At peace. Happy.
"Tomorrow night I'll take you to my restaurant," Charity promised. "Then you'll see who sets the standard in Destiny Bay."
"Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten that you had a restau rant." Aunt Doris shook her head. "What an idea. You, running your very own restaurant."
Charity stiffened her back. Her work was very much a part of her sense of identity. "That's what I do for a liv ing," she said evenly. "I run a restaurant."
"And quite capably, too, I'm sure." Aunt Doris's smile was as patronizing as her tone. "But now that you've married Ross, of course you'll give all that up."
Charity and Ross exchanged glances, and for just a sec ond she had a twinge of panic. She'd worked so hard to make the restaurant thrive, and she was so proud of it. How could anyone try to dismiss it as a hobby that was good enough for wiling away the time while she was waiting for her real life to begin? Was it only this phony marriage that would please Aunt Doris?
She shrugged those thoughts away. It was just that Aunt Doris hadn't seen the restaurant, hadn't seen how suc cessful she'd become. Once Aunt Doris had been out for a visit, Charity told herself firmly, her views would change.
"I have something for you," Aunt Doris told Charity as the plates were cleared away. "It's yours, really, but you left it when you moved out ten years ago."
Charity waited while Doris fished in her bag, then gasped when her aunt put a gold heart-shaped locket and chain in front of her on the table.
"My locket!" Gingerly she pried it open. Inside were pictures of her mother, young and smiling, and her fa ther, slightly stern. She closed it again quickly.
"May I see it?" Ross was holding out his hand, wait ing.
Her fingers curled around the locket. She wanted to hide it away. She held it very tightly for a moment.
"Of course," she finally managed to whisper, and she slowly placed the golden trinket in Ross's hand.
He opened the locket and stared at the pictures for a long time. "Your parents?" he asked at last.
She nodded. Something hot and painful was blocking her throat.
He looked up, his dark eyes unreadable. "You look just like your mother, don't you?"
Charity's mouth dropped open. "No!" she cried. Her hand quickly went to her hair to be sure she still had it tied up tightly in a French twist, not flying all over as her mother wore it. "Not at all." Charity glanced at Aunt Doris, but she merely pursed her lips and avoided her niece's eyes.