"Oh, look!" She charged ahead, a.s.suming he would follow, and sat on the stool in front of the machine. "Star Wars. Jack and I have a running compet.i.tion on who remembers the most from the movies and who should play Luke Skywalker in a remake. My bet's on Whatshisname from that soap opera, but Jack thinks he should do it."

"He who?"

"Jack." She smirked. "And I get to be Princess Leia. He promised."

"Ah." He sat at the machine beside her Star Wars one and stared with consternation at the Transformers. "Did he promise before or after you dumped the ice over his head?"

She fed her first twenty into the machine. "After, but I'd just helped him with his history homework. Sort of."

"Wow, the kid has faith in you."

"Well, there was a little thing about me not baking any more of the cookies he likes and taking back the amount I pledged him for the football team fundraiser. Which I must admit I couldn't afford anyway. They're lifting weights, you know, and I had no idea Jack would be able to lift nearly as much as he can. We had to do a little bargaining or I'd be put in the clink for welching on my debts."

He'd lost his twenty dollars in half as many minutes. "I'm going over there," he said, gesturing vaguely. "I can't afford these d.a.m.n pennies."

She stepped away from the machine fifteen minutes later and went to where Boone played blackjack. "Fifty-seven dollars!" she crowed, waving her receipt. "I'm quitting while I'm ahead."

Wearing a disgruntled expression, Boone cashed out too. "I'll quit while I'm behind-after losing the mortgage payment and grocery money but prior to bankruptcy. Want to walk around downtown?"

They parked in an angled parking spot on the little river town's main drag and meandered around, visiting an art gallery, a music store and the historical society. They went into a cozy bar in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a restaurant across a narrow street from the Ohio River where they were the only patrons. At every business they entered, Lucy picked up a business card and tucked it away with her fifty-seven dollars. From the bar, she took a napkin. When the bartender offered her a book of matches, she shook her head. "Thanks, anyway."

"Tell me about the pickle jar," Boone requested as they walked along the river on the scenic path. "I've seen tip jars before-my wife even kept a big brandy snifter on top of her piano and I used to put money in it to tease her. But yours has more business cards and pieces of paper in it than it does money." When their hands b.u.mped between them, he took hers. She thought about pulling away, but only for a moment. The truth was, she liked it when Boone Brennan touched her and so did those girl muscles that were already tightening and loosening in reaction.

This was, she decided, a truth she didn't want to examine too closely. The question he asked, though, was one that was fun to respond to because the answer was fun to remember.

"When I started waiting tables at Dolan's-that was Dad's restaurant-I wanted things, normal things like a car and cool clothes, but Dad said the only way I could get them was to help pay for them. Whatever I saved, he said, he'd match. While he was telling me this, standing there in the kitchen with the whole restaurant staff as witnesses, he rinsed out the pickle jar-the same one I still have back at the tearoom-and handed it to me. 'Here you go, kid,' he said, and I've been saving tips and wishes and dreams in it ever since." It was one of her best memories of her father, and she smiled with the telling of it. "Only problem is, no one gives me matching funds anymore."

"Business cards?" He reminded her of his original question. "Slips of paper?" He sat on a park bench and drew her down beside him. "Is that where the wishes and dreams come in?"

She left her hand in his. "A busboy named Andy started it. When I started scoping out cars when I was sixteen, he cut a picture of a used Camaro out of the paper and dropped it in the jar. Before the prom, I was waxing dramatic about what kind of dress I wanted and one of the waitresses put a magazine picture of this gorgeous black and white dress in there. My guidance counselor from high school, Mrs. Seaforth, came in one day and talked to Dad about me going to college and she left her business card." Lucy's smile faded. All these years later, the loss of that particular dream still hurt. "I put it in the jar."

"Did you go?" he asked. "To college, I mean."

"No. Every time it started to seem possible, something would happen to prove it wasn't. A few times, I even signed up." She brightened. "I've taken tons of cla.s.ses, though. I almost have an a.s.sociate's degree in the most extremely general of general studies you've ever seen."

He laughed. "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"That's the nice part." She beamed at him. "Just what I am. I love restaurants, cooking, being with people. I want the education because I like knowing things. Some of the pieces of paper are about things like that. A lady came in one time and we got to talking about the dreams in the jar and she asked for an empty one of her own. I taught her to make foolproof piecrust and she taught me to decorate cakes. We each got to cross off one of our wishes, but the paper's still in the jar so I don't forget her."

