“Everything okay?” Linda asked, giving him the Voodoo Mama stare that saw right through her adult children.

“It will be.” Evan sat with them, and while they waited for Grace to return, he brought them up to date on the goings-on with Buddy and the album once lost to bankruptcy.

“Oh my goodness,” Linda said. “No wonder Grace is so upset.”

“That’s a tough spot you’re in, son,” Big Mac said.

“No kidding. There’s a lot to think about to be sure. Listen, before Grace comes back, this isn’t why we invited you to lunch. We have some other news we wanted to share with you—good news, or at least I hope you’ll think so.”

“Am I going to be a grandmother again?”

“No,” Evan said, laughing. “At least not because of me.”

“I still haven’t recovered from the latest delivery,” Big Mac said.

“Because it was so hard on you?” Evan asked, amused as always by his dad.

“Exactly.”

“We heard earlier today that Mac and Maddie are expecting again,” Linda said. “Your father is upset enough about that news.”

“Only because of what happened the last time,” Big Mac said, “but Mac assured me there’s no chance of that again.”

“I sure hope not. Once was enough.” Evan was about to go check on Grace when she appeared at the top of the stairs and made her way across the room to them. He stood to hold her chair and waited until she was settled and then bent to place his lips against her ear. “Okay?”

She nodded and smiled up at him.

When Evan was seated again, he took her hand. “You want to share the good news?”

“You don’t want to?”

“You can.”

“Someone needs to tell us what’s going on,” Linda said.

“Evan and I have set a wedding date.”

“Yes!” Big Mac said. “That’ll be twenty bucks, please, my love.”

“Wait, you guys bet on what we had to tell you?” Evan asked his parents.

“Your mother had twenty on a baby.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help you score an easy twenty,” Evan said, amused.

“And I get to gloat, too.”

“Of course you do.”

“Shush and let them talk,” Linda said to her husband. “When and where?”

“January eighteenth in Turks and Caicos.”

“Ohhh, how fun! A destination wedding with beach time in the dead of winter!”

“We were hoping you’d approve.” Though she seemed pleased by his mother’s reaction, Grace’s smile wasn’t as potent as usual.

“Everyone’s going,” Big Mac announced. “I’m paying. Get tickets and rooms for all of them, and I’ll take it from there.”

“Really, Dad, no one expects you to do that.”

“So what? I can do what I want. Just try to stop me.”