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  “I’m not sure people get blown away by my music.”

  Olivia stood up. “Nope, sorry, not the time for modesty. You’re definitely doing this. You’re also giving me permission to cut classes next Friday so I can be here for the show.”

  Olivia was already planning to be down for the party, so coming a day earlier would be no big deal. “You really think I should do this?”

  “Of course I think you should do it. More importantly, you think you should do this.”

  “I’m not certain about that.”

  “Not buying it, Mom. I can hear it in your voice. What does Dad think about it?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it yet.”

  “Well, mention it. Because you’re definitely doing this and he’s gonna have to come home from work early that night to take us out to dinner first.” Olivia started walking toward the living room. “Come on, show me what you’re thinking of playing.”

  Maria followed her daughter out of the kitchen, feeling exponentially happier about this impromptu visit.

  **^^^**

  Deborah was putting her knives away and trying not to think about using them on her family. Corrina had called another Wednesday dinner. This meant Deborah had to cook on her day off, which really wasn’t much of a hardship, except that it meant she couldn’t cook for Sage (though he was coming by later). It also meant she had to endure more of her sister’s histrionics about the party, and that was becoming increasingly difficult to do. At least Olivia was there, which was a nice surprise.

  “Is the coast clear?”

  Deborah looked up to see Sage grinning at her from the doorway. Her shoulders relaxed instantly. “Yes, they’re finally gone.”

  Sage moved toward Deborah and enveloped her. She sighed and melted into him. “Do you have your new marching orders?”

  She tilted her head up to kiss him. “General Corrina has explained the errors of my ways and charged me with my mission.”

  Sage nuzzled her neck. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have missed this.”

  As Sage kissed her jaw, Deborah wanted nothing else but to have this man caressing her. Memories of Monday afternoon made her knees a little wobbly. Unfortunately, he chose that moment to pull back and reach for her hand.

  “Come tell me about it,” he said as he guided her toward a chair in the kitchen.

  “Talk is overrated,” she said as she sat. “Can we go back to what you were doing with my neck?”

  Sage’s eyes made it clear that his memories of Monday were as pleasant as hers. “We will definitely go back to that. Talk to me first. You looked pretty tight when I walked in.”

  Deborah felt herself slumping. “Oh, it’s just the same garbage with some new garbage added. Corrina being autocratic, Maxwell being a politician, Tyler being befuddled – the usual. On top of that, Corrina and Tyler were sniping at each other even more than they have been. It was lots of fun. I made a pork loin with apples and currants and a brown butter pan gravy; I don’t think anyone noticed, though they ate all of it.”

  “It sounds like the party is getting the best of them.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I mean, it’s some of it, but something tells me it would be this uncomfortable if it were June.” She looked away from Sage for a moment and considered that notion. “I can’t imagine what a dinner next June will be like. I wonder if we’ll even have one.”

  “Your family has been close for a long time, right? Things will normalize.”

  Deborah nodded her head slowly. “That’s just the thing. I think this might be the new normal. What if all the tension is a symptom? What if now that my father and mother are gone – and soon the inn will be as well – we don’t have any reason to stay connected?”

  Sage took her hand and rubbed it softly. “I guess that’s a real possibility.”

  “You should have seen it tonight. Corrina and Tyler looked like they genuinely disliked each other. I mean, we’ve always taken shots and gotten under each other’s skin, but this wasn’t that. This was real pissed-off stuff.”

  “And neither of them will tell you what’s going on?”

  “It’s not open for discussion. If I ask one, all they do is complain about the other, but the complaints don’t match the anger.”

  Deborah drifted back to the last time she’d broached this with Tyler. What she’d found most disturbing about the conversation was his complacency. It was as though he was already well on his way to accepting that his sister would some day be an acquaintance.

  Sage squeezed her hand and then brought it to his lips. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help analyzing family dynamics. I haven’t seen my father since a couple of weeks after my mother’s funeral, and I haven’t spoken to my brother in three years.”

  Deborah studied his eyes. “I think that might be me and my siblings soon.”

  Sage moved closer. “Maybe not. You’re different. I never liked my brother. He eats frozen bagels.”

  That got a smile out of Deborah. “Frozen bagels? That’s genetic, you know.”

  Sage’s eyes few open in mock surprise. “It is?”

  “It is. You’re fighting your destiny. All those truffles and elderflower honey aren’t going to save you, though. It’s only a matter of time before you start chowing down on canned spinach. Thanks for letting me know now. I’m glad I didn’t get too committed.”

  Sage laughed and then moved even closer. “Too committed?”

  “Well, yeah. I was a little into you.”

  “Really?”

  Impulsively, Deborah took his face in both of her hands. “What part of purring contentedly next to you did you misunderstand on Monday?” she said softly.

  He pulled her toward him and then drew her onto his lap. “Absolutely no part.”

  He kissed her passionately, and the last vestige of tension over the family dinner vaporized. “Okay, maybe I’m more than a little into you.”

