“Are you sure I can’t help?” I offer again for the umpteenth time.

We arrived at the Mercers’ less than twenty minutes ago, but well ahead of the rest of the family. Shaw said he had some business matters to discuss with his father and wanted privacy before the evening turned chaotic. “Maybe I can set the table?” I add, anxious for something to do.

“No, dear. It’s all set. You just sit and relax. Enjoy your wine,” Adelle Mercer replies. She reaches for the plump hothouse tomato next to her and slices the top off before dicing it into perfect wedges for the enormous salad she’s creating. It’s a masterpiece. It looks so delicious it could be photographed for a spread in Martha Stewart Living.

“I’m afraid I don’t sit and relax well.” I fidget with the glass in front of me, twisting and turning the stem so the wine inside swirls in arcs that leave long red legs racing back to the liquid below.

“Well, that’s a problem. Everyone needs to unwind more instead of go, go, going all the time.” Her eyes find mine. “You seem the type who takes the world’s problems into her lap and makes them her own, never finding time for yourself.”

Her intuition strikes me mute for a few seconds. God, am I that transparent? “I’ve always had a lot of responsibility.” It’s lame, but I don’t know what else to say. I can’t spill my entire sad story to my “boyfriend’s” mother. And maybe it’s time to stop thinking of Shaw with those caveated quotations? It’s just another way I keep him out. Or me trapped. It’s all the same.

I expect Adelle to pry, ask questions I’m not prepared to answer. She doesn’t. She simply nods her head as if she understands and picks up the next tomato, cutting into that one, too.

A deep boom of laughter from the other room catches my attention and I look up from Adelle’s impressive knife skills, my gaze landing straight on Shaw. He’s perched on the edge of a plaid wingback chair, leaning forward, legs wide, pointing to some papers on the coffee table in front of him. His father sits on the edge of the couch, his position mirroring Shaw’s, intently listening, a smile on his lips.

From my angle, I can only see Shaw’s profile, but my God in heaven the man is handsome. That nose. Those lips. The muscles that jump in his strong jaw when he’s thinking intently or when something winds him up tight are so damn sexy I’m breathless just thinking about it. The natural sexuality oozing from him is potent and dizzying. The way he affects every part of me is unnerving.

He must sense a weight because he stops talking and turns his head my way. Our eyes connect across the distance. The moment slows. He’s probably twenty feet away but I feel as if he’s standing right in front of me. Looking so far into me I can’t escape.

For a moment, maybe two, I let it all go. Every guard. Every wall. Every reservation. For those few stolen moments, I let him in all the way. I let him see that I don’t want anything between us but real and reckless, no matter if it hurts one, or both of us, in the end. That it’s too late and I’m already madly in love with him. Then, in the next breath, I beg him to handle me with care. To keep me if he thinks he can try, to let me go if he knows he’ll crush me.

He sees it.

He sees me.

I think he has from the day he stared into my wild eyes behind his mirrored aviators.

And in him, I read everything that’s in me. The fear of heartbreak. The trust needed to put your heart in someone else’s keeping. The unknown we’re about to plunge headlong into with wide eyes.

I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and the corners of my mouth draw up slightly into a soft smile. He does the same, blinking slowly, not looking away. Right now, there’s just us.

The more he stares, the more a rightness I won’t be able to undo snaps securely into place. That lock I told him only my future could pop just did. I felt it, more than heard it. It hurtled to the bottom of my belly where it sits heavy, quaking with the fear roaring inside me that I don’t have a clue what the hell I’m doing.

Whether he realizes it or not, I just handed him the last thing I have to give a man.

My complete and total trust.

He breaks into a slow, sexy, promising smirk. It says: I know exactly what you did. I know how hard it was. I’m going to reward you later, but rest assured, we’re in this madness together.

The need to tell him I love him right this second bubbles up, but I pop every one of them before they pass my vocal cords. Now isn’t the place or time.

“I’ve never seen him like this, you know,” Adelle says so low I almost miss it.

I blink a few times, embarrassed to be caught staring. I desperately try to tear myself away from the man who has come to mean more to me than I ever wanted.

It’s hard. When I succeed and face one of the few women who means something to Shaw, she’s smiling this goofy motherly smile that makes me want to smile too. So I do.