As she warmed to what she was saying, heat from his arm sent tingles of awareness up the length of her. "A man from Italy who had immigrated here to be with his family taught me about pasta and I gave him English lessons," she went on a little breathlessly. It's hot out here-that's all. And muggy. Sheesh, yeah, muggy. "I got to be in the courtroom with him the day he became an American citizen. I never want to forget that, so I still have his business card with all the details of that day written on the back." She smiled with the sweetness of the memory, then felt herself blush. "Like the napkin from the bar today. That was fun, and I don't want to forget that, either."

He'd wanted to kiss her while they were sipping beer and talking. He hadn't said so, but she'd known. Another memory for the cache she kept behind her heart. Another wish for the jar. That was something she hadn't told him-or anyone else-that some dreams were both unspoken and unwritten. She just kept them close and didn't forget.

"I'll remember it." Although his smile was easy, like it always was, the message in his chocolate-brown eyes was not.

"Living with someone with Alzheimer's makes you paranoid about forgetting, I think," she said. "For a long time, I'd write things down for Dad and it would help, but we couldn't ever antic.i.p.ate what would be the next thing." She blinked impatiently at the tears pushing in where they weren't wanted. Where they never did any good. "I was one of the lucky ones. Even though he eventually didn't know who I was, he still liked me. Every day required an introduction, but then he'd set out to charm me just like I was a customer." She sniffed. "It worked every time, too."

"How did that make you one of the lucky ones?"

"I knew people whose parents or even spouses couldn't stand them after they didn't remember who they were. That's extra hard."

He nodded. "I'll bet it is." He gazed across the river, and she wondered what was going on behind the unsmiling brown eyes.

"What are you thinking?"

"I was trying to imagine how it would have been if Maggie had survived the bursting of the aneurysm but been damaged to the extent she wouldn't have been herself anymore. I think maybe it would have been even worse than it's been learning to live without her." He chuckled, a dry and humorless sound. "I can say this-I know she would have said it was worse." He squeezed Lucy's fingers. "Strange, isn't it? You had to say goodbye way too many times, and I'd give ten years of my life to be able to say goodbye just once."

"What would she...Maggie say to that?"

He sat silent for a moment, and she was afraid she'd offended him with the question, but then he laughed. Not the ghostly chuckle she'd just heard, but a real hoot. "She would say-and this is without so much as a 'Gee, I'm sorry you're sad, Boone,'-she would tell me to get off my a.s.s and stop trying to make people feel sorry for me."

The unexpected answer startled a laugh from Lucy, too. "You think?"

"No, I don't think. I know. Maggie's life was cut way too short, but she lived every minute of it. She wouldn't have a whole lot of patience with someone who didn't."

Lucy felt something lift away, a weight she hadn't realized she carried. "You know, Dad wouldn't either. Whether he was sick or well, he had a huge appreciation of life. When he talked about my mother, it was with complete joy, as though they'd had their whole lives together and she wasn't really gone at all. Just out for a while. If I don't have that same appreciation, if I let being scared of things rule how I live, it will be an insult to how he raised me."

"And if I don't start living again, it will be an insult to the life Maggie and I had together." He lifted their hands between them. "Shall we pretend we have gla.s.ses and drink to our decisions to appreciate and go forward?"

"Absolutely." She clicked imaginary gla.s.ses with him, then cupped his face. "Thank you. It was nice to talk about Dad without swimming around in a pool of regret."

"Thank you, too." He turned his face into her hand, kissing her palm. "I haven't felt this...alive for a long time."

When she took her hand away, he checked her watch-he never wore one. "I hate to say it, but we should probably head for home. If we're late for dinner, Aunt Gert will blame me and I'll be peeling potatoes for a week or something."

"I've enjoyed this afternoon," she said, getting up and falling into step beside him.

"Me, too." He brought them to a stop before they walked up the bank from the riverside path, sliding an arm around her waist. "There's something I have to do before we go home."

He tilted her face to his and drew her into his arms. "Maybe if we do this," he murmured, his lips just grazing hers, "it will be out of the way and you won't drive me crazy anymore." He nibbled, coaxing, and then his mouth wasn't grazing at all-what had been soft and gentle and sweet became something not soft and not gentle at all. But still sweet. Very, very sweet.

She wondered, as they got in the car a few minutes later, if his road to crazy had been curtailed.

Because hers certainly had not.

Chapter Six.

"Chianti." Gert spoke firmly, shaking her head at the bottle of merlot in Boone's hand.

