“Okay.” The smile she left him with reminded him, in a way, of his mother. And then he remembered the photo of his mother that he kept in a frame in his study and realized Mallory was the image of her as a younger woman. After she walked away, he watched her until she was past the table full of men, who eyed her with curiosity. She didn’t stop to speak with them but rather kept walking toward the hotel. Big Mac’s mind raced with thoughts and memories and fear over what this news might do to his family—and his marriage.

As Mac and Frank approached him, clearly looking for information about what’d just happened, Big Mac knew he couldn’t tell anyone about Mallory until he’d told Linda. With that in mind, he walked purposely toward the parking lot.

As he approached his son and brother, Mac tried to stop him. “Dad?”

“Hold down the fort. I’ll be back.”

“Is everything all right?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. Nothing to worry about.” As he said the words, Big Mac hoped and prayed they were true.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

At the first sounds of chatter from the crib in the next room, Owen was up and out of bed, hoping Laura would sleep for a while longer. He changed the baby’s heavy overnight diaper, washed him up and left him in only a new diaper to feed him his cereal and applesauce for breakfast, knowing he’d probably need a full bath after he ate.

Holden was getting better all the time at eating from a spoon, but mealtime was messy nonetheless. After he’d devoured the runny cereal and a jar of applesauce, Owen rewarded him with a scattering of Cheerios on the table of his high chair. Watching the baby’s fat fingers pick up the Cheerios and get them to his mouth was one of Owen’s favorite things. With every new day, Holden learned how to do something else, and being part of that was nothing short of miraculous.

At times like this, when he got to spend time alone with Holden, he felt a little sorry for Laura’s ex-husband, who’d never know how much he was missing with the son he saw only sporadically, whenever he could manage a day trip to the island. Laura had been married to Justin for a couple of months when she discovered he’d never disabled his online dating profile and was still arranging meetings with other women.