“Thank you.”
Preston Kendall came over and greeted Ian’s parents and had led them off to sit with them and Grandpa Noah when another group of people arrived—Alice’s brothers, Bailey, and her parents, Chris and Sonja Benedict. And with them was Grandma Kate.
“Oh!” The sight of her parents approaching completely surprised her. Then she mentally shook her head. The family here would have reached out to her parents.
Alice went to Grandma Kate, first. She hadn’t built as solid a relationship with the nonagenarian as she had with Aunt Anna. But Kate had seen to it her men were protected and safe and had been as welcoming as any grandmother could ever be.
“I’m so glad you’ll be staying in Lusty,” Kate said. “I think the three of you were truly meant to be together.” Then she noticed Alice’s ring. “I think Noah feels the same way.”
“I think so too. I’m really glad you came tonight, Grandma Kate.”
Of course, Chance and Logan did the whole big-brother thing, the “hurt our baby sister and suffer the consequences” speech that was similar to the words that every man pretty much had said to Ian and Ken. For their part, her men nodded and swore an oath by all that was “numerical and logical and in mathematical balance.” Alice wondered if she’d look back on this moment as the moment her brothers really saw her men for the first time. Bailey grinned and winked, and Alice knew she wasn’t the only one to have such a silly thought.
Alice hugged her father tight. She loved her daddy, and she knew how much he loved her. She looked up at him. “I really love them, and they love me. This is right for me, Daddy.”
“I can see that it is.” He turned to Ian and then Ken, offering his hand. “Welcome to the family. A man can always use a couple more sons.”
“I had a feeling,” Sonja Benedict said. Since she was smiling, Alice guessed her mother approved. “I had a long talk with Kate, Bernice, and Abigail the last time I was here,” she said. She gathered her daughter into her arms and held her tight. “You look so happy.” The whispered words surprised Alice, because it told her something that she hadn’t been certain of, until that very moment.
Her mother had seen her and understood her, all this time. I guess I’m the one who didn’t see her.
Alice eased back. “You knew.”
“After your brothers’ commitment ceremony, I had a talk with my Lusty cousins. I learned a lot of what I’d suspected to be true, ever since I found out that my father-in-law had three parents and not two.” She slipped her arm around Alice’s shoulders. “Why would we ever fight against our own natures? I suspected it was the reason you were restless, and the reason you always seemed to be unhappy in any relationship you were in, few as they were. And now, at this moment, I know you’re neither of those things.”
Sonja kept her arm around her daughter as she turned and looked at Ian and Ken. “I’m entrusting you men with my heart.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ian looked to his cousin then at Alice’s mom. “She’s our heart, too, Mrs. Benedict. We both promise you we’ll take very good care of her.”
“That’s Mom to you.”
“Mom? I thought you said you didn’t tell either Thomas or Jason about the squirt’s engagement?”
Sonja tilted her head and looked at Alice’s brother, Chance. “We didn’t.”
“Not a word,” Chris said. “Thomas isn’t so bad. We’ll explain it to him, but since his focus is the farm, he’ll cope. Jason, on the other hand, has always been a little funny when it comes to Alice.” He looked at her. “Honey, I know you didn’t think we realized what a hard time he gave you, but we did.”
“It’s a good thing that your call and invitation came while he was in Boston for a few days,” Sonja said.
“So, he doesn’t know what’s going on here tonight, then?”
Something in Logan’s tone alerted her. She looked to where he was looking—out the front window and down the street.
There, looking like he was ready to chew nails—in other words looking very Jason—was her closest-in-age brother.
“Oh, my,” Kate said. “He looks like he’s loaded for bear.”
“That’s not quite how I would characterize him,” Chance said.
Jason burst into the restaurant—there was simply no other way to describe what he did—and looked up at the sign suspended from the ceiling.
He scanned the crowd and saw her—and no one else apparently—because he headed straight for her.
He also, apparently, didn’t notice that the room had gone still and that no one was moving—except to track his presence with their eyes.
Even Leesa Jordan, the newest cook to join Lusty Appetites in preparation for Kelsey going on maternity leave once babies number two and three arrived, had stopped her perusal of the buffet to watch his progress.
“What the hell is going on here? I don’t know how or why this has happened, young lady, but I am here to put a stop to it. I knew something was up when Percy called and told me you’d so callously broken his heart. So, let me tell you what’s going to happen next.”
Funny, but I don’t feel all shriveled up and frightened. I don’t feel as if I have to, as he would say, “knuckle under and do as I’m told.” In fact, the only thing I feel is slightly annoyed.
She looked over at Ian and Ken. Her men clearly understood who’d just stormed into the restaurant. Alice knew, beyond a doubt, that if she needed her men to toss her brother out, they would. Hell, her parents—who usually never interfered with their children’s squabbles—would speak up under these circumstances.
She caught sight of Leesa, looking even more fierce than Jason, heading toward them.
Alice took command of the moment, and it felt damn good to
