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animals. Oh, I must go talk to Mrs. Emerson about Kenna. See y’all later.” She was up in a flash and making her way across the patio before Annie Rose found her voice.
    “Goats?” Annie Rose asked.
    “I’ll get even with him, damn his old black soul. Just wait until his granddaughter has a birthday,” Mason groaned. “Dinah is right. They’ll want to make house pets out of them.”
    Annie Rose patted Mason on the arm. “I’ve got the cure for that problem.”
    “Believe me, you’ll be worth every dime I’m paying you if you can tell them no.”
    “I don’t intend to tell them no. They can bring the goats in the house if they want to, but that’s only if they really get them. Dinah could be saying that to get a rise out of you. But if it’s the truth, I’ll tell the girls the rules, and they can decide what they want to do. Sometimes it’s best to let them decide rather than fighting with them.”
    “Mama-Nanny,” Gabby sang out across the patio. “I wanted some punch, and it’s all gone. Is there any in the house?”
    “I’ll check,” Annie Rose said, putting her hand on Mason’s arm as if they’d known each other for a decade instead of a day, and then wishing that she hadn’t been so impulsive when her fingers tingled. “Trust me, Mason. I did see extra punch in the refrigerator, didn’t I?”
    “There’s at least two more gallons. I don’t know how they drink that watered-down stuff,” he said.
    “They are kids.” She smiled.
    ***
    “Good-lookin’ nanny you got.” Frank Miller sat down in the chair Annie Rose vacated. “You sure a young one is the right way to go? We seem to do better with one who’s at least fifty and pretty firm with Damian. The younger ones let them get away with too much.”
    Frank was one of those mousy guys who walked in his wife’s shadow, spoke when she allowed it or when he could get away from her, and had a perpetual frown. But then if Mason had to live with Dinah, he wouldn’t be grinning about much either.
    “The girls like her,” Mason said, his heart warming a little about how he liked her too.
    “Damian told me that they found her on the porch in a wedding dress this morning.” Frank shoved his empty beer can into the trash can and reached for another. “I told him that Lily was pulling his leg, so there could be a fight. Thought I’d give you a heads-up not to get too comfortable about this party. It could turn in a second if your girls get angry at my son.”
    Mason scanned the area, located Gabby in her purple bathing suit on the diving board, and Lily, in her hot-pink suit, whispering to Kenna. It had been going so well, and he’d hoped that there wouldn’t be any more drama of any kind that day. But the girls didn’t like Damian, and if he said something hateful, the fight would be on.
    “Excuse me. I want to see Gabby do this dive,” Mason said.
    Gabby did a cannonball into the water and Damian came up from the bottom, sputtering. “You did that on purpose. You almost drowned me when you jumped right on top of me. You are as mean as your lying sister. She said that woman over there came here in a wedding dress, and my daddy said she was pulling my leg.”
    Gabby drew back her fist, and the noise stopped. Everything was eerily quiet as the people waited for her to black his eye or worse. Mason took another step toward the pool and noticed that Lily was shaking her head furiously at Gabby, who glared back at her with the meanest look he’d seen between them in years.
    Finally she dropped her fist and swam to the shallow end of the pool. “Hey, Daddy, can we open presents now?”
    Mason breathed a sigh of relief and said, “It’s your party. If you are ready to open presents and then blow out your candles, you sure can.”
    Now he’d have to watch them extra special at church, at the library, or anywhere Damian might be. Calling Lily a liar was purely fighting words. The boy didn’t have any idea how much trouble he’d