Page 107

“Oh, we’ll get back to it,” Deuce promised.

Ace—no three-piece suit and tie today, but just as handsome in an open-collared shirt—unfolded himself from the table where he’d been sitting with his wife and granddaughter.

He winked at Sonya, gave her a bear hug, then turned to Cleo.

“Cleopatra, at last.” He took her hand, and with a twinkle in his eye, kissed it. “Come meet my own darling, then you can tell me your life story.”

“I’d love to, as long as there’s a semicolon after it. I’m not finished yet.”

“I do love a beautiful young woman with some sass. Paula, meet Cleo.”

“That’ll keep them busy awhile. Sonya, let me get you a drink.”

“I had a lot of wine with last night’s concert. But I’d love some water.”

“Trey didn’t mention you went to a concert.”

“He and Owen performed in the music room.”

“‘Performed’ might be overstating it.” Trey tugged her down to a stool.

“Not for me. We haven’t had live music at the manor since you came to dinner, Corrine. We need to have it more often.”

Obviously too at home for bell ringing, Owen came in. Not with flowers but a live plant.

“Owen! Is that—”

“Old-fashioned weigela,” he finished, and kissed his hostess. “I heard you had a spot for one.”

“I do! Deuce may curse you when I watch him dig the hole.”

“I already am,” Deuce said as Owen carried it straight out to the deck. “Well, since the gang’s all here, I’ll carve the ham.”

Owen lit right up. “Score!”

It was just that easy, a Sunday dinner around a big table, conversations winging. Baby talk, baseball talk, gardening, cooking, art, local gossip, and plenty about the planned open house.

And none, Sonya realized, about what lurked in the manor in the Gold Room. Maybe the Doyles decided to give her a kind of reprieve.

Corrine didn’t brush off offers to help deal with the dishes, which to Sonya’s mind made it a true family dinner.

It brought chaos with it, but she enjoyed that, too, as well as a tour of the gardens, which gave her too many ideas to fit in her head.

“The gardens at the manor are well established,” Corrine told her as they walked. “But Collin filled in with annuals every year, added planters.”

“We’re hoping to do the same. But how do you know what everything is? What goes together? And where to fill in?”

“Experience. And if you make a mistake? There’s always next year.”

Though the living room didn’t boast a baby grand, it had a spinet. It took very little to coax Paula to play, and Ace to form a duet.

Seth sat with his arm around Anna’s shoulders, murmured something in her ear that had her smiling and bringing his hand to her belly under hers.

Deuce and Corrine sat together, his hand on her knee, her head tilted toward his shoulder.

It struck Sonya she wanted that, every stage of that unity.

The young just starting, the deeply established, the long-lasting. A home filled with generations and music and arguments over baseball.