  Sage kissed her again and then started once more on her neck. “I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to make it back to my place or yours.”

  Deborah chuckled, surprised by how seductive it sounded. She rose from his lap and extended her hand.

  “Did I mention that one of the guest rooms is empty tonight?”

  Fourteen

  Thursday, October 21

  Ten days before the party

  Maxwell called his assistant to tell her that he was going to be an hour-and-a-half or so late and then stopped at Piece of Cake for two of their signature sticky buns. He knew Tyler would never accept any kind of cash payment from him, but Maxwell could compensate him with a different kind of dough.

  He hadn’t called his brother ahead of time, so there was always the possibility that Tyler wouldn’t be around. Maxwell hadn’t planned on doing this today, but the morning had started in such an off-kilter way that he figured a change in routine might be useful. Annie, who had been unpredictable for weeks, was flat-out confounding as he prepared to go to the office. He’d made a simple request that she call the cable guy to come check why the ESPN2 signal was breaking up, and she responded by doing three minutes on how much she had going on today and how her purpose in life could not be to make sure he always had six channels of twenty-four hour sports. Taken aback, Maxwell said he’d make the call himself, at which point Annie much more calmly told him that she’d call the cable people before she got started on her day. Exchanges of this sort had become more frequent between them lately, but they still left Maxwell feeling as though he’d dropped into an alternate reality.

  Maxwell pulled into Tyler’s driveway, glad to see his brother’s car sitting there. Grabbing the bag of sticky buns, he went up to the door and rang the bell. It took more than a minute for Tyler to answer.

  “Hey,” Tyler said, as he opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

  Max
well held up the bag. “I have a bribe for you.”

  Tyler opened the screen door and looked at Maxwell suspiciously. “Why do you have a bribe for me?”

  Maxwell entered the house. “Because it’s always good to have a bribe for someone when you need them to do you a favor.”

  “This favor wouldn’t have anything to do with babysitting Joey, would it? I swear I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion the last time.”

  “No babysitting. This is a photography favor. I need new headshots.”

  Maxwell wasn’t planning to tell Tyler that the headshots were for a PR kit that would be used to get donors on board for his gestating mayoral run. Maxwell hadn’t fully committed to making the run yet, but Mike had convinced him to put the kit together. Telling Tyler would make the entire thing seem as though it were genuinely in motion, and Maxwell wasn’t ready for that, especially since Annie had been less than thrilled when he broached the topic with her.

  “Headshots aren’t exactly my thing,” Tyler said.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not entire clear on what your thing is.”

  “Really? I’ve given you three framed pictures. I’ve seen them hanging in your house.”

  Maxwell flashed on the photographs Tyler had presented him with over the years. “You only do leaves?”

  “Not only leaves. Sometimes other plants.”

  “No people?”

  “No people, just natural images.”

  Maxwell grinned. “I’ve been told I’m a complete natural.”

  Tyler rolled his eyes. “Yes, people who make awful puns are such naturals.” He grabbed for the bag. “What did you bring me from Piece of Cake?”

  “Sticky buns.”

  “Nice.”

  “Does that mean you’ll do the headshots?”

  Tyler opened the bag and took a sniff. “These need coffee,” he said, turning toward the kitchen. “I’ll do the headshots if you want. I’m just not making any promises. You might come out looking like a shrub.”

  “Hey, that would be an improvement over the shot of me that’s on the Chamber website.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Did you use a disposable camera to take that one?”

  “I know it’s awful. I need something better now.”

  Maxwell had followed Tyler into the kitchen and watched as his brother ground coffee and boiled water for the French press.

  “How artsy can we be?” Tyler said when the grinder stopped.

  “Completely not artsy.”

  “Okay. How casual can we be?”

  “Completely not casual.”

  “This is sounding like more and more fun by the second. Are you sure you don’t want the disposable camera guy to do this?”

  “I brought sticky buns.”

  Tyler took an exaggerated deep breath. “You did. You did bring sticky buns. Okay, I’ll do the shots. No tripod, though.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “It means that I’m going to keep the camera moving. I don’t know much about taking pictures of people, but we’re not gonna do this stiff.”

  “I’m in your hands.”

  Tyler poured the boiling water into the French press and set a timer. “Can we lose the tie?”

  “We really can’t.”

  “Ugh. This is why I don’t shoot things that wear clothes.”

  An hour later, Maxwell was in his car on the way to his office. Despite his protestations, the shots Tyler took looked good, at least through the little screen on his camera. Tyler promised he’d work on the images and e-mail something later. Maybe this would convince him to consider doing more headshots in the future. There had to be more money in that than there was in photographs of plants.

  By the time he got to work, Maxwell felt as though his equilibrium had been restored. He’d call Annie later to tell her that he appreciated everything she did to keep the house running. Maybe she and Joey would even meet him for a quick lunch.

  **^^^**

  It took Annie fifteen minutes to relax into the day. The babysitter was late, which meant that the woman had arrived only minutes before Marty did at eleven thirty. This caused a bit of confusion in getting Joey settled, but Annie managed to do all of that in the den while Marty waited in the foyer. Still, she felt thrown off for a while, as she usually did when she needed her son to conform and he wanted only to do things his way.

