“What’s the matter? You don’t want Mom to meet the girl? The helper?”

“I’m going to tear your limbs off before you die!”

But Sean laughed. “Mom and I will be there Tuesday afternoon. Buy a big turkey, huh?”

Luke was paralyzed for a moment. Silent and brooding.

He had lived a pretty wild life, excepting that couple of years with Felicia, when he’d been temporarily domesticated. He’d flown helicopters in combat and played it loose with the ladies, taking whatever was consensually offered. His bachelorhood was on the adventurous side. His brothers were exactly like him; maybe like their father before them, who hadn’t married until the age of thirty-two. Not exactly ancient, but for the generation before theirs, a little mature to begin a family of five sons. They were frisky Irish males. They all had taken on a lot: dared much, had no regrets, moved fast.

But one thing none of them had ever done was have a woman who was not a wife in bed with them under the same roof with their mother.

“I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve been to war four times,” he said to himself, pacing in his small living room, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “This is my house and she is a guest. She can disapprove all she wants, work her rosary until she has blisters on her hands, but this is not up to her.”

Okay, then she’ll tell everything, was his next thought. Every little thing about me from the time I was five, every young lady she’d had high hopes for, every indiscretion, my night in jail, my very naked fling with the high-school vice-principal’s daughter…. Everything from speeding tickets to romances. Because that’s the way the typical dysfunctional Irish family worked—they bartered in secrets. He could either behave the way his mother expected, which she considered proper and gentlemanly and he considered tight-assed and useless, or he could throw caution to the wind, do things his way, and explain all his mother’s stories to Shelby later. Including the story about Felicia.

It really didn’t make sense for Luke to expect his mother to be a prude. She was obviously much too with it for that. She was a beautiful, statuesque sixty-one-year-old woman who’d been widowed at fifty-three when Luke was only thirty, and remained single and devoted to her military sons. She still had her hair dyed the flaming red of her youth. With some ambivalence, he sometimes wished his mother would find a romantic interest that would take her mind off her boys and their personal lives.

Maureen Riordan was smart, energetic and funny. She was fearless; despite her commitment to her Catholic faith, she had some rebellious ideas. After five sons in ten years, the priest had told her to keep the faith and reject birth control, and she had told him to do something to himself that was never again repeated. But there hadn’t been a sixth child. Getting down to it, she didn’t have that many flaws—just this rigid set of principles she could be coerced into being quiet about if her demands were met. And there was her relentless dissatisfaction with her sons’ inability to marry successfully and bring her grandchildren. That was getting real old.

The boys ranked thusly: Luke, Colin, Aiden, Sean, Patrick. Ages thirty-eight to thirty, down the line. All bachelors. Maureen might be getting a little bewildered and desperate.

As it stood, they had a firm family law that had evolved through bitter fights—no one told embarrassing or family secrets to newcomers without paying, and paying dearly. Frankly, Luke thought the story about his mother standing up to the priest about birth control was hilarious—but she didn’t find it funny. And a trade was a trade. He could keep her quiet by respecting her principles and not telling stories on her. He could keep his mother’s mouth shut by not sleeping with Shelby while she was in town. For five nights.

He was going to have to kill Sean.

“Shelby?” Luke began while she relaxed in his arms in the aftermath of yet another amazing sexual experience. “There’s a complication with Thanksgiving.”

“Hmm?” she asked sleepily.

He took a breath. “My brother Sean is coming. And bringing my mother.”

She lifted her head. “Wonderful,” she said, smiling, lying back down.

“It’s not wonderful,” he said miserably.

She laughed. “What’s the matter, Luke? That’s not bad news. I’d be so happy to meet your mother.”

“Yeah, but… See, she’s a little on the rigid side…”

Shelby laughed again. “Okay. Like Uncle Walt doesn’t get a little stiff? We’ll just set two more places. It could be fun. Stiff Uncle Walt and rigid… What’s your mom’s name?”

“It’s Maureen, but we’re not going to do that. We’re not getting them all together, like one big happy family. You know how I feel about stuff like that. I don’t like setting up those kind of expectations…. This isn’t… This can’t be…”

She laughed some more. “Will you please stop being so paranoid? It’s not an engagement party, it’s Thanksgiving. We bring together people who are important to us. You’re also bringing Art—and he certainly doesn’t complicate the whole family thing. My God, Luke. Lighten up.”

“It screws up my head, thinking about getting our families together. Maybe you’ve accepted me the way I am, but I’m not convinced your uncle has. And I know my mother hasn’t.”

“But that’s not an issue. That would be their problem. We’ve been over this—I know you pretty well, despite your efforts to be my greatest mystery.”

“You do, huh? Still, this whole family thing… It’s not what I had in mind.”

