by Bella Andre
“Thanks. I’m always happy when I can work on something my nephew and my cousins’ kids can watch.”
“What are you working on now?”
“A Japanese anime series.” Flynn recognized the name Turner gave him, though he hadn’t read the books the series was based on. “What about you?”
“I’m sitting on a partial screenplay. Although I haven’t been able to do much with it in the past few weeks.” Again, he wasn’t sure how much Cassie’s family knew, but he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t at least tell them the same truth he’d already admitted to her. Hoping that none of them would spread the news any further than this house, he said, “My sister passed away three weeks ago. Ruby is her daughter.” His chest clenched as he looked across the kitchen at the little girl who meant everything to him. “She’s mine now.”
Everyone told him how sorry they were about his sister, then Beth called from the stove, where she and Ruby were stirring something in a big pot, “If you need help babysitting, I’m more than happy to help.”
“That’s very generous of you, but I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Are you kidding?” Cassie said. “I haven’t seen Mom look this happy since Kevin was a baby.”
“Truly,” Beth agreed as she stepped away from the stove to lower Ruby to the floor to meet the dog, “it would be my pleasure to spend a few hours a day with this little cutie while you’re staying in town.”
All of them, all of this, was so nice. Too nice. Flynn was afraid to trust it. Afraid to let himself enjoy it. Afraid that just when he let his defenses down, it would all disappear as though it had been nothing more than a mirage.
Lola, who didn’t seem at all shy, elbowed him in the ribs when he didn’t reply quickly enough for her liking. “Say yes, or you’ll break her heart.”
Flynn desperately needed the hours with his screenplay. What’s more, every day for the past three weeks, he and Ruby had been attached at the hip. Literally, she sat on his hip most hours, her arms around his neck.
The last thing he wanted to do was let Ruby leave his side when he couldn’t shake the fear that something might happen to her while he was gone. But courtesy of the countless baby books he’d read while Ruby slept in his arms, he also knew this wasn’t a healthy pattern to set. He needed to create some independence and boundaries for both of them before they created an unbreakable, and untenable, routine.
In the end, however, what swayed him was seeing how happy Ruby was in the Sullivan family home as she patted the dog’s fur.
Beth said, “Doggy.”
Ruby made a happy sound, one that was nowhere close to doggy but filled his heart all the same.
“In that case,” he said, “I’ll take you up on your generous offer.”
Cassie’s mother’s grin lit up the room. “Did you hear that, Ruby? The two of us are going to have so much fun!” She clapped her hands, and the baby mimicked her. “I set up a portable crib and baby monitor in one of the bedrooms for tonight so that you can tuck Ruby in when she gets tired, instead of trying to keep her up until the end of dinner. And I’ve made some more apple puree if you think she’s hungry now.”
“I’m sure she is. Although you didn’t have to do that.” He pulled several covered bowls out of the baby bag and placed them on the kitchen island next to the high chair they had put out for Ruby. “She liked what you made at your café so much that I experimented with making a few purees for her too.”
He put Ruby in the high chair, wiped her hands clean of dog hair with baby wipes from his bag, and tied a bib around her neck. Though she wasn’t thrilled about being taken away from her new furry best friend, as soon as she realized it was dinnertime, her eyes lit up.
Grabbing her purple plastic spoon, she dove into her food as soon as he pulled the top off the plastic container. Soon, pureed vegetables were flying onto her face, clothes, and hair.
Ashley laughed. “Kevin was just like that when he was a baby. His food went everywhere but in his mouth. But boy, did he have a great time eating.”
“What was I like?”
Flynn turned to see Ashley’s son standing at the kitchen door that led to the lush, well-landscaped backyard.
Ashley smiled at her son. “Kevin, this is Cassie’s friend Flynn and his little girl, Ruby.”
Flynn went over to shake the boy’s hand. “Hi there. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hey.” Kevin’s grip was surprisingly strong. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
Flynn remembered being that age, halfway between a kid and a teenager. His body had felt like it was growing too fast and in weird ways. Girls were suddenly interesting, but he hadn’t been sure why.
