guilt card on her. “We don’t see eye-to-eye, Mom and me. And I don’t think that either of us will be changing our positions anytime soon.”
“She loves you. You know that. I love you.”
“Thanks, Daddy. I love you, too. But sometimes love really can’t make everything right. Not with Mom, anyway. With Mom, it’s her way or nothing. And I’m through doing things her way. In fact, Quinn’s asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes.”
The line went dead silent. Then her father asked cautiously, “Isn’t this a little sudden?”
She resisted the urge to say something snappish. “I care for him deeply, Dad. It’s what I want.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am.”
Another silence. And then her father had the good grace to say that he hoped she would be happy. “I think I’ll wait a few days to tell your mother about your engagement, though.”
“Right now, Dad, I don’t care if you tell her or not.”
“Chloe. You don’t mean that.”
She didn’t argue. What was the point? “I’ll call and let you know about the wedding. It’s going to be small and simple.” Nothing like the three-ring circus in Sonoma when she’d married Ted. “I hope you can come. Quinn wants me to be patient with Mom, so I’m going to give it a little time before I decide whether I’m willing to have her at the wedding.”
Another deep silence from her dad. Then, “Let’s just see how things go, shall we?”
Chloe agreed that would be wise. They said goodbye.
A few hours later, when Quinn came over, she cried a little for her fractured family. He held her and told her it would all turn out all right. Somehow, when he said it, she almost believed it.
* * *
Friday morning first thing, Nell Bravo dropped by Chloe’s showroom. Chloe broke the big news and showed off her gorgeous ring.
Nell said, “So, then. This makes it official. You’re gonna be my sister. And that means we’ll have to bury the hatchet permanently, you and me.”
“You know, you really scare me when you talk about hatchets.”
Nell laughed and grabbed Chloe in a hug and waltzed her in and out of the various carpet and flooring displays. Then Quinn’s sister confessed, “I already knew. Quinn told me this morning. And I’m here to find out when you’re breaking for lunch so I can get a table at the Sylvan Inn for you and me and my sisters.”
Chloe met the Bravo sisters at the Sylvan Inn at one. There were four of them. Clara and Elise were the daughters of Franklin Bravo’s first wife, Sondra. Jody’s and Nell’s mother was the notorious Willow Mooney Bravo, who’d been Frank’s mistress during most of his marriage to Sondra. The day after Sondra Bravo’s funeral, Willow married Frank. He moved her right into the mansion he’d built for Sondra. Frank Bravo’s refusal to observe even a minimal period of mourning after Sondra’s passing caused no end of shock and outrage in the angry hearts of the judgmental types in town, Chloe’s mother first among them.
Tracy Winham, Elise’s best friend and business partner, joined them, too. And so did Rory Bravo-Calabretti, a cousin to the Bravo sisters. Rory was an actual princess from a tiny country called Montedoro. But Rory didn’t act like a princess. She loved Justice Creek and she was down-to-earth and lots of fun. Recently she’d decided to make her home in America. She lived with her fiancé, Walker McKellan, at Walker’s guest ranch not far from town.
As a matter of fact, all the Bravo women were lots of fun. Even more so after a couple of glasses of the champagne Nell had ordered to toast Chloe and Quinn and their future happiness together. Chloe never drank alcohol at lunch. After all, she still had half a day of work ahead and she preferred to be alert and clearheaded on the job.
But today, she drank the champagne—more than she should have. And she had a fabulous time sharing stories about the old days with Quinn’s sisters.
“Quinn was always so moody,” said Jody, and everyone nodded. “He was mad at everything and just about everybody.”
“But even then there was a certain sweetness about him,” said Clara, who was Sondra’s oldest daughter and considered the family peacemaker.
Back in the day, when the two sides of Frank’s family were constantly at odds, Clara was the one who kept trying to get them to make peace and come together. She and Quinn and Chloe were the same age.
“I remember,” Clara said, “when we were in Miss Oakleaf’s class, first grade. Remember, Chloe?”
“Yes, I do. Miss Oakleaf was so pretty. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.”
“Oh, me, too,” Clara agreed.
“She pinned her hair up in a twist and she always looked so elegant. And she wore high heels and pencil skirts.” Chloe frowned. “Were they even called pencil skirts back then?”
Clara considered. “Straight skirts, I think. And yeah. Miss Oakleaf was a beauty. Quinn had a big crush on her.”
“She was patient with him,” Chloe said softly, remembering how he struggled to keep up with the rest of the class.
Clara remembered, too. “He would get mad and act up and she would talk to him so gently.”
“And then,” said Chloe, “the Hershey’s Kisses started appearing on her desk every morning...”
Clara took up the story. “Just a few of them, lined up in their shiny silver foil wrappers, waiting there for Miss Oakleaf on her desk pad at the beginning of every day.”
“No one knew who was leaving them,” said Chloe.
And Clara said, “Until Freddy Harmon spotted Quinn in the act. Freddy spied on Quinn through the window, didn’t he, and saw him sneak in and put three Kisses on Miss Oakleaf’s desk?”
“That’s right,” Chloe replied softly. “Quinn was so humiliated...” She shook her head, aching for the troubled little boy he’d once been.
Jody said, “The way I heard it, he went ballistic.”
Clara nodded. “He chased Freddy around the playground till he caught him, and then he beat the crap out of him. For that, Quinn was suspended for two weeks. Looking back on our elementary school years, it seems like he spent more time suspended or in detention than he ever spent in class.”
They all laughed. They could afford to laugh about it now that Quinn was a grown man who’d built himself a fine, productive life.
Nell asked, “Remember that time he and Jamie and Dare got into it on the playground?” James and Darius were Clara’s and Elise’s full brothers, Sondra’s sons.
Elise nodded. “It was two against one. Plus, Jamie and Dare were older and bigger. But Quinn just wouldn’t give up and go down.”
Rory shook her head. “It’s so strange, knowing him