I know what she’s telling me, but I ask, “Like what?” anyway, shifting in my stool toward her. I’m interested to see how much insider information Adelle Mercer is willing to give me.

She holds her chopping knife still in one hand and glances at Shaw. I follow her line, but quickly return to her when I see Shaw’s attention has refocused on his father and their conversation.

“Spellbound. The way he looks at you…” She says this absently, not finishing her thought. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to respond or ask another leading question, so I don’t, even though I’m dying for her to finish that sentence.

Scooping up the tomatoes she cut, she places them carefully on top of greens and takes the cutting board to the sink. She picks up her wine and sits on the stool next to me. “Shaw told me he’s met your mother.”

I nod. He spent the afternoon with us only yesterday in fact. My mother was unusually engaging. At one point, they got into a deep conversation about football, but she talked about the Steve Largent days like the present. The hall-of-fame wide receiver hasn’t played for the Seahawks since 1989. Then she told him she’d like him to come back and meet my father. It crushed me but Shaw took it all in stride and handled it with ease.

“She has Alzheimer’s,” I tell Adelle.

The corners of her mouth turn down in sympathy. “Yes, I know. Shaw talked about it at length with me.”

“He did?” I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does.

She turns contemplative. “I can honestly say he’s never told me that much about any woman before, let alone her mother.”

“I…” I chuckle nervously. I’m speechless. “Huh.”

With a sparkle in her eye, she says, “I already told you he’s not brought many girls home to meet us.”

I nod, remembering, still stuck on the mother comment.

“Even when he was in high school or college. He would date, of course, and he’s had several girlfriends who lasted more than a date or two, but I can count on one hand the number of times he’s brought a woman to the house.” She takes a sip of her white wine, eyeing me over the rim. “You’re number four.”

Four? They’ve met four women in thirty-six years?

I give her small, tense smile. “Why do you think that is?”

She quickly throws her eyes Shaw’s way again. When they come back to me, I nearly tear up at the genuine kindness I see. I can easily see myself sitting in this exact spot with Adelle Mercer, engaging in relaxed chitchat while our kids—Shaw’s and mine—fish off the dock or play in the other room.

I have to force myself to check this fake family before I get carried away. We haven’t even uttered those three important words to each other yet, and because we haven’t discussed a future, I have no idea what Shaw sees in his.

Marriage? Kids? Me?

I don’t know. But I want to.

“My son has always had a singular focus, you see. Shaw is headstrong and passionate. He has vision and a business savvy that Preston never did.” She laughs. It’s light and soothing. “At the age of five, he was already following Preston around, wearing little button-down shirts with pens tucked in the breast pocket. And not just any pen. No. It had to be a fine-tip felt one. Black. I had to throw away so many of his dress shirts because he’d forget to put the cap on and the ink would seep through and stain.”

I realize I’m smiling ear to ear, hearing about a younger version of him. I can only imagine a little Shaw running around with a pocket protector and a TI calculator in his hand. “That sounds like something he’d do.”

“He’d spend hours by his father’s side when he came home from work for the day. He had his own little setup in Preston’s office. A desk and a rolling chair with a bamboo chair mat underneath. He even insisted that he have his own phone, and we finally caved thinking it couldn’t do much harm. When he made a long-distance call to one of Preston’s business contacts in Thailand, we took it away. I think he was maybe seven or eight then. If I remember the story right, it was a small company Preston was looking to acquire and Shaw told the man he’d be a fool to pass up the offer. Three weeks later Preston closed the deal.”

With each word she says, I laugh harder and louder, drawing Shaw and Preston’s attention. Shaw’s left brow ticks up, silently asking what we’re giggling about and I grin wide, waving him off. Wanting to hear more.

“He is something else. Always has been.” Her voice holds nothing but unconditional love and pride for her child, now a grown man. It warms my heart to witness the close relationship Shaw has with this family, with his mother. It’s charming. It makes him irresistible.

“Shaw is a great man, Willow. He has the love and loyalty of his family, the respect of his employees and peers. He has success and wealth and any material possession he could want. But the one thing he’s missing is the love only a soul mate can offer. He doesn’t think he needs it, of course, but intangibles are often a hard concept to wrap our minds around. None of us really understands what we’re missing until we find it, do we?”

