“Old man!”
Caroline switched into protective big-sister mode and elbowed Joe. “Come on, Daddy. Cut Lily Susan a break. She’s the baby, remember. She’s not used to getting pushed around the way you push around the rest of us.” She winked at her sister. “And now that you’re finally here, you can’t stay with Mom and Dad the whole time. You’ve got to spend time with me. When was the last time we had a girls’ night?”
“Or a slumber party,” Riley added. “The kids can stay up late and we can watch Disney movies and eat popcorn—”
“And drink cocoa!” Jake added. “With the big marshmallows.”
“It’ll be like playing musical Aunt Lily Susan,” Camille chimed in, and Riley laughed.
Max grinned, too. He hoped they all had lots of extra space for all her suitcases. Lily Susan didn’t travel light.
Suddenly Madeleine was pulling on his sleeve. “Daddy, I want to play musical Madame Lily Susan, too. She can sleep with me in my princess castle.”
And the conversation split off into smaller ones again.
Lily Susan exhaled a dramatic sigh but kept her mouth shut, clearly refusing to add any fuel to the fire since she was off the hook for the moment. But Max watched her, marveling at how effectively she was able to maintain her poise and reserve. Every one of the Angelicas was grounded and down-to-earth in their own unique way, and all of them were so very open. Not Lily Susan.
His cell phone vibrated at his waist. He reached for it, hoping there wasn’t some emergency at the office that would drag him away, but Madeleine got there ahead of him, her tiny fingers slipping the phone from its case easily.
She glanced at the display. “It’s Goddess.”
“Hop up and take the call into the kitchen.”
Madeleine slid from the chair, whispering into the receiver so loudly the entire table could hear, “Hi, Goddess. It’s me. I have to whisper till I get away from the dinner table.”
“Goddess?” Lily Susan glanced his way, amusement transforming her expression, making her seem relaxed and beautiful. “Your mother?”
Who else’s mother refused to let her granddaughter call her by any name that made her sound old? “She’s probably checking to see if you made it in safely.”
“She knew you were coming to get me?”
He nodded, not wanting to go into the details about how much he’d actually told his mother…and then it hit him. Max suddenly knew exactly what it was about Lily Susan that always took him off guard.
She reminded him more of his family than her own.
CHAPTER FIVE
“MADAME LILY SUSAN,” Madeleine said. “Goddess wants to talk to you.”
“Merci.” Smiling at the little girl, Lily grabbed the phone and dashed to the back porch for privacy.
“Thank you, Ginger,” she whispered into the receiver.
Max’s mother certainly knew how to make an entrance, even on a telephone. Not a surprise. Her last name was Downey. Came with the territory. Even Max, who enjoyed hanging out with Joey with a cold beer after a day bow hunting, was nothing if not socially adept. And always had been. She could remember when Joey had first brought Max home after a baseball game. He’d walked into the kitchen, handsome in his dirty uniform, thrust out his hand to Joe and introduced himself.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” he’d said. “I’m Max Downey.”
He’d seemed the epitome of everything a charming boy should be—everything her big brother wasn’t—and Lily had formed her opinion of what her perfect groom would look like in that instant.
She’d grown up since then, regardless of the way her pulse raced when Max looked at her now.
Slipping through the door, Lily closed it behind her, the chatter of dinner-table conversation muted enough so she could hear. Taking a deep breath, Lily let the calm overtake her. She loved her family, but it didn’t take long for them to make her vibrate with the noise and the demands.
Ginger’s timing was impeccable because Lily could use a few minutes to catch her breath and regroup. Although she should have known Ginger wouldn’t wait until Lily visited their office tomorrow. No, she would want top billing now that her long-time business partner had returned.
“Welcome home, my dear,” said the cultured voice on the other end of the line. “The natives restless?”
“Please remind me never again to let so much time pass between visits.”
“It has been a while.”
“I know.” Lily stopped in front of the picture window and stared out at the yard. The old swing was still there, hanging from a sturdy branch of the oak tree. Her dad had carved and hinged that swing himself. He’d varnished the wood with some cutting-edge product he’d gotten in the hardware store so it would last forever.
Lily remembered swinging on it, faster and higher, as if she could launch herself over the treetops and out of her little world into the great wide somewhere else.
“I have no excuse,” she admitted. “Except there’s been so much going on with work.”
“And your fiancé. Let’s not forget him. No matter what poor choices he made at the end of your relationship, you’ve been involved in a sweeping romance for quite some time.”
Thank you for the reminder, Ginger!
But even Lucas had been about work in a lot of ways. Lily sometimes thought they wouldn’t have been together so long if not for the way their business interests meshed. The wedding world had given them so much common ground. Same crazy schedules. Same business acquaintances. Same friends. They supported each other, liked each other, loved each other even. It had been so easy to be together.
But she couldn’t deny that their relationship had been centered more on business than romance no matter what the press made of it. They’d been comfortable, but lacking in some areas. “I really can’t believe how much time has passed.”
“You’re a busy woman with lots of irons in the fire.”
“True. But no one’s cutting me any slack.”
“Well, try to sympathize with where they’re coming from, my dear. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if one of the boys stayed away so long. At least when they were off at college, they showed up around the holidays for gifts.”
Ginger’s boys were now all grown men. Max was her eldest, the heir to the Downey dynasty, so to speak. Her middle son was engaged to a perfectly suitable girl, although no wedding date had been set as of yet. And the youngest who was Ginger’s favorite—although she would never admit that aloud—was also following his own life path.
“If Mara wasn’t so capable, I’d have to visit our office more often,” Lily said to move the conversation along.
“I’m sure she’ll be relieved to hear it. But she has a lot of help, you know. Some very exceptional help, I might add.”
“I’ve heard. So why have you been spending so much time in the office?”
“When I saw the numbers on your renovation budget, I shivered to think about the damage Mara could do with such an obscene amount of money to spend. I felt the renovation budget needed competent supervision.”
Mara would have been quite capable of handling the renovations, Lily had no doubt, but Ginger had wanted to be involved. And whenever Ginger became involved, she wound up in charge. “I had no choice, Ginger. You know that. Not after the historical society got ahold of the area.”
“I do. But I also