to do when I started working at her diner.”
“Hope’s grandma was quite a cook.” Emily drizzled more hot cream into the second bowl at Tabby’s prompting. “But I’m just thankful Ruby taught you how to make her cinnamon rolls.”
“My hips aren’t that happy,” Hope said drily. “I can’t tell you how many times Gram tried to teach me how to make her rolls.” She shook her head. “I can make them, but not like she could. Or you.” She patted Tabby’s shoulder. “She would roll over in her grave hearing me say so, but I think yours have got hers beat.”
“Good grief, don’t say that.” Tabby looked up at the ceiling, as though she was waiting for lightning to strike. “I loved Ruby Leoni, too, but oh, man, did she have a temper.”
Hope laughed. “You nearly finished there, honey?”
Tabby focused on her work again, giving the creamy potatoes a final stir. “All set.” She picked up both bowls, cradling them against her hips. “You want them on the table now?”
“That was twenty pounds of Yukon Golds. I should get one of the boys—”
“No worries. I’ve got them.” Tabby quickly cut her off and carried the bowls out to the dining room, placing one at one end of the main table and the other on the kids’ table. Hope and Emily followed along, bearing platters of freshly carved roast turkey and glazed ham.
“I have a good mind to let them all watch football while we feast on our own,” Hope said when a caterwaul of cheers and jeers burst out from the other room. She adjusted one of the platters just so and stood back to admire the display.
Emily, meanwhile, was counting off chairs and place settings. “I think we’re a few short,” she warned.
“We’re always a few short,” Hope returned. “That’s what happens these days when nearly the whole family turns out.” She stepped to the archway opening onto the wide hallway. “Food’s on,” she called briskly. Her onetime schoolteacher’s voice cut across the racket of televised sports and thirtysome family members debating the latest call. Considering they weren’t all rooting for the same team, it was chaotic, to say the least.
Nevertheless, at Hope’s announcement, the television volume immediately went mute and those thirtysome individuals turned en masse toward the dining room.
She didn’t rush.
For as long as she could remember, she’d sat at the kids’ table.
“Tabby! I didn’t even hear you come in.” Hope’s husband, Tristan, grabbed her up in a bear hug that lifted her right off her toes. “Thank God we’ll have decent mashed potatoes.” He kissed her forehead and dropped her back down. “When Tag said he and your ma were visiting Helen this year, I was afraid it was gonna be boxed potatoes.”
Hope gave him a pinch. “Since when have I ever made you mashed potatoes from a box?”
The tall man, still blond in his sixties, grinned and gave Tabby a quick wink before he made his way toward the head of the big table, jostling his relations while Hope directed butts to seats and ultimately determined that Emily had been right. They were short of chairs. Erik—Hope and Tristan’s eldest—immediately pigeonholed his adopted son, Murphy, to help him search down more.
Tabby, long used to the process, just moved out of the way as far as possible and bit back a chuckle when Squire brushed past everyone to take the first seat—which happened to be Tristan’s at the head of the table. “All that fancy money you earn, boy, seems you ought to have a bigger table ’n’ chairs.”
“That’s my chair, old man,” Tristan said mildly. But Tabby could see by the humor in his blue eyes that he wasn’t offended. Or surprised. “And the way this family keeps growing, we’d need a reception hall to seat everyone at one table.”
Erik and Murphy returned with two more chairs and a piano bench, and the shuffling began again.
“Same thing happens every year.”
Tabby stiffened inwardly at the deep voice. She didn’t look at the tall man who’d stopped next to her, bumping his elbow companionably against hers. She didn’t need to.
There’d been a time when she knew everything there was to know about Justin Clay. And he’d known everything about her. They’d been best friends.
Now...they weren’t.
“Yes, it does. Some people like that,” she answered smoothly and moved toward the kids’ table. She sat down in the only spare seat, next to fourteen-year-old Murphy, who was eyeing her from the corner of his eye the way he had been for at least a year now. On her other side was April Reed—one of Squire’s grandchildren courtesy of his long-ago marriage to Gloria Day.
“Haven’t seen you since last summer.” She greeted April with a smile, all the while painfully aware of Justin trading barbs with Caleb Buchanan behind her. “You cut your hair. I like it.”
The young woman flushed and looked pleased that Tabby had noticed. She toyed with the shoulder-length auburn bob. “Job hunting,” she said. “Thought it looked more in keeping with a suit.”
“Looks great.” Tabby tugged the ends of her own hair. It was riddled with wayward waves. “I’ve been thinking of cutting mine, too.”
“Why?” Justin nudged Murphy’s shoulder. “Scoot your chair over, kid.”
