“So how have you been?” Olivia asked Casey. “Anything interesting happen?” They were wearing pretty Regency-era dresses and sitting on chairs that had been set up outside the gazebo. Onstage, Lori was flitting around Gizzy and teasing about how wonderful the soldiers were. She seemed very young but at the same time quite seductive.

“That girl is really talented. I hope she does something with it,” Casey said.

“I found out that she’s staying in a lake house with her grandmother, Estelle, who I knew in high school. I want to talk to her about getting Lori into Juilliard.” She took a breath. “How lucky Estelle is to have a granddaughter like her.”

Casey reached across to squeeze Olivia’s wrist.

“Actually, I was asking about you and Tate,” Olivia said. “He’s been gone for a whole twenty-four hours. How are you holding up?”

“Very well. I don’t have three meals a day to cook, and I don’t have him hanging around my kitchen all day. He isn’t bugging me to go everywhere with him in his little red truck. Did I tell you that one day he went to the grocery with me? It was a fiasco! He bought three dozen grapefruits and challenged me to make a pie with them. I didn’t, but when we got back I put up some jars of a rather nice marmalade with a stalk of tarragon in the middle. Using the whole stalk was his suggestion, and he cleaned the grapefruit for me. Well, anyway, I can now do my summer canning without him underfoot.”

Olivia was smiling. “You told me that story. Twice. You miss him a lot, don’t you?”

“I do, but I wish I didn’t.” She blew out her breath in exasperation. “I’ve always prided myself on functioning on my own. Even when I lived with someone, I stood on my own feet.”

She paused, then said, “I’m confused about what’s going on between Tate and me. Before he left he talked about my being his cook in L.A. I guess I’d be his sleep-in chef. But I—” She put her hands over her face. “I really, really like him and I miss him—but I don’t want to. I like being independent. I grew up with a mother who was gone all the time, and I learned to rely on myself. But then, that’s what drove my ex-boyfriend crazy. He used to say he didn’t feel needed.”

“When you were a child, there must have been times when you wanted your mother to be there.”

“Yes, but I knew she was helping other people.” She looked at Olivia. “But sometimes I wanted her to help me. Sometimes I wanted to be like the other girls and complain about how my mother wanted me to choose a truly hideous prom dress. When I chose my dress, my mom was in Mumbai at a medical conference, and my caretaker at the time was a retired butcher. I now know how to field dress an elk, but sometimes…”

“You wish you could have had a normal teenage fit.”

“Yes.” Casey glanced back at the stage. “This is stupid, but I miss Tate even more than I used to miss my mother. I didn’t think that was possible. But I don’t know if I can trust him. Devlin says—”

Olivia cut her off. “Are you basing part of your judgment on what someone else says? Casey, you can’t do that. You have to use your own instincts, what you want.”

“I know,” she said, “but I can’t dismiss information from someone who knows Tate so well. Uh-oh. Kit wants us onstage. I may be off in this, but are you and our illustrious director angry at each other?”

Olivia stood up. “He made a pass at me and I turned him down. Come on, we have lots of scenes to rehearse.” She started toward the stage, but Lori stopped her.

“I was wondering about something, and Kit said you could help me. There’s a scene where Lydia gets to go on a trip, but her sister Kitty can’t go. The girl playing Kitty and I are friends—or used to be—and…” She gave Olivia a look of helplessness.

“You want to know how to play it so you’re glad but not shoving your triumph in her face.”

“Yes!” Lori said. “That’s exactly what I want.”

“Let’s go over to the side and we’ll figure out how to run the lines so you don’t hurt your friend’s feelings.”

As Casey watched the two of them walk away, she thought how sad it was that Olivia would never have her own grandchildren. Then she thought of Kit. He was older, but he was a really good-looking man. “Why in the world would you turn him down?” she said under her breath.