Sisters Like Us. Сьюзен Мэллери

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СКАЧАТЬ beautiful, but I would have been happy with plastic wrap.”

      “That’s not how we do things around here.”

      “Which is part of your problem.”

      “I know that. Unfortunately, knowing and doing something about it are two different things. Go wash your hands, then you can help me set the table.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      He did as she requested, then met her in the formal dining room. Harper remembered when she and Terence had been looking for a house in the area. They’d passed on several because the dining room wasn’t big enough. When he’d pointed out their family wasn’t that large, she’d reminded him that she had a huge table, a giant hutch and massive buffet to find room for. He’d grumbled about her having too many dishes—every now and then she thought maybe he was right. After the divorce she’d sold two full sets and still had more stock than the average department store.

      Her basic set of dishes were white, allowing her to use them as a base for any holiday or event. Now she studied her tablecloths and napkins, then thought about the bunny fest that would be tomorrow’s table.

      “Becca likes pink,” Lucas offered. “Isn’t pink a spring color?”

      “It is, and that would work. Thanks.”

      She pulled out a pale rose tablecloth with matching napkins. She would use gold as the accent color, along with a little dark green. The dinner would be attended by Bunny, Becca, Lucas, fruit date, Kit and Stacey, and Harper, so seven.

      She handed Lucas the tablecloth before digging out seven dark green place mats. The rest was easy: seven gold chargers, seven sets of gold flatware, her favorite crystal glasses, white plates. She had a collection of salad plates in different patterns, including eight that were edged in gold. She would make custom napkin rings by dressing up plain ones with clusters of silk flowers. She had three hurricane lamps with gold bases.

      She left him to put the linens on the table, then hurried into her craft room to double-check supplies. Honestly, she should have planned her table a couple of days ago, in case she needed to go to the craft store. Now she was going to have to wing it.

      She plugged in her glue gun, then dug through a large bag of silk flower pieces and found several tiny pink blossoms, along with some greens. She had glass beads, of course, and plenty of ribbon. Ten minutes later, she had secured the last of the flowers to the clear plastic napkin rings she bought in bulk. She picked up bags of colored glass beads and the ribbon, then turned and nearly ran into Lucas.

      “What are you doing?” he asked, sounding more amused than concerned.

      “Decorating the table. Can you get those hurricane lamps, please?”

      “There’s something wrong with you,” he told her as he picked up the lamps and followed her back into the dining room. “Your crafts don’t make you a penny, yet you have that huge room for them. At the same time, you cram your office into that tiny bedroom in back.”

      “Sometimes I have to use my craft room for work,” she said, trying not to sound defensive. “When I work for my party planner, I do.”

      “Yeah, sell it somewhere else. Harper, no one’s going to take you seriously until you take yourself seriously.”

      She thought of the stack of bills on her desk and how every month was a struggle. It was the house, she admitted to herself. She’d wanted to keep it after the divorce so that Becca wouldn’t have to move and she didn’t want to be forced to sell it when her daughter turned eighteen. Buying out Terence had decimated her half of their joint assets, meaning he got to keep all the cash, savings and most of their retirement accounts. In return she had the house and little else.

      “I take my income very seriously. At some point I’ll switch out the craft room with my office, but not yet. The craft room makes me happy.”

      “I doubt that. It’s a constant reminder of how you have to be perfect.”

      The unexpected insight caught her off guard and made her feel embarrassed and exposed. Like he’d walked in on her going to the bathroom.

      Lucas was like that. Not that he walked in on her doing anything, but every now and then he was uncomfortably intuitive.

      They returned to the living room, where he put the hurricane lanterns on the sideboard. She wrapped rose and gold ribbon around the bases before setting them in place. After scattering the glass beads down the center of the table, she studied the effect.

      “It’s beautiful,” Lucas told her. “Becca’s going to love it.”

      “Bunny will complain I haven’t done enough.”

      “Want me to take her on for you?”

      “You’d never take the chance,” she told him. “What if you got old lady cooties?”

      “There is that.” He followed her back into the kitchen where she pulled the garlic spread out of the refrigerator.

      “So who is Great-Aunt Cheryl anyway?” he asked.

      “Terence’s great-aunt. I first met her when he and I were still dating. She was wonderful. Funny and irreverent. She never married, but there were always very interesting men hanging around. She had a million stories and they were all so interesting. Just when I started to think she was making it all up, she’d pull out something like a letter from President Truman thanking her for her invaluable aid to our country.”

      She sliced the French loaf lengthwise. Lucas leaned against the counter.

      “You admired her.”

      “I did. Very much. She was always very sweet to me.”

      “Bunny hated her and was jealous of your relationship.”

      Harper stared at him. “How did you know?”

      “Come on. Really? Your mother is the most traditional person I know, and she’s convinced you that if you buy bread instead of making it, the sun won’t rise in the morning. Bunny is all home and hearth. Great-Aunt Cheryl would make Bunny’s teeth hurt. Worse, she would have violated every one of Bunny’s core beliefs.”

      “They weren’t close,” Harper admitted. “Over the past couple of years, Great-Aunt Cheryl and I weren’t in touch as often. I thought she was busy. It was only after I found out she’d died that I learned she’d been sick.”

      Harper still felt guilty for not pushing harder to find out what was going on. “She didn’t want to be any trouble, or something like that. I wish I’d been with her at the end.”

      “Was she alone?”

      “No, she had Ramon.”

      He raised his eyebrows. “Ramon?”

      “Great-Aunt Cheryl was a little like you when it came to her lovers.”

      “Good for her. Why didn’t you go to the memorial?”

      Harper had all her socially correct excuses at the ready, but with Lucas, she found herself СКАЧАТЬ