Julian stepped up behind Harper, holding his coffee cup in one hand with his car keys resting in the open palm of the other.

He smiled down at me with the same easy warmth he turned on his would-be investors.

“We saved room for your coat on the rack by the back porch, Eleanor,” Julian said.

“No need to act like you’re being thrown out into the wilderness.”

Martha was moving back and forth between the sink and the counter, her silver spoon clinking nonstop against her porcelain cup.

She didn’t look up when the kitchen door opened.