toward the sexy Tricia Trahearn, but felt the woman’s interest. Or maybe she’d zeroed in on Ted. Either way, she didn’t look anywhere but in their direction.
Sara Beth also wondered how irritated his mother was. Not only would she have to add another place at the table, there would be an odd number instead of even.
Ted’s mother ended the silence. “Tricia is visiting her parents for a month,” Penny said.
Penny was short for Penelope, Sara Beth recalled from Ted’s conversation in the car. His parents were old Boston. Very old Boston, as in James-Bonner-arrived-in-America-on-the-ship-Truelove-in-1623 old Boston. Penelope and Brantley were family names from a long and duly documented genealogy through the centuries. Ted was officially Theodore, so named after ancestors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “It could’ve been worse,” he’d told her as he’d parked the car. “Several were named Percival.”
“How are your parents?” Ted asked Tricia, swirling his drink then taking a sip.
“Disappointed in me, as always.”
“Why’s that?”
She recrossed her legs and bounced her foot. “I haven’t married and procreated yet.” She offered a small toast. “I’m sure you’ve heard the refrain.”
Sara Beth didn’t appreciate Tricia’s lack of subtlety, nor the way she seemed so familiar with Ted.
Ted smiled, returning the gesture with his glass. “Tricia is a judge,” he said to Sara Beth. “Youngest on the bench at the moment.”
Of course she is. Probably everyone he knew held positions of power and influence. Sara Beth was proud of where she came from and what she’d accomplished, but this was a whole new world to her.
“Appointed judge. Not here, but in Vermont,” Tricia said. “We’ll see what happens come election time.”
“It’ll be a landslide,” Penny said with assurance. “And for the record, we don’t pester Ted about marrying and procreating, as you so bluntly put it, do we, darling?”
“I suppose one would have to define the word pester, Mother,” Ted responded, but with a smile. His father laughed.
“So, where did you and Sara Beth meet?” Penny asked.
“She’s the head nurse at the Armstrong Fertility Institute.”
“You work together?”
“Not together, exactly. I’m research. She’s medicine,” Ted said.
Sara Beth was fine with the fact he was fudging the truth a little. They weren’t a couple, after all, and they wouldn’t officially be working together until tomorrow morning.
“Do you help deliver babies?” Tricia asked.
“We don’t do deliveries at the institute. We use the hospital next door. A lot of specialized staff and equipment is necessary, since we often have multiple births. I do, however, attend some of the births. Some of our patients find it comforting to have a familiar face present,” Sara Beth explained.
“You enjoy your work?” Penny asked.
“I—Yes, I do. I’ve known since I was a child that it was what I wanted. I’m sure the decision was influenced by my mother, who was head nurse at the institute since Dr. Armstrong started it. She retired recently.”
“And your father?” Penny asked.
Sara Beth wondered if Ted knew her background. In the car she’d only mentioned her mother, and he hadn’t questioned her about her father. “My father has never been part of my life.” But maybe he will be. Maybe I’ll find him, after all. The vault could hold the answers.…
She realized how quiet the room had gotten. No one knew what to say. “My mother and I are very close, though. How did you two meet?” she asked, diverting the conversation to his parents.
Brant laid his hand over Penny’s. Love and affection radiated from her face, and it made Sara Beth hunger for someone to look at her that way. She’d been in a position to observe a lot of couples through the years, couples who were usually under a lot of stress, either trying to get pregnant or waiting out a complicated pregnancy, so they didn’t always glow. Still, it was wonderful to see a husband and wife so obviously in love after so many years.
“Our mothers were in Junior League together,” Penny said. “Brant and I hated each other on sight.”
“We were four years old,” Brant said. “She was annoying.”
“And he annoyed.”
“When did it change?” Sara Beth asked.
“On my sixteenth birthday,” Penny said. “His parents made him come to my party.”
“I did my duty and asked her to dance, a fast dance where we wouldn’t touch, but the song ended right away and a slow one started. I felt stuck.”
“That was all it took,” Penny said, her smile warm as their gazes met. “The moment we touched—”
“Pow.” He stroked her hair. “I stole a kiss later, and that was it for me.”
“Same here.”
Sara Beth glanced at Ted. He was looking into the distance, probably devising some chemical formula in his head—or maybe planning when he would see Tricia again. Or maybe he’d just heard the story too many times for it to have impact. To Sara Beth it was incredibly romantic.
By the time the party moved into the dining room, another place setting had been added. They were served an incredible meal by a small, wiry, white-haired man named Louis, who looked to be in his eighties and who winked at Sara Beth when she’d momentarily been overwhelmed by the situation. She relaxed then and enjoyed the seared salmon with ginger-lime sauce, roasted asparagus and brown rice with scallions. Dessert was carrot cake, an anniversary tradition because it had been Brant and Penny’s groom’s cake.
Conversation happened around her. Questions asked and answered, memories shared. “Remember when?” became Tricia’s catchphrase, grating in Sara Beth’s ears after the third time. And since Sara Beth didn’t know enough about Ted, nor did she have a history with him, she couldn’t counter anything Tricia said with a memory of her own. Ted didn’t seem to notice, just nodded and kept eating.
“Remember the time we sailed to Providence?” Tricia asked Ted as Louis cleared the dessert plates. “We capsized,” she said to Sara Beth. “He saved my life. My hero.”
“You know, I’ve think we’ve bored Sara Beth with history for long enough,” Ted said. He set his hand on the back of Sara Beth’s chair, gave her what seemed like a tender look, almost bringing tears to her eyes, even though she knew he was only putting on a show for his parents.
She stopped being mad at him.
“We should be going,” he said.
“Me, too,” Tricia said, patting her lips with her napkin.
Their
