It was true, even if her stomach had a few gently fluttering butterflies.

He opened the door, and Mick’s father was on the other side, waiting for them.

Emmet Reid was nearly a carbon copy of Mick. He was almost as tall, with the same dark hair and gray eyes, the same hard, handsome features, if a bit more weathered. And the same air of command that had helped make him fire chief. Even after being retired for several years, he still carried himself with a natural air of authority. But his broad, warm smile was full of welcome as he pulled Allie in for a hug, and she found herself relaxing into his embrace.

“Allie, it’s been too long since we’ve seen you, girl.” He patted her back and pulled away to look at her. “I’d heard you’d grown into a fine-looking woman, but my oh my. No wonder Mick’s so taken with you.”

She glanced at Mick, who rolled his eyes, but he was grinning proudly.

“It’s so good to see you,” Allie said. It was. It was good to be back in their comfortably familiar house, with its broad wood floors and the familiar lemony scent of furniture polish.

“Hands off her, Dad. She’s mine.”

Emmet released her, gave Mick a hard clap on the shoulder and waved them through the living room. “Your mother’s in the kitchen. Go say hello to her. Everyone else is out back. Which is where I should be, tending my grill. I have some gator sausage going that’ll set your tongue on fire—so hot it’ll take all my boys and me to put the flames out.”

She caught Mick’s silent wince. She knew he hated when his father in particular made reference to his other sons being firefighters. Not that Mick begrudged any of them. But she knew he still felt it like a stab to the chest that he hadn’t been able to be a part of that noble family tradition.

They moved into the kitchen, where Mick’s mother—still a beauty with a head of gorgeous dark curls even in her sixties—was spooning coleslaw from an enormous Tupperware container into a festive plastic bowl. She set it down and wiped her hands on her apron, coming around the counter to take Allie in her arms.

“Oh, honey, I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for joining us.”

“Thank you so much for inviting me, Maureen.”

“Of course.” Mick’s mother let her go and looked her over. “All grown up. I can remember you at sixteen like it was yesterday. How’s your mother doing?”

“She’s just fine. Still up at four a.m. every morning to bake, same as always.”

“Good. That’s good. Mick, you come give your mother a kiss.”

He leaned down to place a kiss on her cheek.

“Has he been nice to you, Allie?”

“He has. You’ve trained him well.”

“That’s my boy,” Maureen said, beaming. “Now, what can I get you to drink? Sweet tea? Lemonade?”

“A cold beer for us both, I think, Mom. Allie? Yes? I’ll get it.”

“I’d heard Allister did your kitchen remodel,” Allie said as Mick grabbed two bottles from the refrigerator. “It’s gorgeous. He’s started work on my place. I can’t wait for the dust to settle, especially if it turns out anything like yours.”

“Thank you, honey. I’m thrilled with it. And Mick told me about the work being done on your house. I’m awfully sorry about your aunt Joséphine, by the way. You weren’t close with her, were you?”

“I don’t think anyone was. I’m not even sure why she left the house to me. Maybe because I was the only relative left in the States, although she did have some family in France.”

Maureen took her hand and looked her in the eye. “Some things are just meant to be.”

She resisted the urge to pull away and smiled instead. “Yes, I guess they are.”

“You two go on out back and see the rest of the family. Allie, you haven’t even met my grandson, have you?”

“I haven’t.”

Mick reached into the bowl and pulled out a piece of cabbage, stuffed it into his mouth. Maureen gave his hand a slap. “Go on, now. I’ve got work to do in here.”

“Can I help with anything?” Allie asked.

“Don’t be silly—you know I have control issues when it comes to my kitchen. You go visit. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be out in a bit.”

“Come on.”

Mick took her hand and led her through the pantry and out the back door that led to the screened-in deck. She smelled the sausage and shrimp cooking on the grill right away, mixed with the summer scent of the sun hitting the green leaves of the big lacebark elm that grew in the Reids’ yard. Marie Dawn was next to her in a moment, pulling her away from Mick to greet his brothers. Gareth and Nolan both looked a bit more like their mother’s side of the family, with rounder features and her blue eyes. They introduced her to Nolan’s fiancée, Katie, and Gareth’s wife, Leanne. Their teenage son, Colby, was throwing a Frisbee on the grass for Emmet and Maureen’s old yellow lab, Scratch, who had been a puppy the last time she’d seen him.

She felt that sense of family right down to her bones—the bond they all shared. It was one of the things she and Mick had in common. Except that he always held a part of himself at a distance from the people she knew wanted to love him, to take him in and accept him completely. She could almost sense his walls coming up the moment they’d walked in the door.

Did he live with that pressure constantly? Carry it nearly every day of his life?

“Come and talk wedding stuff with Katie,” Marie Dawn said, pulling Allie out of her musing to sit with the Reid family’s newest member-to-be. Katie was a lovely young woman, sweet and friendly, and it was easy for Allie to lose herself in discussions about wedding cakes and flowers.

By the time the food was ready, she was much more relaxed, remembering what it felt like to be at home in this house as if by muscle memory. Everyone ate at long wooden trestle tables set up in the yard under a tent of mosquito netting. There was a veritable feast: the promised barbequed shrimp and spicy alligator sausage, Maureen’s coleslaw and cornbread and icy lemonade, red beans and rice, and pecan pie for dessert. Allie ate until she couldn’t move, and everyone but Colby stayed at the table for hours, telling all the old stories about New Orleans’s great fires and the Reid men being there to battle the flames. Gareth was cajoled into showing off his scar from a bad warehouse fire that had almost gotten him killed saving a fellow firefighter from a back draft, and all of Emmet’s sons talked with pride about their father having served the city for almost forty years.

Everyone except Mick.

He sat beside Allie like stone. He tried to smile, to nod his head, but the fact that he couldn’t be an integral part of the conversation was killing him, she knew. The family didn’t do it on purpose, of course, and she understood there was no way they could have ignored Emmet, Gareth, Nolan and Neal’s accomplished careers in the department. But for the first time she came to understand how it must grate on Mick’s nerves, like drilling on a bad tooth, every time the family got together. She hurt for him.

“Mick,” Maureen started, turning to him, “tell us about the time you saved that young girl from being trampled to death at that concert.” She glanced at Allie, pride and something else in her blue eyes. “He was bruised all over by the time he got her out, but there wasn’t a scratch on the girl. Her parents sent him so many thank-you cards you’d think they bought stock in the company.”

“No, Mom. It’s Dad’s day.”

“Ah, come on, Mick,” Neal urged, jostling his shoulder. “It was pretty damn heroic.”

Mick just shook his head and raised the bottle of beer he’d been nursing all day. “To Dad. Happy Father’s Day, chief.”

“To Dad,” the entire family echoed.

There was much clinking of bottles and plastic cups, then everyone fell into different conversations, including Mick and Neal. But Allie was acutely aware of what that bad moment had cost him.

Eventually the party broke up and they said their good-byes, Maureen making Allie promise she’d come by the house again, and Katie having gotten Allie’s number to talk more about making her wedding cake.