“I’m sure Paul and Alex would appreciate that.”

As she said his name, Paul came in from work, looking the same as he did every day—tired, dirty and sexy. Before she moved to Gansett, Hope would’ve said her “type” was white-collar career men. That was then. This was now. Dirty and sexy did it for her big-time. But then she reminded herself, as she often had to, that he was her boss and thus off-limits to her.

She couldn’t think of their middle-of-the-night kiss without feeling mortified by her behavior. The way she’d all but attacked him when he’d been offering comfort after Lisa died. Ugh.

“Hope?” Paul said, making her realize he’d been speaking to her while she’d been daydreaming about kissing him.

“Yes?”

He smiled, and oh, what that smile did to his already-gorgeous face. “Where’d you go?” he asked, although judging by the way he looked at her, he knew exactly where her mind had wandered. Had he been thinking about it, too?

“I was just going over what I’ll need to do to get Ethan ready for me to be gone for a couple of days.”

“If it’s too much, I can take my mom by myself.”

“It’s not. Not at all. Unless you’d rather—”

“Not even kinda,” he said, smiling again.

“I made the appointment for next week because I knew you’d want to be here for Lisa Chandler’s funeral,” David said to Hope.

“Yes, thank you for thinking of that. Have you seen the boys today?”

“I was there earlier, and they seem to be doing okay. Seamus and Carolina are taking good care of them.”

“Poor babies,” Hope said. “It’s so sad.”

“It really is. I guess I should go collect Daisy and take her to dinner.”

“Thank you again for everything, David,” Paul said.

David shook hands with him. “I wish there was more I could do. I’ll see you all tomorrow.” He walked out to join Daisy and Marion on the front porch. They wouldn’t leave without letting someone know, so Hope took advantage of the rare opportunity to relax for a minute.

The minute was short-lived when Ethan came running in through the back door, letting the screen slam behind him. “You’re home!” He nearly crashed into Paul, who moved quickly to scoop up the boy and flip him over his shoulder, making Ethan scream with laughter.

“What’s the rush, little man?”

“I wanna check the pumpkins, but Mom said I had to do my homework and wait for you. Can we go? Can we?”