“I will,” he assured her. “Quixie is not for sale.”

She changed the subject in a hurry. “I saved some of your chocolate groom cake from the wedding. It seemed like such a shame to throw it out. I thought we’d have it for dessert.”

“Fine,” Mason said, leaning back against the counter. “Sorry I jumped on you. Need me to do anything?”

“Not a thing,” Celia said, unwrapping the steaks. “I have everything completely under control.”

“As always,” Mason said. He regretted it the minute the words were out of his mouth.

She wheeled around to face him with a mock pout. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Mason said. “It’s a compliment. You’re the most organized, efficient woman I’ve ever met.”

She frowned, and a deep crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Honey, it doesn’t exactly sound like a compliment to me. You make it sound like I’m some kind of control freak or something.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “Look, let’s not fight, okay?”

Celia centered the romaine on a cutting board and began whacking at it with a large sharp knife. “This isn’t a fight,” she said, slamming the knife’s edge against the hapless romaine. “It’s a constructive conversation. If we’re going to make this marriage work, we have to get things out in the open, Mason. So, I need you to know that it hurts me when you make derogatory comments about me.” She took another whack at the lettuce, sending bits of it flying.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, picking a piece of romaine from his eyebrow. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“See?” she said brightly. “Communication. It’s the key to everything.”

“Right,” he said, feeling his jaw muscle twitch.

She sighed dramatically. “Sweetheart, while we’re on the topic, I really think we need to talk about Sophie, and the way she spoke to me today, at the hospital. She treats me as though I’m the wicked stepmother—and you know I’ve gone out of my way to treat her like my own child.”

Mason winced, and his jaw twitched again. Twice. “She’s just a little girl, Celia. And remember, she just had surgery.”

“I know, poor little angel. I just think you need to be a little stricter with her. Or let me deal with her, when it’s an issue that affects me.” She gave that little laugh again. “Honestly, I know everybody means well, but between you and Pokey and Annajane, you’ve all managed to spoil the child rotten.”

“Spoiled?” One of his dark eyebrows shot upward. “Sophie’s a nice, normal little kid. Somedays she acts out, cuts up. But that doesn’t make her spoiled.”

Celia began scooping the lettuce into a wooden bowl. “Look. I get that she feels threatened by me. I mean, Sophie’s been daddy’s girl her whole life, and she’s had you all to herself. Until I came along and changed everything. I totally understand that. But I need you to back me up when it comes to disciplining her.”

“Let me get this straight,” Mason said, his fists clamped tight on the countertop. “You’re calling Sophie spoiled and me spineless? Is this your idea of a constructive conversation?

“No!” Celia cried. “Oh, I’m just no good at this. You know I adore Sophie. But I think she’d be happier with some guidelines. I want her to see me as an equal in her parenting. Mason, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Never mind. I don’t want our nice evening spoiled.”

Celia gathered up the discarded steak wrappings and lettuce bits. She flipped the trash can lid to dump them in and spied the large Smokey Pig takeout bag. She held the bag up for Mason to see. “What’s this?”

“Lunch?”

“Mason!” She dropped the bag back into the trash and put her hands on her hips. “You’ve already eaten dinner, haven’t you? Why didn’t you say something?”

“More like a late lunch,” Mason protested. “But it was hardly anything. I’m still starved.”

“You’re just trying to humor me,” Celia said. She dumped the bag and food scraps into the trash with a huge, martyred sigh. “Never mind. I’ll just fix myself a salad. Will you still want dessert?”

“I had lunch hours and hours ago,” Mason said. “Besides, you haven’t eaten, have you? Come on, let’s fix dinner together.” He picked up the steaks. “You want me to grill these?”

“No,” Celia said petulantly. “It’ll take too long for the coals to get ready. I’ll just pan sauté them.” She grabbed a skillet from the pot rack hanging over the kitchen island and dropped it onto the range.

Mason took a step backward. “I’ll open some wine. White, right?”

“Never mind the wine.” Celia drizzled olive oil into the pan and turned on the burner. “I’m getting one of my stress headaches. The last thing I need now is wine.”

But wine was what he really, really needed right now, especially if she was getting one of her headaches. He opened a bottle of burgundy and poured a hefty serving into one of the fancy ultrathin Riedel wineglasses they’d gotten as a wedding gift. At the last moment, the lip of the wine bottle clinked against the goblet. Ching. A wedge-shaped chunk of glass fell neatly onto the countertop.

“Damn,” Mason said. He opened the cupboard and reached for his favorite cut-glass old-fashioned tumbler and transferred the burgundy out of the ruined Riedel.

Before he could stop her, Celia swept the wine glass into the trash. “It’s all right,” she said. “I can always order more from the store in Charlotte.”

“Sorry,” Mason said under his breath. “I’m gonna get out of your hair now. Call me if you need me to do something.” He picked up his wineglass and retreated to the study.

But not a lot of studying got done. He made notes on the margins of the reports, began working on a draft of a memo to Davis, and read more e-mails, but from the clatter of pots and pans and the slam of cupboard doors coming from the kitchen, he could tell things were not going well.

He googled Jax Snax on his computer and was amazed by the number of hits his search brought up. Jax had been on a shopping binge for sure. Just within the past year, in addition to the cookie company and potato chip outfit Celia told him about, Jaz had bought up a family-owned soft-pretzel baker out of Pennsylvania called Dutch Uncle and a popcorn outfit from Iowa called Poppinz’. As he scrolled down the list of stories mentioning Jax Snax, he spied a reference from Beverage World that was only two months old. He clicked on the citation and read with alarm.

Jax Snax CEO Jerry Kelso confirmed that his company is on the hunt for a small-to-average-sized regional soft drink bottler to add to their mix of businesses. “We’ve got the expertise, the distribution channels and the proven success story in the convenience food business,” he said in a recent interview. “We’re looking at several options right now, including one novelty soft drink bottler in the Carolinas that we think could be ripe for the picking.”

Mason slapped the cover of his laptop.

“Celia,” he hollered.

She didn’t answer. She was still out in the kitchen banging pots and pans around. He didn’t get the big deal about dinner. He didn’t get her compulsion to prove to him that she could cook. There were restaurants in Passcoe, not a lot, but enough that they’d never starve. They belonged to the country club and could eat there any night except Mondays, when the club was closed, and, anyway, he was a pretty decent cook himself. He’d fended for himself all those years after he and Annajane broke up, hadn’t he?

“Damn!”

He looked up to see Celia standing in the doorway, holding her cell phone and looking supremely pissed off.

“Something wrong?”

“Your mother just called,” Celia said. “It’s my aunt Eleanor. She was napping in her room, and Sallie went to check on her, and according to your mother, there’s something wrong with Aunt Eleanor’s breathing.”

Mason stood up abruptly. “Do we need to get a doctor? Take her to the hospital?”