Kate laughed again. “Yes, I suppose that’s it. When it does, that’s the most rewarding aspect. Being a mother can’t be that much different. You’re teaching every day.”

“Or trying to,” Linda said dryly.

“The same thing.”

“You’re happy?”

Hope squeezed a bright pink dragon then held it out for Kate. Was she happy? Kate wondered as she obliged by cuddling the dragon in turn. She’d been aiming for achievement, she supposed, not happiness. Her father had never asked that very simple, very basic question. She’d never taken the time to ask herself. “I want to teach,” she answered at length. “I’d be unhappy if I couldn’t.”

“That’s a roundabout way of answering without answering at all.”

“Sometimes there isn’t any yes or no.”

“Ky!” Hope shouted so that Kate jolted, whipping her head around to the front door.

“No.” Linda noted the reaction, but said nothing. “She means the dragon. He gave it to her, so it’s Ky.”

“Oh.” She wanted to swear but managed to smile as she handed the baby back her treasured dragon. It wasn’t reasonable that just his name should make her hands unsteady, her pulse unsteady, her thoughts unsteady. “He wouldn’t pick the usual, would he?” she asked carelessly as she rose.

“No.” She gave Kate a very direct, very level look. “His tastes have always run to the unique.”

Amusement helped to relax her. Kate’s brow rose as she met the look. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Not on something I believe in.” A trace of stubbornness came through. The stubbornness, Kate mused, that had kept her determinedly waiting for Marsh to fall in love with her. “I believe in you and Ky,” Linda continued. “You two can make a mess of it for as long as you want, but I’ll still believe in you.”

“You haven’t changed,” Kate said on a sigh. “I came back to find you a wife, a mother, and the owner of a restaurant, but you haven’t changed at all.”

“Being a wife and mother only makes me more certain that what I believe is right.” She had her share of arrogance, too, and used it. “We don’t own the restaurant,” she added as an afterthought.

“No?” Surprised, Kate looked up again. “But I thought you said the Roost was yours and Marsh’s.”

“We run it,” Linda corrected. “And we do have a twenty percent interest.” Sitting back, she gave Kate a pleased smile. There was nothing she liked better than to drop small bombs in calm water and watch the ripples. “Ky owns the Roost.”