  By the time they’d gotten onto the exit out of Oldham onto I-95, though, Annie was thinking less about Joey and the babysitter and more about the darkly enchanting music Marty had on the stereo and the easy cool that her one-time lover exuded from the driver’s seat. It didn’t hurt that it was a magnificent Indian Summer day, easily the warmest in two weeks.

  Marty had decided they were going to a beach up the coast about a half-hour, where they would picnic on a blanket on the sand. He told her he’d gotten their food from a gourmet shop in town, but Annie would have been happy with a bag of chips and a Coke. Just being out like this was enough for her.

  “You still haven’t told me where you got your fortune from,” Annie said as she ran her hand across the buttery leather of Marty’s BMW roadster. “I’m starting to think it’s drugs or guns.”

  Marty smiled slyly. “I can promise you it’s not drugs, guns, or anything else illegal.”

  “Then why doesn’t Google have anything about you? It’s like you’re off the grid.”

  “You Googled me?”

  Annie felt momentarily embarrassed. “You have me intrigued.”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, Marty reached over and patted Annie’s leg. “Everything is set up behind holding companies. To tell you the truth, it’s all pretty boring.”

  “But you’re still not going to tell me about it.”

  Marty gave her leg a little squeeze before downshifting to change lanes. “Whatever you’re imagining is way better than the reality.”

  Annie laughed and shook her head. The old Marty was never mysterious. One of the reasons they’d split was that he felt the need to say everything on his mind, including some things about her that she would have preferred not to hear. While she found his teasing a little frustrating, Annie thought this was another indication that this Marty was a considerable upgrade over the old one.

  Annie was feeling completely relaxed by the time they got to the beach. The water from the Long Island Sound lapped softly onto the shore as Marty spread out their blanket and pulled food from a bag. They’d settled at a spot secluded by brush that kept them protected from the mild breeze. Other than a couple of seagulls, they had this part of the beach completely to themselves.

  Marty touched her on the shoulder and handed her some red wine in a crystal glass.

  “Pretty fancy for a picnic,” she said.

  He gestured her toward the blanket. “Wine doesn’t taste right in anything else.”

  Annie sat down and took a look at the spread – pâté, three cheeses, some cured meats, and a jar of truffle honey. “We used to drink the cheapest wine we could find out of plastic cups.”

  Marty tore off a hunk of bread and handed it to her. “Times have changed.”

  They ate quietly for a few minutes, the wine warming Annie even more than the unseasonable sun.

  “So we’ve discussed my mysteries, but we haven’t discussed any of yours,” Marty said as he drizzled some honey over a piece of cheese.

  Annie looked out toward the Sound. “I have no mysteries.”

  “Impossible.”

  Annie turned toward Marty and held his eyes for several long seconds. “If I have any, they’re buried under laundry and toys.”

  Marty smiled at her crookedly. “See? That sounds mysterious to me.”

  “Not mysterious. Just achingly normal.”

  “And
you don’t want that?”

  “Sometimes I do. Sometimes it’s even fun, like when Joey figures something out for the first time or settles enough to just cuddle with me.”

  “Isn’t that what you signed up for?”

  Annie took another sip of wine, watching the legs trail back to the bottom of the glass. “I guess I didn’t realize I was signing up for this to the exclusion of everything else.”

  “Every gig has its downsides.”

  Annie tipped her head toward him. “Even running a drug cartel like you?”

  Marty smiled at her again, his eyes glittering in the autumn sun. “You have no idea how tedious being an outlaw can be.”

  Annie put down her wineglass and leaned toward Marty. “We were never tedious, Marty.”

  “That was definitely true.”

  She turned to face him directly. “I can’t even remember what tore us apart.”

  “Time and circumstance.”

  “Is that what it was?”

  “That’s all I remember.”

  Annie rose up on her knees, and before she could think about it, she moved toward Marty and kissed him, softly at first and then with increasing passion. There were several things about Marty that couldn’t be improved upon, and his kisses were among the greatest. The instant their lips touched, Annie remembered how hungrily she craved his kisses, how she desired them before, during, and long after their lovemaking.

  Marty’s hand found the small of her back and then slid under her waistband, and she abandoned all caution. Within minutes, they were lying naked in the sand and Annie was feeling a fire she’d long believed was extinguished.

  Afterward, they lay entwined while Marty tenderly massaged Annie’s scalp. Only the encroaching chill and the approaching evening raised them out of their secluded cove.

  They didn’t speak much on the way back. Maxwell had a dinner tonight, which was good, because Annie knew she wasn’t going to be ready to face him for hours. She couldn’t think about the implications now, though she knew she would have to face them soon enough. All she knew was that she needed what happened this afternoon, and that she was going to need it again soon. Annie had found something inside of herself that she thought was gone; she couldn’t allow herself to lose it again, regardless of the consequences.