"Did Alicia not want to come for Thanksgiving?" she asked, looking to Eli.

  Charlotte saw how all the others exchanged glances over this. Slight, subtle glances.

  Alicia hadn't come to Thanksgiving, obviously. She'd also not come to Easter or the summer extended family reunion, or any of the other family events that happened here, not since that wedding.

  Charlotte knew she hadn't... because she herself had been at most of those family events.

  "Bachelorette thing for a wedding she’s in," Eli said, taking another drink. "Gone the whole week."

  "Oh," Hope said. "Well, that's okay. I like Charlotte better anyway."

  And again, there were glances. Along with a very pointed one from Craig, directed right at his wife.

  "What?" she asked. "What did I say?"

  "Nothing, Hope," Libby said, making her way to Charlotte for a hug. "I like you better, too," she whispered, grinning at this.

  "I'm just saying," Hope said, "that Alicia doesn't seem to like us much. Not that we wouldn't love her if she gave us a chance. But she won't. Which is all for the best, maybe, since Charlotte would be a much better match for --"

  "Good grief, Hope," Aaron said, from where he held Max to the floor, even as the youngster did everything he could to overpower him.

  Hope sighed and glanced over at Charlotte. "I would blame postpartum brain, but I'm like this all the time. I'm sorry."

  "You're good," Charlotte murmured, wondering how Alicia would fit in if she was here. She tried to imagine how she'd react if Hope and Libby invited her to go on a trip to the local Wal Mart after lunch, just like they had invited Charlotte to last Christmas. The three of them had gone to pick up batteries for one of Max's Christmas presents and had ended up spending a whole hour at the store, loading up their cart with marked down decorations and cheesy festive gags for the next year. Both Hope and Libby had told Charlotte that their men would rise up and call them blessed for having saved so much money, but once they got back to the house, both of their husbands had been out in the yard with Max and the rest of the family, racing the remote control cars with batteries from the television remote, too anxious to wait on them.

  Eli had been asleep inside, laid out across the sofa. Charlotte had gone in to check on him with a smile, slipping two of the reindeer headbands out of the bag she carried. She'd slid one onto his head and the other onto hers, grinning as she did so. When that hadn't woken him up, she'd put her hand to her face, checking to feel that it was still ice cold from the temperature outside, right before putting it to his neck.

  That had done the trick.

  He'd shot up like she'd lit a firecracker underneath him.

  "I'll kill you, Isaac!" he'd shouted, even as he was opening his eyes. Then, as he saw her, he'd let out a breath. "What in the world, Lottie?!"

  "I'll keeeel you, Isaac! " she'd hissed in imitation, giggling as she got the last word out. "Isaac is outside, buddy."

  "Forgive me," he'd managed, taking a breath. "But you just jolted me back to thousands of pranks through the years, most of which were played on me while I was minding my own business, which I just was."

  She'd thought about his younger brother, Isaac, about what it must have been like to grow up with a sibling, to grow up with three. Lucky Eli.

  Lying Eli, too. He'd probably been the instigator of most of the sibling squabbles over the years.

  "How were you going to do it, Herbert? Kill him and all. He's twice your size."

  "In my own clever way," he'd said, scowling at her. "Work smarter, not harder."

  "That's what you always say," she'd noted.

  "It is," he'd sighed, lying back down.

  "Why are you in here asleep when everyone else is outside playing?" she'd asked.

  "I'm tired," he'd said. "And what are you even doing, tiptoeing around while I'm trying to get my rest, you creeper?"

  "Creeper?" she'd repeated, laughing at him. "I just came in here to give you your festive new headwear."

  He'd watched her suspiciously, putting his hands to his head. Reindeer horns. "Ahh, very classy," he'd muttered. Then, something in his expression had changed as he'd looked at her.

  It had been odd, that look in his eyes, that look that she couldn't quite place...

  "What are you looking at, you goon?" she'd asked.

  "Interesting choice of headwear," he'd murmured, still watching her.

  "I thought it fit us perfectly," she'd said, smiling at him.

  He'd said nothing. But there had been something in his eyes...

  "Charlotte, do you want me to kiss you?"

  Then, there had definitely been something in her eyes.

  "Good grief, noooo, Eli," she'd very nearly gasped. "Why would you even ask that?!"

  He'd blushed at this. Blushed! She'd never forget that or the scowl that quickly replaced the hopeful look on his face.

  "Because you're wearing mistletoe," he'd said, pointing at her head.

  She'd put her hands to the headband, inching her way up until she felt it. "Oh, I thought I'd gotten reindeer horns! I'm glad it was you who was lying here when I was wearing them, or it..."

  Or it what, Charlotte? It might have been awkward, kind of like it had been as he'd watched her take them off, as she'd blushed herself...

