After what’d happened to Maddie when she had Hailey and then Janey with PJ, he was terrified of something going wrong for Laura and the babies. The last place they ought to be eight weeks before her due date was in the Caribbean for a wedding, but she was determined to go, to have a last hurrah before the babies came and upended their peaceful existence.

Owen retrieved his cell phone from Laura’s bedside table, took his guitar and went downstairs to the sitting room off the lobby where he wouldn’t bother anyone by playing at two in the morning. Closing the door behind him, he lit a fire and settled into the armless chair that was his favorite place to practice.

Thank God for the music that had always been there for him, transporting him to another world where troubles didn’t exist. He’d taught himself to play at twelve on a flea market guitar with bad strings. That guitar had opened up a whole new world to him, one that he still ran to whenever life got to be too much for him.

He was lost in the music when Laura slid her arms around him from behind. Owen wasn’t surprised to realize he’d been there for ninety minutes by then.

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” she said. “I was worried.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to bother you.”

She kissed the back of his neck. “What’s keeping you awake?”

“Lots of stuff.”

“The trip?”

“For one thing.”

“Can I say something about that?”

“Something you haven’t already said?”

Smiling, she came around to sit on the footstool in front of him, which was when he noticed the baby monitor she held in her hand so they could hear Holden if he woke up. “We’ve had such a crazy year, O, between Holden’s birth, renovating the hotel, your dad’s trial, the wedding and the twins on the way. I want us to have a wonderful time away from it all before the babies come. Your mom and Charlie are thrilled to have Holden for a week, and we know he’ll be in very good hands with them. Please. I just want out of here for a week, and I really want to go to my cousin’s wedding—and I want you to be there, too. Evan is your best friend. He can’t get married without you. And,” she added, waggling her brows, “a whole week alone in Anguilla.”

“Alone with your whole family and all our friends.”

“With our own room to flee to any time we want.”

“I’m worried something will happen while we’re away.”