"The old-timey stuff's going to be great in here." He winked at her as she stepped down off the ladder. "Don't let Buddy tell you different."

"It'll give him something to complain about instead of my pot filler." She ran her hand, lovingly, over the next cabinet. "Let's get her up."

"One second," Matt said as his phone rang. He glanced at the display. "Hey, baby. What? When?"

The tone, the merging of the two words into one stream had Cilla looking over.

"Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm on my way. Josie's water broke," he said, snappinghis phone off. "I gotta go." He lifted Cilla off her feet, a happy boost into the air.

"So this is what goes on around here all day," Angie said as she came into the room.

Matt just grinned like an idiot. "Josie's having the baby."

"Oh! Oh! What're you doing here?"

"Leaving." He dropped Cilla back on her feet. "Call Ford, okay? He'll pa.s.s the word. I'm sorry about-" He gestured toward the cabinets.

"Don't worry about it." Cilla gave him a two-handed shove. "Go! Go have a baby."

"We're having a girl. I'm getting me a daughter today." He grabbed Angie on the way out, dipped her, kissed her, then swung her back up as he ran out of the room.

"Boy, talk about excellent timing." With a laugh, Angie tapped her lips. "He gives good kiss. Wow, big, huge day. I need to call Suzanna, Josie's younger sister. We're friends. And another wow, look at all this!"

"Coming along. Look around if you want. I need to call Ford."

While Cilla made the call, Angie poked around the kitchen, in the utility room and back out.

"Men are odd," Cilla stated, hooking her phone back on her belt. "He said, 'Cool. Got it. See ya.'"

"A man of few words."

"Not usually."

"Well, I'll use some to say, Cilla, this all looks amazing." Angie spread her arms. "Totally amazing. And how the h.e.l.l do you know where to put all these cabinets?"

"Diagram."

"Yeah, but you had to make the diagram. I have a hard time figuring out if I can move my bed from one place to the other in my room, and where the dresser could go if I did."

"I had a hard time getting through a cla.s.s, much less imagining teaching one the way you're going to do. We all know what we know."

"I guess we do. Well." Angie gave a snappy salute. "Private McGowan reporting for duty."

"Sorry?"

"I'm here to paint. I could try to help you put these up now that Matt's otherwise occupied. But I think you'll be a lot happier with my painting skills than my cabinet-hanging ones. How do you hang them, anyway?" she wondered. "I mean, what holds them up? And never mind, I'd rather use a paintbrush."

"Angie, you don't have to-"

"I want to. Dad said they've finished sc.r.a.ping the old paint on the front and one of the sides, and they'll be working on the back today. And if there was more help, we could get some of the primer on what's been done. It's my day off. I'm the more help."

She tugged at the leg of her baggy white painter's pants. "Look. I have the outfit."

"As fetching as it is, I don't want you to feel obligated."

Angie's face turned from teasing to solemn. "Are you ever going to think of me as a sister?"

"I do." Fumbling, Cilla picked up her level. "Of course I do. I mean ... we are sisters."

"If that's true, then let me say: Shut up, and show me the paint." Her smile went sly. "Or I'll tell Dad you're being mean to me."

Amus.e.m.e.nt came and went, but the quiet glow remained. "You're a lot like him. The, ah, one who made us sisters."

"I have only his good qualities. You, on the other hand-"

"The paint's out in the barn. We can go out this way." Cilla opened the back door. "Maybe I don't like having a sister who's younger than I am and has a cute little cheerleader body."

"Maybe I don't like having a sister who has a yard of leg and miles of perfect hair. But I've got a better a.s.s."

"You do not. My a.s.s is famous."

"Yeah, you showed enough of it in Terror at Deep Lake ."

"I did no a.s.s work in that picture. I wore a bikini." Holding back laughter, she stopped to pull out her keys, glanced over at the house. "Oh, d.a.m.n it!"

Turning to look, Angie gaped at the sight of her father, three stories up, standing on scaffolding, sc.r.a.ping away.

"Dad! Get down from there!" They shouted it in unison. Gavin looked around, and down, then sent them a cheerful wave.

"I told him not to go up there. No scaffolding, no extension ladders."

"He doesn't listen, not when he's decided to do something. He pretends to listen, then does what he was going to do anyway. Is it safe?" Angie asked, gripping Cilla's arm. "I mean, it's not going to fall over or collapse, is it?"

"No. But ..."

"Then we're not going to look. We're going to get the paint. I'm going around to the front of the house, you're going inside. Where we can't see him up there. And we're never, never going to tell my mother."

"Okay." Cilla deliberately turned away, then stuck the key in the padlock on the barn.

OLIVIA ROSE BREWSTER came into the world at 2:25 P.M.

"Matt's floating," Ford told Cilla as they drove to the hospital. "Pa.s.sing out bubble-gum cigars with this dopey smile on his face. The kid's pretty cute, got all this black hair. Ethan was bald as my uncle Edgar, but the girl, she's already got a headful."

"Uncle Ford seems pretty pleased, too."

"It's a kick. It's a pretty big kick. Josie looked pretty whipped when I saw her, right after."