  "That just would've been weird," she'd said softly.

  It would have been weird if he'd kissed her.

  Maybe.

  She'd thought about it a few more times later in the weeks leading up to the new year, wondering if she should have said yes. Because he was Eli and she knew him better than anyone else...

  He'd met Alicia a couple of weeks later. She'd met Tyler.

  And that... was that.

  "PJ, are you going to eat some pecan pie, too?"

  Her attention was back on the present, back there in the Lucas household, back on Eli as his nephew put his hands to his favorite uncle's face and leaned in for a sticky kiss.

  "Good grief," Eli muttered. "What has this boy been eating? It's all over my face now, via drool."

  "Breast milk," Craig noted wryly from around the bite of pre-dinner dessert he was enjoying.

  Eli made a face at PJ, ready to protest some more, but before he could, the front door opened.

  And in walked Isaac, Eli's younger brother. Isaac of the "I'll keel you, Isaac!" fame.

  His eyes went straight to Charlotte... and her eyes went straight back to his face after lingering just a little too long on the way he was dressed.

  Or not dressed.

  "Charlotte!" he exclaimed, coming right over to her and pulling her into an embrace, like she was his long-lost sister.

  Everyone loved Charlotte.

  "Isaac," Judy chided. "I'm sure Charlotte doesn't want you doing that while you're all sweaty."

  Isaac backed up with a laugh and a look of apology, glancing down at his bare chest and his running shorts, both of which were covered in sweat.

  "You're good," Charlotte said. Everyone here was good. Everything about this place was good. Charlotte wished for a moment that she actually was Isaac's sister, Hope's sister-in-law, just Charlotte Lucas, part of this family.

  Silly thought, likely.

  "How far did you run this morning?" she asked Isaac.

  "Just ten miles," he said, grinning. "If I'd known you were coming, I would have waited, and you could have come with me. Are you training right now?"

  She ran. A little. A couple of years ago she'd run a marathon at Isaac's encouragement, but that had been the last big race she'd done and would likely ever do.

  Twenty-six miles was a lot of miles, and running it involved a lot of time in which to ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?!"

  Then, there was the next day when you could barely move. And you asked yourself, "Why did I do that?!"

  Marathons were a one and done deal with Charlotte.

  Isaac still asked about her training every time they saw one another, hopeful that she hadn't given up the sport entirely.

  "No," she said, wincing, waiting for his disappointment.

  "That's okay," he said, still smiling. "You look great, though. Thought maybe you were out there hitting the pavement because you look --"

  "Are you taking steroids?" Eli cut in irritably, practically barking the question at his brother. "Because you look ridiculous."

  Charlotte looked over to him with a smile. Crusty, old Eli, shooting her a look, shooting Isaac a look, like he always did when the two of them would talk.

  Funny thing, that.

  "I'm not taking anything," Isaac said, wiping his face with one of Judy's dish towels as he made his way into the kitchen, looking reproachfully at the desserts laid out. "I'm just eating differently. And, oh yeah, I'm working out all the time. Maybe if you'd work out once in a while, you'd look as ridiculous as me."

  Charlotte looked at Eli and let her eyes wander over him for a moment.

  He was attractive. He'd have to be for Alicia to give him the time of day, of course, so that was a given. His features were very average, honestly, and his build, while athletic once upon a time based on the pictures she'd seen here in this very house of him in his high school years, had evened out and matured to better than average fitness.

  His confidence, though, was what really made women look twice at him.

  Which they did. Charlotte had seen them.

  Still, though, he didn't look much like his brother. Okay, so he did, in that way that brothers do. But Isaac was like a specimen of what a man was made to look like, way too perfect for every day and certainly not the kind of guy you could wake up next to without feeling insecure yourself.

  Eli, however, was an every day kind of guy. He was her every day guy, literally, even more so now that she was his neighbor, and --

  "They're trying to transition me to decathlons," Isaac said, totally unaware of just exactly what he looked like with his shirt off. "Told me that it's a waste to just concentrate on the running when I can throw a javelin." He demonstrated the way to do this for Eli, stretching his arm back and pulling it forward again, throwing an imaginary spear or something equally primal, and...

  Well, he was very nice looking.

  And that she thought it was obvious, given the way Eli looked at her pointedly, frowning.

  "That sounds really interesting," she said, smiling over at him and trying not to laugh. Eli had accused her of having a crush on his brother more than once, given how well the two got along on all these trips she took here. She'd even egged him on, telling him once that his little brother was hot, which had made him call her a cougar, of all things.

  The remembrance of Eli's shocked face as he'd said it made her smile even as he continued frowning at his brother.

