Free Enright Family Collection by Mariah Stewart Page B

favorite dinner. You don’t know how I dreamed of Aunt August’s stuffed and baked bluefish. Just thinking about it makes me ravenous.”
    “Well, you sit right down there, Birthday Girl—” Nick pulled out a kitchen chair and motioned for her to sit— “while I prepare to make your dream come true.”
    “And I will set the table.” Corri abandoned her little zoo of soap animals and hopped on one foot into the kitchen. “I know how.”
    “Is that a deck I see out there?” With one finger Nick drew the curtain aside from the window overlooking the small back yard.
    “Yes,” Indy replied. “The previous owners had it built. I haven’t used it much.”
    “I want to see out back,” Corri told her, the table-setting assignment momentarily forgotten.
    India unlocked the back door and opened it to step onto the deck, which faced an overgrown yard.
    “Indy, you need to cut your grass.” Corri pointed toward the lawn.
    “I know, sweetie,” a somewhat abashed India admitted. “I just haven’t had time.”
    “It’s too tall to walk in,” Corri said, frowning from the bottom of the steps.
    “I’m sorry, Corri. Maybe by the next time you come I’ll have gotten to it.”
    Nick appeared in the doorway.
    “Got a lawn mower?” he asked.
    “Well, yes, I do, but …”
    “Get it out,” he told her, “and I’ll cut the grass. You don’t have much of a yard. I’ll have it done by the time the oven has heated for the fish.”
    “Nick, you don’t have to cut my grass. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or I’ll try to find someone in the neighborhood—”
    He had already bounded past her and down the steps. “Out here?” he asked, pointing to the small cedar-sided shed that stood near the far corner.
    “Well, yes, but …”
    He was already into the shed and had lifted the small lawn mower out before she had finished her sentence. Soon he had the mower running, and she leaned on the deck railing, watching as he left trails of grassy clumps in his wake as he crossed back and forth across the small yard, the mower humming as he attended efficiently to the task.
    “You really didn’t have to do all this,” she told him as he finished and turned off the mower.
    “It’s your birthday,” he said solemnly, “and it was important to Corri to be with you, to surprise you. Ry talked a lot about making a difference in her life—it was important to him to try to give her some security after she lost her mother. He said he knew just how frightening it was for a child to lose a parent. He didn’t want her to feel alone.”
    India nodded. “Our mother died when Ry was barely four years old, just about the same age as Corri was when Maris died. I was just a baby, but Ry said many times how scared he had been, that she just seemed to have gone away, and he never saw her again.”
    “Maris’s death was hard enough on her, but now, with Ry gone, I think it’s even more important for her to feelwanted, to feel a part of something. I owe it to Ry to do what I can, when I can. Corri really wanted to celebrate your birthday with you. I needed to make sure that happened for her. And for you.”
    “Thank you, Nick,” she said simply. “For Corri. And for me.”
    “And for Ry,” he reminded her.
    “Certainly,” she said softly, “for Ry.”
    Of course, that was why he had made this trip, why he had brought Corri to her. Because of Ry, because of his respect and fondness for her brother. Unexpectedly, her heart was stung by the slightest trace of disappointment as she acknowledged the reason for his presence there, in her home, on her birthday.
    But even knowing that, once back inside her tidy house, she watched him fill her kitchen with energy and humor and wondered if she had ever known a man quite like him.
    Dinner was exquisite, lacking only Aunt August’s presence to make it the perfect birthday feast. Nick lifted the bluefish from the oven and slid it onto an old platter, happily chattering with Corri, taking pains