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By now, Mitch had joined the clan along with their cousin Devlin.
“Is everyone staying the night?” Jared leaned in so no one else could hear.
Taking a moment to glance at her watch, she nodded. “My vote is at this hour, most likely yes.”
“What have we got here?” Mitch kissed his sister Paige on the cheek, then came around the table to do like wise with Eve. When he focused on the cards in Jake’s hands, he turned back toward Eve and frowned.
She shrugged. “Craig’s the biggest loser so far.”
“I beg your pardon.” Craig briefly leveled his gaze with his brother. “The kid’s luck has to change eventually.”
Carefully watching the boy, Eve wasn’t all that sure luck had anything to do with it.
In just a few hours, Jared had learned more from watching Jake than he could ever have learned from Mary. On the few occasions the woman spoke of her grandson, he was described as a sweet little boy, quiet, and even though he seemed to struggle at school, she was terribly proud of him. Jared couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but something was not adding up.
“If you’ll excuse me a moment, I need to call the house and let Cook know we’re not coming home. She was going to bake a cake for Jake.”
Eve nodded at him. From the way she kept her gaze on Jake, Jared suspected that Eve had many of the same questions he did.
His conversation with Cook had been short and to the point. The spare room across the hall from Jared was ready for Jake. Cook and her husband, who lived in another cottage on Gold land, had moved some of the things from Jake’s room to the family house so he’d feel more at home. He should have thought of it himself, but was thankful so many people had his back.
“So what’s the plan now?” While he was on the phone on deck with Cook, Eve and a few of the adults had moved outside. Jared slid into a deck chair beside Eve.
“We’re going to have dinner served up here.”
“Yes,” Paige nodded at Jared, “Craig managed to learn that pizza is Jake’s favorite food.”
“So we’re ordering pizza?” Jared asked.
Eve shook her head. “Kitchen has a pizza oven.”
“That’ll work.” He had to ask himself if all yachts came with pizza ovens. For some crazy reason he always thought a ship’s galley would be small and compact compared to the opulent trappings of a vessel of this size. Now he knew for sure, no kitchen with a pizza oven was going to be matchbox size.
“That’s some kid.” Devlin came out onto the deck, his cousin Mitch on his heels.
Jared looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Craig and Jake in tow.
“They’ve moved on to chess.” Mitch took a seat at the patio table.
“Chess?”
Devlin nodded. “Craig finally had to take a bathroom break and wouldn’t let the game continue without him.”
“I thought he was just playing with the salt shakers.” Addison sat at the table with Mitch. “I figured it was just a quiet kid entertaining himself.”
“I don’t think I’m following.” Eve glanced over at Jared before looking back at her sister-in-law.
“Apparently,” Addison pulled a chair closer to set her feet on, “he was using the salt and pepper shakers as chess pieces.”
“How’d you figure that out?” No matter how Jared tossed that information around in his head, he couldn’t picture making the connection between playing with condiments equating with chess. Though it could be mostly because he’d never mastered the strategy behind a chess game.
“I didn’t.” Addison waved her thumb over her shoulder.
“I did.” Mitch took a slow sip of a longneck beer.
Eve’s brow buckled. “Youdid?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I may keep busy but I still remember how to play. Though I admit it took a few minutes to connect the dots, but after watching him for a short while I realized there was a pattern and then it struck me.” Mitch shrugged. “So I pulled a chess set out from the cabinet and now the kid and Craig are playing chess.”
