From the ensuing groan, I knew this was the least desirable chore in this household, and I could guess why Emma had doled it out on the brother who’d been the majorette of my welcome parade minutes ago.

“Pork chops a la commode,” I said in explanation, staring at the foreign grayish dish that looked the farthest thing from appetizing. But I didn’t care if it was laced with arsenic—if Emma took time to make me dinner, I was going to eat it. And ask for seconds.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Emma guessed at what I was thinking. “The boys called it toilet pork chops when I first starting making it because,”—she motioned at the main course—“that’s pretty much what it looks like. But, taking great insult that they were labeling my best attempts at feeding them such vulgar names, I threatened to never cook for them again if they called it toilet pork chops again. They promised, and I renamed it pork chops a la commode.”

“Em?” I said. “Did you ever take French?”

“Only four years,” she said, clearly pleased with herself. “But the boys didn’t.”

“So you can call it toilet pork chops, just so long as no one else does or knows they are?” Devious wasn’t a word I would have placed in Emma’s characteristic bank.

“Precisely,” she said, sharing a smile with me. “Just look at that. They are toilet pork chops, but they’re a Scarlett house favorite because they’re filling, cheap, a one pan meal, and most importantly—”

“They’re freaking delicious,” Dallas offered, dropping the last fork into its spot.

“Couldn’t have said it any better.” Emma smiled her thanks at her brother.

“You know, Emma doesn’t make pork chops a la commode for just anyone,” Austin said, from his post at the sink where he filled seven plastic cups of varying sizes and colors. “This is a meal reserved for family birthdays and special occasions. I don’t believe you’ve ever even made this for Ty, have you?”

There was nothing that hinted Austin was provoking Emma, but the squaring of her shoulders indicated that’s how she took it. “Since the last time Ty stepped foot in this house was the summer before I entered first grade,” Emma said, drilling holes into Austin’s back, “no, I haven’t cooked this for him. Kind of difficult to when he’s got a personal policy against even toeing the line of the bad side of town.”

There were so many undercurrents in her tone, it was impossible to determine which was the most prominent—irritation, shame, anger—but I didn’t care. I’d take any mark against Ty Emma would give me.

“Well, it’s not like you invite people over, just like the rest of us,” Austin said, dropping a couple of cups around the table. “In fact, I can’t remember the last time you had anyone—”

“Austin.” That was all it took, one word, to silence her older, bigger brother mid-sentence. I didn’t doubt the same would hold true with the other three brothers, and that she would yield to them at their first name warning. I knew this because it was familiar, something my family had been forced to adopt as well. When secrets weave together your past, you have to keep the threads from being unraveled.

Placing her hands over my shoulders, she steered me to a seat. “Patrick, you can sit here by me. As the guest of honor, you get to help yourself first.” She pulled out the metal folding chair for me, waving her hand at the spread on the table. “And you’d better hurry and dish up because as soon as the four hyenas arrive around the table, there’ll be nothing left.”

“I don’t want to disagree with you, but my mother would probably reach out from the heavens and slap me across the hand if I even thought about sitting down and dishing up before you and your mom had,” I said, scratching the back of my neck. This wasn’t a rule I followed to the letter, but it was one I tried to follow most of the time, and it was one I was going to obey when in Emma’s house.

Sliding to the chair beside mine, I pulled it out. “Miss Scarlett?” I said, gesturing to the chair.

The skin between her brows wrinkled, but she was smiling. “Is this whole gentlemen thing you’ve got going on an act or the real thing?” she asked, settling into the chair.

“Both,” I answered honestly, sliding her forward. “My brothers are more the natural gentlemen in the family where I’m . . . less so, if left to my own devices, so part of the time I have to remind and force myself to be a gentlemen. But the other half of my gentlemen air comes from growing up in the South with a very Southern mother who put manners in the same category as showing up for church on Sunday early. So a lot of it has been pounded so deep into me it comes naturally.”

Standing behind my chair, I leaned down at her. “Why? Are you impressed?”

“More like shocked,” she retorted, folding a paper napkin in her lap.

“I’ll take shocked,” I said, lowering my voice. “As long as you feel something for me. And it isn’t disdain or loathing.”

A clenched jaw-ed Jackson leaned in between us, clearing his throat as he lit the votive raised on an overturned water cup.

Forging roads of romance between Emma and me was going to be impossible with four brothers an ear’s and arm’s length away. A thought struck me, one I didn’t want to give credit to, but one I couldn’t dismiss. Maybe, guessing the way I felt about her, and knowing the way her brothers felt about me, she’d invited me here because she knew me putting the moves on her would be as successful as Canada winning a world war.

My mood and smile dampened simultaneously.

“Hey, Ma,” Jackson greeted, nudging me further away from Emma before moving away from us.

