“Twenty-one, both of them. She had her birthday just last week. They looked so young I carded them.” She got out another bottle of wine. “Why don’t you open that wine while I call this order in? If you’d rather beer, there’s some in the fridge.”

“Wine’s okay.” A little change of pace, he decided. Like the woman. He poured a glass for each of them, sampled his own. And decided he could develop a taste for change of pace.

After she’d placed the order, he nodded toward the stove. “What’s cooking?”

“Warming, since I can’t take credit for the cooking. Beef medallions, roasted fingerlings, butter-glazed carrots and peas. And there’s a little scallop appetizer.”

“Sounds good.”

She got out the appetizer. “Try it and see.”

He took a sample. “It’s good. Red Hots has the touch.”

“She does. She worked in a pizza joint when we were in college. I always knew when she’d made the pie. It was just that much better.”

“She dove right into Vesta, and she makes it work.”

“She’s the dive-in type.” Deciding she might as well go with the first part of her evening plans, she added a dish of olives, slid onto a stool. Appetizers and conversation here, dinner in The Dining Room. Phase Three would have to wait until tomorrow.

The dog bellied under the stools.

“Were you surprised when Avery and Owen got together?”

“Not especially. He’s had a thing for her since we were kids.”

“And Beckett had one for Clare since high school, and carried that spark all those years.”

“He always knew she was with Clint. He never messed with that. Suffered in secret,” Ryder added. “Unless you lived with him. He used to write really crappy love-ripped-my-still-beating-heart-out-of-my-chest songs and sing them in his room till Owen and I threatened to beat him with bricks.”

“Really?” She laughed, trying to picture it. “That’s so sweet. The songwriting, not the bricks. Were you friends with Clint?”

“Yeah, not close, really. We played football together, got drunk together a time or two. Mostly he was centered on Clare, like she was on him, and looking to join the service.”

“So young, both of them. Like Chip and Marlie.”

“Who?”

“Wesley and Buttercup—the almost newlyweds. I didn’t meet Clare until she moved back to Boonsboro and Avery introduced us. After Clint died.”

“Hard time for her. She looked—”

“Go on,” she said when he broke off. “Tell me.”

“Delicate, I guess. Like you could shatter her with a hard look. The two kids, basically babies, the runt still in the oven. But she wasn’t. Delicate, I mean; not down into it. Clare’s got more spine than anyone I know.”

She thought it might be his longest single discourse on any one person since she’d met him. More, the bone-deep affection and admiration came through.