Patrick said. He lifted Hank off his younger brother. “Dinner’s ready. You can finish this later.”
“No, they can’t,” Diana said. “Go wash up. Grams has got your dinner in the kitchen. The rest of you come on. Dinner’s on the table.”
The adults crowded around the long table in the dining room. Once her dad finished the prayer, bowls and platters began moving from person to person, the only sound being the clank of the serving spoon on the china as the food moved from serving dishes to individual plates.
“Holly, did I tell you about the new guy in our department who just moved here from Colorado?” Patrick said.
“Nice guy,” Lawrence interjected.
“Nope. Not interested,” Holly said and took a long sip of wine.
She knew her family meant well, but ever since her husband had died, they’d tried to fix her up with men. At first, after Steve died, she’d been too emotionally destroyed to think about seeing other men. After a couple of years of widowhood, she’d gone on some dates. Wow. Wrong decision.
It had seemed like every date had wanted to “help” her end her self-imposed celibacy. Oh, if she wanted dinner, too…well, they could talk about it.
If her date wasn’t one-hundred percent sex-on-the-brain, then he was looking-for-a-mother for his children.
After the fifth- or sixth-blind date—she’d tried to erase them all from her memory—she’d put the brakes on her family fix-ups and any other blind dates from friends. She knew her friends and family meant well, and all they wanted was for her to be happy again. None of them would accept she was content being a mom, teacher, and summer lifeguard. She didn’t have to have a man in her life. Sure, it’d be nice, but she wasn’t looking. Maybe when Katie started college, but until then, she was fine as is.
Being from a family of cops, her dad and brothers were always trying to fix her up with fellow cops. Her late husband had been a San Diego patrol officer when he’d been killed in the line of duty. She’d had enough the of the uniform, thankyouverymuch.
For the past six years, she’d batted away every match-making attempt from family and friends. Once her mother had asked if she preferred women, and was quick to assure Holly that the family would be fine with that. Holly had laughed and told her mom that she loved her, but she was definitely into men, not women.
Her mother had been married to her father for over forty years. She couldn’t understand why Holly wouldn’t want that, too.
Finally, Holly gave up explaining and just politely refused, even when her brothers went behind her back and slipped her phone number to single guys they knew and approved of.
At tonight’s dinner, her father even got into the discussion about how great this new guy was and how Holly should at least give him a chance. She couldn’t say what came over her at dinner. All she remembered was setting her fork on her plate, gently wiping her mouth with her napkin and announcing, “I’m seeing someone right now, so no thank you on the blind date.”
Forks paused in mid-bites. Heads and gazes turned to her. A frown arched her mother’s eyebrows.
“You are?” Patricia said. “Who? Why haven’t you brought him around? Do we know him? Does he work with your father?”
Then the questions from the other family members at the table began overlapping as each had his or her own question about this mystery man in Holly’s life.
Finally, she put two fingers to her lips and whistled for quiet. “You do not know him. Katie doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know I’ve been seeing someone, and I want to keep it that way, so….” She glared at her three brothers. “No interrogation of the minor child. She knows nothing.”
“So, who is he?” Bethany, her sister-in-law-to-be asked.
Holly pointed her fork at her brothers and then her father. “Those four will do all kinds of background checks if I tell you anything, so no names. Well, his first name is Ben. That should keep them busy looking up all the Bens, Benjamins, Bentleys or whatever in the area.”
“What does he look like?” her sister-in-law asked. “Tall, dark, and handsome?”
Holly pictured the man she’d seen for the past couple of years jogging on Coronado Beach. Sunday’s breakfast at the Breakfast Club Cafe had been her first up-close-and-personal look at him—and holy moly. She might have drooled a little. Then when he’d pulled in that drowning surfer, she’d been