Lily came out of the kitchen again. “Hello, Adam. It’s been a while, but you haven’t changed a wink. I just made a fresh pot of coffee, and there’s homemade cookies on the table. Y’all help yourselves.”

“What? No hug? It’s been twenty years since I’ve laid eyes on the beautiful Lily Miller, and I don’t even get a hug?” Adam flirted.

“Sorry, I’m fresh out of hugs, and it’s Lily Anderson now. I’ll be back down here in a few minutes. I’ve got a phone call to make.” Lily hurried off up the stairs.

Mack had never seen a woman brush Adam off like that. His poor brother checked his reflection in the mirror hanging above one of the chairs.

“Got a hair out of place?” Mack asked.

“Shut up,” Adam growled. “I’m going to take her up on that coffee. It’s cold out there, and it’ll warm me up.”

“Hey.” Holly nodded to both of them as she passed through the foyer and went upstairs.

“That’s my sister,” Braden said. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s just in a mood. Let’s go get some cookies. My mama makes the best cookies in the whole world. I hope they’re peanut butter today. That’s my favorite, especially dipped in good cold milk.”

Mack followed Braden and Adam into the kitchen and went straight to the coffeepot. He poured two cups and carried them across the room. He set one down in front of his brother, who’d already taken a seat, and took a chair across the table from him. He added two spoonfuls of sugar to his mug and took a sip.

“Only sissies have to have sugar in their coffee,” Adam said. “Or dip cookies in their milk.”

“Guess I’m a sissy.” Braden made a show of dipping a cookie in his glass of milk. “Me and Mack do this all the time, don’t we, Mack?”

“Sure do.” To prove the point, Mack dunked a cookie right down into his cup.

“Never,” Adam answered. “I hate crumbs floating in my coffee.”

“The best part is when you get a spoon and eat all those soaked-up crumbs from the bottom,” Braden said. “Sometimes I let half a cookie just drop off in my cup so I’ll have even more.”

Mack bit back a smile when Adam shivered at the thought. Adam could never stand for dirt to be under his fingernails, among other things.

“So how are things between you and Charlene?” Mack asked.

“Right now I’m living in a hotel. We haven’t filed papers yet,” Adam replied. “Mama is mad at me. When Dad is lucid, he won’t talk to me, and when he’s not, he thinks I’m a teenager and is constantly giving me advice. And to top it all off, my secretary quit.”