“He works too hard. All my children do.” LaDonna shook her head in slight disapproval. Something about her expression reminded Jacqui very much of Meagan. Both Meagan and Madison favored their fair, slender mother. Although Mitch bore some family resemblance, Jacqui assumed he must look more like his late father.
Responding to LaDonna’s comment, Jacqui nodded in agreement. “Yes, they do.”
“And so do you. You’ve had your hands full taking care of Alice and Mitch while Meagan and Seth are away, haven’t you? And I’ve added to your work by bringing my sisters-in-law for dinner.”
“I didn’t mind at all.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. I’m running out of ways to entertain them,” LaDonna confided in a murmur. “They get bored easily and want me to keep coming up with new things for us to do. At least a dinner party here is something different.”
Jacqui chuckled. “Then we’ll make sure they’re entertained.”
She honestly didn’t mind helping out with entertaining the women, even if it was just to serve them dinner. Jacqui had grown very fond of LaDonna during the past year. LaDonna had been nothing but gracious to her, and Jacqui admired the way LaDonna had welcomed Alice into her family. Jacqui doubted any future biological grandchildren would be treated with any more interest and affection from their “Mimi.”
Jacqui had worried about LaDonna at the end of last year. Already saddened by the untimely loss of her husband, LaDonna had worn herself almost to the ends of her physical and emotional limits caring for her dying mother. She was still too thin, in Jacqui’s private opinion, but she seemed to be recovering now from her grief and stress. Her job had helped distract her from that trying time. As had her joy in her three children and her new granddaughter.
“Don’t you even think about staying in here and serving while we’re eating,” the older woman warned with a shake of her finger. “You are eating with us, right?”
The formal dining table seated eight, so there was room for Jacqui to join them, even though she would have been just as happy to eat at the breakfast-nook table where the casual family usually dined. But because LaDonna had already insisted she join them when they’d first discussed a menu for the evening, Jacqui knew there was no use in demurring. “Yes, I’ll join you. I can serve and eat at the same time.”
LaDonna nodded in approval. “Good.”
Jacqui slipped a pan of seasoned salmon fillets and a separate dish of asparagus spears into the oven to bake while they ate their salads; she had a Dijon-dill sauce chilling in the fridge to spoon over the fish she would serve with herbed rice and the lemon-sprinkled asparagus. She’d long since learned that careful timing was the secret to success with a dinner party, especially if she was eating and serving.
Mitch rushed into the dining room just as Jacqui finished setting the salads in front of their guests. “Sorry I’m late,” he said a little breathlessly. “I had a procedure that took longer than I expected this afternoon.”
Welcoming him warmly, his adoring mother and aunts presented cheeks for him to kiss. Grinning, he rounded the table, planting noisy kisses on those cheeks, then on his sister’s and niece’s for good measure.
Alice giggled. “You didn’t kiss Jacqui.”
Jacqui forced her smile to remain in place even as she shot Alice a look. “That’s not necessary,” she said lightly. “I’m not family.”
Chuckling, Mitch leaned down to press a smacking kiss to her too-warm cheek. “Of course you are,” he said heartily. “You came with the package.”
She busied herself with her salad as he took his seat. Apparently taking pity on her, Madison spoke quickly, asking Alice about her swim team, which started the conversation in a new direction.
Grateful, Jacqui glanced Madison’s way, but because Mitch was seated next to his younger sister, she accidentally caught his eyes instead. He winked at her, making her look quickly back down at the tomatoes, mozzarella and basil on her plate. Although this was her favorite salad, suddenly she found it difficult to swallow.
Jacqui fit in very well with his family, Mitch mused during the scrumptious dessert that followed her excellent meal. But she seemed to be doing everything she could to remain separate from them. She jumped up constantly during the meal to wait on everyone, serving from the left and removing from the right with the efficiency of a banquet server rather than an attentive hostess. She might as well have worn a name tag identifying her as an employee of the household. He wasn’t sure how, exactly, his mom had roped her into this, but Jacqui handled a last-minute dinner party with the same efficient aplomb with which she did all the responsibilities of her job.
To give them credit, his aunts didn’t treat her any differently than they did any of the others at this somewhat unconventional dinner party. With their usual curiosity—okay, nosiness—they eagerly include
d Jacqui in the series of personal questions they threw at Mitch, Madison and even Alice. Jacqui, he noted, was good at giving polite nonanswers—so skilled at it that it was only later one realized she hadn’t really divulged much information at all.
“Do you want to be a lawyer like your father or a doctor like your stepmother and her brother and sister?” Kathleen asked Alice during the dessert. “Or maybe a CPA like your new grandmother?”
“Both my parents are lawyers,” Alice replied, carefully including her mother in the list. “But I want to be an orthodontist.”
“An orthodontist?” Doreen smiled. “That’s not something you hear very often from a girl your age.”
Alice grinned, displaying the braces she’d been wearing for just more than a year. “I’ve had plenty of chances to watch what my orthodontist does. It looks interesting. And I like the thought of making people feel better about their smiles.”
“That’s very nice,” Kathleen approved. “A good reason to go into a field. That’s why all LaDonna’s children went into medicine, I’m sure—to help people. Not for the money.”
Madison laughed wryly. “You really must have stronger reasons to go into medicine than money. In my opinion, no amount of pay is a good-enough incentive alone to get through medical school. There are a lot less stressful ways to make a decent salary.”
Alice giggled. “Dad and Meagan are always play-arguing about which is harder, medical school or law school.”
“Medical school,” Mitch and Madison said in unison.