the name exchange,” Douglas said. “We’d only gotten as far as Dad and Vidalia Jean.”
“Who goes by Vi, right?” Robert smiled, looking as if he might say more, perhaps about how Neely didn’t like her full name, either, but stopped, catching sight of Beth behind Savannah. Apparently he had the good sense not to joke about names when the people who’d picked them out were standing in the room. “Mrs. Mason. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
As he held out the bottle of wine he’d brought along as a hostess gift, Savannah grinned inwardly. She liked the “finally” as a discreet reminder that, if it had been up to him, he’d have met them sooner. Robert Walsh might just hold his own with Beth, and once she approved of him, he was family.
After the pleasantries were exchanged, Beth planted her hands on her ample hips. “Well, not to discount the value of small talk, but I worked too hard on that food to let it go cold. Why don’t we move into the dining room?”
They all headed that way, and Savannah noticed the hand Robert placed on the small of her sister’s back. An odd ripple of yearning went through her at the unconscious intimacy conveyed in the touch. She cast a glance toward her husband, abashedly aware of the longing that probably showed in her face.
But he was deep in discussion with Douglas about a new property tax and didn’t notice.
CHAPTER 4
Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him, Neely thought.
Robert had assured her before they arrived that he was marrying her, so nothing her family said or did would affect his decision. She was holding him to that. Not that her family was being unwelcoming. Far from it—they’d expressed great gratitude that someone had finally proposed to her, and they were trying to make Robert’s life easier by mapping out his wedding for him.
“You could always get married here,” Gerald volunteered. “This old house might need a bit of spit-shine to polish her up, but she’s a historic beauty.”
“That she is,” Beth agreed, “but too small to properly host their wedding. I imagine you’ll have one hundred and fifty guests at least.”
“What?” Neely’s head reeled. When she and Robert had started discussing wedding specifics Monday night, they’d predicted around seventy-five people, one hundred as the absolute maximum. “I think you’re shooting a little high, Mom.”
“Nonsense. Savannah and I started a list after you left the other day. That was our conservative estimate, since you insisted on something ‘simple.’”
Neely shot her older sister an accusing glance, but it crashed and broke on the shore of Savannah’s good intentions.
“No need to thank me!” Savannah said cheerfully. “I want to help in any way possible. Jason and I were so young when we got married that we couldn’t really plan a grand affair, and I hardly think at my age I’m going to have a daughter. So planning your wedding will be fun!”
A thrill a minute. Neely wasn’t sure how she felt about the unspoken comparison to the daughter Savannah would never have. I’m only younger by eleven months! Yet she supposed she’d be getting Savannah’s “big sister” treatment for the rest of her life. After all, look at the bossy way Beth still treated her sisters, Carol and Josephine, continuing to this day to issue for-your-own-good orders.
Then again, that was pretty much the way Neely’s mom treated everyone.
“I think a church wedding would be lovely,” Beth said now, her latest command masquerading as an opinion. “Robert, you’re not Catholic, by any chance? Cornelia is a staunch Methodist, so I’m afraid a wedding Mass is out of the question.”
“We were going to be staunch Southern Baptists,” Vi said to no one in particular, “until we found out they frown on drinking. Although maybe a Baptist wedding gets you out of the obligatory dancing at the reception?”
Her mother shot her the glare of doom, then turned back just in time to hear Robert explain that his parents were Episcopalian.
Their denomination wasn’t a big issue for Neely. She prayed and managed to get to church at least once a season, but felt hypocritical describing herself as a “staunch” anything. She also thought that if any kind of ceremony was out of the question, she should be the one making that call, not her mother. But Robert, bless him, took all of Beth’s suggestions and Vi’s colorful commentary in stride.
The brief panic Neely had experienced in her office earlier this week had receded. Two people making one life together would be complex, but Robert was definitely the man for her. She hadn’t been given a choice when it came to her family, but Robert was actually opting to align himself with the Masons instead of fleeing in the other direction. That took courage and character.
“So, you have any siblings?” Douglas asked. “Brothers or, God help you, sisters?”
Robert grinned. “Neither. Just me and my parents. My dad has a brother back in Vermont—are you okay, Mrs. Mason?”
“Fine, fine.”
Neely could see how the harrumph her mother made whenever a place north of the Mason-Dixon was mentioned could sound as though the woman was choking.
“I have a handful of relatives left there,” Robert said. “We’re not a big family.”
“And the two of you don’t plan to make it any bigger by having more little Walshes?” Beth asked.
“Uh—” Robert shot Neely his first truly alarmed look of the evening.
She knew how he felt. Her accountant’s brain was already spinning. Even if they hurried and had a baby in the next two years—which they would probably have to do, if she actually wanted to get pregnant before menopause—she would still be in her sixties before the kid could get a driver’s license.
“Cornelia Mason Walsh,” Douglas said absently, changing the subject. Maybe he’d learned some tact from his courtroom experiences, after all. “That’ll take some getting used to. Are you hyphenating, ditching the maiden name altogether or staying as is?”
“What do you mean, as is?” Gerald asked, his expression genuinely befuddled. “She won’t be as is, she’ll be a married lady.”
“Not all women change their last names,” Vi said. “It’s the new millennium, Dad. Why should a woman give up her identity just because of an archaic ceremony? I was reading an article about how some modern couples legalize a completely new married name by combining syllables of their separate last names. You guys could be Mr. and Mrs. Walson.”
Savannah blinked. “That’s insane.”
A scathing denouncement coming from Savannah, Neely thought. Watching her two sisters debate could be interesting, but Beth was already steering the topic to ceremony specifics.
“If Robert comes from a small family and isn’t planning on many groomsmen, maybe we should scale back the number of bridesmaids attending Cornelia.”
“Scale back?” Neely echoed. “From what? I never decided on a number.”
“Three’s good,” her mother pronounced. “Obviously,