My smile falters as I swallow thickly. Is she saying I’m that woman? That Shaw didn’t know he was missing me until he found me?

“He just needed the right woman to come along and show him that the one thing he was incapable of understanding is suddenly the only thing he can’t live without.”

What am I supposed to say? Anything? Nothing? I don’t know. Butterflies batter my insides.

She leans close to my ear, whispering conspiratorially, “And you, my dear, have opened his eyes. He’s thoroughly taken by you. I wasn’t sure I would ever see that day. Kudos.”

She holds her glass in the air and I instinctively raise mine to clink with hers, my hand trembling. I feel like Shaw has changed so much in the two-plus months we’ve been together, but hearing it from someone who knows him inside and out…

“I’m scared he’ll hurt me,” is out of my mouth before I can stop it. Oh fuck, how I wish I could have chewed that up before confessing it to his mother of all people.

But Adelle takes it in stride. Reaching over, she places her hand atop mine. I keep my eyes glued to her sun-spotted, aged skin until I’m forced to look up when the silence becomes too much. She raises the corners of her lips, cocks her head, and floors me with, “So is he. The best kind of love has a healthy dose of fear attached to it, Willow. And once you feel that fear burning holes in your belly, that’s when you know you have found something rare and special, worth holding on to.”

I blink, digesting her words. Does she think her eldest loves me? Can she see it in my eyes, too? I never felt the fear she described about Reid, but I do about Shaw. My gut is raw and tender. I don’t know exactly how I’m supposed to respond, but I’m saved when Shaw’s low voice hums, “Hey, what are you two plotting in here?”

“Nothing,” I croak at the same time Adelle chirps, “Girl talk.”

His eyes hood, turning sort of predatory and I take a nervous sip of wine while I watch him amble around the island toward me. Stepping up behind me, his strong grip lands at the base of my neck, flexing a few times. I feel the heat of his body at my back when he leans over and whispers in my ear, “You’re not in here planning our wedding already now, are you?”

I choke on the liquid that was sliding down my throat, sputtering and coughing as Shaw and Adelle take turns slapping my back, asking if I’m okay. As soon as I can take in a breath without feeling moisture drag back up each time, I whip my head around to face Shaw.

I can’t decipher the look on it and stammer, “God, no.” It was defensive and sounded as if the idea was sour in my mouth, but it wasn’t. It was a delicacy that tasted too damn good, actually.

“I was kidding.” The words are smooth, but the way he says them feels forced. Almost as if he didn’t actually hate the idea if we were.

“Were you?” I ask before I can think better of it.

“Were you?” he counters, and I’m not sure which question he’s actually asking. Were we talking about a wedding or am I opposed to the idea? His grip is back around my neck. It tightens as his eyes bob back and forth between mine, intent on dredging an answer from me, even though he won’t reciprocate.

Instead of fighting, I decide to give in—my armor lying in a heap at my feet anyway—and answer both questions honestly. “No.”

I know it’s the right one when his eyes turn molten at the same time his entire body relaxes into me. “You continue to surprise me,” he says huskily.

“So do you,” I tell him, my voice thready.

His gaze drops to my lips and I lick them. He groans. It’s barely a noise at all, but it’s become as familiar to me as blinking. Desire. He dips down, his lips almost on mine when a shrill voice screeches, “Unca Shaw!”

Shaw has no sooner stepped back from me when a rambunctious five-year-old scrap of a girl jumps two feet off the ground straight into his arms.

“Coraboo,” he coos, swinging her around until she giggles uncontrollably.

“She had a juice box in the car,” Gemma warns, kissing me on the cheek as she passes by as if we’re already sisters or something. I reach up, running two fingers over the spot. “You’re on cleanup duty if it comes back up.”

Shaw doesn’t let that faze him at all. He’s now holding her above his head, blowing raspberries on her belly, making her squeal and squirm. It’s not until Cora makes this god-awful burping noise that Shaw stops and gently sets her on her feet.

“You okay, Boo?” he asks with concern, squatting down to her level. It’s so darn cute, I can’t help but picture him doing that with our children.

Willow, good God, get a grip…

She hiccups a few times before answering, “That was fun!”

“You’re not going to ralph, are you?” Shaw’s brows are now tugged inward.

