head, ignoring a ribbon of sadness the couple’s seemingly mutual attraction created at the back of her mind. She liked being single, always had, but sometimes it would be nice if someone looked at her the way Tuck was looking at Marie.
“Hey, Kendall.” Libby plastered on a smile for the twelve-year-old who’d gone to stand in front of the shelves holding the tearoom’s collection of cups and saucers. “Choose your cup and we’ll fill it with whatever you want to drink.”
“Can I drink soda out of these cups?” The adolescent reminded Libby of herself at that age. She was a little overweight and awkward in the bargain, and Libby sometimes had the impression she was a disappointment to her busy beautiful-people parents.
“You sure can. I drink water out of them all day long. Help yourself to whatever you want and give Elijah a good rub—I tossed him on the floor this morning when I got out of bed, and he’s feeling neglected. You want quiche when it comes out of the oven? It’s your favorite kind today.”
“Yes, please.”
“Hey, Lib, can I get Jack a cup, too?” Tucker stood near the coffee urn. Marie went to join her daughter at a corner table.
“It’s been a whole three minutes since I asked you if you wanted some for him.” Libby moved to fill a cup for Tucker’s brother. “You picking me up at seven?” She smiled sweetly and tipped her head in Marie’s direction. “Or do you have another date by now?”
“Be nice.” He took the cup from her. “I’ll see you tonight.” He bent his head to peck her cheek as he always did, but she was turning to look at the door at the same time and the kiss landed on her mouth.
It wasn’t a peck, exactly. And Libby felt a little ripple along her spine.
Obviously she needed some caffeine to clear her head.
* * *
OTHER THAN AN addiction to coffee and tea, Libby wasn’t much of a drinker, but she loved the bourbon-laced hot chocolate that was a specialty of Anything Goes Grill. She usually had just one, and even then only on special occasions. Like when the Miniagua High School Lakers had won the football sectional in November or when the tearoom had ended the previous year not only in the black, but in the very black.
Even more occasionally, if she was out with friends and one of the others was driving, she’d have two mugs of the delicious concoction. They always sat at the bar and begged Mollie for the recipe, but she never gave it. Libby tried to duplicate it every time she filled in for the bartender but hadn’t yet mastered it. She had never had more than two hot chocolates from the Grill.
Until now.
All the presents—mostly gag gifts but some not—had been opened. Midnight, complete with many champagne toasts and a cacophonous rendering of “Auld Lang Syne” and the birthday song as a medley, had come and gone. Jack’s fiancée, Arlie, who was the resident designated driver, had confiscated Tucker’s keys.
The Grill emptied quickly. By twelve thirty, there were fewer than a dozen people at the tables, four or five more at the bar.
“You know—” Libby spoke softly, because the sound of her own voice was intolerably loud in her ears “—my real wish now that I’m thirty-four is for a little adventure. Nothing big like a trip to Europe or Hawaii, just something more exciting than deciding which quiche and which tea are the specials of the day.”
Tucker blinked owlishly. “Huh?”
She’d forgotten the hearing loss that made him tilt his head. It made him seem exceedingly adorable, especially after she’d partaken of three mugs of the Grill’s chocolate.
Rather than raise her voice, she moved to sit beside Tucker in the chair her brother, Jesse, had vacated when he’d left a few minutes past midnight. Libby repeated her birthday wish.
He blinked again. “You have very pretty eyes. Did you know that?”
She rolled them. At least, she was fairly certain she did. They didn’t seem to be stopping quite where she wanted them to. “They’re battleship gray.”
“No.” He leaned closer to stare into them. “They have little blue sparkles around the edges of—what is it you call the colored part?”
“I call it Iris in my right eye and Georgina in my left. And there isn’t any blue there, unless bourbon and Mollie’s secret ingredient interfere with your vision. Which could well be,” she conceded and peered into their mugs. “These are empty.”
Mollie brought clean cups. “Chocolate’s all gone, but the coffee’s fresh and free. Enjoy.”
“So, about this adventure. What would you like to do?” Tucker sipped his coffee, then gave it a suspicious look. “This might keep me awake.”
Libby gave the question some thought. “I’d like to go skiing. I’ve never done that. I mean—it is winter.”
“I noticed that. The snow was a dead giveaway.” He nodded, his lips pursed as if he were in deep thought. “What else?”
“Parasailing. Zip-lining. Niagara Falls. Go to a casino with a whole two hundred dollars I don’t mind losing. Can you imagine that? I’ve whined over a twenty before.” She leaned in close again and whispered into his good ear. “Skinny-dipping. Of course, I’d wear a swimsuit, because I wouldn’t want to scare the fish or anything.”
He squinted at her. “It’s not skinny-dipping if you wear a swimsuit.”
She straightened, offended. “It is if I say it is.”
He started to answer but must have thought better of it and nodded.
“What’s your birthday wish?” She took a drink of coffee, reflecting that it tasted better than the chocolate had. Maybe she wasn’t meant to drink alcohol. Although that buzz—which was already settling down into a quiet little hum—was kind of fun.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
He shrugged. “Okay. But I’ve never told anyone this.” He raised a peremptory finger. “Don’t laugh, either. You know how easily I cry.”
She snorted. She could count on one hand the times she’d seen him cry, not counting when they were in the same room in nearby Sawyer Hospital’s newborn nursery—and anything she said about that would be pure conjecture. The last time had been at Arlie and Jack’s impromptu engagement party only a few days before. Libby had been the one who brought him to tears, and she’d loved it. “Let’s hear it, big boy. Your secret will be safe with me.”
After clearing his throat, finishing his coffee and clearing his throat again, he said, “I want to get married. I want to have a kid. I want to buy a house that’s just a house—you know, four bedrooms, two baths and a basketball hoop in the driveway. With a garage that’s too full of sports equipment and garden tools to get the cars in it.”
She stared at him, aghast. “You have the Alba...the Hall. It’s a mansion. Why do you want a house?”
“You can call it the Albatross—Jack and I do. We both hate it, but I’m the one stuck living in it since Grandmother
