“Did you do that for me?” Mary asked.
Samantha grinned and then nodded. “I did, indeed.”
“Well, then, I think, if you wouldn’t mind the help, I would like to pitch in and return the favor.”
“I’m in,” said Ginny.
“Me, too.” Tamara rubbed her hands together. “Tracy?”
“Oh, you bet. Mary, just wait till you get a load of the place!”
“Oh, my dears, we are going to have such fun!” Mary had the sense that Samantha was very happy about the upcoming project. And of course, if Aunt Samantha was happy, so were all her men folk, chosen and born.
“And anyone else who’s available to pitch in, we generally just haul what Mother tags and put it all where she tells us.” Morgan Kendall toasted his mother with his wine glass as he said that. “So any with pickup trucks are welcome to help haul.”
“My darling.” Preston picked up his wife’s hand and kissed it. “I can’t decide if what appeals to you the most about these little projects is the opportunity to redecorate or the opportunity to boss the men around.”
“Sweetheart, you should know me well enough by now to understand that it’s most definitely both.”
That brought a chuckle from everyone at the table. Mary had one clear moment of pure insight, and she held it close.
When she grew up, she wanted to be just like her Aunt Samantha.
Chapter Three
“You didn’t need to walk me home, you know.” Mary tried not to let on how annoyed she was with herself. The time to have said that, of course, would have been when Anthony and Toby made that offer a few minutes earlier, right in front of Aunt Samantha.
Not now, when they were almost at her door.
“We know,” Anthony said. “But it gives us huge points with Aunt Samantha. Did you see her smile when we offered?”
His grin was the most playful one Mary had seen on him in the four weeks she’d known the man. She had the sense that he carried his responsibility with him as a demanding mantle, twenty-four, seven.
As for Toby, there was something about him that set all her senses on alert. She perceived a shadow on him, or maybe in him. He was damn good at compartmentalizing. But she felt as if he was hiding something, from her and maybe even from himself.
And damned if they weren’t both pretending those kisses had never happened!
“The word from some of your New York cousins is that you’re a perennial student,” Toby said. “But Aunt Samantha respects you. So…I don’t think you’re a student at all. Or rather, that isn’t your main thing.”
They reached her little house, and she nodded to it.
“Wow, this is yours?” Anthony laughed.
“You’re laughing.” Mary could be counted on to state the obvious from time to time. It was one of her many little personal “tics.”
“Only because it’s cute, and not what I would picture you in. You’re a woman not to be underestimated, I think.” Anthony nodded once, as if that motion made his statement incontrovertible.
“I can see sharp lines, a minimalist style, nothing pretentious,” Toby said. “White and chrome with the barest hint of color.”
“You just described my former apartment in New York City.” In fact, her apartment had been so minimalist it was just a stroke of pure shit luck that that little metal figurine—the Thornbury Award that she’d received in London in April of last year for excellence in mystery writing—had been on that small end table, within her desperately grasping reach just when she’d needed it .
Mary tilted her head to the side as she considered Anthony Corbett. “And clearly, you don’t think I’m a perennial student, either.”
“A sad but true fact,” Anthony said. “I long ago recognized one of the great truths of life. Family either sees us clear as crystal—or not at all. In your case, I’d say that for your male cousins, at least, it’s the latter.”
“I’ve got a Keurig,” Mary said. “And plenty of coffee pods. Cream and sugar too, if you’re so inclined. Would you like to come in for a few minutes?”
The two men looked at each other, and just that action on their part was like a smack on the side of the head. Until that moment, she hadn’t truly understood the situation she was in here and now.
You’ve got about two seconds to rescind that invitation. She considered it. But then both men turned and looked at her.
Their gazes, warm and inviting, drew her in. It felt as if, as she stood by the bottom of the three steps leading to her porch, she was actually being absorbed into…. something.
And she realized, between one breath and the next, that it was already too late to rescind any invitations—either the spoken one she’d just given or the tacit one that had been given when this pair of too damn irresistible men had offered to walk her home and she’d accepted.
As she’d fled the community center the night before, it had already been too late to change course, despite Toby’s spoken proviso that she could.
Well, yes, technically she could, but in reality, she knew it would never happen.
“Thank God it’s not instant coffee you’re offering,” Anthony said.
“No kidding, brother.” Toby gave her a cheeky grin. “Instant would have been a deal breaker.”
Mary blinked. “Um, we don’t have a deal.”
“Sure, we do, cupcake.” Anthony reached out and stroked the side of her face.
“You’re just a little behind in catching up is all.” Toby stepped closer, so close his aroma permeated all her senses. She met his gaze and felt something that had never, in her entire life, been her experience. She felt sexually aroused and yet deeply cosseted at the same time.
She’d never believed those two feelings could coexist in the same moment—or hell, even in the same relationship. Apparently, she’d
