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Shadows stretched long and heavy across the sheets. Rain splattered across the windowpanes, and a groan of thunder eased out from the far horizon. Beside her, Wayne shuddered in his sleep and then muttered something.
Elise’s heart nearly stopped beating.
How adorable. He talked in his sleep.
I didn’t think I could like him even more than I already did.
Elise grabbed her phone from the bedside table and again read through the text messages from earlier that day when Tracey had reported she’d received word from the DNA laboratory.
In the next few hours, I’ll know the truth about my family.
I’ll know if this whole Mackinac adventure was for nothing.
Wayne wrapped his sturdy arms around her suddenly and held her tightly against his warm chest. His eyes remained closed as he said, “I can tell you’re trying to escape the bed. That isn’t allowed.”
Elise’s cheeks burned with excitement. She giggled and swatted his tattooed bicep playfully. “You know we have to go to Dean’s later tonight. I promised.”
“I told you, Elise. I want the whole island to think I ran away, just the way you got to run away from California.”
“Can we just run away after I get the results?” Elise lifted herself slightly and dropped a kiss on Wayne’s cheek. “Just one more night, and then you can kiss this rock goodbye if you want.”
Wayne’s eyelids opened to reveal those stunning cerulean irises. Elise’s heart skipped yet another beat.
“How dare you?”
Elise arched her brow. “How dare me what?”
“Call my beautiful Mackinac Island ‘this rock,’” he said.
Elise rolled her eyes as her smile widened. “You’re impossible, aren’t you?”
“I hope so,” Wayne said. “I can’t make it easy on you. That would be way too boring. I know how you writers are. You want every day to be all fired up with potential.”
**
ELISE SHOWERED IN WAYNE’S bathroom, something she hadn’t done since those few days when she’d crashed there. The mirror steamed, and she slid a bit of the towel over it and blinked at herself—a woman she no longer fully recognized.
Wayne and I are falling in love.
It felt like flying.
Both Wayne and Elise dressed up for the evening. Elise in the green dress she had worn to come “declare her love to Wayne” in, and Wayne in a dark gray button-down and a pair of slacks. Elise watched him as he styled his curly black hair with a quick dash of his fingers.
“What?” he asked her when he caught her.
“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” She laughed.
“What? Being devilishly handsome?”
Elise rolled her eyes again but jumped forward and allowed him to lift her into another kiss. When he returned her gently to the ground, he whispered, “The youngest member of the Swartz family. I never knew I was a gold-digger.”
“We don’t know if it’s a fact yet,” she said mischievously.
“Within the hour,” Wayne said ominously.
**
ELISE SLIPPED HER FINGERS through Wayne’s as they headed up toward the Pontiac Trail Head. Wayne held a large black umbrella over their heads. Elise might have commented at his profound skill at the old umbrella—at the fact that not a single drop fell on her throughout their walk, but she lost most capability for speech along the way. Only when Cindy drew open the door did Elise call out, “Oh my goodness! I’m so nervous.”
Tracey’s laughter rang out from the kitchen. She appeared in the hallway with a spatula lifted.
“There she is! The woman of the hour. And Wayne! So glad you could make it.”
Elise had only recently told Cindy and Tracey just how “over” she and Wayne were. When she’d texted back to request that Wayne be her dinner guest that night, Tracey had sent “???” as a text. Elise had been occupied with other things all day long and hadn’t managed to explain.
“I’m glad to be here for this huge event,” Wayne said as they stepped out from the chilly rain. “And it smells delicious. Can I help with anything?”
“I think we have everything ready to go,” Tracey said as they stepped into the kitchen. “Maybe pour yourselves some wine. We have reds breathing here on the counter and several whites in the fridge. Emma and Megan are almost here.”
Just then, the front door burst open again to reveal the cousins, Tracey’s daughter, Emma, and Cindy’s daughter, Megan. They chattered with excitement as they entered, both holding what looked to be cake.
“What do you have there?” Elise asked.
Megan giggled. “It’s a surprise, Auntie Elise.”
“Potential Aunt Elise,” Emma corrected.
The air simmered with excitement. Wayne poured them both glasses of Merlot as Cindy and Tracey fell into another discussion about the appropriate seasoning for the roast chicken. Megan and Emma both lifted the tops off the cakes, peeked within, and then placed the tops back on to make sure nobody spotted them. From the back dining room, Dean’s voice roared, “Michael and I are starving. Have you girls finished up your chores yet?”
“Always so ungrateful,” Tracey called back. Playfully, she asked Elise, “Are you sure you want to get involved with this family? That kind of complaining? I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Elise cackled, laced her fingers again through Wayne’s, and then allowed him to lead her to the dining room, where they found Michael and Dean midway through a bottle of wine, their teeth tinged red.
Michael laughed when he spotted Wayne. “When Mom said you might come tonight, I said absolutely not! He’s halfway to China by now. But here you are.”
“China was kind of a drag,” Wayne affirmed. “Thanks for taking over the store today. Any problems?”
“I burned it down,” Michael said.
“Hey! Burnt buildings aren’t really a thing to joke about these days,” Dean said. His eyes shone with humor. “Although I guess, in a way, that burned Willow Grove led me to meet Elise Darby for the first time. What is it they say about burning down the old to make way for the new?”
