“Charlie’s mom.” He gestured at his pride and joy, who was currently jamming several marshmallows on the end of his stick. “I moved here to be near him. The irony is, his mother remarried and moved away. Now I’m still here and I only get Charlie for summers and holidays. It’s tough.”

“Sorry to hear it. Kids are life’s biggest complication, aren’t they?”

“And its biggest perk.”

She chuckled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

He tried to toast the marshmallows slowly, but they burst into flame. He blew on them and offered the end of the stick to Darcy. “Crispy critter?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” She took a whole marshmallow into her mouth in a motion he found ridiculously sexy. “Delicious,” she said.

He liked talking to her. There was something easy about her, something genuine. “Tell me about life in SoHo.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I moved recently, to a little walk-up—emphasis on little—and I work on Madison Avenue.”

“Advertising?” He ate the rest of the melting marshmallows, liking the burned sweetness.

“Good guess. And you’re right.”

Their shoulders brushed. He felt it again, that pleasant sting of attraction.

She looked up at him, her expression slightly quizzical.

“So, listen,” he suggested, “after the kids are all tucked in for lights out, you want to go paddling?”

She laughed. “In the dark?”

“A moonlight paddle on Willow Lake. Since it’s your first time here, you don’t want to miss the lake by the light of the moon.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Up to you. We could invite India along, or not...if you’re sufficiently over your broken heart.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said easily. “You sound like fun, Logan. And as for my heart...” She sighed. “Do we ever get over it? Or just through it?”

“Good question.”

“And?” She gazed at him in a way that made him glad he’d suggested the after-hours paddle.

“And I don’t know.”

Wow, he thought. There was definitely some potential here. “I’m glad India brought you to see the place,” he said. “My family’s always trying to fix me up.”

“Do you need fixing?”

“Depends on who you ask. You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

She laughed. “I’m not afraid of anything. Except maybe—”

“Dad. Hey, Dad, check it out.” Charlie burst between them, brandishing a long stick with a marshmallow on the end. “Me and André are having a marshmallow war.”

“With flaming marshmallows,” André declared, bending back his stick, with a burning marshmallow on the end.

“Cripes, you can’t be doing that.” Logan grabbed the stick. “This stuff burns like napalm.”

“We’ll aim for the water,” Charlie said. “Da-ad.” He’d started a movement. Now a whole group of kids were catapulting marshmallows.