He grinned. “I’ll be wherever you want me to be whenever you want me there.”
Daisy looked up at Ken, who had come to stand next to the couch. “Did you get the last of the drywall hung?”
“Yep. Many hands make light work.”
She chuckled. “That is one of my mantras.”
Jon and Alex stood. “We are going to head back. See you all for family dinner tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Valerie stood and stretched her leg. “What about you, Daisy? Are you coming to family dinner?”
“I, uh, don’t know.” She glanced over at Ken. “Am I?”
The smile that covered his face lit him up like a light bulb. It made her heart twist almost painfully in reaction. “If you want to come to family dinner, that would make me very happy. Besides, it’s Jon’s turn to do dishes, so we’d have it easy.”
Jon laughed. “I think you need to consult that list of yours one more time.”
Daisy stood. “I guess I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Thank you, Valerie, for your hospitality. I really enjoyed it.”
Valerie walked up to her and hugged her. “It was great to spend time with you.”
Daisy looked at Alex. “Your wedding is going to be amazing. I can’t wait to see it.”
Daisy hugged Alex, and then Ken put a hand on her lower back. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
As she walked out of the house, Daisy realized that she hadn’t once thought of her pregnancy tonight. She actually felt drawn into that community of the family and felt like she had a place there.
At the car, Ken leaned his hip against the back door. She opened the driver’s door and tossed her purse inside, then turned toward him. “Thanks for asking me to come tonight.”
He slipped his hands into his jeans’ pockets. “I’m happy you got along with them.”
She smiled. “We got along great. It probably helps that you guys abandoned us to our planning.”
She was teasing him, and he knew it. He brushed a piece of hair off of her cheek. “Hanging drywall was better than picking out flowers.”
His arms came around her easily. But even as she raised her face for his kiss, she wondered how much longer she could keep this up. Once his family knew, they wouldn’t accept her the same way he did.
Daisystared up at the big stone structure. What was she doing with him? People who grew up in castles like princes and kings did not allow their heirs to date women who got pregnant with another man’s child. Then, Ken opened the door, a grin covering his face. “There you are!”
The welcome from him helped center her and gave her legs the strength to walk toward him and climb the steps. When she got to the top step, he kissed her and said, “I’m glad you texted about that wreck. I would’ve been worried you changed your mind.”
“You can always depend on Atlanta traffic to be undependable.”
They walked into the massive foyer. The hand-laid tile formed a sapphire blue and gold compass rose in the center of the foyer. A table with a large bouquet of sunflowers sat in the center of the compass. She looked above to the ornate ceiling twenty feet high and all around at the doorways with twelve-foot-tall doors.
Her heels clicked on the tile floor, echoing around them as they walked to a door on the far right. He opened it, and she stepped into a dining room with a table long enough to hold twenty. The room had a glass wall that faced a rose garden. An ivory linen tablecloth covered half of the table, and ceramic bowls and plates in varying colors of autumn graced the tabletop, giving it a very festive feel. A smaller vase than the one in the foyer held a similar arrangement of sunflowers and sat on the unset end of the table as if set aside. From outside, Valerie walked up to the glass door and slid it open, coming into the room. “Daisy,” she said with a smile. “I’m so happy you joined us tonight.”
One of the brothers came through a doorway carrying a soup tureen. Valerie walked toward him and kissed him, so Daisy identified him as Brad. He set the ceramic dish near the head of the table and said, “I heard about the wreck on two ninety-five. I wondered if you would make it in time for dinner.”
She raised an eyebrow and patted him on the cheek. “Auntie Rose would’ve waited for me.” She grinned over her shoulder at Daisy. “She’d have waited on Daisy, too.”
The kitchen door opened again. Jon came through with a breadbasket covered in a russet napkin. He looked at Valerie and Daisy and said, “Hello, ladies.”
“Where’s Alex?”
He gestured with his chin in no particular direction. “Upstairs. She’s on her way down.”
Philip Dixon entered the room through a door opposite the kitchen. As he crossed the room, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I heard it’s chili night.”
