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“You go first this time, Audrey.”
“I don’t usually drink bourbon, but I’ll try it.” One sip and she closed her eyes, said, “Mmm. I think I hear kids at the door, trick-or-treating.”
“My turn.” Olivia’s comment was: “Well, well, well.”
“Okay, consider all three, and if you need another sip, go ahead. I want you to hold your hand below the counter, then lift it up with your fingers signaling one, two, or three. There is no wrong answer. Obviously, one of them goes out of the running.”
Amused, Morgan watched them take one more sip of each candidate.
“Hands down, fingers ready. And reveal! Number three, both of you? Really?”
“It was hard to choose,” Audrey admitted. “But that last sip did it for me. They all say autumn, but I thought that one almost sang it.”
“I leaned toward three myself, so it’s unanimous. Well, that was easy.”
“From this side of the counter anyway. And as the oldest in this panel, I’m taking the winner for myself.”
“I’ll make you one, Mom.”
“No, no, both the others are terrific. I just have to decide which one to claim. I’ll take the middle one. Middle ground, that’s me. And I can’t believe I’m sitting here drinking a cocktail at, what, two-forty-five-ish in the afternoon. I was going to make bread. And we still have to make dinner.”
“Let’s drink cocktails and order pizza instead.”
Audrey laughed at Morgan. “That sounds… really wonderful. What do you say, Mom?”
“I say: cheers.”
While the Nash women sat on the patio with cocktails, the Jamesons sat around the dining room table holding their family meeting.
Nell studied her tablet. “All right, last item on my agenda is Après’s specialty cocktail, virgin option, and coffee for the fall, which we’ll introduce right after Labor Day. Morgan hasn’t decided on the cocktail, but assures me she’ll have that for my approval early next week. For the coffee she’s going to do what she calls Coffee Incompearable—get it?”
“Har har,” Liam said.
“It’s a combination of coffee, poached pear, cinnamon, cloves, and so on. I said complicated, then she made me one. I’m sold. I thought we’d bold and italicize the pear in ‘incompearable.’ We can price it at four dollars.”
“It’s clever,” Drea commented. “But she’s a clever woman. We’ve got the Stevenson wedding in October, and the bride’s using pears in her decor. I’m going to ask Morgan to come up with a signature pear cocktail, something other than whatever we use for Après, and nudge the bride toward it. Has she told you what she’s going to offer, Miles?”
“No.”
She hadn’t told him about the coffee either, which didn’t sound like something he’d say “sold” on. But he didn’t doubt it would sell.
They did talk about work, some, he thought, while his mother gave her Events report. But when it came down to it, their time together was… compressed.
That’s how they’d worked it. So far.
He pushed it off, tuned back in, reminded himself this was work, and not the time to think about Morgan.
But wasn’t she right here, in the flowers she’d put on the table Saturday morning?
The table passed from his mother to Liam and fall activities. Nature hikes, photo groups, team building, kids’ weekends, fall packages. And from there to fall landscaping, to fall maintenance, safety checks, seasonal inventory.
Once business concluded, food took center stage. He’d made the pulled pork as requested—a lot of damn trouble in his book, but it spared him from doing anything else for the family meal.
And Morgan was there, too, as she’d told him the Sunday forecast called for a perfect afternoon and evening. So he should use the colorful dishes again. And damned if she hadn’t sat at the counter and fancy folded a pile of napkins, and made another big-ass pitcher of sangria.
“This looks so pretty.” After one look at the table, his mother gave him the eye. “I sense a feminine touch.”
“Apparently, Morgan has a thing about napkins. And sangria.”