"But this is the right color," Boone argued, knowing it was useless-he would have to go back to the bas.e.m.e.nt for another bottle.

"You're a doofus," Kelly said. "It's why Aunt Gert never really liked you." For the first time in a few days, she didn't sound angry.

"That's not why." Crockett headed toward the sunroom with a stack of plates. "It's because of the earring."

The comment surprised a laugh out of Boone and a query from Lucy. "Earring?" She looked from one of Boone's naked ears to the other.

"It happened one night after partaking of veritable buckets of something much cheaper and a whole lot more domestic than this." Boone held up the bottle of merlot. "As a matter of fact, I think Eli St. John and Micah Walker fermented it in somebody's garage. Eli wasn't a minister then and the good father-" he gestured toward Crockett as he came back into the kitchen, "-was still living real precariously on the other side of the confession box."

"Drunk," Crockett supplied. "We were drunk."

Gert tsked. "You were rotten is what you were, both of you. And Micah and Eli were even worse because they were older. They should have known better." She straightened with a little frown. "One of you lift this pan out of the oven for me. Sleeping on that cot in the hospital has made my back a bit sore."

"Well?" Lucy tossed hot pads to Crockett. "What happened with the earring?"

"We-the 'we' being most of the basketball team-wanted to pierce our ears," Boone said, "but none of our folks would let us. Except Aunt Gert, that is. The way we figured, she didn't mind because she'd never told us she did."

"Nor did we ask," Crockett interceded, setting the lasagna on the island. "Of course, we couldn't ask, because then she would have known we were...impaired. And she might have said 'no.'"

Boone huffed. "I think 'impaired' is a too strong of a term. Anyway, Micah found a big-a.s.s darning needle and we snuck in and swiped earrings from Aunt Gert's jewelry box. We just took little ones, figuring that would cause less trouble, and we were very clean about it. We washed both the needle and our ears in the junk we were drinking. Since I was the youngest-"

"Not to mention dumber than a box of rocks and twice as clumsy. He couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time even stone cold sober. Which he wasn't," Kelly supplied lovingly.

Boone went on as though she hadn't interrupted, although he did think maybe he liked her better when she was mad. "-I was elected to go first." He arrowed a gaze at Crockett. "And last."

His former best friend's eyes, what Gert always called shanty-Irish blue, brimmed with laughter. "It seemed sagacious to me," Crockett said pompously, "in light of the ruckus Boone raised, not to mention the whimpers and sobs, to just say I thought ear-piercing was immature and not nearly as cool as, say, sneaking into the movies or whacking mailboxes with baseball bats."

"Rotten," Gert repeated, "right to the core. Dinner's ready. Lucy, go get a bottle of Chianti, and we can eat-Boone will never be able to find the right thing. Kelly, do you have the salad on the table?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So," Lucy said, when they were seated. Gert had slapped her grabby nephews' hands and grace had been said. "What happened next with the earring?"

"Oh." Boone scowled at her. "I thought we'd gotten past that."

She smiled brightly. "I didn't think so. Did you?" she appealed to the rest of the table.

"No, I didn't," Kelly said. "I was even there, but I'd love hearing it again. Without the whimpers and sobs, I mean. Or, on second thought, go ahead and include them. Sometimes a little drama can be a good thing."

"Well, come to find out," Boone said in a long-suffering voice, "the little earrings we appropriated-you notice I said we, not I-were a present from Uncle Mike for their something-or-other wedding anniversary."

"Nothing important." Gert patted her mouth with her napkin. "Just our twenty-fifth. They were diamonds."

"Real ones," Crockett added helpfully. "I put back the one I was going to use. Boone, on the other hand..." His voice trailed away on a mournful note and he shook his head in resignation.

Boone sighed. "...lost the one from his ear."

"In his defense-" Crockett began.

"There can be no defense," Kelly interjected.

"Actually, in our defense," Crockett persisted, "Sims let us work extra hours at the station so we could replace the earring. Uncle Mike ordered it to make sure it was the right one, and she's still wearing them. Right, Aunt Gert?"

"Yes, dear, that's right."

Lucy held up her gla.s.s for a refill. "So there must be some other reason."

"Reason for what?" Boone asked.

Her eyes twinkled at him, and he thought he could bask happily in that expression forever. "For your aunt not liking you."

Boone thought a moment. "Not that I can think of. Is there, Aunt Gert?"

She smiled and drew him close enough to give him a smacking kiss on the cheek. "Only that you're a doofus, sweetheart."

