Emma crossed the street and happened to glance up as she climbed into her truck. Sean Kowalski was watching her from his apartment window, and she forced herself to give him a friendly smile and wave before she closed her door and slid the key into the ignition.
It was too bad, she thought, and not just for Gram’s sake. That was a man any woman would want to be pretend-engaged to, even if only for a month.
It was a good ten minutes after walking through the Kowalskis’ front door before Sean could even get his coat off. The whole gang was there, but his aunt could throw some mean elbows and got to him first.
“Sean!” She threw herself at him and he caught her up in a big bear hug.
He’d missed her more than he’d imagined he would while he was overseas. After his mom died unexpectedly the year he was nine, Aunt Mary had managed—from a state away and with four kids of her own—to step up and be a mother figure to her four nephews and one niece. It had been good to see his siblings, but being squeezed by his aunt while her tears burned his neck was like coming home.
He got a little choked up himself when Uncle Leo pulled him into his arms and gave him a few solid thumps on the back. Though Leo was shorter than his brother, Frank, he was close enough in looks and mannerisms to remind Sean of his dad, who’d passed away nine years ago.
“Your old man would have been proud,” Leo barked and Sean nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Then came a gauntlet of cousins and their families. Joe, with his pretty new wife, Keri, who was holding a rosy-cheeked baby Brianna. Terry and Evan with Stephanie who, at thirteen, was growing into a pretty young woman. Kevin introduced him to Beth, who only managed a quick “nice to meet you” since she was wrangling Lily.
Mike and Lisa’s family was a lot taller than the last time he’d seen them. He managed to find out Joey was now fifteen, Danny twelve, Brian nine and Bobby seven before Mary started hushing the kids and herding them all toward the dining room.
“Dinner’s ready to come out of the oven,” she said. “Let’s eat while it’s hot.”
As he’d expected, the massive dining room table was practically groaning under the weight of his welcome-home feast. She’d even made garlic bread that was soft and buttery on the inside and crusty on the outside. Far cry from his own pathetic efforts to recreate it by sprinkling garlic salt on a buttered slice of white toast.
“I swear, Aunt Mary, the whole time I was in Afghanistan, the only thing I could think of was your lasagna. Except for when I was thinking about your beef stew. Or your chicken and dumplings.”
She gave him a modest tsk but he could tell by the slight blush on her cheeks she was pleased by the compliment. “You always did have a good appetite.”
The company was as good as the food, and stories flowed like the iced tea as they plowed through the lasagna. He told a few watered-down tales of Afghanistan. Joe told the story of blackmailing Keri into joining the entire Kowalski family on their camping trip. Mike told him about Kevin fainting like a girl the day Lily was born.
He laughed at the description of his cousin going down like a cement truck that blew a hairpin turn and crashed through the guardrail, holding his stomach because he hadn’t been able to resist the third helping his aunt had pushed on him.
“It’s game night,” nine-year-old Brian told him when the talk had died down and they were clearing the table. “Are you going to stay and play?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. “Just give me a few minutes to let my dinner settle, okay?”
“Sean’s playing,” the kid bellowed as he raced back to the others. “He’s on my team!”
“We don’t even know what we’re playing yet,” Danny pointed out.
“Don’t care. He’s on my team.”
While the family debated which board games to drag out with the ferocity of a cease-fire negotiation, Sean stepped onto the back deck for a little fresh air. When he closed the sliding door and stepped to the left—out of view of people in the house—he almost bumped into Lisa.
Sean had always liked Mike’s wife. She was on the shorter side of average—maybe five-three—but she had six feet of attitude and didn’t let anybody push her around.
“Ran into a friend of yours today,” he told her.
“Oh yeah?”
“Tall. Hot. Batshit crazy?”
It was a few seconds before understanding dawned in her eyes, followed by a hot blush across her cheeks. “She didn’t.”
“Oh, she did. Knocked on my door and told me she was my fiancée, and that you knew she was throwing my name around.”
She put her hand on his arm. “It was harmless, Sean. Really. She was just trying to make her grandmother feel better about being in Florida.”
“Did she tell you her grand plan?”
The flush deepened. “Oh, no. Tell me she didn’t.”
“She did.”
“I thought she was only joking.”
“I thought it was a prank your husband and his cohort brothers cooked up, but she was serious.”
Lisa shook her head, but he could see the amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth. “What, exactly, did she tell you the plan was?”