“I know,” she said. “What you had in mind was picking up a girl from out of town, having her in your bed at night and far away the rest of the time, with no connection to your day-to-day life. Unfortunately, we’re from the same town right now. And we have all the same friends.”

How did she know that? he wondered. He had never explained what he’d originally hoped this would be.

“But if you’ll just relax, everything will be fine,” she said. “We’re all good friends and neighbors. Let me ask you—would your mother mind coming to our house as opposed to having a nice private turkey with you, your brother and Art?”

He was quiet a moment and then said, in a pout, “No. She’d love it.”

She giggled. “Oh, I see. You’re afraid she’s going to like me….”

“Shelby, stop it. You know what my problem is with this.”

“Well, I guess your problem is with your mother, because I certainly haven’t given you any trouble. You and I—we knew what we were getting ourselves into. I have plans, you have plans, this is temporary. Isn’t that what you said? Temporary. So. It’s just a couple of families getting together for Thanksgiving.” She grinned at him. “I like Sean. He’s cute.”

“I think he’s an ugly, stupid asshole.”

Shelby laughed at him. “There is going to be one inconvenience,” she said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I’m not going to be able to spend the night with you while your mother’s here.”

He propped up on an elbow and looked at her. “You’re not?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s a little old-fashioned, but that’s a bit too much for me. She’s your mother. I can’t stay here any more than I can bring you to my house while my Uncle Walt is down the hall. I hope you understand.”

“But Shelby, they know we’re…what we are.”

“Not quite the same thing,” she said. “I’m not doing it under the same roof with them. Maybe if we actually lived together, as in set up housekeeping, changed addresses, etcetera. But no—we’re a dating couple having sex. I’m not doing that with your mother in the same house.”

“If you can’t…”

“Sorry. I can’t. Out of respect. That’s just it. I won’t.”

“She’s staying five nights,” he said, running a hand along the hair that fell over her shoulder. “Five.”

“Well, I guess you’ll be some kind of maniac by the time she leaves. Maybe I can get Mel to prescribe something so you don’t go out of your mind.”

“That’s what you want?” he asked. “For us to be apart for five nights?”

“No, that’s how it’s going to be, Luke. We all have our ground rules. Now I want you to relax. It’s just dinner. It’ll be fun.”

“Sure,” he said.

There were two reasons he hadn’t been able to think of a way to explain why he couldn’t cross that line with his mother, either. He was stunned that Shelby hadn’t used the opportunity to pull him into a more serious relationship. And, he didn’t want to sound like a wussy mama’s boy.

But, he thought, it’s not supposed to be like this. This isn’t the way women acted. She was too cool. It was almost as though she wasn’t madly in love with him. She was deliberately passing up an opportunity to trap him.

Muriel and Walt spent a whole day driving through the mountains, looking for garage sales and antique shops. He’d never in his life done anything like this. Nor had he ever cooked for a woman or helped her restore a house.

She was folding and refolding a Garberville newspaper in her hands. “Okay, there’s a barn sale up the next road about a half mile….”

“What can you possibly need from a barn sale?”

“As I’ve explained fifty times, you just never know. I once bought an incredible hundred-and-fifty-year-old pine dry sink from a barn sale.”

“Your house doesn’t seem to need more furnishings.”

“But this is what I do! Like some women drink martinis, I shop for antiques and collectibles.”

“You also drink martinis.”

She grinned at him. “I pride myself in being well rounded.”

He pulled off to the side of the road. He turned and looked at her, resting the wrist of his left arm on the steering wheel. “Muriel, have you had invitations for Thanksgiving?”

“A few,” she said.

“Are you going south for the holiday?”

“I haven’t decided,” she said. “A few friends were very thoughtful to think of me.”

“Mind if I ask? What friends?”

“No one you know, Walt.”

“Just the same…”

She took a breath. “Susan Sarandon extended an invitation to join her family. Lovely family. Love those kids. My friend George has reservations at a nice restaurant for a few friends—”

“George?”

“Not a boyfriend. Clooney, George Clooney. Very nice man. Very attached at the moment and a tad young for me. He’s dating a woman in her thirties, I could be her mother. I actually met George many years ago through his aunt Rosemary. And there was a call from an old, old friend—Ed Asner. He has a small family gathering at his house. And of course Mason would like me to join him and his fourth wife and her grown children and grandchildren.” She chuckled. “We’re so modern, aren’t we? The ex-wife is invited to dinner all the time. Of course, twenty percent of me is very appealing to her, I’m sure.” When Walt looked perplexed, she laughed. “His commission, Walt. That’s what he gets when I work.”

“Hmm. So, where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Why?”

He was a bit uncomfortable. He looked away briefly. “We’re hosting Luke Riordan and his family. If you’d like to join us, that would be wonderful.”

“Walt?”

He turned back toward her, meeting her eyes, her smile. “What?”