  He could always do that. No matter how bad things were, Eli could always make her smile, even when he wasn't trying.

  Interesting, that.

  "It is interesting," Isaac said, still talking about decathlons, grinning over at her with no idea what subtext was going on between her and his brother. "Charlotte, you should come out to the track tomorrow morning and see --"

  "You should go put on a shirt," Eli muttered. "Charlotte's going home with me tonight."

  And everyone in the house stared at them both.

  Oh. They thought he meant something very, very different --

  "I'm his new tenant," she said. "I just moved into the other half of the duplex."

  “Living next door to Eli,” Aaron sighed. “That sucks.”

  “Sucks,” Max said.

  “Aaron,” Libby chided. “And, Max, that’s not a word you need to say.”

  “And it’s not even true, Max,” Eli said. “Living next door to me doesn’t suck.”

  Libby opened her mouth to correct him as well, but Craig beat her to it.

  “I lived next door to him for a good portion of my life,” he said. “And the word was apt.”

  “I’m a great roommate,” Eli muttered.

  “Maybe we should ask Isaac,” Aaron said. “He’s the one who had to actually share a room with you all those years.”

  “They all speak the truth,” Isaac said, pulling his shoes off. “Charlotte, you’d be better off moving in here than –“

  Charlotte cut him off, seeing the glare Eli shot his way.

  “He’s not my roommate,” she said, smiling. "He's my landlord."

  And at this, there was a collective groan from everyone.

  "Even worse," Craig murmured.

  "You all need to shut up," Eli told them. "Every last one of you. Except for PJ."

  And at that, his nephew laughed at him again, and Charlotte caught the hint of a smile on Eli's face.

  She loved this place, loved these people, and loved feeling at home here. As all the women came into the kitchen to begin moving the meal to the table, Charlotte joined them, feeling like she was part of the family, too.

  Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eli

  "Pass the meat lover's, meathead."

  Ahh, this was Thanksgiving. Or the day after Thanksgiving.

  He and Lottie were lounging around his place and doing absolutely nothing.

  Perfect.

  "Coming right up," he answered.

  With amazing skill (if he did say so himself), he expertly worked his toes underneath the box on the coffee table without knocking it off or turning it onto its side. Then, he began to move them. Up and down, up and down, he continued moving them until the box slid its way up past his ankle, where he could reach down from his comfortable perch on the sofa, side by side with Lottie, and grab it.

  He presented it to her with a flourish.

  "Your toe game is on point," she observed, taking a slice of pizza out of the box, admiration in her voice.

  On. Point.

  "Should have been a soccer player with that fancy footwork," he said. "Might look more like Isaac if I'd picked up more than just baseball, huh?"

  He glanced over at her, only to find her smiling at him knowingly.

  "Wouldn't be able to get any work done around the office if that was the case," she said, laughing at him.

  She was ribbing him. He knew this. She looked at Isaac like he was her younger brother, too, but because Eli had idiotically let her know years ago that the friendship between them was a little unnerving to him (he'd called her a cougar, if he could recall), she enjoyed poking at him every time Isaac was around.

  He thought back to the day before, how they'd helped the family decorate for Christmas after the big meal, how Isaac had called dibs on Charlotte and had taken her outside to start putting lights on the house.

  Eli had gone out after putting up the Christmas tree by himself (while the other women barked orders at him and sorted out ornaments while cackling like old hens) to find Lottie sitting on Isaac's shoulders, Craig handing her the strand of lights as she attached them to the house, clipping them in place alongside Aaron, who straightened it all out from the roof.

  Charlotte, sitting on Isaac's shoulders, like they were playing chicken at some pool party.

  He'd gone into the garage, grumbling, to find her a ladder. When he'd brought it out and looked at her pointedly, Isaac had said, "No, we're good. She's using me as her mobile ladder."

  "She's going to put kinks in your neck doing that," he'd noted irritably. "Can't throw the javelin or whatever it is when you can't turn your head because Lottie's crushed your neck with her thighs, you know."

  He hadn't meant to draw attention to her thighs (good grief, no), but his brothers had looked at him with reproach anyway.

  "Well, okay, Herbert," she'd said, a laugh in her voice. "Take your brother's place, then."

  He had, helping her down from Isaac and letting her climb up on his shoulders instead. She'd spent the rest of the afternoon doing her best to make it as unpleasant as possible, pretending to need to check her balance by cramming her fingers into his eyes, his mouth, his ears, and his nose, while he protested with, "For real, Charlotte?"

  "For real," she'd said. "These huge, man-kinking thighs of mine keep throwing me off balance."

  He'd been a little repentant later on about it, enough that he'd listened and actually given his blessing when Charlotte and Hope, after discussing something for a full hour off in the kitchen, had run a proposal by him.