“What’s ralph?” she counters, all guileless and wide-eyed.

“It means you throw up your guts until they’re all gone and they’re lying on the floor in a big giant blob of nothing but rotten gut parts,” her brother, Nicholas, chimes in, miming exactly what he means, noises and all.

Then chaos descends.

“Nicholas,” Gemma chastises at the same time Cora screws up her face before crying, “Mommy, I don’t want to throw up all my guts. I like my guts. I don’t want rotten guts.”

Behind me, a baby starts to wail and I turn to see Gemma’s husband, whose name escapes me momentarily, try to calm the little boy in his arms, whose name I do remember: Eli. And I guess three years old isn’t quite a baby anymore.

“Here, I’ll take him if it’s okay,” I offer, holding my arms wide.

“You sure?” he asks, toggling back and forth between a now howling Cora, who’s carrying on about her guts, a taunting bigger brother, who’s only making it worse, and the crying little one in his arms.

“Yes, I’m sure. We’ll be just fine, won’t we, big guy?” I slip my hands around Eli’s torso and press him against me, bouncing him as we head into the other room, away from the anarchy.

“Want to play?” I ask, trying to wipe away the tears that have wet his chubby face. Last time I was here, I noticed Adelle had a Little Tikes toy box in the corner of the main living area. We head over there and I gently sit us on the floor. I open the top, pulling out the first thing I see that may interest him. He stops crying immediately when he sees what I have.

“Squigz!” he exclaims, his voice still watery. He grabs the container from my hand and dumps out these multicolored silicone pieces that look like giant molecules with suction cups on each end.

“Wanna see how to do it?” He looks up at me with bright blue eyes, full of life and curiosity and an innocence you can’t find anywhere else but in a child. I know he’s only Shaw’s nephew, but I see a lot of Shaw in him. My imagination starts running wild and free again wondering if Shaw’s son would have the same dimple in his left cheek or the same mischief burning inside.

“I’d love to.” I smile, trying to focus back on Eli and not this made-up family I keep returning to.

He starts sticking the pieces together, making a random pattern. He stops and hands me a piece. “Youw tuwn.”

“That’s very nice of you. Can I put it anywhere?”

He nods excitedly, and I attach a blue piece with four suction cups to an orange piece with only one. He picks up a yellow one and sticks it to my blue.

In the other room, it sounds as if Cora has calmed, but Nicholas is now in trouble, being marched upstairs. He’s pouting, his bottom lip stuck out. He’s trying hard not to cry. I watch him stomp out of sight, giggling to myself.

Eli hands me another piece right as a shadow in my periphery catches my attention. At some point, Shaw came in and sat in that wingback chair. He’s casually leaning back, fingers laced and resting on his stomach, watching us. Me, actually. His eyes are nowhere but on me. And he looks the same way he did when he saw me sitting in his chair during our first meeting at his house.

As if he’s in awe and struggling to understand why.

I feel as gooey now as I did then.

“Hi,” I say. A tiny laugh tries, but fails, to contradict my nerves. “I—” I stop. Swallow hard. Maybe I overstepped my bounds? “I hope this is okay?” I motion to Eli, who is now ripping apart his masterpiece in order to start again.

He nods in slow motion. That’s it. That’s all I get.

I try giving my attention back to Eli, who is now chattering about a kid named Sid but I’m not following him at all. All I can feel is Shaw’s gaze on me, over me, stitching its way through my heart until I start to panic a little at how damn good it feels to have 100 percent of this man’s attention.

“You look good,” his baritone voice practically sighs. The ordinary compliment drizzles down like a gentle rain shower, but instead of cooling me, my entire being goes hot with desire, whether that was his intention or not.

I slide my gaze to his, expecting it to be fiery and hungry. It’s not. It’s soft and warm and so damn sweet my stomach falls right out of me.

“You were born to be a mother, Willow.” He stares right into my soul as he tells me this.

Shit. I am on fire. Lava crawls through my veins, burning me from the feet up. I’ve started breathing again, but it tastes of hot air and repressed wants.

He extends his hand toward me and without even thinking I hop up and walk over to him. I step between his legs and lace my fingers with his. He studies our joined hands for a long time, twisting and turning them to various angles. His thumb rubs the outside of mine hypnotically until I feel that single place he’s touching me over every inch of my skin.

