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  “Take thirty minutes,” Diana said, realizing that it would be that long before the crew left and her family had time to get cleaned up.

  “By the way,” Corey added as she headed off toward her camera and tripod, “Cindy Bertrillo called and Glenna took the message. Cindy said to call her as soon as you can. She has to confirm something with you. She didn’t say what it was.”

  Cindy was in charge of the magazine’s public relations department. She was the person the press called whenever they wanted to confirm something, and Diana was very certain what it was that Cindy was being asked to confirm. “I’ll call her later,” Diana said.

  Cole had stopped to watch the controlled bustle on the lawn as the crew from the magazine began putting the equipment away. “I’ve heard the terms ‘family business’ and ‘cottage industry’ before,” he said with quiet admiration, “but I’ve never seen or imagined anything like this. You should be very proud of what you’ve created.”

  “I capitalized on it and marketed it,” Diana corrected him, “but I didn’t create it.” She tipped her head toward her family. “They created it.”

  He didn’t believe her, Diana knew, and it would take too long to explain to him that long before Diana’s father had married Henry Britton’s daughter and whisked her and his new stepdaughter off to his white-pillared mansion in Houston, the entire Britton family had been the consummate do-it-yourselfers.

  Chapter 33

  ALL RIGHT,” DIANA SAID WITH a nervous smile as she led the small contingent into a formal living room with a grand piano at one end and a large fireplace with a raised marble hearth at the other. “Everyone get nice and comfortable.”

  In the middle of the room, separated by a carved mahogany coffee table, stood two long sofas upholstered in a rich burgundy and gold stripe, strewn with an assortment of plump pillows covered in jewel-toned plaids that made the sofas, and the room, seem more inviting and warm. With an expansive wave of her arm, Diana gestured toward the sofas and the pair of chairs beside them that faced the piano; then she walked over and stood near the keyboard.

  Cole positioned himself at the opposite end of the piano, where he could participate in the proceedings if necessary without actually being in the middle of them; then he watched with amusement as Diana leaned against the piano for support, nervously rubbed her palms together, and generally behaved as if she genuinely dreaded the effect of her announcement on her family. From Cole’s point of view, which was based on his own upbringing and adult experiences, Diana was a grown woman who had weighed the risks, made her decision, and shouldn’t expect either support or even any real interest from her family.

  Diana’s mother and grandmother sat on one of the sofas, and Corey and Spencer Addison seated themselves on the opposite one. Diana’s grandfather elected to remain standing, however, and rested his hands on the back of one of the chairs facing Diana. “No, no, Grandpa—please sit,” she said.

  “I’d rather stand.”

  “You’d better be sitting when you hear this,” Diana mumbled.

  “This must be one great big surprise you have in store for us,” Henry teased her as he sat on the chair. Having followed her wishes, he beamed an expectant smile at her, clearly harboring the mistaken belief that Diana’s visible nervousness came from excitement and that whatever she had to say couldn’t possibly be anything but pleasing. “Okay, we’re all here, and we’re all sitting down,” he pointed out. “Fire away.”

  Diana looked around at the attentive faces of her assembled family, rubbed her palms against her thighs, and admitted with a choked laugh, “I haven’t felt this nervous since I was sixteen and had to stand here and tell everyone that I’d wrecked the new car Dad had just given me for my birthday.”

  Corey realized that Diana’s normally unshakable composure was failing her badly, and she made a quick effort to give her more time to compose herself. “Actually, Diana didn’t wreck the car,” she confessed with an impenitent smile. “I wrecked it that time.”

  Diverted, the family turned and gaped at her in confused disbelief, but Diana’s grandmother was more interested in the present. Trying to make a connection between wrecked cars and family meetings in the living room called by Diana, she furrowed her brow and said, “Is your car wrecked again, Diana? Is that why you’ve called us in here?”

  “My car is fine,” Diana said. My life is a wreck, she amended silently, then glanced sideways at Cole. He lifted his brows in a challenge to her to get down to business, and Diana automatically obeyed. “Okay, here goes,” she said, directing her full attention to her mother and grandparents. “Last night, after the auction, I introduced Cole to you for the first time, remember?”

  Her mother and grandparents nodded in unison.

  “However, even though you hadn’t met Cole before, the fact is that Corey and Spence and I have known him for a long time. A long, long time,” Diana emphasized in a lame attempt to lessen the implausibility of her hasty marriage by emphasizing the length of time she’d actually known him. “To us—to Corey and me at least—Cole is actually an old family friend!”

  “We know all about that, dear,” Diana’s mother said. Turning to Cole with a pleasant smile, she said, “Last night, on our way home, Corey told us all about who you are. Who you were, I mean. She told us you used to work for the Hayward family, and that she and Diana and Spence all used to see you there when they visited.”

  Cole noted that she discreetly avoided connecting him with the Haywards’ stable, but Diana’s grandmother evidently saw no reason for half-truths or evasions: “Diana used to talk about you when she was a teenager,” she added enthusiastically. “She told us you lived in the Haywards’ stable and took care of their horses, and that you didn’t have enough food to eat and were always hungry. I used to help Diana pack up those bags of food she brought you whenever she went to the Haywards’.”

  To Cole’s amusement, the other occupants of the room were so distressed by her tactlessness that they all leapt to his rescue in a rushed flurry of compliments and justifications that flew around the room like a volleyball during a tournament, with Corey making the opening serve: “Gram, the Haywards’ stable is much grander than most people’s homes!” She looked expectantly at her husband.

  Spence fielded Corey’s conversational ball: “When I was in college,” Spence said, “I used to come over here and stuff myself on whatever they were having for dinner. I think an enormous appetite goes along with being male and under twenty, don’t you, Henry?” Spencer asked, slapping the ball to his wife’s grandfather.

  Henry was older and a little clumsy, but he lunged manfully for the ball and managed to keep it in play: “No doubt about it. I’ve never been able to resist Rose’s cooking myself. Not only that, but I’ve slept in our bam with a horse, too. When our old mare got sick and stopped eating, Corey and I slept out there together one night, because we didn’t want Pearl to die alone. Rose brought our dinner down to us, and we shared some of our dessert with Pearl. The taste of that baked apple must have given her a reason to go on living, because after she ate it, she got to her feet and stayed there.

  “After that, she was so partial to apples that she’d start nickering the moment she saw one, and she lived to be twenty-two!”

  Greatly satisfied with his effort, he slapped his knee and beamed at his unsuspecting daughter, sending the conversational ball flying straight at her. “Well, Mary?” he prodded when she looked flustered. “Remember how partial Robert was to whatever Mother cooked or canned? He just couldn’t eat enough of whatever it was.”

  “That’s true!” Mrs. Foster said, belatedly rushing forward to assist the home team. “My husband gained twenty pounds after we came to live here with him. He used to have a big dinner and then sneak down for midnight snacks, even though he wasn’t truly hungry. Diana knew that, and I’m sure that’s why she wanted to bring you all that extra food, Cole.”

  Having made her successful play in the verbal volleyball game, she lo