Ivy came out with a book and a glass of water, settling into a rocking chair like she'd been doing it for decades. She caught me watching the family and gave me a look that was warm and slightly conspiratorial.
"It's a lot," she said quietly. "The first time I had lunch on this porch, I went home and stared at a wall for an hour trying to process the volume of love in this family."
"That's... reassuring, actually."
"You get used to it. Then you can't imagine anything else." She went back to her book, leaving the sentence exactly where it had landed — right in the center of my chest.
Maisie had climbed onto Louisa's lap. She was explaining, with hand gestures and sound effects, Starlight's complete biography and their plans for matching outfits and a shared bedroom. Nobody told her to shush. Nobody checked the time.
Here, she'd been talking for twenty minutes, and Louisa was asking whether Starlight would prefer a pink or purple blanket.
"Mommy, can we have lunch here every Saturday?"
Everyone looked at me as if they had no issue with us encroaching on their family time.
I swallowed hard. Shifted in my seat. "We'll see, baby."
She opened her mouth — the rebuttal already forming — and I gave her the look. She closed her mouth. Progress.
I finished my sandwich. Thanked Louisa. Collected my daughter, who had to be peeled off the porch like a barnacle. On the way to the car, she grabbed my hand and said, "Miss Lou smells like cookies. Even when she's not making cookies. How does she do that?"
"Maybe she's made so many cookies over the years the smell just moved in permanently."
Maisie looked up at me, delighted. "Like a cookie ghost?"
"Exactly like a cookie ghost."
We looked at each other and burst out laughing — the same laugh, the same timing, the way we always did when one of us said something that cracked the other one open. My girl. My favorite person on the entire planet.
I held her hand tighter than necessary.
Cooper's General was on the way home, and I needed milk.
I was navigating the narrow aisle past the inexplicable hand-carved wooden armadillo display — who was buying these? who had ever bought one? — when she appeared.
Tall. Dark-haired. The kind of beautiful that walks into a room leading with its cheekbones. Maybe thirty, turquoise jewelry, fitted jeans, boots that cost more than my car payment. And she was looking at me with the smile of a woman who has a grenade and is deciding where to throw it.
"You're Callie, right? Clay's new friend?"
She saidfriendthe way you'd saypen pal.With a pause and an eyebrow and just enough inflection to strip the word of its actual meaning.
"That's right. I'm Callie."
"I'm Brooke." Handshake. Firm grip, perfect nails, eye contact that didn't waver. "I've known Clay for years. We go wayback." She leaned against the dairy case like she was settling in. "He's so generous with his time, isn't he? Always looking after people. Taking them under his wing." The smile widened. "I know firsthand how... attentive he can be."
She let the wordattentivehang there. Gave it a little spin. Let me watch it glitter.
"That's sweet," I said. "He's been wonderful with my daughter."
I gave her the Ashford gala smile — the one that had survived years of charity events, the one that saidI see exactly what you're doing and I'm choosing not to engage.
Brooke's smile flickered. She'd expected more surface area to work with.
"Well," she said. "Tell Clay I said hi."
"I absolutely will not," I said, still smiling. "But it was lovely meeting you."
I turned to leave and nearly tripped over Maisie, who had materialized behind me holding a wooden armadillo the size of a football, examining it with the intensity of a surgeon.
