thrust the glass at him for a refill. Lifting her nose slightly, she glanced askance at Rachel. “Some people don’t appreciate generosity and sacrifice, and look what happens to them.”
Rachel ground her retort between her teeth and choked it down with a piece of potato.
“Did I mention how stunning you look tonight, Addie?” Bryan said affably, handing her glass back to her filled with tonic water and a slice of lime. “I can’t think of another woman who could wear that outfit quite the way you do… unless it might be Jayne,” he added, grinning across the table at his friend, who stuck her tongue out at him.
Addie beamed and fluffed her ostrich feathers.
“And didn’t Rachel find a beautiful dress?” Bryan said, not realizing the way his voice dropped and softened. Nor did he realize the longing that shone in his eyes.
Rachel sat directly across from him, between Addie, at the head of the table, and Jayne. A tiny smile of gratitude canted the corners of her lips.
Addie gave her daughter a hard, assessing look, “Yes, it’s very suitable. For once you don’t look like some cheap, wandering Gypsy.”
The smile faded away as Rachel closed her eyes and counted to ten.
“Rachel,” Jayne said brightly as she picked around the meat in her stew. “Tell us all about your career as a singer. My, how exciting that must be. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
“That’s not much to tell,” Rachel said, bracing her shoulders. She kept her head down, her eyes trained on her plate as she tried to extricate herself from the subject as quickly as she could without being rude. “We played a lot of clubs, managed to get on a couple of PBS folk music shows.”
“That’s wonderful.” Jayne smiled. “I just love folk music. It’s very spiritual. So visual and honest in its images. Don’t you agree, Addie?”
Addie’s lips pinched into a white line. “Drivel. Opera is the only pure form of vocal music.”
Jayne never missed a beat, turning back to Rachel. “You said ‘we.’ I take it you have a partner?”
“Had,” Rachel said shortly. Her fingers tightened on her fork in anticipation of the comment her mother would surely make.
“Feckless little ferret.”
“Mother, please…”
“Addie, I love your hair in that style. What do you call it?” Bryan asked.
Addie scowled at him. “A braid. Honestly, Hennessy, there are times I wonder if you aren’t mentally deficient.”
“Well, the color is marvelous,” he went on, grinning as he speared vegetables with his fork.
Addie’s attention shifted between Rachel and Bryan, between unpleasantness and inanity. Bryan’s wink won her over, and she turned toward him with a pleased look. “You think so?” she asked, stroking the frazzled braid that lay over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking of dying it. I saw a color on television called Sable Seductress.”
“Oh, no. Blondes have more fun. Take it from me,” Bryan said, winking at her again.
Addie blushed and turned toward Jayne. “He’s such a flirt.”
“Always has been, Addie,” Jayne said. “His whole family is that way. Why, it would make you swoon to see all those men together. They look like something out of
“Where is that Australian tonight?” Addie demanded, her mind already drifting from the topic of Bryan.
“Reilly’s in Vancouver shooting a movie,” Jayne said, automatically glowing at the thought of her husband.
Bryan managed to steer the conversation in Jayne’s direction for the remainder of the meal. He coaxed her into speaking at length about her husband’s acting career and her own budding career as a director. As curious as he was to learn more about Rachel and her past, he wasn’t eager to have Jayne prize the information out of her there at the dinner table, where Addie could carve it all up for ridicule.
He’d been willing to do the carving himself less than twenty-four hours earlier, he reminded himself. But that had been before he’d had the chance to observe Rachel. That had been when his only knowledge of her had come from Addie’s cutting remarks and the obvious pain behind them. Now he had seen Rachel. He’d seen-and felt-the turbulent tangle of emotions she was struggling with. He’d watched her look for the slightest sign of forgiveness or approval from her mother, and he’d seen the hurt flash in her lavender eyes when her hopes had met with cold disappointment.
He had accepted his own decision to help Addie and Rachel as best he could. And with that acceptance had come a subtle shifting in his feelings toward Rachel. The beginnings of protectiveness were coming to life inside him. Every time Addie inflicted another small cut with the razor edge of her tongue, the faint urge to take Rachel in his arms washed through him. He ignored the feeling on a conscious level, on a level where he was still not ready to involve himself completely, but it was there just the same.
Finally, Jayne scraped her chair back from the table and gave everyone an apologetic look. “I hate to say it, but I’ve got an important meeting tonight. I really have to be running along. Thanks so much for inviting me, Addie.”
“You invited yourself,” Bryan said, a grin teasing the corners of his mouth as he rose from his chair.
Jayne made a face at him. “Don’t get snippy. I brought the biscuits, didn’t I?”
“So you did,” he conceded graciously. “And they were delicious.”
Jayne bent, kissed the parchmentlike skin of Addie’s pale cheek and bid all good night.
“Where’s that Australian?” Addie asked.
“He’s working,” Jayne replied patiently. She leaned down and impulsively gave Rachel a hug around her shoulders. “It’s been such fun, Rachel. You’ll have to come over to the farm one day soon for a visit.”
Rachel managed a genuine smile for her new friend. It was impossible not to like Jayne immediately. “I will. It was nice meeting you, Jayne.”
“Same here,” Jayne said sincerely. “By the way, what’s your sign?”
“Um… Aquarius, I think,” Rachel mumbled uncertainly, knocked off balance again by Jayne’s sudden change of subject.
Jayne’s dark eyes took on a considering gleam as she looked from Rachel to Bryan, a secretive smile on her lips. “Bryan, honey, walk me out, will you?”
Leaving the Lindquists in the dining room, Bryan took Jayne’s arm and strolled down the hall with her. Neither spoke until they were on the wide porch.
“She’s very pretty.”
Bryan put on his blank, amicable smile and stuck his hands into his trouser pockets. “Who?”
Jayne frowned prettily. “Don’t play that role with me, Bryan Hennessy. I know you too well to be fooled by it. Really,” she said in a huffy tone, toying with the dainty gold bracelet that circled her left wrist. “I ought to be offended.”
“But you’re too busy recapping the dinner conversation and condensing it for analysis to bother.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, pouting.
Bryan grinned openly at that. He reached up and tugged playfully at the end of her necktie. “Tell me, does this miraculous turn of events warrant a conference call or an all-hands-on-deck type meeting?”
Jayne’s eyes twinkled. “Faith has baked a cake for the occasion.”
“And what occasion is that?”
“Alaina thinks you’re falling in love.”
Bryan wouldn’t have been more stunned if she’d suddenly smacked him between the eyes with a hammer. He literally staggered back a step. “That’s absurd! I only just met her last night-”
“Ample time for you.”
“-and she’s done nothing but try to throw me out of the house ever since. That’s hardly romantic,” he argued, doing his best to tamp down the memory of holding her.
Jayne just shrugged. “Monica Tyler hit you in the face with a peace pie, and you fell in love with her.”
“You’re taking that pie thing completely out of context,” Bryan said, shaking a finger at her. “That was an entirely different situation. I’m not in love with Rachel. You may report that to the rest of the joint chiefs of staff. I’m not in love. I’m not going to fall in love.”
“Don’t say that, honey,” Jayne whispered, all teasing aside. She reached up a hand to touch his flushed cheek. “I know how it hurts to lose someone. I also know a very wise man once told me we can’t orchestrate our lives, that we have to take our happiness where we can get it.”
