“Sorry,” May whispers.

I should probably get back to the Gin Mill, but at least there’s a text on my phone telling me that Connor had driven over to pick up my shift. So the bar is doing fine.

And I feel a little weird about just dropping May with her stuff and running away. Meanwhile, the food smells amazing. Ruth is famous for putting up a nice spread, and I’ve never been inside the farmhouse before. The Shipleys used to feed the kids who came to pick fruit on their farm, but they kept us outside, like the riff-raff we were.

In spite of myself, I’m curious. “Let me just close the truck’s doors.”

“Let me…” May says, but I catch her shoulder in one hand.

“I got it. It’s fine.”

Two minutes later I poke my head into the dining room, and it feels a little like walking into enemy territory. My old pal Griffin sits at the center of one side of the table, like a king surrounded by his family and his wife.

I’ve known the Shipleys my whole life. They’re like a postcard family—two boys and two girls—everyone smiling and wearing hand-knit sweaters and singing campfire songs together.

They probably do that for real.

The Rossi clan, on the other hand, is a rougher, trailer-park version of the Shipley family. There are four boys and one girl. We’re louder, and—to my lovely mother’s dismay—a little cruder. We have tattoos and punk-rock T-shirts instead of knit sweaters. We smile, too, but usually while we’re pummeling each other.

“Over here, dummy,” a voice calls.

I turn to spot my sister waving me down. Zara is seated on a bench, holding Nicole, my toddler niece, on her lap.

“Well, hi kids,” I say, taking the seat next to them. “Fancy meeting you here.”

And honestly it is a little weird. Zara is yet another reason I’m not close to Griffin Shipley. She was in love with him in high school, when he never looked in her direction.

But then a couple years ago he did. They had a fling that Griff eventually ended, breaking Zara’s heart all over again.

That’s all over now, though, and Zara has a new man and a baby. She’s probably the happiest of the five Rossi kids. But I still don’t understand how Zara can be so close with the Shipleys now. She and Griff’s wife are best friends and business partners.

I’m still pissed off at Griffin on Zara’s behalf. But my sister is thriving. She and Audrey have a busy coffee shop located on my property, beside the Gin Mill. They rent their building from me, but that’s the extent of my involvement.

I sit down beside her and put my linen napkin in my lap. Mom would be proud.

“Ack,” Nicole says, because my niece is my little sweetheart even if she can’t say “Alec” yet. The baby and I used to spend a lot more time together when they were living in the apartment beneath mine. But now Zara has an historic house in the center of Colebury.