Even though she still believed they should have told her the less sordid part of her story—that she was their niece—she wasn’t certain if it would have helped or exacerbated her teenage feelings of inadequacy and the pain of being different. The three of them had worked long and hard to overcome the deficits her mother’s illness had inflicted on her and she owed it to her parents and herself not to let the truth taint her life.

She was Alice Hunter. That was all that mattered.

She could have happily kept spinning and soaking up the freedom it offered, but the room ran out. Harry caught her around the waist and she tumbled into his chest. Light headed and laughing, it took her a moment to realize he was holding both her hands in a dance position and then she was twirling out again and spinning back.

“Again, Alice. Again,” her nieces called.

Harry twirled her in and out three more times before he spun her into him. With her arm across her front and his firmly on her waist he tilted her back. Trusting him not to drop her, she willingly fell into a deep dip. Laughing, she looked up into Harry’s face and their eyes locked. His moss-green gaze, usually full of worries and concerns, was lit with longing. A delicious and unambiguous shiver shot through her.

“Can you teach me that, Harry?” Lucy asked.

Harry’s mouth twitched wryly and then Alice was back on her feet, feeling the loss of his hands on her.

“Me too!” Indi said. “Teach me too.”

“I didn’t know you could dance, Dad.” Holly sounded both accusatory and impressed.

“Glad I can still surprise you. When you grow up in a household obsessed with ballroom dancing, you don’t have a choice not to learn how to foxtrot, waltz, tango and swing.”

“Dance, Harry.” Indi positioned herself in front of him, holding out her hands.

“It was my idea. I should go first,” Lucy said.

“I’m hungry,” Hunter announced. “When’s dinner?”

Leo inexplicably burst into tears, adding to the cacophony of sound. Alice scooped him up, kissing the top of his head.

“I’ll teach you both how to cuddle dip,” Harry told the little girls. “And while you wait your turn, Holly can paint your faces if you like. Right, Hol?”

“Sure.”

Indi immediately dropped Harry’s hands. “Can I be a lion?”

“What’s for dinner?” Hunter repeated.

Seemingly unfazed by the chaos she’d brought into his house, Harry said, “What do you reckon, Alice? Will we order in pizza?”

“Great idea. Thank you.”

“Cool. Can I have meat-lovers?” Hunter looked as if all his Christmases had come at once.

“Pizza!” Her overstimulated nieces cheered.

“And garlic bread,” Holly said.

“And a big bottle of Coke,” Hunter added.

“No,” Alice said as Harry’s deeper voice chimed with hers.