Page 13 of Sweet Devotion

“I was happy to help.”

“Heard you saved the kitchen.” Carson extended his hand. “Appreciate you taking care of that.”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing, my foot.” Alice Sweet handed a piping hot tray of scalloped potatoes to Sarah Sue, Preston’s wife, and waved her in the direction of the dining room. “The wall was a soggy mess. Wouldn’t have been too long from now that my whole kitchen could have flooded.” She let her hand fall on his arm. “You deserve extra dessert tonight.” Now she winked. “I made something just for you.”

Several voices stilled, a few people paused and turned and then came the deluge of comments.

“Special?” Rachel sniffed the air.

Narrowing his gaze at his mother, Carson seemed to be doing his best to read the matriarch’s mind. Before he could utter a word, his wife Jess smiled at her mother-in-law. “All I have to say is if it’s your sour cream blueberry pie, I’ll wrestle anyone in the room for a slice.”

The teasing was fun, but sincere.

Rolling her eyes, Alice Sweet blew out a sigh. “Don’t anyone get your knickers in a twist. I made enough for everyone, but Aiden gets the first slice.”

Heads bobbed and more food made its way to the dining room. Alice directed the seating arrangements, placing Aiden at her side and Colleen beside him. Chairs scraped against the hardwood floors, voices layered over each other, and then settled in their seats, heads bowed, grace was said, and once again the din of family chatter reigned.

Adjusting his weight on the hard wooden seat, Aiden shifted slightly in his chair. The painful ache in his hip had diluted to a dull throb. Who would have thought that a man could be thankful for a steady, tolerable ache? A week or two ago he was pretty sure today’s maneuvering would have left him in a world of hurt that would have robbed him of a good night’s sleep and lingered for days. Maybe, just maybe, he was finally making real progress in his recovery. He was more than ready to return to his world, but to do that he needed to be in the same shape he’d been in before the explosion sent him and his buddies flying through the air. Or maybe all this next step therapy was nothing but a pipe dream and tomorrow there would be hell to pay for his attempt at normalcy. For now, there was a feast to be had and he had no intention of missing one tasty morsel.

The sound of a large family dinner in full swing vibrated around him—Alice Sweet at the head of the table, laughed as she passed a platter of perfectly sliced roast. When the scalloped potatoes made it around, he served himself a hefty portion, surprised at the teasing aroma that rose from the tray. Who knew potatoes could smell so good.

“Do you have a large family back home?” Alice poured gravy over the meat on her plate.

“Yes and no.” He set his fork down on his dinner plate. “I have two sisters, but my dad is one of five and my mom one of four. Dinnertime at our house growing up was pretty simple, but holidays…” he grinned at the memory, “made this look like a small intimate supper.”

“Really?” Colleen tipped her head in his direction.

“I remember as a kid, maybe five or six, my mom arguing she was tired of eating Christmas dinner on folding tables. Next thing I knew, Dad, his brother Vinny, my cousin Joe and I were building a table. Well,” he shrugged, “I may have done more watching than helping, but when it was all done, Mom had two tables in the basement that each held twenty people. If we had more than forty for dinner, the old folding tables got pulled out.”

“Forty?” Alice Sweet’s wide eyes matched the expressions of just about everyone at the table including Colleen.

“Mom, Dad and all their siblings and spouses along with my grandparents were enough people to fill one table. Throw in all the kids, and we filled two. Then add dates and new spouses over time and that basement was filled to the brim with family and food.”

“Basement?” Carson muttered. “We don’t really have those in Texas, but I suppose it can come in handy.”

“Very.” Aiden nodded. “When we weren’t having big dinners, all the kids would play downstairs, out of the adults’ hair.”

“Sounds lovely,” Alice said with a smile, “but who did all the cooking?”

Aiden chuckled. “Originally it was mostly my Nonna and Granny. One was in charge of all things Italian, the other threw in as much Irish as she could. St. Paddy’s day was Granny’s holiday and there isn’t a soul on earth who bakes better soda bread than her.”

Colleen listened to Aiden’s stories of growing up in an Irish Italian family in the Bronx with utter fascination. Nothing he mentioned sounded anything like life in Texas. Granted, she knew living in a big city was different, but somehow, the emphasis on his heritage caught her by surprise.

“I’m sure Nonna wouldn’t mind if I shared her recipe for gravy.”

Her mind having wandered, it took Colleen a few seconds to track the conversation and realize that for an Italian from New York, gravy was actually marinara sauce with meat to serve with pasta. Apparently, no one there called it spaghetti sauce. Having finished her pie, she set her fork down. The din of the Sweet dinner was beginning to wind down, Aiden still sat beside her. He seemed comfortable at the table. That, or he’d become good at hiding his pain. She wasn’t sure which was the case tonight.

The man was a mystery. Underneath the military precision and quiet intensity, the way he talked about his family, especially his Nonna and Granny, gave her a warm feeling. The culture was completely different from Texas, but the love felt exactly the same.

“I heard from Aaron this morning.” Sarah Sue swallowed the last bite of pie from her plate. “He’s at his wits end with another German Shepherd.”

“What’s the situation?” Fork dangling in mid air, Alice focused on her first daughter in law.

“With the same handler for a few years. A Marine sergeant. According to the file, they’d been through deployments together. Saved each other more than once.”

“No surprise there,” Carson muttered. “Kade reminds us constantly, a dog may be man’s best friend, but a handler is a dog’s best family.”