Ten was also when he’d finally been unable to ignore how different his family was from everyone else’s. They weren’t really one, for starters. And the other kids at school all turned on him, saying his parents were dirty and smelly and drunks and losers.
“I was just saying how much you liked playing with your food when you were Ruby’s age.”
At last, Ruby noticed Kevin. Her eyes grew big. As far as Flynn knew, she’d never played with another kid before. She couldn’t take her eyes off Ashley’s son.
“I could help you feed her if you want.” Kevin tried to say it like he didn’t care either way, but it was obvious he was just as curious about Ruby as she was about him.
“Sure,” Flynn said. “I’ll bet she’d love that.”
“Wash your hands first.” Ashley shuttled him over to the sink, where he did the world’s fastest soap-up-and-rinse. “And be careful with her. She’s really tiny.”
“She’s not that tiny.” He walked over to her high chair. “Hi, Ruby.” He spoke to her as though she were a peer, rather than nearly ten years younger. “I’m Kevin.” Ruby’s one-toothed grin was her own brand of introduction. “What do you want to eat next?” He squinted at the bowls. “How about this green stuff?”
“Peas,” Flynn supplied.
Kevin made a face—ewww, peas—but he fed it to her anyway. When that bowl was empty, he moved on to the apple puree Beth slid in front of them.
That was when it hit Flynn that he didn’t need to stand guard over Ruby in Cassie’s parents’ house.
It was the strangest feeling.
For the past three weeks, since he’d paid off his sister’s friend so that he could bring Ruby home with him, every breath he took, every move he made, had been with Ruby’s safety and happiness at the forefront. Heck, until Beth had taken Ruby into the kitchen at the café, he hadn’t let her out of his sight.
An unexpected wave of relief moved through him. Not because he was glad to be free from watching over Ruby for a little while. It wasn’t that at all.
No, it was relief at having unexpectedly found a group of truly good people. And knowing instinctively that they wouldn’t hurt his little girl—unlike people in Hollywood, who were only after the biggest paycheck they could get selling their stories. Granted, Smith and Valentina were two of the best people he’d met in Los Angeles, but he’d always felt that they were an anomaly.
From a writer’s perspective, Flynn couldn’t help but be intrigued. How had they built such a loving family? What were their motivations and goals? What life experiences had made each of them who they were? Especially Cassie’s parents.
“Everything is ready to be brought to the table,” Beth announced. “Flynn, why don’t you move Ruby to the high chair in the dining room?”
After transferring Ruby, he sat on one side of her, while Kevin claimed the other side. She seemed to be full, so he put a few plastic toys on the tray for her to rattle and chew on. By the time he looked up from rooting around in her baby bag, a feast had been laid out on the large dining room table.
“This all looks delicious, Beth.” His mother had barely been able to boil water without setting the house on fire. Honestly, until tonight, he hadn’t realized family meals like this even existed outside of movies and TV shows, where he’d ass
umed they must be figments of the writer’s imagination. “When did you learn to cook so well?”
“My grandmother was the best cook on the west coast of Ireland. I grew up in the kitchen helping her with whatever she would let me get my hands into. When it came time to have a career of my own, cooking was all I wanted to do.”
Cassie smiled as she told him, “My parents met in Ireland when my dad ate at my mom’s restaurant for the first time.”
“It wasn’t my restaurant,” Beth clarified. “Have you heard of Ashford Castle?”
“I spent a few nights at Ashford Castle when I was doing some research for a movie. It’s a very impressive hotel.” And the location couldn’t be beat—on the Mayo-Galway border on the shore of Lough Corrib. “You were chef at the George V?”
Beth laughed, shaking her head. “I was at the very bottom of the totem pole, barely a step up from dishwasher, which I also did when they needed someone to fill in.”
“Dad—” Cassie turned to her father. “Tell Flynn how you reacted when you tasted Mom’s food for the first time.”
