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“It always matters.” He trailed his fingers through her loosened hair. “She loves you. They all do. And everyone here loves Cleo. It doesn’t always work that way, believe me. But I know when it does. My family loves Owen, his loves me. It adds the special when it works.”

“You’re right about that, too. Now, about helping me smooth things out.”

“I’ve got some ideas.” Rising, he pulled her to her feet.

“I’m counting on it.”

She woke at three, wired again. But she didn’t feel the pull, felt no need to get up, to walk.

“Okay?” Trey reached for her hand.

“Yes.”

Still she nestled close to him as the chime of the clock echoed away, as the weeping drifted like the piano music.

She heard nothing from the third floor, and closed her eyes again, grateful.

It wouldn’t last, she knew. But maybe with so much positive energy, they’d get another day, another night.

Because tomorrow, no matter what came, they’d open the house, and fill it again.

Chapter Twenty-eight

In the morning, Winter, Melly, and Imogene took over the kitchen. They allowed any who wandered in to get coffee, then summarily booted them out.

Booted, Sonya listened to the mix of voices, a lot of laughter, and the occasional musical interlude from Clover.

While it wasn’t anything she imagined, she realized she wanted this, too. Wanted to listen to a group of women laughing in her kitchen.

With their own agenda, she and Cleo began dressing tables with the hot pink cloths they’d chosen. In lieu of centerpieces or formal arrangements, they placed pale blue mini mason jars to hold single fat, colorful blooms. Peonies, dahlias, hydrangeas.

They drafted whatever male came within shouting distance to haul out more tables, more chairs.

“Hey, all y’all!” Melly shouted out the window. “This big old platter just came up on the dumbwaiter thing. All by itself! This is one wild house. Breakfast in ten!”

They feasted in the dining room, with platters and bowls spread over the big table. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, biscuits, berries, hash browns, and grits, as Imogene decreed no breakfast complete without them.

Sonya crossed another want off her list. A big family breakfast in the dining room.

Then they got back to work.

With their delivery, they placed the portable bars according to Bree’s chart.

Sonya found the flurry of activity, the busy hands, the mix of ideas exhilarating.

When she saw Imogene and her gangly son-in-law hanging witch bottles from tree branches, or her mother and Melly designing a tablescape for the dining room, she wondered how she and Cleo had ever imagined they could do all of it alone.

A last-minute decision to add some conversation areas to the front had Trey and Owen searching through storage.

Then Bree arrived with two servers and the rented dishes and glassware.

“I got my outfit and all in my car. You got a place I can change after we’re set up?”

“Absolutely. I—”

She cut Sonya off with a wave. “Later for that. I need the bars stocked. Misty and Wayne, get cracking. Follow the chart. You’ve got enough hands around here to cart out and set up the plates, the flatware. You’ve got that chart.”

“We have all your charts,” Cleo told her.