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the unfinished wood, the cleanly defined details.
“All of those? It’s going to be bigger than I realized.”
“Belly up!” Avery wiggled her butt. “I’ve nearly decided on what I want for the top. I keep going back and forth. We’re going to start staining some of the panels today so I can see how they look.”
“There’s no we,” Owen corrected.
“But I—”
“Do I mess around in your kitchen?”
“No, but—”
“Why?”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Because you’re too fussy and picky about having everything lining up like soldiers, and won’t experiment.”
“And you’re not. Makes you a good cook. Fussy and picky make me a good carpenter.”
He did something Hope never expected to see the fussy and picky Owen do. He licked his thumb, rubbed it on the unstained wood. “Nice,” he said as the dampness brought out the deep, rich tone. “Go cook something.”
When she bared her teeth at him, he laughed and grabbed her in for a hard kiss and a butt squeeze.
Beckett came in from another area carrying a couple of large cans. “I told you I knew where it was. Hi, Hope.”
“If you’d leave it where I put it, you wouldn’t have to look for it,” Owen began.
“It was in the way, and I knew where it was.”
“It’s not in the way if it’s in the paint, stain, and varnish area.”
“Ladies.”
Hope turned to Ryder when he spoke. “Not you. I’m talking to them. Open the damn cans,” he told his brothers. “I’d like to get these pieces stained sometime this century.”
“Let me do just a little of it.” Avery put on her best smile. “Just one little corner of one little panel. Then I can say I had a hand in it. Loosen up, Owen.”
“Yeah,” Beckett agreed. “Loosen up, Owen.”
That started another round of arguing.
“Is it always like this?” Hope asked Ryder.
He took a long swig from a bottle of Gatorade. “Like what?”
Before she could answer, Finch came back with the ball. She barely managed to jump back so it didn’t plop wet and filthy on her shoe. Ryder just booted it out the window again so the happily crazed dog could leap after it.
“High school football,” he said when Hope frowned at him.
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll hurt himself?”
“He hasn’t so far. Do us a favor and get Little Red out of here. Everything takes three times as long with women around.”
“Oh really?”
“Unless she picks up some tools and knows how to use them, yeah. If you want to get to your ghost talk before nightfall, move her along.”
“If you know Avery, you know she won’t leave until she does her corner. When she does, I’ll get her out.”
“Fine.” He picked up a glue gun, ran a bead along an edge of what looked to be some sort of counter with shelves above it.
“What’s that going to be?”
“Built-in for the waitress station. If you’re just going to be standing there, hand me that clamp.”
She looked around on a table scattered with screws, tools, rags, glue tubes and located a clamp. And felt something just above her hair.
“Did you just sniff me?”
“You smell good. If you go to the trouble of smelling good, you should expect to get sniffed.” Their eyes met over a wood clamp. “Why don’t you come by my place when we’re done here?”
“I have guests.”
“You’ve got Carolee.”
That surge worked through her, but she shook her head. “Tuesday night.” She stepped away before she could change her mind. “Avery, let’s get out of the way.”
“You did your corner, Red,” Ryder added. “Scram. No girls allowed.”
“Boys are mean.” Avery drilled her finger into Ryder’s belly as she passed.
Then when they got outside where kids and dogs ran like the wild in the yard, she hooked her arm through Hope’s. “Sizzling-hot sex vibes.”
“Stop.”
“I know sizzling-hot sex vibes when they’re snapping in the air. You know he lives a couple minutes away.”
“I have—”
“Guests. Still. Quickies are underrated.”
“Again, I say, one-track mind.”
“I’m engaged to my boyfriend. I’m supposed to think about sex.”
“You’re supposed to think about wedding dresses and caterers.”
“And sex.” Laughing, Avery pulled off the bandana, scooped her fingers through her hair. “I don’t want to pick the dress yet. I’ve been looking at magazines and scoping online to get ideas, to try to find a style that pulls at me. It’s like the bar top.”
“Avery.” With an eye roll for her friend’s lack of romantic priorities, Hope sighed. “Your wedding dress is not like the bar top.”
“It is because they both have to be exactly right, exactly what looks fabulous and makes me feel excited.”
“Okay, your wedding dress is like the bar top.”
Avery walked inside, through the kitchen door where Clare sat at the counter peeling carrots. Justine stood, chopping celery with the pug curled at her feet. Something boiled on the stove.
“Avery, your dad’s coming over.”
“Great. I want to introduce him to the puppies.” She bent down to rub and nuzzle Tyrone—currently hiding under Clare’s stool.
“We’re cooking out,” Justine announced. “Ry’s been dropping broad hints about the lack of potato salad in his life, so I figured I’ve got three girls here. We ought to be able to pull that off.”
“I’d be happy to help,” Hope began, “but I really have to get back in about an hour.”
“I called Carolee. She’ll hold the fort until you get there.”
“Really I should go, let her come, be with the family.”
“She’s fine,” Justine insisted. “Avery, will you make that marinade you do for this chicken? The spicy one. We can handle it—we’ll do something mild for Harry and Liam. God knows Murphy can handle the heat. The boy would eat hot peppers like gummy bears if we let him.”
“He likes them better than gummy bears,” Clare agreed. “Relax,” she told Hope. “This will give us more time to brainstorm about Lizzy.”
True enough, Hope thought. But if she’d known she’d have extra time, she might’ve taken Ryder up on that visit to his house.
Now who was thinking about sex?
“I’d love a cookout,” she said, smiling at Justine. “How can I help?”
Justine just handed her a potato peeler.
RYDER WALKED IN with his brothers, a herd of kids, and a pack of dogs. Chaos immediately ensued. Rolling, running, wrestling, demands for food, drinks. His mother, as expected, ignored it or rolled with it. Avery added to it—also expected. Clare handled the boys’ insanity with a look that cut it almost in half—that mom thing—while Beckett grabbed cups to deal with claims of death by thirst.
None of that surprised him.
Hope did.
She hauled the runt onto her lap, listening with appropriate responses of shock and awe as he bombarded her with every detail of his past hour.
The women had gotten into the wine, but he didn’t think that was responsibile for her equanimity. In his observations, she just handled what came.
“Can we have a snack?” Liam tugged at Justine. “We’re starving.”
“We’re going to eat as soon as you wash up and Willy B gets here.”
“That could be forever.”
“I think it’ll be sooner. In fact, I hear Willy B’s truck coming up right now.”
So did the dogs, who immediately ran out the door—except for Tyrone, who stuck by Justine as if Velcroed. “Go on, wash your hands. We’re going to eat out on the deck.”
Ryder opened the fridge for a beer, spotted the bowl of potato salad. Grinned. “Keep your fingers out of that,” Justine ordered, anti
cipating him. “Wash your hands.”
So Hope ate grilled chicken and potato salad on the deck in the early summer evening, hip to hip with Ryder, with dogs wandering mournfully in the yard hoping for handouts.
Except for Tyrone. He sat—despite Justine’s protests—in Willy B’s lap, gazing up with shining love.
“This sure is good.”
Justine arched her eyebrows. “How much are you sneaking to that dog?”
