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“I got that covered. We’re having an adventure.”

“Every day with the pair of you’s an adventure. Come on now,” Jackson urged, “or you’ll be goodbying till nightfall.”

Before she got into the car, Imogene looked back at Owen. “We’re going to have us a fais-dodo when you come down to see me.”

“I don’t know what that is, but I’m already looking forward to it.”

On a laugh, she slid into the car.

“What’s a fais-dodo?” Owen asked as they drove away.

“It’s a party. Are you planning a trip to Louisiana?”

He shrugged at Cleo. “I guess I must be, but right now, we’re hauling those chairs and the tables back inside. We’re due for some rain tonight.”

“I’ll help you put what goes where, then I need to head home.”

“Maybe you could stay another night.”

Winter slipped an arm around Sonya’s shoulders. “Not this time. My work’s waiting. Yours, too.”

So Winter bided her time until she wrangled Trey into helping her carry chafing dishes down to storage.

“I really like your family,” she began.

“Me, too. I really like yours.”

“Me, too. We’re lucky there. It was hard, so hard, on Sonya to lose her father that way, so young. She adored him.”

“I know. It’s easy to see when she talks about him.”

“I won’t say that loss defined her life, but it did influence her direction. Her choice of career. Her talent and interest led the way there, but the early influence played a part. This house? Her father was born in this house, and that matters. She always wanted an old rambling house, and I wonder if, somehow, like Drew, she just… knew.”

Winter jolted when the servants’ bell rang furiously.

“You don’t even flinch when that happens,” she murmured. “I can’t tell you how much that reassures me. You’re a steady sort, Trey, and she needs that steadiness. This past year turned her life upside down, so she needs the steady.”

“She’s got plenty of that herself.”

“She does. She really does. Looking back, I can see so clearly what I didn’t. Her relationship with Brandon, her gradually letting him run more and more of the show. She wanted family, to make her own, so she ceded little pieces of herself. Then he betrayed her, and she was done.”

“I won’t. If you’re worried about her and me, where we’re going—”

“No. That’s between the two of you. What I’m asking is for you to keep looking out for her—when she lets you. You have a way of doing that, and it doesn’t ask or demand she give up little pieces of herself.

“This beautiful old house.” She wandered as she spoke. “So muchhers—I can feel it. And part of me wants to drag her out, and Cleo with her—lock the doors behind them.”

She turned back. “I can’t, and I hope I wouldn’t if I could. I worry less because Cleo’s with her, and together, they’re—”

“Downright awesome.”

She smiled. “Downright awesome. I worry less now that I’ve met you, met Owen, your families. You don’t need my approval, but you have it.”

“I might not need it, but I can value it. I do.”

The bell rang and rang. The lid on one of the chafing dishes began to rattle and shake. Trey simply put a hand on the lid to still it.

“Didn’t even flinch. I can head back to Boston with some peace of mind.”