love,” she said. “It’s too precious.”
“Rhys almost blew it,” Mariah added. “But finally he came around.”
“And so did Dominic. You have to start somewhere,” Sierra agreed.
“Ah, there they are!” Nathan’s father, Douglas, appeared, beaming in the doorway. “The three most beautiful women in the world!”
He kissed each of his daughters-in-law, and then he kissed Carin, stepped back, paused and held her cheeks between his palms. “Ah, Carin. When are you going to make an honest man out of that son of mine?”
“Dad!” Nathan came up behind him and got a headlock on his old man. “Leave the poor woman alone.”
“I was only asking,” Douglas protested, slipping out of Nathan’s grasp. “Just want her to know we’re all for it. You do know that, don’t you, Carin?”
Carin flushed. “Yes, Mr., er…yes, Douglas.”
“Dad sounds better, don’t you think?” He winked.
“I’m capable of doing my own proposing,” Nathan said through his teeth.
Douglas turned his gaze on his son. “But are you capable of getting her to say yes?”
A tide of red washed above the collar of Nathan’s shirt. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”
“No fighting in my kitchen.” Sierra advanced on them with a stirring spoon. “Out! Both of you.” She thrust a handful of silverware at her father-in-law. “Make yourself useful. Set the table.”
“Douglas has a subtle touch, doesn’t he?” Mariah said with a grin.
“Oh, yes,” Sierra agreed. They looked at each other and laughed. Then they grinned at Carin.
“He’s very fond of you,” Mariah told her.
“I jilted his son.”
“But you gave him a granddaughter. That cancels things out.”
Carin wasn’t sure she believed that. But Douglas certainly did have a soft spot for Lacey. And, happily, he didn’t say anything more during dinner about her getting together with Nathan.
Neither did anyone else. The talk was easy and general, and Carin let it wash over her as she listened to the various threads of conversation—the merits of a particular Yankee pitcher, the latest rock star Mariah had interviewed, the best fishing spots on the north shore of Long Island, whether or not Lily was teething—and enjoyed it all in spite of herself.
This was the sort of family she’d always dreamed of having.
An only child raised by a widowed father who had more time and interest for his business than he’d ever had for her, Carin had always dreamed of being a part of a family like this. When she’d agreed with her father’s estimation of Dominic as a good potential husband, it had been in part because she knew he had brothers and she’d hoped to become part of his family circle.
Of course she’d ruined that herself. And since then she’d learned that families could be created by love and effort, that the same blood didn’t have to run in people’s veins to make them family.
She had her own “created family” on the island. Maurice and Estelle included her and Lacey in their holiday gatherings. And in the past few years she and Hugh and a few of the other young unattached people on Pelican Cay had created a family of sorts.
But those “families,” wonderful though they were, didn’t yet have much history—not like the Wolfe brothers, who were, even in the middle of a lovely dinner, reminiscing about baseball games of their youth and whose bike had popped a tire at an inopportune moment and which brother caught the biggest fish the last time they were all at Pelican Cay, and not like Mariah and Sierra, who shared a history, too.
How wonderful it would have been to have had a family who would share such memories.
Even as she thought it, Carin watched Lacey’s expressions as she listened to her father and her uncles teasing and battling and arguing with each other. Her daughter’s gaze went from one to the other, as if she was watching a tennis match. And all the while she was grinning so much her smile seemed to wrap two times around her face.
Carin tried to remember the last time Lacey had looked that happy.
It was the night she’d come back from Nathan’s—the day he’d arrived—when she knew at last that her father loved her and that he’d come to Pelican Cay determined to make her part of his life.
Oh, Lacey.
“Tell me about your accident,” Douglas requested, interrupting Carin’s thoughts. “Nathan said he was terrified when you went over the handlebars. He thought you’d killed yourself.”
She dragged her gaze away from Lacey’s face. “I should have been going slower. I had to swerve when Zeno ran