"Mom!" A girl sprinted over. Curly tails sprung out over both ears. "Hero won't come down out of the tree! Make him come down."
"He'll come down when he's ready. Say how do you do to Miz MacNamara, Livvy."
"How do you do."
"Just fine, and how about you?"
"The cat won't come down."
"They like being up high," Phoebe told her. "Why?"
"So they can feel superior to the rest of us."
"But Willy said he was going to fall and break his neck."
"Oh now, Livvy, you know he just said that to get a rise out of you." Loo gave her daughter's pigtail a tug. "You wait till this chicken's on the table. That cat'll come down quick enough. You go on and wash up, 'cause it's almost time to eat."
"Are you sure he likes it up there?" the child asked Phoebe. "Absolutely." She watched Livvy run off. "How old is she?"
"She'll be seven next June."
"I have a little girl, just seven."
"Boy!" Ma Bee's voice boomed over the yard. "You going to finish up that chicken anytime today?"
"It's coming, Ma," the men called back together, and began to heap it onto a platter.
There was potato salad and black-eyed peas, collards and red beans, corn bread and cole slaw. She lost track of the platters and bowls, and how many were passed to her. Arguments-mostly good-natured-and jokes jumped and jostled around the table as frequently as the food. Many went over her head-family history, which appeared in several cases to include Duncan. Kids whined or complained, mostly about one another. Babies were passed like the bowls and platters, from hand to hand.
Nothing like her family, Phoebe thought, the tidy number of them, the overwhelming female tone of even the most casual meal in MacNamara House. Poor Carter, she thought, forever unnumbered. There'd never been an old man at one of their courtyard picnics to be fussed over until he dozed in his chair, or a couple of sparking-eyed little boys dueling with ears of corn.
A bit out of her depth, Phoebe chatted with Celia about her children-she already had two-and the one yet to come. She shared a smile with Livvy as the high-climbing feline inched his way down the tree to come beg at the table.
At one point Duncan and Phin debated heatedly about basketball, the sort that involved the jabbing of forks for emphasis and the slinging around of uncomplimentary names. As they insulted each other's brains, manhood, everyone else ignored them.
Not just friends, Phoebe realized as the insults reached the point of absurd. Brothers. Whatever their backgrounds, upbringings, skin color, they were brothers. Nobody ragged on each other that way unless they were siblings-of the blood, or of the heart.
She was having a Sunday barbecue with Duncan's family. Not just a moment, Phoebe realized. A monumental moment.
"Are you kin to Miss Elizabeth MacNamara, lived on Jones Street?" Phoebe jolted out of her thoughts to meet Bee's steady eyes. "Yes. She was my father's cousin. Did you know her?"
"I knew who she was."
Because the tone translated Bee's unfavorable opinion of Bess MacNamara, Phoebe's shoulders tensed. There were any number of people in Savannah who enjoyed painting all family members with the same sticky brush.
"I used to clean for Miz Tidebar on Jones," Bee continued, "until she passed, about, oh, a dozen years ago now."
"I didn't know Mrs. Tidebar, except by name."
"I wouldn't think. She and Miz MacNamara Did Not Speak." The phrase came out in capital letters.
"Yes, I recall a feud. Something about a garden club committee." Which was an old rift before she'd come to MacNamara House. As age had only ripened it, no one who lived under Cousin Bess's roof was permitted to speak or associate with the Tidebars.
"Miz Tiffany? She had her own people to clean, but I did for her now and then when she had a party or just needed another hand. She still living?"
"She is." And Phoebe relaxed again. The odd and delightful Mrs. Tiffany was much safer ground. "And as colorfully as ever."
"Was on her fourth husband when I did for her."
"She's had one more since, and I believe is currently on the prowl for number six."
"She always kept her name, didn't she? Tiffany, no matter how many she hooked down the aisle."
"Her second husband's name," Phoebe explained. "She stuck with that, however many came after, as she likes the sparkle of it. Or so she says." Bee's lips twitched. "Your cousin, as I recall, didn't have much truck with Miz Tiffany."
"Cousin Bess didn't have much truck with anyone. She was a… difficult woman."
"We are what we are. I'd see your mama now and again, enough to say how do you do, when I did for Miz Tidebar. You favor her."
"Some. My daughter more. Carly's the image of her grandmother."
"She must be a pretty girl. You tell your mama Bee Hector sends her best."
"I will. I think she'll enjoy the connection. She's very fond of Duncan."
"We're fond of him around here, too." Bee leaned in a little while the men continued to argue. "What're you going to do with that boy?"
"Duncan?" Maybe it was the wine, the steady beam from Bee's eyes, but Phoebe said what first came to mind. "I'm still deciding what I'm going to let him do with me."
Bee's laugh was an explosion of mirth. Her thick finger tapped Phoebe's shoulder. "He's brought other pretty girls around here."
"I expect he has."
"But he hasn't brought any of them around for my approval before today."
"Oh." Phoebe decided she could use another sip of wine. "Did I pass the audition?"
Bee smiled easily, then she thumped her hands on the table. "Y'all want pie and ice cream, we have to clear this table." Under the general scramble, Bee looked back at Phoebe. "Why don't you grab some of these dishes, haul them into the kitchen."
And that, Phoebe decided, made her by way of family.
She ended the evening necking with Duncan at her own front door. "I can't ask you in." More brain cells fried when he changed the angle of the kiss, spun it out. "Which, mmm, is a euphemism for not being able to go up to my room and get each other naked."
"When?" His hands glided up her, torturing them both. "Where?"
" I… I don't know. I'm not being difficult or coy. I hate that word.
Carly. My mother." She waved a hand toward the house. "It's all so complicated." "Have dinner with me. My place."
Her bones turned to mush as his lips trailed down her neck. Dinner at his place, now that was definitely code for sex.
Thank God.
"You're going to cook?"
"No, I want you to live. I'm going to order pizza."
"I like pizza fine."
"When?"
" I… I can't tomorrow. I have to-" She should think it through, of course. Be practical, be cautious. "Tuesday. Tuesday night. I'll drive over after shift. As long as-"
"There isn't somebody on a ledge, or holding hostages. I get it. Tuesday." He leaned back. "What do you like on your pizza?"
"Surprise me."
"Planning to. Night, Phoebe."
"Okay. Wait." She threw her arms around his neck again, dove headlong into the kiss until the need inside her edged toward actual pain. "Okay."
She went straight inside before she did something insane like pull his clothes off, then almost dreamily wound her way upstairs. The man could kiss her into a steamy puddle of lust. And, she had to admit, though she was eager for Tuesday night, this anticipation, this notquiteyet bumped up the pulse and warmed the belly.
If she'd felt this damn near giddy before over a man, she couldn't remember it-or him. That was saying something.
She heard the TV in the family room, and Carly's laughter. Not quite bedtime, she thought. And she wanted a moment, just a moment or two by herself before she took what must have been a dopey smile into the family room.