Max sat still for exactly six seconds, then made another lunge for the gift.
In his scramble to catch him, Luke’s chair again bumped into the person behind him, and with a muttered curse, both Luke and Max fell to the floor—the gift clamped in Max’s mouth.
Camry looked down, obviously trying not to laugh. “Are you having a bad day, Luke?” she asked, a snicker escaping.
“You don’t know the half of it, since you slept through most of it,” he said, standing up. He then tried to wrestle the gift out of Max’s mouth, painfully aware that there was sudden silence, and that every eye in the room was on him. “Come on,” he hissed under his breath, “give it up, Max.”
The dog opened his jaws without any warning, releasing his treasure. Luke was so surprised that he bumped into his chair—which finally sent the long-suffering person behind him scrambling away—then fumbled to catch the gift that went soaring through the air toward the table.
It landed directly on top of Camry’s birthday cake with a splat,sending tiny missiles of icing over anyone unlucky enough to be sitting nearby. Leaving the gift in the cake and Max on the floor, Luke straightened his pointy hat and sat down.
The gift suddenly gave a long, air-piercing, cake-shuddering beep.
Camry gasped so loud it had to have hurt.
Luke merely closed his eyes with a groan. Oh yeah, miracles notwithstanding, he was having a very bad day.
“Did you hear that?” Camry said, nudging him hard enough to leave a bruise.
“Half of Pine Creek heard it,” he muttered, opening his eyes just in time to catch Tigger when she shoved the dog at him and stood up.
“Mama!” she shouted down the table—though he didn’t know why, since the room was filled with absolute silence. “What’s in my gift?”
Grace shrugged. “I have no idea.” She gestured toward all the other gifts sitting beside each of her daughters’ individual birthday cakes. “Your gift was delivered this afternoon by special messenger. There was a card, addressed to me, that said I could tuck my gift to you away for next year, because you would probably prefer this one instead.”
“But who is it from?”
Grace shrugged again. “The card didn’t say.”
“And ye just brought it into the house without knowing what was inside?” Grey asked, standing up—as did Jack Stone, Robbie MacBain, and several other men, including Luke. Greylen walked down and snatched the gift out of the cake. “My God, woman, ye should know better than that.”
“It’s okay, Grey,” Grace said, also standing up. “Because I have a pretty good idea what it is. The card also said that twenty years was a long time for a woman to wait for her dream to come true, but that he guessed patience was a motherhood thing.” She gestured toward the gift. “And after what Camry told us earlier, I now also have a good idea who it’s from. That’s why I went and got it from the shed just five minutes ago, and set it on the table.”
Camry gasped so hard again that she bumped into Luke—just before she snatched the gift out of her father’s hand. “It’s the data bank!” she cried, ripping open the dark green paper that was covered with what Luke just now realized were long strings of equations written in gold ink.
She tossed the paper on the table, popped open the box, and pulled out a black metal box the size of a six-pack of soda. She held it up for Luke to see, then turned and held it up to her mother. “It’s Podly’s data bank, isn’t it, Mama?”
Grace collapsed down in her chair, her face as pale as a ghost, huge tears sliding down her cheeks as her smile outshone the three blazing chandeliers over the table. “Y-yes,” she whispered.
Camry ran up to her, set the data bank in Grace’s hands, and hugged her mother fiercely. “We have it, Mama. We have your key to ion propulsion.”
“N-no,” Grace said shakily, handing it back to her. “You have yourkey.” She touched Camry’s cheek. “You unlocked the secret to ion propulsion when you were twelve, one day when you were in the lab working on a school project. You came up and looked over my shoulder and suggested I transpose two integers in the equation I was working on. So that makes it your discovery, baby, not mine.”
Camry reared back in surprise. “But why didn’t you shout it to the world? Mom! We could be traveling to Mars by now!”
Grace looked at Luke, then at her husband, then down at the data bank in her daughter’s hand. “I didn’t want what came with shouting it to the world,” she whispered. She looked up at Camry, her face flushing red. “I know it looks as if I’ve been unselfish to let you be the one to present our discovery, but it’s actually the opposite. I didn’t tell anyone because it would have meant leaving Gù Brath for days or maybe weeks at a time, to oversee its implementation.” She looked over at Greylen, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “So I very selfishly kept silent, refusing to let the world intrude on my truedream, which was spending every day at home with a husband and family I love more than anything else in the universe.”
She swiped the tears running down her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then cupped Camry’s face. “But you, daughter . . . you have a husband who not only will travel with you, but who will also keep you grounded—as mine did,” she finished strongly, looking at Greylen again, her smile tender.
Greylen strode back up the length of the table, edged Camry out of the way, and pulled Grace into his arms, lifting her off her feet to bury his face in her neck.
Camry walked to Luke, her own eyes spilling tears. He handed Tigger to whoever was standing next to him, and pulled her into his arms.
The front door suddenly slammed, shaking the chandeliers. “I’m here!” a woman shouted. “You better not have started without me! Fiona threw up all over my birthday dress just as we were leaving, and I had to go back in and change,” she continued, rushing into the dining room. “I swear she did it on purp—” She came to a sliding stop. “What did I miss?”
Apparently no one thought to answer her.
“What’s wrong? Mama, are you crying?” she asked, rushing around the table toward her parents. She suddenly skidded to a halt beside Luke. She looked at Camry still in his embrace, then up at him. “Who are you?” she asked.
“If you’re Winter, then I guess I’m your newest brother-in-law, Luke Renoir.”
“My what!” She shifted the infant in her arms to free up one hand, which she used to pull Camry around to face her. “My what?” she repeated. “You’re married?” She touched Camry’s wet cheek, then swung toward the head of the table. “Why is everyone crying? What did I miss!”
The infant she was holding suddenly gave a loud wail and burst into tears.
“Oh, give her to me,” Camry said, shoving the data bank at Luke so she could take the baby. “Go see Mom and Dad. They’ll tell you what’s going on.”
As Winter bolted for the head of the table, Camry nudged Luke with her hip. “Come on, let’s go into the living room where it’s quiet. I have someone very special I want you to meet.”
Luke followed her through the crowd of whispering people, smiling sinisterly at Kate as she held up her cell phone and snapped his picture again on his way by, then stopped to gently close his mother’s gaping mouth. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, then stayed leaning close. “You think this is amazing,” he whispered, “you wait until you meet some of her distantrelatives.”
With a nod to André, he followed Camry out to the foyer, where he found her smiling up at a tall, handsome, rather . . . intense-looking man.
No worry he would mix up this brother-in-law with the others.
“This is Winter’s husband, Matt Gregor. Matt, this is my husband, Luke Renoir.”
Matt extended his hand. “Welcome to the family, Luke.” His piercing golden eyes, glinting with amusement, darted to Camry as she walked away with his now-sniffling daughter, then returned to Luke—specifically to his hat—before leveling directly on him. “How is good old Roger?” he asked.