Murphy made a face, but he moved over enough to accommodate Justin, who pushed a backless stool into the space and straddled it. “Your hair’s been like that as long as I can remember.”
Tabby knew he wasn’t trying to get cozy with her. There was simply a finite amount of space available for chairs and bodies. She looked away from the jeans-clad thigh nudging against her. “All the more reason it’s time for a change, then, right, April?”
“I suppose. But I’ve always thought you had gorgeous hair. Such a dark brown and so glossy.”
Tabby couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “Grass is always greener, my friend with the smooth red hair.” She leaned over the table a little, mostly so she could shift away from that damned masculine thigh. “So, how is the job hunt going out in Arizona? It’s advertising, right?”
“Dad wants me to work for him at Huffington,” she said, referring to the network of sports clinics he operated around the United States. “The Phoenix location is getting huge. But I want to make my mark on my own.”
“Makes sense.”
Justin jostled Tabby’s arm. “Remember when you wanted to go to Europe to make
your mark on the great art world?”
“Lofty dreams of a teenaged girl,” she said dismissively. She wasn’t going to let him bait her. “I learned I was perfectly happy right here in Weaver,” she told April, though the words were aimed at Justin. “This is my home. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“Ruby’s would have to shut right down,” someone interjected from the other table. “Weaver would never be the same.”
Tabby rolled her eyes. “Erik and Justin own the place.” She still didn’t look at the man beside her. “They’d hire someone else to manage it.”
“There’s a nasty thought,” Erik said. He was sitting at the main table next to his wife, Isabella, and didn’t look unduly concerned.
The same couldn’t be said of their son. “You’re not gonna leave, are you?” Murphy gave her a horrified look.
She lifted her hands peaceably. “I’m not going anywhere!”
Justin jostled her again. “Do you even still paint?”
If she’d have been five—or maybe even twenty-five—she would have just elbowed him right back. Preferably in the ribs, hard enough to leave a mark. Because the Justin she’d grown up with could take as well as he could give. “Yes, I still paint.” Her voice was even.
“Absolutely, she still paints!” Sydney, who was married to Derek—yet another one of Justin’s plentiful cousins—called from the far end of the other table. Their toddler son was sitting in a high chair between them. “An old friend of mine who owns a gallery in New York has sold a couple dozen of her pieces! He wants her to give up working at Ruby’s and focus only on painting.”
Tabby shifted, uncomfortable with the weight of everyone’s eyes turning toward her. “I’m not quitting Ruby’s,” she assured them, wondering how on earth the conversation had gotten so off track.
“We know that, Tab,” Erik assured her calmly. Of the two brothers, he was the active partner in the diner, though he pretty much left the day-to-day stuff to her.
Squire cleared his throat loudly. Tabby was quite sure if he’d had his walking stick handy, he’d have thumped it on the floor for emphasis the way he tended to do. “We gonna sit here and jabber all the livelong day, or get to eating?”
Tristan chuckled. “Eat.”
“Not before we say grace,” Gloria said mildly. And inflexibly. So they all bowed their heads while Gloria said the blessing.
Justin leaned close to her again. “Nothing changes,” he murmured almost soundlessly.
Tabby’s jaw tightened. She looked from her clasped hands to the insanely handsome, violet-eyed man sitting only inches away from her.
“You changed,” she whispered back.
Then she looked back at her hands and closed her eyes. Gloria was still saying grace.
Tabby just prayed that Justin would go away again, and the sooner the better.
He’d been her best friend.
But he was still her worst heartbreak.
Chapter Two
His mother might have put the meal on the table, but it was up to her husband and sons to cart everything back to the kitchen when the meal was done.
Not even the Thanksgiving holiday—or televised football games—got them out of that particular task.
So even though Justin generally would rather poke sharp sticks into his eyes than load a dishwasher, he did his fair share, carting stacks of plates and glasses from the dining room to the kitchen, following on Erik’s heels.
And while the rest of the women in the family had pitched in to help Hope, the three men were brutally left on their own by their fellows.
“Typical,” Justin muttered, dumping the plates on the counter next to the sink his dad was filling with soap and water. “Couldn’t even get Caleb to help.”
Erik chuckled. He was five years older than Justin and he good-naturedly threw a clean dish towel at him. “You ever help clean up when we have a meal at his folks’ place?” The question was rhetorical. “Be glad that half the crowd today used disposable plates.”
Justin had personally filled a big bag with the trash. He would have been happy to fill a half dozen of them if it meant not having to load a dishwasher.
“Stop grousing and get it done,” their father ordered. “Dessert’s waiting on us, and Squire never likes waiting for his dessert.”
