Touching Stars by Emilie Richards Page B

to me. You know he doesn’t. I might hold him under myself.”
    Unfortunately, she knew Noah was right. “Give it a try until I figure out something else, would you? He knows the basics. He’s just not comfortable in the water. He needs practice, and I promised Mr. Allen.”
    “Yeah, yeah…”
    She changed the subject, knowing this one could only go downhill. “Jared, do you have a final head count for the party?”
    Jared was removing the last of the bacon. “Sixty, maybe.”
    “Counting adults? Parents? Friends from church?”
    “Best I could come up with.”
    She decided to finalize plans for seventy-five. Too much food was better than too little, and the family was used to leftovers. The boys had thrived on egg casseroles and oven-puffed French toast for dinner, one of the perks or hazards of B and B life, depending on whether breakfast food was a favorite.
    As Jared cooked the first batch of pancakes, she ran the final menu past him. “We’ll grill hot dogs and hamburgers, and set up a nachos bar. I’ll buy half a dozen of those big pizzas you like from the grocery store. Macaroni and cheese, baked beans, fruit kabobs and green salad.”
    Jared didn’t point out that everyone would have eaten before the ceremony. The party would go on into the wee hours of the morning, and his friends would be starving the moment they arrived. “Dessert?” he asked.
    “Lots of it, I promise. Mr. Allen’s coming,” she said. “I’ll put him to work at the grill.”
    “You’ll put him to work making sure nobody brings in liquor or smokes anything they rolled themselves,” Jared said.
    “I’d prefer they didn’t smoke at all,” Gayle said. “But just make sure they don’t smoke inside, okay?”
    “My friends hang out here. They know the rules.”
    The party would be sedate by teenage standards, but kids always seemed to have fun when they came to the inn. Since Jared’s wouldn’t be the only party, she made a mental note to watch closely and make sure that anyone getting into a car could drive safely. She could keep an eye on them here, but she couldn’t control what the kids drank at other houses.
    Jared flipped the pancakes, and Gayle went for plates. Dillon arrived, but not Eric. She made her ex a tray, adding a small pot of the coffee Jared had brewed and a decanter of orange juice; then she handed it to her youngest son. “Take this to your dad, okay?”
    For a moment he looked unsure. “Wake him up?”
    “Just tiptoe in and put it by the bed.”
    “He ought to be out here with us.”
    Gayle couldn’t fault Dillon for the sentiment. She had been nearly thirty years old before she had stopped wishing Eric wanted to be with his family.
     
    The quilters arrived just as Gayle and Noah finished loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. Gayle saw a car pull into the parking area behind the kitchen.
    “You want to help set up the frame?” She dried her hands and tossed the dish towel to Noah, who made a graceful catch.
    “Yeah, I’d like to see what it entails.”
    Jared was on the telephone with Brandy, and Dillon was outside scrubbing down picnic tables and rinsing them with a hose. She hoped he wouldn’t aim the spray at Helen Henry.
    By the time she stepped outside, Helen was just getting out of a station wagon from an earlier decade, assisted by Cissy Claiborne, a young woman of about twenty. Cissy and her husband, Zeke, lived in Helen’s house as companions. Helen, a big-boned farm woman in her eighties, had resisted help, but a few years ago she had finally come around to the necessity. The fact that Cissy and Zeke had a newborn had cinched the deal. For a while, it wasn’t clear who was going to be looking after whom.
    Now the relationship was as secure as a family bond. Cissy, with a dreamy face surrounded by a cloud of strawberry-blond hair, might look as if she needed instruction and protection, but she had proved herself to be an excellent mother and a tactful companion to