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“I’m going to try it.” His grandfather poured a glass. “One for you, Lydia?”
“All right. I don’t think I’ve had any since we went to Spain. What’s that, ten years ago?”
“Must be. Don’t know what I think about poached pears in coffee, but this is damn good. Tastes like summer, and it won’t be here much longer. Well, look at that. Rory’s taught Howl to fetch.”
Morgan had, Miles thought. And that damn dog still wouldn’t go after a ball for the one who provided him with room and board.
She was here, in the damn dog, in the stupid napkins, in the flowers on the table. The woman was everywhere.
They ate pulled pork, his father’s coleslaw, his grandmother’s potato salad, corn on the cob his grandfather tossed on the grill.
After, since he’d made the main and that excused him from cleanup, he drew his grandmother aside.
“Got a minute?”
“I hope I have more than one. Let’s take a walk. The grounds lookespecially nice this summer. You’re the best gardener out of my grandchildren.”
“I guess the landscape training stuck.”
“Apparently.” She put an arm through his as they walked. “I had lunch with Olivia Nash last week. She tells me Morgan’s added to their grounds as well. A Zen frog fountain. You helped with that?”
“I was just the muscle. I love this place, Grand. I don’t tell you that often enough.”
“I see it, and that’s plenty. You want the ring.”
He stopped, stared down at her. “How did you know that?”
“My darling boy, I know you. We all know you.” She leaned a little closer. “I promised you the ring when you found the one you wanted to wear it. She may want her own.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’ll matter to her, that it’s from you, from family. It’ll matter. But I don’t want to take it unless you’re sure.”
Lydia looked down at the wedding set she’d worn more than fifty years. She slipped off the one with the square-cut diamond that topped the band. “What matters is you’re sure, and I see you are. I’m wearing the pledge and the life that goes with it. I’m giving you the promise of that pledge. Do you want to tell the others?”
“I figure to wait until I know what she says.”
“For a smart man you can be very thick. They already know. I can’t tell you what she’ll say, because I don’t know her heart, not all of it. I can say she’s a very lucky woman.” Lydia put the ring in his hand, closed his hand around it.
“It may not be what she wants. Not the ring—the package.”
“You’ll have to find out, won’t you? Life’s a series of leaps. Now, let’s go tell the rest of us what they already know.”
He didn’t have to say a thing, not when they walked in and he saw his mother’s gaze go directly to his grandmother’s left hand. Then watched her eyes fill.
“Oh, don’t do that.”
“I’m entitled. Oh, Rory, our baby’s getting married.”
“I don’t know that. Wait.”
“Good thing I didn’t hit on her.”
That changed quick panic to derision for his brother. “Yeah, that would’ve worked out for you.”
“We’ll never know now. Good job, man. She’s a winner.”
Mick took Lydia’s left hand, brought it to his lips. “My own darling. Good job, us.”
“Everybody, please back up. If she says no, nothing changes.”
