'It's imperative,' his wife said with a laugh.
Leaning down, he kissed the smile off her face. 'I love you,' he whispered.
She kissed him back. 'I love Diana,' she answered.
'I know, and that makes me love you even more.' He got into bed and pulled her on top of him, his hands shifting over her silk negligee. 'You know I love Corey, don't you?'
She nodded, her right hand reaching stealthily for the feather pillow on the headboard.
'You've changed our lives,' he continued.
'Thank you,' she whispered, lifting off his chest into a sitting position beside his hip. 'Now let me change your attitude.'
'About what?'
'Pillow fights,' she said, laughing as she smacked him with her pillow.
Down the hall, in Diana's room, the sisters heard a loud thud. Both girls jumped to their feet in alarm and ran down the hall. 'Mom, Dad—' Diana called, knocking on the door. 'Is everything okay? We heard a noise!'
'Nothing's wrong,' Mary Foster called, 'but I could use a little help in here.'
Diana and Corey exchanged puzzled looks; then Diana turned the knob and opened the door. They stopped dead. Openmouthed, they gaped at their parents, then at each other.
And they burst into shrieks of laughter.
On the floor, amid another blizzard of feathers, their father had pinned their mother beneath him and was holding her forearms against the carpet. 'Say uncle,' he ordered.
His wife laughed harder.
'Say uncle, or I won't let you up.'
In response to that arrogant masculine command, Mary Foster looked at her daughters, struggled for breath, and managed to say between laughs, 'I think women have to... to stick together... at times like... this.'
The girls stuck together. The score that night was 12 to 2; twelve feather pillows that met their demise against two foam-rubber pillows that survived.
Chapter 5
Brimming with good news, Diana snatched her schoolbooks from the leather seat of the new BMW her father had given her last month for her sixteenth birthday and raced up the steps of the stately Georgian mansion that had been her first and only home. In the two years since her stepmother, and then her stepgrandparents, had come to live with them in River Oaks, the house and grounds had changed in atmosphere and appearance. Laughter and conversation had filled the empty silences; wonderful smells emanated from the kitchen; flowers bloomed in rampant splendor in the gardens and splashed their colors in beautiful arrangements all over the house.
Everyone was happy with the new look, the new atmosphere, and the new family arrangements—everyone except Glenna, the housekeeper who'd helped raise Diana after her mother died. It was Glenna who was in the foyer when Diana ran into the house. 'Glenna, is Corey home?'
'I think she's out in back with everyone else, talking about tomorrow night's party.' Glenna finished dusting a walnut console table and straightened, giving it a close look. 'When your mama was alive, she called in caterers and florists when she wanted to give a party. She used to let
'Nope, not us,' Diana said with a quick smile. 'Now we're trendsetters.' She headed down the hall, toward the back of the house, with Glenna walking beside her, irritably swiping her dustcloth at nonexistent specks of dust on tables and chairs as they passed.
'Used to be, when we gave a party,' Glenna continued doggedly, 'that everything only had to look pretty and taste good. But now, that's not good enough. Now everything has to be
Glenna had become perpetually miffed ever since Diana's new mother and grandmother had taken over the household.
Corey's grandparents and Diana had fallen in love with one another during their first visit together. After several months of the girls splitting their time between Long Valley, where Rose and Henry Britton lived, and River Oaks, Robert instructed an architect and a building contractor to renovate and enlarge the estate's guest cottage. The next step was a greenhouse for Rose and a vegetable garden for Henry.
Robert was rewarded for his generosity with fresh fruits and vegetables grown on his own property and mouthwatering meals served in an endless variety of delightful ways and changing locations.
Robert had never liked to eat in the vast kitchen at the back of his house. It had been designed to accommodate the small army of caterers who were needed on those occasions when a large party was being given. With its white tile walls, oversize stainless-steel appliances, and uninspiring view from its single window, it struck Robert as institutional, sterile, and uninviting.
Until Mary and her family had come into his life, he had contented himself with the fiery fare that his cook, Conchita, prepared, which he had eaten as quickly as possible in the rigid formality of his dining room. He would never have considered eating under a tree in his pleasant but uninspiring backyard or dining beside the Olympic- size rectangular pool that his builder had unimaginatively stuck near the middle of the yard and surrounded with an ocean of concrete.
Now, however, Robert was a changed man, living in a greatly altered environment, enjoying savory meals, and he loved it. The kitchen he had once avoided had become his favorite room. Gone was the sterility of white tile walls and blank, gloomy spaces. On one end, Henry had created a solarium by installing skylights in the ceiling and tall windows along the outside wall. In this cozy, bright area were comfortable sofas and chairs for lounging in while dinner preparations were underway. Mary and Rose had hand-stenciled vines and flowers on each piece and covered the thick cushions with fabric of the same pattern. Then they'd filled the area with a profusion of green plants growing in white pots.
At the opposite end of the refurbished kitchen, the ordinary white tiles had been ornamented with a festive border of hand-painted ones. Mellow old bricks gathered from a torn-down building now covered one wall and formed a wide arch over the stoves, above which hung copper pots and pans in every size and shape.
His wife and her family had transformed his surroundings, bringing breathtaking natural beauty to the grounds and inviting charm to interior spaces. Whether their current project was unique place mats, elaborate picture frames, graceful, hand-painted furniture, gilded vegetable centerpieces, or elegant foil gift-wrap, it was created with a wealth of love.
A year after her marriage to Robert, Mary had made her formal debut as his hostess by planning and executing a lavish garden luau for the sophisticated, somewhat world-weary Houston socialites who were Robert's peers and friends.
Instead of calling in professional caterers and florists, Mary and Rose supervised the preparation and presentation of food, which was cooked according to their own recipes, seasoned with herbs from Henry's garden, and served by flickering torchlight on tables covered with hand-appliqued linens lavishly strewn with Henry's showy blossoms.
In keeping with the luau theme, Mary and her mother gathered hundreds of orchids from their own greenhouse; then Diana and Corey and four of their friends were put to work making elegant leis. Mary and Rose decided that each lady should receive a small lacquered ring box decorated with tiny painted orchids in the same hues as the real ones used for the leis. Clinging to the belief that even jaded Houston millionaires would surely appreciate the merits and uniqueness of her handcrafted table decorations, homegrown edibles, and the changes she'd made to soften and brighten the house's austere formality, Mary and her mother spent many happy hours in the kitchen planning and creating.
Two hours before the party, Mary inspected the grounds and the house, and burst into tears in her
