happens these days when nearly the whole family turns out.” She stepped to the archway opening onto the wide hallway. “Food’s on,” she called briskly. Her onetime schoolteacher’s voice cut across the racket of televised sports and thirtysome family members debating the latest call. Considering they weren’t all rooting for the same team, it was chaotic, to say the least.
Nevertheless, at Hope’s announcement, the television volume immediately went mute and those thirtysome individuals turned en masse toward the dining room.
She didn’t rush.
For as long as she could remember, she’d sat at the kids’ table.
“Tabby! I didn’t even hear you come in.” Hope’s husband, Tristan, grabbed her up in a bear hug that lifted her right off her toes. “Thank God we’ll have decent mashed potatoes.” He kissed her forehead and dropped her back down. “When Tag said he and your ma were visiting Helen this year, I was afraid it was gonna be boxed potatoes.”
Hope gave him a pinch. “Since when have I ever made you mashed potatoes from a box?”
The tall man, still blond in his sixties, grinned and gave Tabby a quick wink before he made his way toward the head of the big table, jostling his relations while Hope directed butts to seats and ultimately determined that Emily had been right. They were short of chairs. Erik—Hope and Tristan’s eldest—immediately pigeonholed his adopted son, Murphy, to help him search down more.
Tabby, long used to the process, just moved out of the way as far as possible and bit back a chuckle when Squire brushed past everyone to take the first seat—which happened to be Tristan’s at the head of the table. “All that fancy money you earn, boy, seems you ought to have a bigger table ’n’ chairs.”
“That’s my chair, old man,” Tristan said mildly. But Tabby could see by the humor in his blue eyes that he wasn’t offended. Or surprised. “And the way this family keeps growing, we’d need a reception hall to seat everyone at one table.”
Erik and Murphy returned with two more chairs and a piano bench, and the shuffling began again.
“Same thing happens every year.”
Tabby stiffened inwardly at the deep voice. She didn’t look at the tall man who’d stopped next to her, bumping his elbow companionably against hers. She didn’t need to.
There’d been a time when she knew everything there was to know about Justin Clay. And he’d known everything about her. They’d been best friends.
Now...they weren’t.
“Yes, it does. Some people like that,” she answered smoothly and moved toward the kids’ table. She sat down in the only spare seat, next to fourteen-year-old Murphy, who was eyeing her from the corner of his eye the way he had been for at least a year now. On her other side was April Reed—one of Squire’s grandchildren courtesy of his long-ago marriage to Gloria Day.
“Haven’t seen you since last summer.” She greeted April with a smile, all the while painfully aware of Justin trading barbs with Caleb Buchanan behind her. “You cut your hair. I like it.”
The young woman flushed and looked pleased that Tabby had noticed. She toyed with the shoulder-length auburn bob. “Job hunting,” she said. “Thought it looked more in keeping with a suit.”
“Looks great.” Tabby tugged the ends of her own hair. It was riddled with wayward waves. “I’ve been thinking of cutting mine, too.”
“Why?” Justin nudged Murphy’s shoulder. “Scoot your chair over, kid.”
Murphy made a face, but he moved over enough to accommodate Justin, who pushed a backless stool into the space and straddled it. “Your hair’s been like that as long as I can remember.”
Tabby knew he wasn’t trying to get cozy with her. There was simply a finite amount of space available for chairs and bodies. She looked away from the jeans-clad thigh nudging against her. “All the more reason it’s time for a change, then, right, April?”
“I suppose. But I’ve always thought you had gorgeous hair. Such a dark brown and so glossy.”
Tabby couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “Grass is always greener, my friend with the smooth red hair.” She leaned over the table a little, mostly so she could shift away from that damned masculine thigh. “So, how is the job hunt going out in Arizona? It’s advertising, right?”
“Dad wants me to work for him at Huffington,” she said, referring to the network of sports clinics he operated around the United States. “The Phoenix location is getting huge. But I want to make my mark on my own.”
“Makes sense.”
Justin jostled Tabby’s arm. “Remember when you wanted to go to Europe to make your mark on the great art world?”
“Lofty dreams of a teenaged girl,” she said dismissively. She wasn’t going to let him bait her. “I learned I was perfectly happy right here in Weaver,” she told April, though the words were aimed at Justin. “This is my home. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“Ruby’s would have to shut right down,” someone interjected from the other table. “Weaver would never be the same.”
Tabby rolled her eyes. “Erik and Justin own the place.” She still didn’t look at the man beside her. “They’d hire someone else to manage it.”
“There’s a nasty thought,” Erik said. He was sitting at the main table next to his wife, Isabella, and didn’t look unduly concerned.
The same couldn’t be said of their son. “You’re not gonna leave, are you?” Murphy gave her a horrified look.
She lifted her hands peaceably. “I’m not going anywhere!”
Justin jostled her again. “Do you even still paint?”
If she’d have been five—or maybe even twenty-five—she would have just elbowed him right back. Preferably in the ribs, hard enough to leave a mark. Because the Justin she’d grown up with could take as well as he could give. “Yes, I still paint.” Her voice was even.
“Absolutely, she still paints!” Sydney, who was married to Derek—yet another one of Justin’s plentiful cousins—called from the far end of the other table. Their toddler son was sitting in a high chair between them. “An old friend of mine who owns a gallery in New York has sold a couple dozen of her pieces! He wants her to give up working at Ruby’s and focus only on painting.”
Tabby shifted, uncomfortable with the weight of everyone’s eyes turning toward her. “I’m not quitting Ruby’s,” she assured them, wondering how on earth the conversation had gotten so off track.
“We know that, Tab,” Erik assured her calmly. Of the two brothers, he was the active partner in the diner, though he pretty much left the day-to-day stuff to her.
Squire cleared his throat loudly. Tabby was quite sure if he’d had his walking stick handy, he’d have thumped it on the floor for emphasis the way he tended to do. “We gonna sit here and jabber all the livelong day, or get to eating?”
Tristan chuckled. “Eat.”