Her father held Flynn’s gaze for a beat longer than was comfortable. Though Ruby had come through with flying colors, Flynn knew he was still on shaky ground. Especially with Cassie’s brother Rory and her father, who had eyed him in silence since he’d walked in the front door.
Finally, Ethan spoke. “I had never tasted anything so good in all my life. Leek and potato soup with warm soda bread.” He licked his lips just thinking of it. “I had to meet the person who made it.”
Flynn flashed back to the Japanese-inspired candy Cassie had given him to taste earlier that evening. He had already been intrigued by her—but after tasting the breathtakingly good candy that she’d made with her own talented hands, he was downright fascinated.
“He nearly got me fired.” Beth pretended to scowl at her husband, but it was clear that her words were full of love. “You see, he hadn’t ordered off the extensive menu. Instead, he’d told his waitress that he was sick of fancy five-star restaurant food and wanted to eat good, simple country cooking that an Irish family would eat in their own home. Since the chef was in a meeting with the manager of the hotel, my friend who took his order goaded me into making my grandmother’s specialty.”
Ethan reached for her hand, staring into her eyes. “It was absolute perfection. To this day, I’ve never been able to adequately describe just how happy your food made me.”
“And I’ve never been able to adequately describe the look on the chef’s face when he realized he hadn’t made the meal you were going on and on about.” Beth made a face as she explained to Flynn, “Chef was furious when he came back to the kitchen to find out who had made the abomination. All these years later and I’m still quaking in my shoes at the memory of it.”
But Ethan was shaking his head as though to disagree with her on that point. “I didn’t notice any part of you quaking when you finally agreed to come out so that I could lavish on you the praise you deserved. Only that you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
“You weren’t too bad yourself,” she said with a grin. “But you still had a tan line on your ring finger.” Beth turned back to Flynn as she added, “A good Irish girl made sure to notice things like that, especially when she worked at an international hotel full of men who were more than happy to hide their wedding rings during business trips.”
“I was newly divorced and had just sold my company,” Ethan explained. “Traveling around Ireland exploring my roots was my way of working out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.” He put his hand over Beth’s. “You weren’t the least bit impressed with me, were you?”
“You already knew how impressive you were, given that everywhere you went, women fell at your feet. It seemed far safer simply to be your friend.”
Cassie’s father sighed. “It took me two months to convince Beth to date me, and six more before she agreed to marry me and move to America. She not only showed me the Ireland of her heart during those months, she also fed me her favorite dishes, one after the other. By the time we left, I knew I wanted to share my newfound love for Ireland—the food, the people, and especially this beautiful woman sitting beside me—with the world.”
“Thank you for telling me your story.” Even if Flynn had sat down with a list of questions for Cassie’s parents, he doubted he’d have been given such insight into them. As he always did, he stored away the information to utilize for possible characters in his screenplays.
Now that he had told his own story, Ethan turned his hawklike gaze on Flynn and asked, “What brings you to Maine?”
“I thought it would do Ruby and me some good to get out of Los Angeles.”
“Why is that, exactly?”
That was the question he’d hoped no one would ask. It figured Cassie’s super-protective father would aim straight for it with an arrow.
Before he could reply, Cassie knocked over her glass, spilling water onto both of their plates.
“Oops! Flynn, can you help me clean up?” She was already standing and had both of their plates in hand. “You guys keep eating.”
She looked upset as she scraped their soggy food into the garbage. “I’m sorry for that. My dad knows better than to stick his nose into your business. And he wasn’t even subtle about it!”
“Don’t be sorry.” Flynn was surprised to realize how much he hated seeing Cassie upset. “I’m having a good time. So is Ruby.”
“Are you sure? Because we can leave if—”
“Cassie.” He tugged on her hands to get her to stop apologizing, inadvertently pulling her closer. “Everything’s okay. You don’t have to fight my battles for me.”
“You shouldn’t have to fight them alone.”