Everything fades away when he slowly walks his eyes up my body and latches them to mine. He says nothing. And it’s okay. Nothing needs to be said. We just breathe, both our lives not so subtly shifting and whirling around us with each inhale and exhale. We stay like this until we hear a female voice call, “Five minutes till dinner,” shattering the spell that had opened a place where only we existed.

Shaw never lets go of my hand as he stands, but once he’s on his feet, he drops it to my side and takes my face in his stronghold. Uncaring that someone’s waiting for us, he lowers his mouth to mine and gives me the sweetest kiss I’ve ever had in my life. It brims with reverent purpose and burgeoning love.

We break apart, laughing when Eli’s little voice drones, “Oooooo, gwoss. Unca Saw and that giwl awe kissing.” He runs out of the room, leaving us alone.

Shaw rests his forehead against mine, saying so low I have to strain to hear, “I’m having a hard time keeping up with how fast you’re changing me, Goldilocks.”

Be still my beating heart.

I feel as though the moments between us are becoming more honest and real by the second. I wrap my arms around his waist and close my burning eyes, emotions threatening to overwhelm me. “So am I, Drive By.”

His lips come back to mine, moving just as leisurely and focused as before. With every firm press of them, I crave him more. With each twist of his tongue against mine I feel more lost, but also as if he’s found me underneath all the masks I use to hide behind.

Between unhurried kisses, he murmurs my name over and over and I forget where we are. Then he simply rests his lips against mine for a moment before starting gruffly, “Willow, I—”

“Hey, lovers, Annabelle’s here,” Gemma interrupts.

At the mention of his other sister’s name, Shaw stiffens and pulls away, dropping his hold on me entirely like I’m a conductor for electricity.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, stepping closer. I want to touch him. I raise my hand to his arm but drop it before it makes contact. He snags it on the way down. Clasps it tight and clings to me, some sort of desperation now emanating from him like a groundswell. For a beat or two, he looks torn, as if maybe he wants to get the hell out of here. But I know how much he loves his sister, so that makes no sense.

At last, I see her out of the corner of my eye. She’s standing in the entry between the front foyer and the living room watching me closely. I would recognize her anywhere. She’s a slightly older version of the girl littering Adelle’s Steinway.

She’s exquisite. Porcelain skin. Dainty features. Thin, reedy. A snow angel, only with jet-black hair streaked in sapphire ink. Her black-rimmed blue eyes sparkle like glitter falling through a floodlight. Her lips are stained a cross between currant and mahogany. She’s wearing a pair of shredded black jeans paired with a black V-neck tee that says in big gold letters “Solemnly swear that I’m up to no good.”

I believe that’s true.

Shaw hasn’t talked much about this sister, Annabelle. He’s only alluded to the fact that she’s in college and “a little wild.” Now I see what he means. She’s got that same mischief I saw in both Shaw and Eli’s eyes. Must be a character trait of a Mercer.

But there’s also something else about her. I can’t quite put my finger on it, yet it jumps out and grabs me with such force, I can’t dismiss it. Or ignore it. It draws me to her. It’s a pull I can’t stay away from.

Instinctively I break out of Shaw’s hold and head toward her. Her eyes widen, and I swear I hear Shaw’s breath hitch. It’s not until I’m about five feet away that what I was seeing across the room comes into focus.

She’s suffering.

Her young soul has taken a beating but she powers on, trying her damnedest to forge her way through a darkness only she thinks she can see.

I know it’s a crazy thought having just met her but it screams at me so loud I can’t disregard it because I’ve witnessed it firsthand.

Sensed its immense power, fingered its implacable grip.

Looked directly into its cavernous eyes and felt just as helpless as I do right now.

Annabelle Mercer’s soul holds the same shadowed, haunted look I’ve seen in someone else before. Someone who I still feel a connection with no matter how much space and time part us.

Someone I couldn’t save.

As I stare into the otherworldly eyes of this tiny beauty in front of me, there is no mistake. No shred of doubt. No hesitation or uncertainty at all.

Shaw’s baby sister is battling the same unknown demons as my dead sister, Violet. And I have to wonder if her family knows it or if they’re choosing to ignore it instead…the way my family did until it was too late.