"Speaking of Sims." It was Kelly's lawyer voice. Her good mood time had evidently run out, but things were improving-it had been a good hour or more since she'd had anything truly snide to say about anyone, particularly Lucy.

Boone met Crockett's eyes across the table and they shared a shrug and a lopsided grin. It felt good, Boone thought. Even if they were never close again, if they were never Crockett-and-Boone, spoken as one word because they were always together, he could live with just being in the same room without anger.

"He'll be coming home in a few days," Gert said, "and I'm bringing him here. He'll stay in my room and-I'm sorry, Lucy-we'll have to stop serving in the den so I can move some of my things in there and sleep. I know we normally have private parties in there and it will mean giving up revenue, but it's the best alternative for right now."

Boone waited for Lucy to suggest a convalescent home for Sims. There was a perfectly nice one less than ten miles away, with professionals much more suited to the old man's care than Gert was.

"That'll be fine," Lucy said. "We can use the front parlor for the private parties we already have scheduled and just not book any more until Sims has recovered. We'll survive."

"Aunt Gert would probably be willing to buy out your part of the business," Kelly suggested, "or close it altogether. She's not able to give you the help you need. I'm sure you could find a building more suited to a tearoom than this one. I'd be glad to help in the search."

Even though Kelly's voice was quiet and calm, almost conciliatory, the words fell hard and splintery into startled silence. When Lucy spoke, it was in a voice that didn't sound like her at all. "If that's what Gert wants, I'll move on. She doesn't owe me anything." She folded her napkin carefully, giving it a little pat to secure that it lay flat, and gathered her dishes and flatware. "If you'll excuse me, I need to bake for tomorrow."

She went into the kitchen, closing the connecting French doors behind her, and Boone stared across the table at Kelly, wondering what had happened to his little sister in the years since life and adulthood had caused them to drift apart. He'd spent their adolescence protecting her against outside forces, and now he wanted to protect someone from her. What was wrong with this picture?

"Whatever possesses you, Kelly?" Gert asked calmly. "I don't think I've ever been ashamed of you, but I am now."

"Why are you so sure it's me?" Kelly demanded. "You've all taken this girl to your hearts as though she's a cross between Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables with a little bit of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm thrown in for good, saccharine measure. You're so impressed with how much she knows about running a restaurant and how she cared for her poor, ailing father. I keep expecting one of you to ask me to draw up papers to adopt her into the family."

Boone sighed-good G.o.d, he sounded like an ailing old man. "What are you getting at? Why don't you cut the whole drama-queen-lawyer act and just say what you want to say?"

Kelly's eyes flashed as she glowered at Crockett. "Aunt Gert, haven't you and Boone ever wondered what happened to the restaurant where she worked? Or even worse, to her father? Exactly who did Crockett fob off on you? And why?"

Lucy turned on the CD player that sat beside her dream jar so she couldn't hear the conversation taking place in the sunroom. Not so much to give them privacy-she wasn't anywhere near that n.o.ble-as to protect herself from hearing whatever Kelly Brennan was saying.

After getting two orange cake mixes and a bottle of canola oil from the pantry, Lucy set the stand mixer on the island and positioned herself with her back to the French doors. She poured the ingredients into the large stainless steel bowl, added eggs and water, and let the mixture blend while she sprayed a sheet cake pan and made sure the oven rack was in the right place.

Kelly had been aghast when she learned Lucy didn't bake cake from scratch. She'd suggested Tea on Twilight order their pastries from a bakery rather than serve dessert that was little better than fast food. Trembling with anger, Lucy had walked around the block for a half hour, not returning to the house until Kelly's Volvo pulled away.

Gert's niece and nephews were all so different it was hard to believe they'd grown up in the same house, under the same benevolent rule. Boone was laid back and funny, wearing his pain somewhere just under the surface and stashing anger somewhere it could do no harm. He was absentminded and clumsy and more than anything else, Lucy wondered what it would be like to be loved by him.

Kelly was almost manic, never still and seldom quiet. She loved as energetically as she did everything else. It would be nice if she'd stash her anger somewhere, too, or at least find another direction for it. But Lucy had seen Kelly's interaction with children-she loved them. Sometimes she watched Jack as he worked, and it was as though there was an ache in her eyes, but she never went beyond saying "h.e.l.lo" to the boy in pa.s.sing. Lucy knew how much work she did pro bono as an advocate for children. It was hard to stay mad at someone that generous. At least, sometimes it was.