"There's a surprise. She should have looked camera ready after pushing eight pounds, five ounces out of her-"

"Okay, okay. No need for details." He hunted up a parking s.p.a.ce in the hospital's lot. "I talked with Matt while you were cleaning up. He said they're both doing great."

"It's nice to come back here for something happy." She skimmed her gaze up to the Intensive Care floor.

"Have you talked to Shanna since she got back?"

"No, I haven't."

"She had a great time." Ford took Cilla's hand as they crossed the lot. "She said Steve's looking good. Put some of the weight back on he lost, got what she called a Roman gladiator 'do going on. He's only using the cane when he gets tired."

Ford pulled open the heavy gla.s.s door.

"I've been e-mailing him pictures of the house. I need to take some of the kitchen cabinets. Gift shop. Presents for Mommy and baby."

"I took her flowers already," Ford objected, "and a big pink teddy bear."

"Eight pounds, five ounces out of her-"

"Gift shop."

Loaded down with flowers, Mylar balloons, a plush musical lamb and a stack of coloring books for the new big brother, they walked into the birthing suite.

Josie sat up in bed, in her arms the swaddled baby, a bright pink cap over her dark hair. Josie's younger sister stood nearby, cooing over a tiny, frothy white dress, while Brian unwrapped a bubble-gum cigar and Matt snapped a picture of his wife and daughter.

"More visitors!" Josie beamed. "Cilla, you just missed your dad and Patty."

"I came to see someone else." She leaned over the bed. "h.e.l.lo, Olivia. She's beautiful, Josie. You do wonderful work."

"Hey, she's got my chin, and nose," Matt claimed.

"And your big mouth. Do you want to hold her, Cilla?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Trade." She put the lamb on the bed, took the baby. "Look at you. Look how pretty you are. How are you feeling, Josie?"

"Good. Really good. Only seven and a half hours of blood, sweat and tears with this one. Ethan took twice that."

"Got some stuff here for big bro." Ford set the coloring books on the foot of the bed.

"Oh, that's so sweet! My parents just took him home for dinner. He looks so big, so st.u.r.dy. I can hardly ... Oh, hormones still working," she managed when her eyes filled.

"It's a full house!" Cathy announced as she and Tom came in with a bouquet of pink roses and baby's breath. "Let me see that beautiful baby."

Cilla turned obligingly.

"Oh, look at all that hair. Tom, just look at this sweet thing."

"Pretty as a picture." Tom set the flowers down among the garden of others, then poked Brian in the shoulder. "When are you going to get busy making us one? Matt's got two up on you now. You, too, Ford."

"Slackers," Josie agreed, and held out her arms for Olivia.

"I have such high standards," Brian said. "I can't settle for any woman who isn't as perfect as Mom."

"That's a clever way out of it," Cathy commented, but she beamed with pleasure as she stepped over to kiss Brian's cheek. She turned and kissed Matt. "Congratulations."

"Thanks. We figured we had another week. When Josie called this morning, I figured it was to remind me to bring her home a caramel coconut sundae. She's been eating mountains of them."

"I have, too!" Josie said with a laugh.

"It was peanut brittle for me. Acres of peanut brittle. I'm lucky I have a tooth left in my head."

"Never touched it again after Brian was born," Tom commented.

"It'll probably be a good long while before I can look at coconut." Josie stroked Olivia's cheek. "Thank G.o.d I didn't go another week."

"And now you'll be able to show off the baby at Cilla's party. We're all looking forward to that," Cathy added. "I guess you could say the house is your baby."

"Without the pink teddy bear and pretty white dresses," Cilla agreed.

Matt pa.s.sed out more cigars. "I had to bail out today. We'd just started installing the kitchen cabinets. How's it going?"

"We just have to set the island, put on the doors, the hardware. We'll be ready for the counters, on schedule."

"I'm going to have a powwow with Patty and Ford's mother. And if you sweet-talk him," Cathy told Cilla, "Tom might make his special ribs."

Cilla smiled. "What makes them special?"

"It's all in the rub," Tom claimed. "Family secret."

"He won't even give me the recipe."

"It pa.s.ses down only through the bloodline. Many have tried to unlock the secret. None have succeeded. We've got to be on our way, Cathy."

"Meeting friends for dinner. You get some rest, Josie. I'll pop in to see you and that precious baby tomorrow when I'm here."

It took several more minutes for the leave-taking, especially when other people came in. By the time Cilla and Ford walked out, she had a bubble-gum cigar in her pocket.

"It's nice that your parents-yours, Brian's, Matt's-take such an interest in all of you. It's almost tribal."

"We grew up practically joined at the hip, along with Shanna. Her parents split about ten years ago. They both remarried and moved out of the area."

"Still, three out of four sticking with it. Well above national average. They looked so happy. Matt and Josie. Little beams of happiness shooting out of their eyes. How long have they been married?"

"About six years, I guess. But they've had a thing a lot longer. Listen, if you want to stop and have dinner, that's okay." His fingers tapped on the steering wheel. "But I'd kind of like to get home."

"No, I'm fine. Is something wrong?"

"No. Nothing's wrong." Except a rampant case of nerves, he realized. And the sudden and inescapable understanding that he needed to take the next step, make the next move.

Ready or not, he thought. Here it comes.