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When Trey brought in more wine, Melly kept her word, hugged him. “Mmm. Got yourself a good, solid build there, too. Jackson, you come on back here and bring Mama.”

“She’s taking her time with Cleo.” Jackson, a tall beanpole of a man, came in, offered his slow, shy smile. He kissed Winter’s cheek, then Sonya’s before shaking hands with Trey.

“Um, Jackson Fabares, Cleo’s daddy.”

“Trey Doyle. It’s nice meeting you. Can I get you a drink?”

“Wouldn’t say no to a beer if you got one handy. Something sure smells good in here.”

“Cleo baked a ham,” Winter told him.

“She did what now?” he asked while Melly let out a bark of laughter.

“She makes a damn good meatloaf,” Trey added, and handed Jackson a beer.

“I might just have to sit down. This sure is some place you got here, Sonya. Some place.”

Imogene Bea LaRue Tamura, long-legged and lanky on the cusp of seventy, stood inside the music room with her granddaughter. She had a mane of wild butterscotch curls that time had liberally streaked with white. She credited her remarkably smooth, dusky skin to the melting pot of her genetics, and a life well lived. Her eyes, caught somewhere between brown and gold, studied the room.

She wore her traveling jeans and a red T-shirt with low-top Converse sneakers of the same bold color. Half a dozen chains bearing crystals, an ankh, symbols of sun and moon hung around her neck.

On her right hand, she wore a wide silver band carved with theastrological sign for Libra, and a moonstone cabochon on her middle finger.

A widow for twelve years, she wore her wedding ring, a hammered gold band, on her left.

Her left biceps bore a tattoo of the fivefold symbol.

“They look out for you, these and more. And look to you, you and Sonya, these and more. This house is full,chère, sorrow and joy, blood and sweat, tears and laughter, as a house so long in years must be.”

Her voice, fluid and rich, carried the easy flow of her native New Orleans.

“This is a good house, a good, strong house,ma fille.”

“I know it, and feel it. But it makes it better and stronger to hear you say it.”

“Still, it holds a powerful, dark force.” Imogene glanced up as she spoke. “Greedy, and mad with that greed. It wants your fear.”

“Doing my best not to accommodate.”

Imogene smiled. “You got a head on your shoulders, my boo, and always did. I got some things for you. Your daddy—and I credit my girl for picking such a man as Jackson—didn’t complain, not one time along this way, about the weight of what I had him haul down.”

“He loves you, Magie.”

Imogene smiled at Cleo’s childhood endearment. “I love him back with cake and ice cream. Now, you take this.”

Imogene lifted one of the chains from around her neck.

“Oh, but that’s your special tourmaline, the one Paw gave you.”

“Now we’re giving it to you. It’s protection,chérie, and powerful strong, as it comes with love.” She hung the chain with its three thick black stones around Cleo’s neck.

“Love’s a circle, when true, never ends. A circle protects against what wants to bring harm. Hold your circle, Cleo.”

Imogene glanced back as Owen paused in the doorway. And her smile lit like the sun.

“Why, there you are! I wondered when you’d come along. You’re a looker, aren’t you, boy?”

“You sure are,” he said, and made her laugh. “You must be Cleo’s mom.”