After saying goodbye to his family, Mary turned to Jack with a smile. “What do you say we walk off some of that pasta?”
She’d never felt so comfortable—or so completely alive—with anyone else. It was just as natural to laugh and talk with Jack as it was to enjoy the quiet night as they made their way down the city sidewalk.
“Your family is wonderful,” she said as she linked her fingers with his.
“They obviously feel the same way about you. Claudia was clearly thrilled about no longer being the odd woman out with all of us boys. And she'll never forget that you made dinner so that she could put her feet up for a little while.”
“Your brother and his wife seem so happy together.”
“They definitely are now, although like Claudia said, it was a pretty big mess at first. Max was a basket case, falling in love with her while she was engaged to his best friend. He was pretty badly torn up about it. I spent more than a few nights closing down the bars with him back then.”
While all of the Sullivan men had the same rugged good looks, each of the brothers she’d met tonight had very different personalities. Max had been the easygoing one. Ethan was sharper, darker somehow. And Jack, well, not only was he brilliant and focused, but he was also the only one who made her heart beat hard and her lips tingle with pleasure even before he’d pressed his mouth to hers.
She’d loved seeing how close Jack was to his brothers. And despite the differences and the disagreements four brothers that close in age must have had over the years, it was clear that they’d do anything for one another. What’s more, tonight she’d felt as if he’d welcomed her into his family without any reservations whatsoever…whereas she’d been so afraid to let him do more than kiss her.
“They’re all so proud of you.” Every time his invention had come up during dinner, his family had been extremely supportive and excited.
“My brothers have all been really successful with their careers, but they never tried to get me to leave my dusty garage. I guess they figured if my vision didn’t end up working out, they knew I could come to them for help.”
“That’s why you never needed to,” she marveled, “because you really did know they’d always be there for you. No matter what.”
“Always.”
“When I was a little girl I thought that, too, about my own family. But—” Not wanting to ruin a perfect evening with self-pity, she tried to brush away her comment. “Listen to me, sounding like I’m still that little girl when it’s been long enough for me to have gotten over it by now.”
Jack squeezed her hand. “We all want our families to approve of us and the dreams we’re chasing.”
“Why aren’t you married already, Jack?”
Mary gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but when he kept saying such sweet things, she simply couldn’t understand why he hasn’t already been snapped up.
“That didn’t come out quite right. I just meant that not only have you got two great examples of happy marriages between your parents and your brother, but, at this point, most men would be running away as fast as they could from their weepy dinner date who can’t seem to get over something that happened when she was a teenager.”
“Even though I can see that my brother Max is happy, and that my parents have something really special with each other, it never occurred to me to look for a wife or to start a family. Not when work always came first.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed. “The timing has to be right—otherwise you could end up losing the woman you’re supposed to be with, like Max almost did.”
“You know what?” Jack stroked his thumb over her palm, sending shivers through her that had nothing to do with the cool night air. “I don’t think bad timing is the entire answer anymore.”
Her senses came completely alive as she asked, “It isn’t?”
“Now I know that when I meet the right woman, I won’t have any problem at all making time for her. In fact,” he said as his gaze locked on hers, “it will be the most natural, easy thing in the world to put her first.”
Her heart fluttered in her chest as she realized they were standing at the base of her front steps. And as she drank in Jack’s rugged beauty in the winter moonlight, Mary couldn’t stop thinking about what Claudia had said: “We both tried to fight what we felt for each other for a long time. But eventually, neither of us could fight what was meant to be.”
Why, she had to ask herself, was she still fighting so hard against what she’d felt for Jack Sullivan from the first moment she’d set eyes on him?
What if they were meant to be?
“I don’t want to say goodnight yet,” she whispered.
“Neither do I.”
Jack put his arms around her and pulled her in tight to him so that his face was buried in her hair and her cheek was pressed to his broad chest. She could have stood in the circle of his strong arms until sunrise.
But she wanted more.
Which meant that she would finally have to be brave enough to risk not only her body…but her heart, too.