I’ve never had a reason to do a Google image search for “awkward family dinner,” but if I did, I’m guessing I’d see a photo of my dining room on Friday night.

Seated at the head is my mother, resplendent in a silk kimono she got while filming in Japan.

Beside her is the daughter of the woman whose husband she stole years ago.

“Please pass the bread,” Bree says crisply, offering a tight smile when my mother obliges.

The son of said husband’s next mistress is hunkered on the other side of the table, looking like a grumpy lumberjack eating off a hundred-and-fifty-dollar Boug Joly Ajouree Chevet plate.

Not that I know a damn thing about dishes, but my mother has announced ten thousand times that this china was a gift from one of her show’s sponsors. God knows why she had it delivered here. “Mark, dear,” she says. “Please pass the butter.”

My younger brother looks like he’s seriously considering telling her where she can shove the butter, but he decides to be a gentleman.

“Thank you,” my mother says. “It’s a shame James couldn’t make it.”

Mark stabs a grape tomato in his salad with such force it spits seeds across the table. “Damn shame,” he agrees as he and Bree exchange a look.

I know for a fact James is off researching property titles and real estate law and God knows what else in a quest to get to the bottom of whether my mother could have a claim on this property. The rest of us are doing our damnedest to act like a normal family.

“Darling, may I please have a refill?” my mother lifts her empty wineglass, and I do some quick mental math to determine how much Chenin Blanc we’ve gone through already. This cheerful family meal is requiring a lot more alcohol than I anticipated.

“So, Breann,” my mother says as she hoists her replenished wineglass. “What is it you do here again?”

“I’m the Vice President of Marketing and Events,” Bree says, ripping a hunk of sourdough with both hands. “And Mark is the Vice President of Facilities Management.”

“Can’t we just say handyman?” Mark mutters as he swipes breadcrumbs from his beard with a cloth napkin. “These goddamn fancy titles give me a headache.”

Bree ignores him and slathers her bread with a generous slab of butter. “James is Vice President of Operations, and Johnathan—”

“Good Lord, how many of you are there?” My mother laughs at her own joke, but no one laughs with her. It’s no secret our father had a host of impressively fertile wives and mistresses, but we don’t usually talk about it over dinner. Or anytime, really.

Bree finishes chewing her bread and takes a sip of her wine. She looks at me a moment, then turns back to my mother. “Our job titles and positions are irrelevant,” she says. “What matters is that a whole lot of us have invested a great deal of time, talent, and money into launching Ponderosa Luxury Ranch Resort.”

Mark nods and picks up his water glass. “And we’d hate for anything to interfere with that.”

Jesus, my brother sounds like a mobster. I can’t blame him, really. I know this is why my siblings suggested dinner tonight, but part of me is hoping someone chokes on a chicken bone and this whole thing ends quickly.

“It certainly has potential to be a highly profitable business,” my mother says, ignoring Bree’s grimace. Or maybe she didn’t notice it in the first place. She’s already drained her wineglass, so it’s possible she’s missing some nuance. “How many investors are involved?”

“Just us,” Bree says, giving her a pointed look. “All of the Bracelyn siblings in one form or another.”

I study my mother from across the table, looking for signs that she’s ready to crack. This whole damn dinner was a bad idea. Her gaze swings to mine, and she gives a watery smile. “Sean, darling. Tell me about your love life. You know how much I’d adore having grandbabies.”

I grip my fork a little tighter as my brain flashes on an image of Amber King. I think of the softness of her lips, the press of her body against mine in the warm solitude of her kitchen. Or the round lushness of her breasts under that pink sweater, the way she arched against me when I kissed her.

There’s a surge of something fierce and protective inside me, and I can’t say for sure where it’s coming from.

“There’s no one,” I say, reaching for the platter of lemon leek roasted Cornish hens. “More chicken anyone?”

Mark nods and holds out his plate. “Sure, thanks.”

I dish him up and set the platter aside as a phone rings from somewhere far away. My mother dabs her mouth with a napkin. “I need to take that,” she says, pushing back from her chair and grabbing her wineglass. “Would you excuse me? This could be a little while.”

