A flutter of excitement hit me as we headed out to the dock. I had never fished before, and I had a feeling I was going to be useless at it, but that didn’t mean I was any less eager to spend time with my two favorite guys in the world.

“So you’re going to show me what I’m doing?” I asked Hunter, turning to him in the back seat of the car. Holden was driving us down from their place where we’d headed the night before after picking him up from Raymond’s house. It had been beyond sweet to make breakfast with the two of them together before we headed out for our day on the boat.

“I’ll try.” Hunter nodded like it was some great and noble task he had landed, and he took it very seriously. “It’s not hard when you get the hang of it, but most of it is about luck at the start.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” I said. “I’ve never been very good at outdoor pursuits.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll show you everything you need to know.” Holden flashed me a smile in the mirror, and I returned it. I couldn’t believe I’d tried to walk away from this. Though I knew intellectually that I’d had my reasons, the thought of missing out on this, on anything I had shared with them over the last few days, made my heart ache. I was so glad to be here, and I would do my best to stem the roiling mess of insecurity swelling and threatening to take me over sometimes. I was going to have to get used to this stuff, given that Karla probably wasn’t going to drop out of our lives like that, but I could hide from the thought of it for a little while in these happy moments where I really believed I could be a mother to Hunter, when I believed he could see me that way.

We arrived at the dock and headed down to the boat, and I let my mind drift back to the first time I had come down here, when Holden had taken me out on that private yacht of his to show off his life to me and how surprised he had seemed when I had told him that this kind of thing didn’t impress me much. Not long afterward, he’d taken me on a real date, the first date we’d properly been on together, and he took into account every little detail of what I’d told him I wanted when he asked me for that counterpoint to his yacht.

And we were back here again as a family, not because he wanted to show this place off to me but because he knew his son would enjoy it. That was why I was so attracted to Holden, why I adored him so much. His family came first, and it seemed like I was a part of that now.

It was breezy out that day, and Holden loaned me a jacket from the yacht to keep me warm. He smiled at me as he draped it around my shoulders, and I felt that little frisson of attraction to him once more. There was something about seeing him with his son, his kindness and compassion that made him even more perfect to me. There was a maturity in him that I had never seen in anyone else I’d dated before.

“Come on, let’s get out on the water.” Holden went to take control of the boat, and Hunter grabbed my hand and led me down to the cabin where all the fishing equipment was.

“Okay, so what does that do?” I asked, pointing at the various sizes of hooks dangling off a rack on the wall. “Why are there different sizes?”

“It depends on what you’re fishing for,” he told me authoritatively. “You get one of the lines like this…”

I let Hunter guide me through the set-up and furrowed my brow as I tried to keep up. I had never done this before, and I didn’t want to look like an idiot trying it out. Neither of them was going to judge me if I did end up goofing it up somehow, but still, I was at the stage of the relationship where I wanted to sweep in and prove my brilliance at every turn. Not that my personality really allowed for that, but a girl could dream.

Holden came down to join us and grabbed my hand as he led me up to the deck. The boat was still, the water calm around us, and I inhaled a deep lungful of the slightly salty air.

“A girl could get used to this,” I said to Holden as Hunter went to clip our chairs into place.

“I sure hope a girl does,” he replied, and glancing around to make sure his son wasn’t looking, he planted a quick kiss on my lips.

“There!” Hunter exclaimed. We jumped apart as if we’d been caught at something, but when we looked over at him, he was pointing down at the water beneath him.

“There’s loads of fish here,” he told us excitedly, bounding over to join us. “We should get started.”

“We should,” Holden agreed, breaking away from me. A little heat was working up my neck, so I pulled up my jacket and hoped Hunter wouldn’t notice my little flush.

A few moments later, Hunter and Holden were enthusiastically talking me through what I needed to do. I had my feet hooked around the base of the seat to keep from keeling over, and I was clutching the pole like it was the only thing keeping me secured. This was profoundly weird, and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

“And now when you put the bait on, they all come around,” Hunter told me, peering over into the water.

“Look! The line’s moving! You’ve got a bite!” Holden exclaimed excitedly. I felt the rod twitch in my hands.

“What do I do?” I cried out, my body tensing. I wanted to let go of it, but I knew I had to keep a firm hold. I tightened my grasp, and Holden moved behind me, covering my hands with his and guiding my slight shakiness into something more workable.

“Okay, so you just ease it up.” He guided my arms up, and the rod pulled smoothly out of the water. I didn’t know why, but I was surprised when I saw there was really a fish on the other end of it. Some part of me had been convinced I was only going to come up with an old boot or something like that, but there it was, the little fish wriggling on the other end of the line.

“You got one!” Hunter exclaimed triumphantly, and he tapped me on the shoulder in a celebration of my success.

“What happens now?” I asked as Holden began to reel in the line for me.

“I’ll take it and put it on ice,” he told me. “And we can take it by the butcher and get it ready for dinner this evening. How about that?”

“As long as I don’t have to have anything to do with getting it ready.” I made a face, and Hunter giggled.

“You won’t,” Holden assured me, carefully pulling the fish from the line and turning to head into the cabin.

Hunter hopped up in the seat beside me and set up his line. I watched him with amusement as he deftly lined the thing up and dropped it into the water, and then I climbed out of my seat so I could crouch behind him and watch.

“You enjoying your spring break so far?” I asked. I felt a little guilty that Holden had spent so much of it with me in Vegas, but Hunter seemed happy that we were all together now.

“Loads.” He grinned at me, and he looked over his shoulder to check that his father was out of earshot. My heart dropped. The last time this had happened, he’d asked me about his mother, and the last thing I wanted was another conversation I didn’t have the answers to.

“Can I ask you something?” He glanced at me as the line sat quietly in the water below us. I nodded.

“Of course.”

“Do you love my dad?”

The question practically knocked me off my feet. I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, gaping like a fish plucked from the water, and I strained my brain at double-speed to try and come up with a decent answer to that question. I had no idea how to respond.

“Uh, I like him very much.” I nodded eventually. “And I really enjoy spending time with the two of you together. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think he loves you.” He furrowed his brow. “He doesn’t say it, but I think he does.”

I fell silent for a moment. Honestly, my heart was so full at that moment, I could have leaped to my feet and punched the air. I had to remind myself that Hunter was a kid with a kid’s understanding of love, and to him, any kind of relationship had to be true love because that’s what he had been taught his whole life. But the words were so sweet coming out of his mouth, even if Holden himself hadn’t said them yet.

“Bless your heart.” I leaned over and gave him a big hug, nudging the rod a few inches to the left and out of the patch he had chosen to fish in. He didn’t seem to care. He hugged me back, and I closed my eyes and felt a swell of what could only be described as maternal love for this little man right here. I hadn’t been sure I could feel it until that moment, but there was no denying it.

“You guys okay?” Holden asked, and I released Hunter and returned to my seat. I didn’t want Holden to hear what we’d been talking about. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel pressured into saying those words to me before he was ready. Still, it was a sweet little boost to hear them from someone and to know Hunter approved of our relationship enough to call it love.

“Great,” I called to him, and he emerged from the cabin to join us, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold.

“Let’s see what else we can get for dinner tonight, huh?” he remarked as he settled into his seat, and I leaned back to watch the two of them fish. They were so alike when they were intently focused—that little furrow in their brow, their lips pressed together. It was so clear they were family. And I was starting to believe I could be part of that family too.