reminded Aidan of Ellie and her ability to keep things running smoothly under any circumstance. Of course, everything lately reminded him of the woman waiting for him back home on Alleria. He couldn’t wait to go home and get her naked. There wasn’t a question in his mind but that she would want the same thing.
A few minutes later, Jake came running outside in fresh pajamas and shocked the hell out of Aidan by climbing onto his lap. Now the little guy was sound asleep in his arms. Talk about a sneak attack. Aidan couldn’t quite fathom how all these protective feelings for this scrawny little guy had cropped up.
Was this the kind of emotional stuff that dads went through? he wondered. Was this what he’d signed on for with Ellie? No, he realized quickly. If Ellie said yes to his offer tomorrow, Aidan would one day become a dad in name only. He would be there for financial support and the occasional family gathering. He rubbed his chest absently, relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with these overwhelming feelings of fear and concern and love and—
“Here you go.” Cameron handed him a heavy crystal glass of single malt scotch. “Don’t worry about waking up Jake. I swear that kid can sleep through earthquakes and enemy fire.”
Cameron sat and both men sipped their drinks in companionable silence, watching the activity around them.
“Time for jammies,” Brandon’s wife Kelly announced, and scooped tiny Robbie up off the lawn, where he’d been speed crawling, trying to make his escape. The kid put up a halfhearted fuss but after a moment, he laid his head on Kelly’s shoulder and closed his eyes.
“This one’s zonked out, too,” Adam said, and carried T.J. into the house. His wife Trish was already inside taking care of the latest addition to their family, two-month-old Annabelle.
Cameron shook his head. “Never thought the day would come when there’d be more kids than adults at a Duke brothers party.”
“The kids are great,” Aidan said, and took a sip of scotch.
Cameron laughed. “Spoken like a die-hard bachelor determined never to have any of his own.”
“Hey, I meant it,” Aidan protested, then shrugged sheepishly. “Is it that obvious?”
“I recognize the code words.” Cameron relaxed in his chair. “Kids are great as long as they’re someone else’s, right?”
Aidan chuckled. He might’ve been guilty of uttering those very words on more than one occasion. Oddly enough though, tonight he had liked the feel of Jake, trusting and sound asleep, tucked up against him. Wow. He couldn’t believe he’d just had that thought.
“I was never gonna have any of my own, either,” Cameron said. “None of us were. Hell, my brothers and I made a sacred pact when we were young. No marriage. No kids. Ever.”
Aidan frowned at the familiar sentiment. “So what happened?”
“Julia happened,” he said simply. “And Jake. Mom had something to say about it. Come to think of it, my brothers added their two cents’ worth, too.”
“Sounds like a united front. What’d they all say to change your mind?”
Just then, Julia stood and eased little Jake off of Aidan’s lap and into her arms. “I’ll take him in to bed.”
Cameron jumped up. “Let me do it.”
“No, you stay and talk to Aidan,” she said, and reached up and kissed him before walking away.
Aidan took another sip of scotch and wondered how quickly he could leave to get home to Ellie.
*
At fifty thousand feet, Aidan stared out the window at the cloud cover below. He and his father and taken care of their family business so Aidan had left a day early, anxious to get back to the island. So far, he’d spent most of the flight reminiscing about the last few days with his father and Sally and the rest of the Dukes. It was still a little weird to realize that he and his dad and brother were suddenly part of a great big loving family they’d never known until two years ago.
And he wondered what it said about him that he could still feel the imprint of little Jake’s slippery wet fingers clinging to his shoulders in the pool. The kid had gotten to him, along with the rest of the brood.
Who’d have guessed that he and Logan would end up with a loud, active extended family after all these years? Growing up, it had been the three of them alone: Aidan, his brother and their dad. But now things were changing. Their family was changing and growing. Was that