As she hurries from the room, my shoulders start to relax. They hitch up again as I hear the first strains of conversation from the guest room. “Maxwell, darling, please tell me we have a claim.”

A door closes at the back of the house, so we can’t hear the rest of the conversation. Bree narrows her eyes at me. “Is that her lawyer?”

“Her manager,” I say, straining to hear the conversation. I can’t make out a damn thing. Why are the walls in this place so thick?

Bree frowns. “Isn’t he the guy who put together the deal that screwed my mother over?”

“That was her real estate guy,” I say. “Fred someone. Or Floyd. I don’t remember; it’s been a long time.”

Bree doesn’t look appeased. Neither does Mark.

“Look, I’m keeping an eye on her, okay?” I glance from my sister to my brother and back again. “Will you trust me on this?”

“We trust you,” Mark says. “Not her.”

“Understood.” I pick up my water glass and drain it, feeling the weight of everyone’s trust like a noose around my neck.

I’m fumbling around in my brain for a subject change when Bree saves me. “I had someone come out to look at the cave,” she says. “The guy I’ve been working with from the Warm Springs tribe.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

“He didn’t find anything that’s historically or culturally significant,” she says. “There was some old kitchen crap that dates back fifty years or so, but nothing valuable.”

“What about the petroglyph stuff?” Mark asks, wiping his beard with a napkin.

“Not petroglyphs, apparently,” she says. “Just graffiti or something. Anyway, we’re free to do cave tours in there if we want to. Or not.” She gives me a pointed look as I shove a leaf of romaine around my plate.

I set down my fork and pick up my own wineglass. “What’s that look about?”

“I know it was your special place as a kid,” she says slowly. “I don’t want to go stepping on your turf.”

“It’s fine,” I assure her, meaning it completely. “This place belongs to all of us. I want what’s best for the family.”

“Agreed,” Bree says, giving me a wary look.

“Damn straight,” Mark mutters and lifts his wineglass.

---

I’m not sure what lures me down to the pond a few nights later. The full moon? A need for fresh air? Some weird nostalgia for childhood summers spent looking for mermaids under the stars?

Or maybe it’s that I need to get the hell out of the cabin before I murder my mother.

I can still hear her voice in my ears as I trudge down the dirt-caked path, my footsteps thudding in time to her lecture on the proper way to braise pork loin so it pairs perfectly with the Pinot Noir she brought back from yesterday’s trip to the Willamette Valley.

The taste of the wine is bitter on the back of my tongue, and I wish I’d thought to brush my teeth before charging out into the crisp night air. Hell, I didn’t even grab a flashlight.

Not that I need one. The full moon lights the path, and the night sky is clear and cloudless with bright pinpricks of stars. It’s too early in the season for frogs, but the night air swirls with a symphony of other sounds—the hoot of an owl, the far-off yip of coyotes, the burble of the creek tumbling over smooth rocks beside the path.

I breathe in the scent of sagebrush and juniper, remembering the first time I visited here as a boy.

“It smells like heaven,” I told my dad.

He sniffed the air and laughed. “Juniper smells like cat piss.”

I never saw the connection, but I also never had a cat. Maybe I should remedy that now that I’m living out in the country. A fat, surly tom to catch mice in the woodpile behind my new wood-fired pizza oven. Or maybe a fluffy white Persian who attacks my toes under the covers.

I’ve almost reached the pond when the back of my neck prickles. Lost in thought about small cats, I’ve forgotten the big ones. A flash of memory jolts me to Amber’s story about the cougar, and I wish like hell I brought a gun. Or owned one. Or had any idea how to fire one.

But it’s not danger making my spidey senses tingle. It’s something else. Something I can’t put my finger on until my frantic gaze lands on the figure standing by the edge of the pond. Bare shoulders catch the moonlight, and dark hair tumbles down the slope of a very naked back.

Oh my God.

My breath catches in my throat. I don’t know how long I stand wordless and staring until I finally find my voice. “Amber?”