Nice To Come Home To. Liz Flaherty

having-babies thing by the time he came along, so Rachel, Leah and I take full credit for how he’s come out.” He smiled. “We all admit Jill got him off to a good start.”

      Mollie’s face softened. “She sure did. What a mom she would have been.”

      The bartender was one of the few who didn’t avoid talking about Jill, something Luke appreciated.

      “Royce thinks he’s a good kid, too. The word hot entered the conversation about ten times.” Cass followed him to a booth beside the window-lined wall. “She hasn’t been nearly as bored as she anticipated when we drove in. Of course, it’s only been two days. Things could change.”

      When they’d sat down and Mollie had brought their drinks and a bowl of popcorn, Cass asked, “Who’s Jill, or shouldn’t I ask?”

      “My wife. She died of heart disease ten years ago.”

      “Oh.” Cass withdrew the hand that had been reaching for popcorn. “I’m sorry. How awful.”

      “It was.”

      “How long were you married?”

      “Nine years and change.” He waited for the pain to strike, even knowing it wouldn’t anymore. He’d loved his wife and he missed her, but time had faded the memories to where they were a gentle kind of pleasure.

      “I hope you had a great time every minute.”

      He nodded, a smile breaking loose. “We did that. We knew there wasn’t much time, so we were able to make the absolute best of it.” It had been hard when they’d argued, because he hadn’t wanted to waste that time, but Jill had argued anyway. She was unwilling to miss out on any of life’s experiences just because she didn’t have enough time for all of them.

      “Children?”

      “No. She couldn’t, but she and Seth worshiped each other from the day he was born, so he was as much like our kid as my little brother.” He met Cass’s eyes and held her gaze, thinking how strange it was that despite their acknowledged connection, he had no clue what she was thinking. “You were married, too?”

      “Yes.” She looked almost embarrassed, and reached for the popcorn again, taking a handful and dropping it onto a napkin. She ate a few bites. “He had the ideal family. They stayed in one spot, stayed married to each other and had enough money to buy anything they wanted. Not rich, but more comfortable than I was used to. Tony always said I married him to get his family, and he was probably right.” She shrugged. “It only took us fourteen years or so to figure out it wasn’t working. Eventually he settled in on someone younger and prettier and we got a divorce ten years after we should have. I got sick while it was going on, so it was an eventful few years there.”

      Luke could think of absolutely nothing to say. “Wow.” It was weak, but it was accurate.

      She looked appalled. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe I just did that. People have been asking me how I’m doing ever since I got sick and I have managed to say ‘doing fine’ a gazillion times, even when I was bald and the color of cigarette ashes. I just blew that record for nobility in one short conversation and you didn’t even ask how I was.”

      “You have hair and your skin’s a nice golden color, too.” Luke was laughing. He couldn’t help it. “You know, nobility’s overrated anyway. I tried that with Seth the last time he used my car. He said the only reason I let him use it was that it always came back cleaner than it left. He was pretty much right.”

      She laughed, too. “I’ll remember that the next time the martyr cross gets too heavy to carry.”

      “Seriously.” He caught her gaze again. And held it. He thought he might very well get lost in those ocean-colored depths. “How are you doing?”

      “Seriously, doing fine. I had my two-years-after-diagnosis testing done this spring and am still clear. At least until November, when I go back into full-scale panic when they test again.”

      Relief cleared the air between them. “I am so glad for that.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it, wanting to touch her and hoping it didn’t come across as creepy. She squeezed back, so it must not have. “So we can talk about important stuff then, right? Like what you think of everything we’ve done at the orchard.” He rested his forearms on the edge of the table and did his best to look macho—an automatic fail. “I am a guy, you know. My sisters say I am the master of making things all about me. I don’t want to disappoint them.”

      Cass beamed, her eyes lighting. The expression opened a place in him he’d thought was permanently closed. Oh, boy. “I love the orchard, and I love everything you’ve done to it.”

      Encouraged, he asked the question that had lingered uppermost in his mind since they’d toured the orchard earlier in the day. “Do you know what you’d like to do? Stay a silent partner like your mother was? Sell out? I don’t have the money, but having a financially savvy brother-in-law has ensured I have good credit.”

      It was as if he’d slapped her. The light left her eyes and her beam faded to a polite smile. She started to speak, then stopped, turning her head to gaze out at the lake. Spangled with moonlight, starshine and colored lights on boats cruising the calm water, it was a good thing to look at. Calming and exhilarating at the same time.

      What had he said? Whatever it was, she was neither acknowledging nor answering.

      “Cass?”

      “I’d like to try the coffee-shop thing. I talked to Neely at the tearoom this morning, because that would be the most direct competition, and she thought it was a good idea.” She turned back to meet his eyes again, and he thought she looked defeated. He hoped he hadn’t caused that.

      “In the round barn,” she specified. “It wouldn’t need to be a big shop. Maybe ten or twelve tables. Wi-Fi. Coffee and pastries in the morning. Soup and sandwiches at lunch. Just coffee and packaged things in the evening, unless it works out really well, in which case we could continue the lunch offerings.”

      He hadn’t wanted her to be defeated, to feel like a stranger in a strange land. He also hadn’t expected—or wanted, his snarky inner voice muttered—her to want to change things. She was being naïve. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t considered having a café on the premises, but it hadn’t seemed to be a viable use of resources. He’d been running the orchard for three years. She’d been at the lake for two days and had taken exactly one tour of the premises.

      She also owned half the orchard. Exactly. There was no 51 percent or anything like that to give him a louder voice in negotiations. He wasn’t a proponent of loud voices anyway, but...well, he’d expected her to pick up where her mother left off. That amounted to cashing the checks, signing things that required both their names and exchanging Christmas cards.

      “We could think about that,” he said slowly. “Maybe you could come up with some numbers.”

      “I can do that. I’ve spent hours of many hundreds of days in coffee shops for the past fifteen years. I already know a lot and I know where to find out the rest. As far as numbers go—” she scrambled in her purse for a pen, wrote on a napkin and pushed it across the table “—I can invest that.”

      * * *

      “SHE’S YOUR AUNT. Why are you so nervous?” Royce scowled at the table Cass had set in the dining area of the cottage. “I thought we were the beer-and-brats segment of the family. This looks like the way Dad used to want the table set when officers came to dinner. There are too many forks and glasses.”

      Cass laughed. “You’re right. Okay, let’s back it off.”

      They started from scratch, using the jewel-toned placemats that had come with the house instead of the embroidered tablecloth Cass had bought at an antiques store on Main Street. They left water glasses on the table, but set wineglasses and cups and saucers out of the way on the counter. They replaced elegant tapers with squatty candles and set the autumn centerpiece