CHAPTER TWO

      “MAMA.”

      Cris looked down at her son. Throughout the discussion about the guest list, Ricky had been trying to get her attention by pulling on the apron that had become practically a part of every outfit she put on.

      As resident chef, she spent most of her time preparing her kitchen, preparing her menu or preparing the meals themselves for the ever-changing array of guests, who came as much for the meals as they did for the inn’s charm, service and beautiful view.

      Impatience vibrated in her five-year-old’s plaintive cry.

      “What is it, little man?” Cris asked, placing her hands on his slight shoulders.

      “I want to show you something,” Ricky told her with enthusiasm on the brink of exploding.

      Though he was clearly bursting to share whatever it was, Cris knew that her son liked being coaxed. So she played along and asked, “What is it, Ricky?”

      “I drewed you a picture,” he said proudly as he began digging into his bright blue-and-white backpack with its cheerful cartoon character logo—a gift from Dorothy on his first day of school.

      “Drew,” Cris automatically corrected. “You drew a picture.”

      Ricky spared her a glance as if he didn’t see what the problem was. “That’s what I said,” he insisted. “I drewed you a picture. Teacher told us to make one of our family.”

      Cris opened her mouth to try to make the five-year-old understand the difference between the word he used and the word he was supposed to use, but decided to temporarily suspend the grammar lesson when she saw the picture he’d “drewed.”

      At times, she still couldn’t help marveling that she was his mother. She certainly felt less than qualified for the position. Her own image of a mother—based on what she remembered of her mother—was that of unshakable wisdom mixed with love and understanding. While she had more than endless amounts of love to shower on the boy and she thought of herself as an understanding person, she felt sorely lacking in the unshakable wisdom department.

      Every day seemed a challenge and there were days when she felt she’d made wrong choices. Very simply, there were more than a few days when she felt she didn’t know what she was doing.

      Though there was nothing she wanted more than to be Ricky’s mother, she couldn’t shake the feeling that every step she took in this unfamiliar land called motherhood was like walking in a field riddled with pools of quicksand. Any second now, she expected to take the wrong step and be sucked under.

      There were other times, though, when gazing down into the happy little face that seemed the perfect combination of Mike’s features and her own, that she felt she had to be doing something right because just look at how Ricky was turning out. He was wonderfully well adjusted.

      Of course, Cris was the first one to point out that she wasn’t doing it alone. She had a fabulous support system that consisted of her father and her sisters, even Wyatt and his late father, Dan, whom they had all referred to as “Uncle Dan” even though he really wasn’t related to them. They all doted on Ricky, filling his world with love and watching over him to make sure that no harm ever came to him.

      Every night, without fail, Cris thanked God for her family and for bringing Ricky into her life. Without the boy, she didn’t know how she would have survived the sudden, heart-destroying loss of her husband.

      “Hey, you didn’t tell me you had a picture,” Stevi cried, pretending her feelings were hurt as she walked into the kitchen.

      Of the four sisters, only Stevi had artistic abilities—not to mention occasionally the artistic temperament that went with them. She was creating recognizable drawings by the time she was four and was still inclined to find an artistic outlet for her talent rather than joining Alex and Cris in making Ladera-by-the-Sea her life’s work.

      “That’s ’cause I wanted to show Mama first,” Ricky informed his aunt with all the confidence of a child who believed himself to be the well deserving center of his family’s universe. To everyone’s credit—including his own—he was neither spoiled nor truly self-centered. Kindness came naturally to him, tempering most things that he said. “But it’s okay for you to look now, ’cause I showed it to her.”

      He unfolded the drawing and held it up for his mother to see. Stevi and Alex shifted over toward Cris to view it, as well.

      “Do you like it?” Ricky asked, his blue eyes eager and shining as he looked at his mother. “It’s us,” he added, just in case she’d missed what he said about it being a drawing of his family.

      How silly, Cris chided herself, to get choked up over a crayon drawing, even a good crayon drawing, depicting a little boy holding what she could only assume was his mother’s hand. The two figures were surrounded by three female figures and a tall, thin man, who, because Ricky had used a gray crayon for the hair, had to be his grandfather. This was their family, Cris thought, the way her son saw all of them.

      Close.

      Hovering over this gathering was what appeared to be a large, unusual-looking bird. Cris glanced at her son. Approval and maternal pride shone in her eyes.

      “It’s beautiful, honey.”

      Ricky nodded, as if he had expected that response. Proudly, he acted like a tour guide for the drawing. “That’s you, Mama, and me. You’re holding my hand—”

      “I can see that,” Cris said,