"Look at us. The wife, the bride, and the bride-to-be." Avery lifted a gla.s.s, toasted them all. "Your turn in September," she said to Hope.

"It can't come soon enough. Which is crazy to say since I have so much left to do. But today's yours, and I can promise you everything is exactly and wonderfully perfect."

"It couldn't be otherwise. I'm marrying my boyfriend, with my two best friends beside me, my dad, the woman who's been my mom since I was a kid, my brothers. And I'm doing it in the most beautiful place I know."

"I'm going to text the photographer, have him come up. We're on a schedule," Hope reminded her.

She checked everything. The flowers, the food, the table displays. Candles, linens. Stopped long enough to help Beckett pa.s.s the chubby-cheeked twins and their three brothers to Clare's mother and Carolee. To adjust Ryder's tie, as an excuse to nuzzle his neck.

"Why don't we just do it now?" he asked her. "We're all dressed up, got a preacher coming."

"September." She lingered over a kiss. "It'll be worth the wait."

Exactly on time, she rounded up w.i.l.l.y B.

"Thank G.o.d." Justine patted his cheek. "He's nervous as a bride himself."

"It's my girl."

"I know it, honey. You go on and get her now."

Hope waited, fetched tissues when w.i.l.l.y B's eyes welled up, and gave Avery's makeup a final touch-up.

"What're you mumbling about?" she asked Clare.

"I'm praying. That I don't hear the babies cry, because if I do my milk might start up."

"Oh my G.o.d. I should've thought of earplugs." But laughing, she grabbed Clare's hand to hurry to the door.

Avery wanted an entrance, so they'd descend the stairs to The Courtyard where the guests sat, and Owen waited with his brothers.

All so handsome, she thought. All so right. In a few months she'd walk down these same steps to Ryder.

She glanced across the lot, over the white tent where Fit In Boons-Boro stood prettily in its soft blue coat, its silver trim.

She was happy to have it there, and a little sorry not to have Ryder right in back of the inn every day.

She wondered what Justine would think of next, and was grateful she'd be able to watch it evolve.

Then she squeezed Clare's hand. "Look."

On the porch facing the flower-decked arbor, Lizzy stood with her Billy.

"They're still here," Clare said quietly. "It always surprises me."

"They're happy here. For now anyway. It's their home."

And hers, she thought. Her town, her place, her home. In it she'd build a life with the man she loved.

She glanced back, blew a kiss to the bride, then walked down the steps toward the promise.

KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM

THE FIRST BOOK IN THE INN BOONSBORO TRILOGY

BY NORA ROBERTS

The Next Always

NOW AVAILABLE FROM PIATKUS

THE STONE WALLS STOOD AS THEY HAD FOR MORE THAN two centuries, simple, st.u.r.dy, and strong. Mined from the hills and the valleys, they rose in testament to man's inherent desire to leave his mark, to build and create.

Over those two centuries man married the stone with brick, with wood and gla.s.s, enlarging, transforming, enhancing to suit the needs, the times, the whims. Throughout, the building on the crossroads watched as the settlement became a town, as more buildings sprang up.

The dirt road became asphalt; horse and carriage gave way to cars. Fashions flickered by in the blink of an eye. Still it stood, rising on its corner of the Square, an enduring landmark in the cycle of change.

It knew war, heard the echo of gunfire, the cries of the wounded, the prayers of the fearful. It knew blood and tears, joy and fury. Birth and death.

It thrived in good times, endured the hard times. It changed hands and purpose, yet the stone walls stood.

In time, the wood of its graceful double porches began to sag. Gla.s.s broke; mortar cracked and crumbled. Some who stopped at the light on the town square might glance over to see pigeons flutter in and out of broken windows and wonder what the old building had been in its day. Then the light turned green, and they drove on.

Beckett knew.

He stood on the opposite corner of the Square, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his jeans. Thick with summer, the air held still. With the road empty, he could have crossed Main Street against the light, but he continued to wait. Opaque blue tarps draped the building from roof to street level, curtaining the front of the building. Over the winter it had served to hold the heat in for the crew. Now it helped block the beat of the sun-and the view.

But he knew-how it looked at that moment, and how it would look when the rehab was complete. After all, he'd designed it-he, his two brothers, his mother. But the blueprints bore his name as architect, his primary function as a partner in Montgomery Family Contractors.

He crossed over, his tennis shoes nearly silent on the road in the breathless hush of three a.m. He walked under the scaffolding, along the side of the building, down St. Paul, pleased to see in the glow of the streetlight how well the stone and brick had cleaned up.

It looked old-it was old, he thought, and that was part of its beauty and appeal. But now, for the first time in his memory, it looked tended.

He rounded the back, walked over the sunbaked dirt, through the construction rubble scattered over what would be a courtyard. Here the porches that spanned both the second and third stories ran straight and true. Custom-made pickets-designed to replicate those from old photographs of the building, and the remnants found during excavation-hung freshly primed and drying on a length of wire.

He knew his eldest brother, Ryder, in his role as head contractor, had the rails and pickets scheduled for install.

He knew because Owen, the middle of the three Montgomery brothers, plagued them all over schedules, calendars, projections, and ledgers-and kept Beckett informed of every nail hammered.

Whether he wanted to be or not.