homecoming. Logs snapped and flamed in the big stone fireplace, the old dog Sadie curled in front of it. Everyone sat around what they called the family parlor, with its familiar mix of antiques and family photos, red lilies in a slim vase on the piano, as they might have sat, talked, sipped wine on any evening before the world collapsed.
Even his grandmother, who rather than object had enjoyed having him carry her down the steps and depositing her in her favored wingback chair, chatted away as if nothing had changed.
The baby helped, he supposed. Pretty as a gumdrop, fast as lightning, the not-quite-three-year-old Selina just filled the room with energy and fun.
She demanded he play, so Eli sat on the floor and helped build a castle out of blocks for her princess doll.
A simple thing, an ordinary thing, and something that reminded him he’d once imagined having kids of his own.
He thought his parents looked less strained than they did when he left for Whiskey Beach a few weeks before. The ordeal they’d been through had deepened the creases in his father’s face, brought a near-translucent pallor to his mother’s.
But they’d never wavered, he thought.
“I’m going to feed this very busy girl.” Eli’s sister laid a hand over her husband’s for a squeeze as she rose. “Uncle Eli, why don’t you give me a hand getting her set up?”
“Ah . . . sure.”
Since Selina, her doll dangling from her fingers, lifted her arms, beamed that irresistible smile, he scooped her up to carry her into the kitchen.
The broad-shouldered Alice ruled over the expansive six-burner stove. “Hungry, is she?”
Selina immediately deserted Eli, stretching her arms out for the cook. “There’s my princess. I’ve got her,” she told Tricia, expertly securing Selina to the shelf of her hip. “She can eat and keep me company—and Carmel, too, once I tell her we’ve got our girl to ourselves. We’ll have dinner on the table for the rest of you commoners in about forty minutes.”
“Thanks. If she gives you any trouble—”
“Trouble?” Eyes popping comically wide, Alice spoke with exaggerated shock. “Look at that face.”
Laughing, Selina wrapped her arms around the cook’s neck and gave her version of a whisper. “I have cookies?”
“After your dinner,” Alice whispered back. “We’re fine.” She made a shooing gesture. “Go relax.”
“Be good,” Tricia warned her daughter, then took her brother’s hand. At nearly six feet, with a toughly toned body and a determined will, she easily pulled him out of the kitchen, then away from the parlor toward the library. “I want a minute with you.”
“I figured. I’m fine. Everything’s fine, so—”
“Just stop.”
Unlike their more soft-spoken, diplomatic mother, Tricia took her personality clues from her straight-ahead, flinty and opinionated paternal grandfather.
Which could be why she now served as COO of Landon Whiskey.
“We’re all being very careful to talk about anything but what happened, what’s happening and how you’re dealing with it. And that’s fine, but now it’s you and me. Face-to-face, no e-mail, which you can carefully compose and edit. What’s going on with you, Eli?”
“I’m writing pretty steadily. I’m taking walks on the beach. I’m eating regular meals because Gran’s housekeeper keeps making them.”
“Abra? She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“No. She’s interesting.”
Amused, Tricia sat on the arm of a wide leather chair. “Among other things. I’m glad to hear all that, Eli, because it sounds like just what you should be doing right now. But if it’s all going so well, why are you back in Boston?”
“I can’t come in, see my family? What am I, banished?”
And even then the way her finger shot up, pointed, reminded him of their grandfather.
“Don’t evade. You didn’t have any plans to come back until Easter, but here you are. Spill it.”
“It’s no big deal. I wanted to talk, face-to-face, with Neal.” He glanced toward the doorway. “Look, I don’t want to upset Mom and Dad, there’s no point. And I can see they look less stressed. The Piedmonts are making noises about a wrongful-death suit.”
“That’s bullshit, just bullshit. It’s straight-out harassment at this point, Eli. You should . . . talk to Neal,” she ended, and blew out a breath. “As you did. What does he think?”
“He thinks it’s noise, at least for now. I told him to hire a new investigator, to find a woman this time.”
“You’re coming back,” Tricia stated, and her eyes filled.
“Don’t. Jesus, Tricia.”
“It’s not just that—you—or not altogether. It’s hormones. I’m pregnant. I cried this morning singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ with Sellie.”