“The old man looks good,” Justin said. He left the dish towel on the counter and pulled open the dishwasher. He began to load it methodically, mechanically transferring the items his dad rinsed into the racks.
“He’s gonna run for city council,” Tristan said, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “There’s a special election coming up in February.”
“Squire?” Justin couldn’t help but laugh at the notion of his ninetysome-year-old grandfather sitting at a council meeting. “That ought to shake things up around Weaver. He’s always hated politicians.”
“Which is the reason why he figures an old rancher ought to try his hand at it.” Erik started filling containers with the leftover food. They heard a cheer from the great room and he groaned a little.
“Shouldn’t have bet against Casey on the game,” Justin said knowingly. Their cousin had an uncanny gift for picking winners. “What’re you gonna lose to him this time?”
“Week out at the fishing cabin. And I haven’t lost yet.”
“When’s the last time you won a bet against him?” Tristan stacked more rinsed plates on the counter. “What’s going on with that promotion of yours, Jus?”
Justin added the dishes to the rack with a little more force than necessary. “Not a damn thing.”
“You crack those plates, son, you’ll be the one to face up to your mother.”
Justin straightened again and met his father’s gaze. “It’s gotten...complicated.”
Erik blew out a soft whistle. “Probably happens when you’re dating the boss’s daughter. Warned you.”
“I didn’t get the job at CNJ Pharmaceuticals nine years ago because of Gillian. I won’t lose it because of her, either.” He was trusting that his relationship with Charles Jennings, her father and the owner of the company, was on firmer ground than that, at least. He swiped his damp hands down his jeans and retrieved a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator. “And we stopped seeing each other almost half a year ago.”
“Thank God,” Erik muttered. “Woman was a nosebleed.”
Justin grimaced. “I don’t sneer at your choice of women.”
Erik grinned. “How could you? Izzy is the perfect girl.”
Justin couldn’t deny the truth of that, though he liked arguing with his brother merely for the sake of it. And he didn’t really want to think about Gillian, anyway. Because she was a nosebleed, even though his brother shouldn’t rub it in. And even though it had taken Justin several long years to face it.
He toyed with the beer cap but didn’t actually twist it open. “The complication isn’t because of Charles’s daughter. He’s put me on a special project we’ve had some problems with. If I can bring it in on time, the VP position should be mine.” Making him the youngest vice president in the company’s century-long history.
“Give me cows over pharmaceuticals,” Erik said, hanging his arm over Justin’s shoulder. “But I suppose if anyone can do it, it’s my genius little brother, Dr. Justin Clay.”
Justin shrugged off the arm. He had a PhD in microbiology and immunology, and dual master’s degrees in computer science and chemistry. But he rarely used the title that went with the PhD. The fact was, he’d often felt a little out of step among his extended ranching family, even though his computer-geek father had bucked that trend, too.
“I want to work on the project from Weaver,” he announced, and saw the look his brother and dad exchanged. “I’ll be able to concentrate on it better here. I figure
Aunt Bec might clear the way for me to work at the hospital, since she runs the place.”
“Rebecca probably can, though that’s—”
“Rebecca probably can what?” Justin’s eldest uncle, Sawyer, entered the kitchen carrying several empty beer bottles.
“Approve space in the new lab they’re building for a project I’m working on for CNJ. The company will cover all the costs, of course.”
“Sell that to my wife,” Sawyer advised wryly. “Every day for the past two years I’ve been hearing about problems with that lab she’s trying to get built. Construction delays. Cost overruns. Losing the lab director didn’t help, and now it’s that fund-raiser event they’re having in a few weeks.” He dumped the bottles in the recycling basket and pulled open the refrigerator to retrieve several more beers. “You gonna be done in here soon? The old man’s getting impatient for dessert. He’s been debating pumpkin pie versus pecan versus chocolate cream for the past half hour.”
“We’d be done sooner if we had some help,” Tristan told his brother in a pointed tone.
Sawyer just laughed, snatched the unopened bottle out of Justin’s hands to add to his collection and left the kitchen again.
When Justin went to the refrigerator, he found the shelf empty of beer.
“Snooze you lose, son,” Tristan said. “Just because you choose to live in Boston doesn’t mean you’re excluded from that basic fact.” He pointed a thumb at the stack of rinsed dishes still waiting to be loaded.
Sawyer’s intrusion was followed almost immediately by the rest of his brothers—first Jefferson, ostensibly to make sure there was still hot coffee on the stove, then Matthew and Daniel together, who made no bones that they were wanting their dessert, too.
“Nothing changes,” Justin repeated when the kitchen eventually cleared.
“Ever consider that there are times that’s a comfort?” Tristan finally turned off the faucet and dried his hands on a towel.
The BFF Bride Page 2