Mason smiled. Emmaline smiled. Patricia didn’t smile. Colleen walked back to the kitchen.
“So,” said Em. “This is great, meeting you both.”
“I have a small phobia about being alone with women,” he said smoothly.
“So I always come with him,” Patricia said. “Always. Every time.”
“Ah.” Dear God, where do You hide the normal people? Love, Emmaline.
Mason laughed warmly. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. She doesn’t.” Mason smiled again. “Only the first time. I realize it’s a little strange.”
“It’s because of our mother,” Patricia said.
“Let’s not discuss it,” Mason said.
“You should tell her, Mase,” Patricia barked. “Keeping things bottled up is dangerous! It’s dangerous!”
The fire department was now staring openly. The firefighters loved this kind of thing.
“It’s fine,” Em said. “Some things are too personal to discuss with strangers.”
“He has boundary issues,” Patricia said urgently. “We both do. Boundaries become very fluid in communes.”
“Did you say commune?” Em asked.
“And the cats. Jesus.” Patricia shuddered.
“So many cats.” Mason’s voice broke. He took a steadying breath, then tried to smile at Emmaline. She tried to smile back.
“I’m more of a dog person myself,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, reaching over to grip her hand. That was a little uncomfortable, given that he was staring intently into her eyes...and that his sister was now trying to get something out of her back molar. “You’re very kind. So! About this wedding. Difficult circumstances, I’d say.”
“You know, I’ll probably just go alone. I mean, it’s fine. But thank you.”
“He was your first love, you said in your email.”
Shit. Why did she tell him that? “Yeah.”
Patricia finished digging around in her teeth. “Mase, tell her about your first love. Do it. Tell her.”
“You don’t have to,” Em said. “Really.”
“No, no, I’d love to share the story. It’s actually quite beautiful.” He was still gripping her hand. “Lisbeth. She was so lovely, so very lovely. A friend of my grandmother’s—”
“It was the commune. We should’ve run away from there long before we did, Mase.”
“As I was saying,” Mason continued, “Lisbeth was a beautiful woman. Oh, sure, maybe a little mature for a seventeen-year-old boy, but—”
“She was seventy-four,” Patricia said, waggling a shaggy eyebrow at Emmaline. “Seventy. Four.”
“Here are your nachos!” Colleen said, setting down the veritable trough of food. Why had Em been so gluttonous and ordered them? Because now she had to at least pretend to eat.
Hang on. She was a cop. She always had an excuse.
“You know what?” she said. “I forgot to mention that I’m on call tonight. Just in case I’m needed. Patricia, I’m a police officer, and it’s such a small town that—”
“Actually, Levi’s on tonight,” Colleen said.
Dear God, could You please throw me a bone? Love, Emmaline. “No, I am.” She gave Colleen a pointed look.
“No, I’m sure of it. Faith came in for dinner because Levi’s working. So you’re off—oh.” Colleen seemed to realize she’d just bludgeoned a hole in Titanic’s last lifeboat. “Sorry.”
“No! That’s...that’s great. I thought I was on call. But I guess I’m not. Good! Fine. That’s good.”
“Eat your dinner,” Mason said with that broad, easy grin. Creepy, really. “Go ahead—enjoy while it’s still hot. We never had hot food in the commune, so I love it now.”
“Uh, would you like some? Feel free.” Do not. Do not feel free.
“We’re vegetarians,” Patricia said, taking a nacho and examining it. “Though I order ham from time to time. Did you know the French for ham is jambon? I find that fascinating.” She put the chip back on the plate. “Jambon. Jambon. Jambon.”
“Back to Lisbeth,” Mason said. “She and I were soul mates. It was so refreshing, not having to hide who I was anymore, not being blinded by what was traditionally considered beautiful. Which is one reason I think you and I will work out just fine, by the way.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. So Lisbeth’s age was no concern. You see, at the commune, we didn’t believe in aging.”
Em took a nacho. “Really. How did that work out for you?”
“She died!” Mason cried. “Lisbeth died, dropped stone-cold dead when she was weeding the basil plants!” He burst into tears. “I never saw it coming!”
“Oh, Mase,” his sister said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t cry!” Apparently, her brother’s tears were too much for her, because she began sobbing, as well.
Emmaline glanced over to the bar. Colleen had her hand over her eyes, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Coll?” she called. “Can I get these to go, please?”
WHEN HADLEY WANTED something, as Jack well knew, nothing could sway her. Not the opinions of other people, not common sense, nothing. And right now, she wanted Jack.
Which was an utter waste of her time.
“Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” Jack’s grandmother had intoned when he’d told her he was getting married.
“What’s wrong with being a bachelor?” his grandfather had asked. “I wish I was a bachelor. I’ve been wishing that for six decades.”
“So call a lawyer,” Goggy had replied. “I’m ready when you are, old man.”
In hindsight, they both had a point.
But Jack had been thunderstruck by love, and Hadley Belle Boudreau was unlike any woman he had ever met.
She was soft-spoken and smart and funny, and though Jack’s three sisters would bludgeon him to death if they heard him say it, she had manners the likes of which Yankee women—or at least Holland women—just didn’t have. Pru wore men’s clothes and smelled like grapes and dirt, same as their father did, and had enjoyed tormenting Jack with gory, detail-filled talk of periods and ovarian cysts for the past several decades. Honor was brisk and unsentimental. Faith, the youngest, liked to punch him (still, even though she was pushing thirty).
But Hadley was—how could he put this?—refined. Southern. She was, God forgive him, a lady, the kind they didn’t seem to make in the farming regions of western New York. And again, his death would be long, drawn-out and extremely bloody if his sisters (or grandmother, for that matter) heard him say that, which basically proved his point.
There