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“My condolences,” Ezra said as he stood. Al swatted his stomach, and he gasped in mock outrage. “What? You’re the best.” He extended a hand to CC. “Ezra Rosin, forever her number one fan.”
“CC,” she said, returning the shake. “Nice to meet you.”
“These are our kids,” Ezra carried on, gesturing first to the pair of redheads in the one chair. “Our son, Tyler, and his wife, Sloan.”
“The two little redheads running around are ours,” Sloan added, the same trace of Southern in her voice as in Miller’s.
“The gravy monsters from Thanksgiving,” Al said before she ruffled the brown hair of the younger man in the closest chair. His arms were full of strawberry blond baby. “And this is Miller’s husband, Clancy, and their daughter, Holland.”
CC stepped closer so Clancy wouldn’t have to stand or reach far to shake her hand. “You two have a connection there? To Holland?” she asked Clancy.
He laughed. “No. It was Sloan’s idea. None of our husbands can make a hollandaise that doesn’t break.”
“And that one”—Sloan nodded to the bundle in Clancy’s arms—“is sure to break them all. I thought it was funny.”
So did CC, especially as an argument broke out behind them, Miller and Greg debating what sauce to serve with the brisket.
Clancy rose and adjusted Holland in his arms. “I’m going to go break that up since our window to eat is quickly closing. She’s got maybe forty-five minutes left on this nap.”
“Give her to me,” Al said, arms out, careful not to wake the baby as Clancy gently handed her over. CC shifted on her feet, giving them more room, which only served to draw Al’s attention. “Do you want to hold her?”
CC shook her head. “I’m not a natural.”
“That’s fine.” Al’s smile didn’t falter, a pleasant change from the judgment CC often received for the truth. Al bent and kissed the baby’s forehead. “I’ll keep her all to myself.”
Ezra lowered his voice, whispering, “You always were a sucker for a redhead.”
CC sipped her drink and took another step back. She braced herself on the arm of Clancy’s vacated chair, the earlier storm winds kicking up again and tipping her off-balance, her earlier intrigue veering more toward wariness. She liked this family. Colby was right. They seemed like good people—warm, open, and accepting—but they were tight. Tighter than most she’d experienced. They had their own rhythms and language and a world in common. It felt a bit like that time she and Colby visited the French village that made Col’s favorite cheese. CC couldn’t understand a word or thing going on around her and had felt lost all afternoon. And she was rarely lost with a plate of cheese in front of her. Maybe she should have asked Colby for a crash course on the Rosins last night instead of falling asleep on the couch. Could Col spare five minutes to give her one now? Her flight had landed a couple hours ago, and dinner was still a few hours away there.
She tipped back the rest of the drink, then set the glass on the end of the island. “I’m going to go call Colby,” she told Al. “Make sure she got home.”
“Use my office,” Al said. “Less chance of arguing chefs or gravy monsters.”
Sloan pushed off the arm of the other chair. “I’ll show you the way.” She opened the patio door off the living room, led CC down a short set of steps and around the steaming in-ground pool, to the structure at the back of the lot. “The owner flipped it so the other side is the garage,” Sloan explained as she pulled open the black-framed accordion doors where garage doors clearly used to be. “Made this a pool house that Al uses as her office.”
CC’s gaze roamed over the space. A comfy-looking chaise lounge and minimalist table and office chair for furniture. White walls like the rest of the house, another marble-top wet bar, a flat-screen television over it, bookshelves along the other wall, a large black-and-white framed photograph of a rainy Central Park on the opposite one.
“You okay?” Sloan asked behind her.
CC turned from the framed photograph. “Yeah, of course.”
Sloan leaned against the doorjamb. She was around Al’s height, probably around CC’s age, with long red barrel curls and blue eyes that sparkled with even more mischief than Al’s. If there was a chief troublemaker in this family, Sloan was probably that person. “It’s a lot when you first get pulled into their orbit. Miller and Greg and I were our own island for years until we met Tyler and got pulled in. Hang tight. It’s worth it, I promise.”
“Al and I are just work friends.”
“Sure,” Sloan drawled. Definitely Southern. “Ask Tony how that went.” She turned on her heel and threw a wink over her shoulder. “And you’re totally Al’s type.”
Chapter Twelve
When the chefs finally gave the ten-minute warning and CC still hadn’t returned from the office, Al handed Holland off to Ezra and went looking for her missing guest. Earlier, CC had looked like a deer caught in the headlights, too many moving pieces to process. Maybe throwing her right into the frying pan wasn’t the best idea. At the same time, there was no use hiding the ball. If anything were to develop postclosing between them, CC needed to know Al came with a big family full of love and chaos. She needed to be okay with ex-spouses who still loved each other, with family that transcended blood, and with a mix of people and cultures that usually worked well together but did also occasionally butt heads. Though any argument always ended in laughter.
Al found CC still in the office surveying the various plaques and framed photos on the bookcases. Al looked her fill a minute—CC was stunning tonight in dark jeans, a gold cowl-neck sweater, and ascot-style boots that laced up the back of her calves—before asking, “You freaking out yet?”
“How’d you guess?” She turned from the shelf, and while the deer in headlights look was gone, a different one Al liked even less had settled in her brown gaze.
“Did you get in touch with Colby?”
“I told her Miller Sykes was making latkes in your kitchen, and she made honking geese noises.” She circled the desk and rested back against the front edge. “You know, I looked you up once I had your full name, but I didn’t know you were this well-connected. Col filled me in.” Her gaze flicked over Al’s shoulder to the house. “Didn’t know you were this wealthy either.”