Elise knelt to hug her possible biological father and then dotted her fingers across the top of her cheeks. Of course, she had already started out with a few tears. She couldn’t help it.
“No more fires,” she said, her voice catching. “At least not till next year.”
Cindy appeared in the doorway, looked at Dean, and then asked, “Did Alex say whether or not he could make it?”
The words chilled the air as everyone went silent. Dean hesitated as shadows formed beneath his eyes.
“He said he wanted to get a few things done at the office,” he said. “And I imagine that he wouldn’t be the best company. Not now.” He gave Elise a look that said, I’m sorry about this.
But there was nothing to be done.
Tracey hustled into the dining room with an envelope in her hand. She beamed at Elise. “I don’t suppose we should wait much longer. If we make Elise wait through dinner, she might fall apart.”
“I definitely won’t be able to eat anything,” Elise said with a laugh.
“Let’s get the torture over with, then,” Tracey said. She gestured toward the other head of the table, opposite Dean.
Slowly, Elise sat at the head while the others scattered out across the table. Their wineglasses clicked across the gorgeous wood, and their eyes found her fingers as she held the envelope aloft.
“Isn’t it funny that science can clear up such a dramatic question in just a few days?” Elise asked quietly.
Emma and Megan exchanged nervous glances. Elise thought again of her daughter, Penny—about how much something like this would have meant to her.
My children don’t know anything about the Swartz family.
If I’m actually related or if this is real.
Then they’ll have a whole new family.
So many new people to love.
“Here it goes,” Elise said. She puffed out her cheeks as Tracey handed her a letter opener. She slipped the tool between the seal and then swung it across. With a flourish, she gripped the folded-up piece of paper within and pulled it out.
When she unfolded it, she read it three times before she fully comprehended the words written on the paper.
Silence filled the dining room. After a long moment, Megan choked on her wine and coughed as Michael swatted her back in an attempt to help her.
“Are you going to tell us?” Michael asked, midway through his second smack.
Elise’s eyes filled with tears. She splayed the paper out in front of her, turned up to face Dean, and whispered, “Dean. You’re really my father.”
Chaos broke out after that. Tracey burst up from her chair and howled, “Yes!” Cindy’s chair fell back as she ducked forward and wrapped Elise in the biggest hug. Dean stood, walked slowly around the table, then knelt as Elise jumped into his arms and hugged him. Again, she remembered all those nights when she had craved a father—all those afternoons when she’d watched other girls hold their fathers’ hands and walk and skip alongside them. “We have each other,” Allison had always told her. But now? Now, Elise had been given the great gift of this entire other family Allison had left behind.
Dean leaned back, gripped Elise’s shoulders, and said, “I never had a doubt in my mind. You’re just as stubborn as any Swartz. That’s for sure.”
Elise laughed, dropped her head back, and said, “Gosh, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
At that moment, Megan and Emma appeared with one of the cakes. Emma removed the top to reveal a dessert decorated with beautiful purple icing. It read: “WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!”
“It’s beautiful!” Elise cried. “Oh, I can’t believe how perfect it is.”
“What does the other one say?” Michael asked.
“Don’t worry yourself with that, Michael,” Cindy said.
“No, no. I want to know,” Elise said.
Emma disappeared and then returned with the other cake, which was revealed to read: “CAN WE JUST BE FRIENDS?”
This made everyone at the table howl with laughter.
“It sounds like you’re trying to break up with her,” Michael said, full-on cackling.
“That’s the joke, dummy,” Megan said. “But now that we know she’s our aunt Elise, we can eat the cake for giggles. Right, Aunt Elise?”
**
ELISE HAD NEVER BEEN a daddy’s girl. She had never been an aunt, never been a sister, never been anything but a daughter, a mother, and then, a divorcee.
Now, at this dinner, she found herself in the beginning stages of so many different journeys.
The roast chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and rolls were served, and more bottles of wine were dragged out of the wine cellar. At one point during the dinner, Dean stood, raced toward the piano, and played them one of his favorite songs. Despite his drunkenness, his fingers articulated each key perfectly. Elise smacked her palms together excitedly and wolf-whistled as he bowed.
“I think he plays better when he’s tipsy,” Michael said.
“It’s science, Mike,” his grandfather returned as he sat back at the head of the table. “When I’m loose, I can take my fingers wherever I want them to go. It’s a kind of magic. I don’t know why you never let me teach you properly when you were a child. You had a gift.”
“Turns out, I have several other gifts,” Michael said with a wink. “Like, for example, I worked as a scuba instructor for almost three months in Hawaii.”
Dean shook his head as Wayne cackled.
“He keeps coming up with more stories about his three years away,” he said. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Believe what you want to believe, Uncle Wayne,” Michael said as he sipped the last of his wine.
“Uncle Wayne, now?” Wayne lifted his eyebrow.
“If you’re after my auntie Elise, then I don’t know how else to refer to you,” Michael said. “Just remember. We take care of our own, Uncle Wayne. If you hurt her, it’ll be one of your biggest regrets.”