Tex helped the still as unresponsive Mrs. Scarlett into her seat and when I saw her in the full light of the kitchen, the flatness stifling her expression became familiar in a way that chilled me to my marrow. Despite Mrs. Scarlett looking nothing like Emma, she had the same dark skin and hair of her sons, that expression of nothing she wore was identical to the one I’d seen shroud Emma’s face before. That faraway look that had landed her in a land of living nightmares and a place that had been sucked dry of all hope.

I couldn’t look away from Mrs. Scarlett fast enough. I’d seen that look on her daughter one too many times; I couldn’t witness her paralyzed in this dark place too.

I took my seat, trying to make sliding my chair closer to Emma nonchalant. Her sideways smile indicated she hadn’t bought it. In a combined effort, eight hands lunged towards the nearest food filled plate only to be promptly slapped away.

“Are you forgetting something?” Emma said, glancing with annoyance at each of her brothers. “Grace?”

They rolled their eyes like they’d been victim of this rebuke before. Austin, clenching his hands together, looked to the ceiling. “Rub a dub dub. Thanks for the grub,” he said, smirking at his disapproving sister across from him. “And thanks for the sister who knows how to cook it. Amen.”

“Amen!” was the shouted chorus before those eight hands returned with a vengeance. Piling, heaping, and scraping whatever they could get their hands on, before another set of hands took it, onto their plates.

So the Scarlett boys hadn’t grown up with a mother who would make them write out, in perfect penmanship, the first chapter of The Iliad if they even considered helping themselves before the women and guests at the table had.

“Save some for our guest!” Emma shouted, smacking as many hands away as she could. “And the woman who gave birth to you.” She fought a spatula out of Dallas’s hand and shot an elbow into Jackson’s side when he made his move for it. “And for the sister who prepared this feast for you barbarians.”

Tex slid a full plate in front of Emma, situating the other one in his hand in front of his mom. Being a middle child myself, I understood the need to please at any opportunity. Other than this birth order curse we could share, any man who looked out for Emma was good people in my book. Tex won the award for my favorite Scarlett brother by a landslide.

“You better get in there,” she said, gazing over what was left. “Before there’s nothing left to get.”

Women were served, food was in short supply, I was a starvin’ marvin. I didn’t need another invitation. Showing the Scarlett boys how we Haywards did it, I outmaneuvered Austin for one of the last pork chops, scooping up a couple of potatoes swimming in the grey gravy in the same swipe.

“Nice move,” Austin said, raking up the last pork chop before Jackson made his move for it.

Once every morsel of food had found its way onto someone’s plate, an orchestra of sighs, groans, and open mouthed chewing ensued. Except for Mrs. Scarlett. She nibbled a bite of lettuce and apparently lost interest after that. Her plate steamed, untouched, in front of her empty face.

An elbow nudged me. “What do you think?” Emma asked, taking a modest-sized bite and chewing with her mouth closed, a practice her brothers should make use of. “It’s not gourmet Moroccan prepared by a five star chef, but it’s not bad either.”

I’d been too absorbed in the chaos that was a Scarlett family dinner to have taken a bite of my own dinner, but when I did, I joined in with the moaning.

“Holy crap, Emma!” I said after a second mouthful. “This could be one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Don’t tell my sisters-in-law,” I said, shamelessly talking through another bite.

Laughing, she said, “You’d be amazed what a little cream of mushroom soup, whole milk, and garlic can do to a plateful of cheap meat and potatoes.”

“Well, you’re a genius,” I said, getting why the guys fought over the food like it was Helen of Troy.

Spearing a forkful of gravy saturated potato, she said, “I am, aren’t I?”

A raucous of chair legs screeching across the linoleum announced the end of dinner for the Scarlett brothers and set a new world record for food shoveling.

“Don’t even think about it,” Emma warned, stabbing her fork in the direction of the boys retreating out the back door. “You know the deal. I cook. You guys clean.” Sweeping her eyes over the greasy, goopy pan and plates scattered around the table, she said, “Have fun. Patrick and I are going out for some fresh air.”

Few things could have tempted me away from finishing the half-eaten dinner before me. One of those things was being alone with Emma in the dark.

I was out of my chair so fast it nearly tipped back to the floor.

“Mom?” Emma said, sliding out of her chair and crouching beside her. “Make sure you eat a few more bites. Let the boys know if you need anything.” She planted a kiss on her cheek before turning to find me.

I was already at the door, holding it open for her.

“Can I interest you in a tour of our illustrious, expansive backyard?” she asked, pausing in the doorway for my response.

“Interest me,” I said with a look that was too lingering for the five Scarlett family members feet away from us, four of which would have happily castrated me the old fashioned way.