Laughter bubbled up and escaped.
“Meredith, I’m serious.”
She patted his folded arms. “I know. And I do take safety seriously. I was laughing because you reminded me of my older brother and our mom just then. That’s the same lecture either of them would have given me in the same circumstance. When all else fails, appeal to the financial aspect of the situation.”
His expression eased, his dark eyes no longer stern, but amused once again. “They sound like very smart people.”
“Come on, let me show you the rest of the upstairs.”
“Hey, Major!”
At Forbes’s younger brother’s greeting, the handful of people sitting at the ten-top table turned and greeted Major with the same warmth. Why did he always assume they would see him as an interloper—as an intruder? They’d never treated him with anything but affection and friendship. Most of those present were too young to remember the couple of years that Major worked for Aunt Maggie two decades ago, yet they still acted as if he were a member of the extended family.
“Oh, mercy!” Jennifer Guidry came out of the kitchen. “Now I’m going to feel self-conscious. Forbes, did you have to bring a professional chef to my restaurant?” She winked at him. “Hey, Major.”
“Hi, yourself.” He looked around with interest at the interior design. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. I think everything is fantastic. The pirogue is new since the last time I was here.” He pointed at the flat- bottomed, pointy-ended boat suspended upside down from the beamed ceiling overhead.
“One of my suppliers down in Jeanerette thought I needed that for some authenticity. So he built it and put it up there a couple of months ago.”
Major watched Jenn as she talked with a couple of her siblings or cousins—he could never keep all the relations straight in this clan. He hadn’t seen her in at least a year. He used to think that she and Meredith were nearly identical—in fact, when he’d first met them as teenagers, he’d thought they were twins. But Jenn had cool, blue-gray eyes like Forbes’s, not wide, nutmeg brown eyes that glowed with an emberlike intensity. Jenn’s hair was a little redder, too. She flitted from person to person like a hummingbird. Meredith would have just found a place to sit and observe those around her.
“Chef, we need you in the kitchen.”
Major turned along with Jenn—and shook his head at the gut reaction.
“I’ll be right back,” Jenn called over her shoulder as she followed her employee around the fishing tackle– decorated wall that buffered the dining room from the kitchen. The snap and bustle of working in a restaurant—he missed it.
Sitting beside Forbes, Major found he had a good view of the front door across the large room, because he saw Anne as soon as she entered.
She paused in her confident stride toward the table when she noticed Major. “What—my invitations weren’t good enough for you? You had to wait until Forbes invited you to come to family dinner?”
Major stood and greeted her with a handshake. “He’s a lawyer—trying to argue with him would just be a losing battle.” He held the chair to his right for her.
She glanced around, a frown forming between her brows. “Where’s Meredith?”
Finally, someone had voiced the question that had been bouncing around in Major’s brain for the last fifteen minutes.
“She’s going to try to come later,” Forbes said. “She called as I was driving down here to say that something came up, and she made other plans for dinner.”
Major’s guts melted into a disappointed puddle.
“What do you mean, ‘other plans for dinner’?” Anne asked.
Major assisted Anne with the chair and waited to hear how Forbes would answer her question. Jenn returned with a couple of baskets of hush puppies and took the seat on the other side of Anne.
Forbes refilled his glass from the pitcher of tea on the table. “I don’t know. I guess something came up at work.” He glanced askance at Major.
Major lowered himself into his chair and shrugged. It would serve her right if he told her somewhat meddlesome kin that she wasn’t working but was on a date ... but that would be petty. “I don’t know. It could be any of a million things that sidetracked her.”
“Well, hopefully she’ll be able to get here soon.” Anne glanced at the printed list of the day’s specials then placed her order. “It would be a shame for her to miss such a historical event as Major O’Hara attending a Guidry family function after so many years.”
And to think, if he’d been paying attention and hadn’t been so wrapped up in his own little life, he might have recognized his feelings for Meredith soon enough to have actually become part of the Guidry family.
He hardly knew what he was ordering when the waiter came around to him. He could almost hear a game show announcer in his head:
As dinner progressed, Major was slowly able to set his thoughts aside, though the self-recrimination remained. But no one could be around this crew for very long and spend any time inside his own skull. Conversations flew fast and furious around the large, round table, ranging from the bizarre case police officer Jason had just worked to the latest plans for Anne’s wedding.
On that point, Major could contribute to the discussion, teasing Anne about the lack of extravagance in her menu choices.
“That’s our Annie—always suggesting all the frills and froufrou for everyone else, but never indulging in them for herself.” Jenn rolled her eyes.
“I blame it on George—since he’s not here to defend himself.” Anne’s blue eyes twinkled.
“Oh, please.” Jenn stood and went to the wait station to refill their pitcher of iced tea. “George would let you do anything you want.”
“Well, as brother of the bride, I have to say that I’m glad it’s not one of those really over-the-top kind of weddings,” Jason Babineaux said.
“Yeah?” Forbes challenged him. “All you have to do is usher. You don’t have to stand in front of the hordes of gawkers who are going to be sitting there just waiting for someone to flub up.”
“You could always be removed from the list of attendants, Forbes, if the idea bothers you so much.” Anne’s eyebrows arched up, her expression stern, though she couldn’t wipe the smile from her eyes.
“And leave George with only his brother up there with him for moral support? I couldn’t do that to the poor sap. Someone’s got to commiserate with him on his life as he knows it being over.”
Anne turned to Major. “I’m so happy that you could finally come and witness for yourself just how much everyone in this family loves each other.” She winked.
Melancholy wrapped around Major’s chest. Did the people sitting at this table have any idea just how blessed they were to be part of a family at all? To have what Major had dreamed of his whole life, had imagined when he was a kid?
After everyone had overindulged in Jenn’s peach cobbler, people exchanged places at the table as if at a signal. It happened before Major realized it, and suddenly, he found himself not between Anne and Forbes, but next to their young cousin Jodi.
“I’m so glad I was able to get over here to you. I’ve been hoping to see you again for a while now.” Jodi flipped her long, brown hair over her shoulder and gazed at him with wide, dark eyes.
Major straightened and cleared his throat, uncomfortable with what felt like flirtatiousness in the young woman’s demeanor. He was certain he was just flattering himself by thinking she was actually interested in him. But when she leaned closer and rested her hand on his arm, a sense of foreboding stole through him.
“What can I do for you, Jodi?”
“Oh, I don’t want you to do anything
Meredith leaned against the side of the SUV, her neck starting to ache slightly from looking up at Ward. The in-and-out flow of people from the gourmet deli marked the passing of time as they stood chatting. And while she
