High Noon Page 0,5

want a seat, Mama?"

"No, sweetie." Essie waved Carter off. "I'm just fine."

"You can come up to the rail again, Gran. I'll hold your hand the whole time. It's just like the courtyard."

"That's right. That's right." But Essie's smile was strained as she crossed the short distance to the rail.

"You can see better from here," Carly began. "Here comes another marching band! Isn't it great, Gran? Look how high they're stepping." See how she soothes her Gran, Phoebe thought. How her little hand holds tight to give support. And Carter, look at him, moving to Mama's other side, running a hand down her back even as he points to the crowd.

Phoebe knew what her mother saw when she looked at Carter. Having a child of her own, she understood exactly that hard and stunning love. But it would be doubled for her, Phoebe thought. Mama had only to look at Carter, at the rich brown hair, those warm hazel eyes, the shape of his chin, his nose, his mouth, and she would see the husband she'd lost so young. And all the might-have-beens that died with him. "Fresh lemonade!" Ava wheeled a cart to the doorway. "With plenty of mint so we've got the green."

"Ava, you didn't have to go to all that trouble."

"I certainly did." Ava laughed at Phoebe and flipped back her sassy swing of blond hair. At forty-three, Ava Vestry Dover remained the most beautiful woman of Phoebe's acquaintance. And perhaps the kindest. When Ava lifted the pitcher, Phoebe hurried over. "No, I'll pour and serve. You go on and watch awhile. Mama'll feel better with you standing with her," Phoebe added quietly.

With a nod, Ava walked over, touched Essie on the shoulder, then moved to stand on Carly's other side.

There was her family, Phoebe thought. True, Ava's son was off in New York in college, and Carter's pretty wife was working, but this was the foundation, the bedrock. Without them, she wasn't sure she wouldn't just float off like a dust mote.

She poured lemonade, passed around the glasses, then stood beside Carter. Leaned her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry Josie can't be here."

"Me, too. She'll be here for dinner if she can."

Her baby brother, she thought, a married man. "You two ought to stay the night, avoid the holiday traffic and the insanity of revelry."

"We like the insanity of revelry, but I'll see if she'd rather. Remember the first time we stood up here and watched the parade? That first spring after Reuben."

"I remember."

"Everything was so bright and loud and foolish. Everyone was so happy. I believe even Cousin Bess cracked a smile or two." Probably just indigestion, Phoebe thought, with lingering bitterness. "I felt, really felt, maybe everything would be all right. That he wasn't going to break out and come for us, wasn't going to kill us in our sleep. Christmas didn't do that for me, not that first year, or my birthday. But standing here all those years ago, I thought maybe everything was going to be all right after all."

"And it was."

She took his hand so they were linked, right down the line of the rail.

Chapter 2

Cleaned up and hung over, Duncan sat at his kitchen counter brooding over his laptop and a cup of black coffee. He'd meant to keep it to a couple of beers, hanging with some of the regulars at Slam Dunc before heading off to catch the music, another beer or two at Swifty's, his Irish pub.

When you owned bars, he'd learned, you were smart to stay sober.

He might bend that rule of thumb a little on St. Patrick's Day or New Year's Eve. But he knew how to coast through a long night with a couple of beers.

It hadn't been celebration that put the Jameson's with a bump of Harp back into his hand too many times. It had been sheer relief. Joe wasn't a smear on the sidewalk outside the bar.

I'll drink to that.

And it was better to be hungover due to good news than hungover due to bad. You still felt like shit, Duncan admitted as the horns and pipes throbbed in his abused head, but you knew it would wear off.

What he needed to do was get out of the house. Take a walk. Or a nap in the hammock. Then figure out what to do next. He'd been figuring out what to do next for the past seven years. And he liked it.

He frowned at the laptop another moment, then shook