No one had ever said something like that to him before. “Cassie—”
Lola burst through the kitchen doorway, causing Cassie to pull her hands from his and jump back as though they’d been caught doing something illicit.
“You guys okay in here? Because Papa Bear is starting to get restless with the two of you out of his sight.”
Cassie shot Flynn an embarrassed look. But he got it: Ethan Sullivan would do anything to protect his children, just as Flynn would go to the ends of the earth to keep Ruby from harm.
* * *
Thankfully, the rest of dinner passed without incident.
Ruby slept in the portable crib in a back bedroom for most of dessert, with Kevin staying near to make sure she didn’t wake up frightened at being alone.
Flynn had seemed to enjoy discussing great filmmakers with Turner. He was also surprisingly knowledgeable about couture fashion houses, due to research he’d done for a screenplay early on in his career, which meant that he and Lola got on like a house on fire. He’d even managed to get Ashley to talk about her job managing the family business, which was an impressive feat, given that she tended to be quieter than the rest of them. And then, he’d offered to wash the dishes, which had endeared him even further to her mother.
Only Rory and Dad had been holdouts. Cassie had always respected her dad and brother, confident that they only ever acted out of love for her. But she couldn’t see what they hoped to gain by behaving like this tonight.
They were clearing the table when a wail sounded from the baby monitor. A beat later, Kevin came running out. “Ruby’s upset!”
Cassie could see the fear on Flynn’s face as he raced into the bedroom, Kevin on his heels. She wanted to go with him, wanted to reassure him that whatever Ruby needed, he would be able to give her.
Before she could, Kevin ran back out with an update.
“Her diaper was full.” He scrunched up his face. “Really full of poo.”
Ashley laughed. “In that case, let’s give Ruby and Flynn some space to take care of the situation. You can help clear the table.”
A few minutes later, Flynn walked out with Ruby in his arms. She was rubbing her eyes and looked like she might start crying again at any moment. “B
eth, would you mind if I took a rain check on the dishes? I think it’s time to get Ruby home to bed.”
Warmth spread in Cassie’s chest that he’d called her cabin home.
“Of course.” Beth gave Ruby a kiss and both of them a hug. “Thank you for joining us tonight. We’re all so glad you came.” Cassie couldn’t help but think that her mother had deliberately used the word all to try to overcome her husband’s obvious reticence. “And don’t forget, I’m planning to start babysitting tomorrow. How does nine to noon sound for our first day?”
“It sounds great. And you’re a marvelous cook, Beth. Thank you for the best dinner I ever had.” He looked around at Cassie’s siblings and her father. “Ruby and I appreciate the warm welcome to Bar Harbor.” Then he shook hands with her brothers, father, and Kevin—whose chest puffed up with pride at being counted among the men—and hugged her sisters.
As Cassie walked Flynn and Ruby to his car, which he’d left by her office, he said, “You’ve got a great family.”
“I know. Although I’m sorry that my dad and Rory were acting a little weird. I honestly don’t know what their problem is tonight.”
“I do.” Just then, Ruby leaned forward to put her arms around Cassie’s neck for a cheek nuzzle, and Flynn moved closer too. “You’re a beautiful, kind, talented woman, and they want to protect you from anyone they think isn’t good enough for you.”
Stunned, she felt her mouth drop open. “But they’ve got to know you couldn’t possibly be interested in me!”
He was standing near enough for her to see the golden flecks in his blue eyes as he said, “A man would have to be a fool not to be interested.”
She couldn’t breathe quite right as he stepped away to buckle Ruby into her car seat.
Then he said, “Good night, Cassie,” and drove away.
* * *
By the time Cassie got back to the house, her parents were relaxing with a glass of port on the backyard patio, while her siblings washed pots and dishes in the kitchen. Taking her place in the cleaning assembly line, she picked up a towel to dry the plates that had been washed.
“Your date doesn’t like talking about himself much.” Rory had a cynical glint in his eyes as he scrubbed a frying pan. “Almost like he’s got something to hide.”
