Pretending I couldn’t give a shit, I grinned at Eilidh. She seemed happy to be in her uncle’s arms, but she was staring at me with big, beautiful blue-gray eyes. Her gaze dropped to my cheek, and she lifted a small hand as if to touch me.

“Why do your cheeks do that when you smile?” she asked.

“Do what?” I teased, knowing exactly what she was talking about. I’d inherited my father’s dimples.

“That!” She giggled, pointing at my left cheek.

“They’re dimples, Eilidh,” Thane answered.

“But why?”

Perhaps being in Scotland, surrounded by lilting Scottish accents, I was reminded of a story Mac once told to explain my dimples. “Fairies gave them to me. You see, when they wander out of Faerie and into our world, they don’t want humans to know what they are, and having fairy dust on them would be a big giveaway. So they made these little pockets in my cheeks so they can hide their fairy dust in them.”

“Really?” Eilidh was wide-eyed.

I nodded.

“Uh-uh,” Lewis disputed. “Fairies aren’t real.”

“Yeah, they are!” Eilidh disagreed vehemently. “Uncle Mac says so!”

I tried not to be annoyed by the realization that after Mac had left Robyn to rot in Boston, he’d made an entirely new life for himself in Scotland where these little kids called him uncle. “It was Mac who told me about my dimples and the fairy dust.” My smile wavered just as I met Lachlan’s gaze, and something sharpened in his.

I glanced away but found myself snared in the curiosity that lit Thane’s eyes.

“You know, I’m a little hungry.” I backed toward the house.

“That’s why I came out.” Lachlan turned to Thane. “Robyn’s ordered enough takeaway to feed an army. Do you and the kids want to join us? She ordered everything from Chinese to chicken nuggets.”

“Chicken nuggets!” Eilidh yelled with more enthusiasm than I’d felt for anything in years. Lachlan winced, even as his shoulders shook with amusement.

His brother’s eyes flicked to me. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, definitely. The kids are a nice distraction for Robyn.”

From me?

Ouch.

“I’m not sure.”

“Please, Dad.” Lewis tugged on his sweater.

“Chicken”—Eilidh’s voice deepened hilariously, her eyes taking on a wild madness as she stared at her father—“nuuuggeeets.”

We all laughed and for a moment, it broke the tension.

Maybe the kids were an excellent distraction.

3

Regan

So was Thane’s wife not in the picture? I wondered as everyone put together plates of food at the nearby kitchen island before settling at the large dining table. There had been no mention of asking a wife to join us for dinner, so I assumed Thane was divorced. He didn’t wear a wedding ring.

Watching Eilidh point out to her dad what she wanted on her plate, I piped up, “Why don’t you make a chicken nugget mash bowl?”

Eilidh stared at me with round eyes, her expression intrigued. “What’s that?”

I looked at Thane. “May I?”

He nodded and stepped away from the island. “Have at it.”

“So.” I grinned at Eilidh as I got up from my seat and went to her. “I can pretty much make chicken nuggets into twenty different meals.”

“It’s true,” Robyn agreed, and my heart lightened at her nostalgic smile. “Regan was the neighborhood babysitter, and then she was a nanny during the summers for a few years. She got creative recreating takeout food.”

From the age of thirteen, I babysat the neighborhood kids. It was how I made a little extra cash throughout high school. I liked kids. They were sweet and funny and guileless. Because of that, I’d started taking on summer nanny positions for families during their school breaks. I worked as a nanny every summer from eighteen to twenty-two.

“Surprising,” Lachlan murmured. “The nanny part, that is.”

His insinuation made me defensive. “Why?”

He seemed unperturbed by the slight bite in my tone. “You just don’t seem like the responsible type.”

“Lachlan,” Robyn warned.

I didn’t want her sticking up for me when she was the reason he thought I was a useless flake. “I see my sister has been filling your head with the crap our parents filled her head with.”

Lachlan raised an eyebrow while Robyn stiffened in her seat. She opened her mouth to answer, but I looked away and smiled down at Thane’s daughter and teased, “Okay, so don’t freak out, but I’m gonna cut up the nuggets.”

Eilidh’s eyes got bigger, but she nodded with trust.

Grinning through the tension emanating from the adults in the room, I quickly set to work scooping some mashed potatoes from the takeout container into a bowl. I then arranged the chicken nuggets around the edges of the mash. There wasn’t any gravy, but there was ketchup. I shook the bottle at her. “You like?”

She nodded as she threw her arms out wide. “This much.”

Chuckling, I drizzled the ketchup over the mash and chicken nuggets and carried it to the table for her. “Enjoy.”

She dove in that bowl with so much delight, a person might think I’d given her a golden crown. Thane gave me a nod of thanks and took a seat to eat his dinner.

I sat next to Lewis, across from Robyn, and said, “Next time, I’ll show you how to do chicken nugget nachos.”

“I’d like that too,” Lewis said.

“Yeah?”

He nodded and took a bite out of a burger. Robyn really had ordered everything she could think of.

“What else can you make?” Lewis asked around a mouthful.

“Please swallow before you talk,” Thane admonished in a tone that suggested he’d said the same thing a million times before.

“Anything a six-year-old would want to eat, Regan can do it,” my sister answered for me.

“Actually, my cooking skills have progressed a little since high school. I took a few cooking classes when I was in Europe and Asia.”

“Cooking classes in Europe and Asia.” Robyn whistled. “How very cultured of you.”

Thankfully, Eilidh spoke up so I could avoid my sister’s passive-aggressive comment. “This. Is. SO. GOOD.” She banged her fork on the table in emphasis.

“Yeah? Can I have a bite?”

She nodded enthusiastically and pushed the bowl across the table toward me. I took a scoopful of ketchup-soaked nuggets and mash on my fork. Chewing it, I nodded, my eyes dramatic and round. When I swallowed, I agreed, “So. Good.”

Her answering grin was the cutest thing I’d ever seen, her little face lighting up. When she spoke again, it was with kid randomness. “I love your nail varnish. Will you paint my nails?”

“I don’t know. That’s up to your dad.”

Thane shook his head. “You’re too young for nail varnish.”

“But, Daddy!”

Sensing a tantrum on the horizon, I intervened, “Nail polish is for when you’re older. But I could braid your hair. Have you ever worn a fishtail braid?”