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“It is. Let me know what you think,” Luna said.
“Nash, how lovely of you to come. And is this your brother?” Miss Sarah asked.
Luna stepped back as GHG moved forward. The brother was big also, but not as solid.
At six foot, she was tall, but these guys had a good few inches on her.
“Sorry we’re late!”
Luna watched a woman run in, followed by a large dark-haired man and a young girl. She had gorgeous red hair and a pretty face that seemed alive with happiness. They’d met earlier in a shop not far from Tea Total. Maggie, she remembered, and Mallory.
“You said be here by six p.m.,” GHG said to the newcomer.
“We got held up,” the man said.
“Did we miss the surprise?” Mallory looked annoyed about that. “Bee went for a run, and we couldn’t find her.”
“Well, now you’re here, and Marla and I couldn’t be happier,” Miss Sarah said.
“Hi, Luna.” Mallory gave her a shy smile.
“Hi, Mallory.”
“This is Ford, Miss Marla, Miss Sarah. He’s our oldest brother,” Maggie said, waving a hand at the man who now stood beside Nash with a look on his face that was a lot nicer than his grumpy brother's. “And Luna.”
She nodded and then took a step back and away from the group and the disturbing man whose lap she’d fallen into.
“You’re Charlie’s friend.”
This town was full of tall dark men who were serious lookers, Luna thought as another approached.
“I am.”
“I’m Dylan Howard, her brother.”
She shook the hand he held out and smiled. Charlie had told her all about the rebuild of the relationship she now shared with her siblings.
“Nice to meet you, Dylan.”
“Charlie told me you were there for her when she needed someone. I can’t thank you enough for that. At the time I was a selfish asshole.”
“We all have those times in our lives,” Luna said.
“We do, and it will always be a source of regret that it took me coming back to Ryker to see how much I’d lost not building a bond with my sisters.”
“But now you have,” Luna said.
“Now I have, and when you add them to the life I have with my wife and children, I have to wonder what took me so long to realize I wasn’t happy.”
This conversation was unsettlingly real to Luna. She was that person. Maybe not cold and shut off like she knew Dylan had been, but still, she went home alone at night. No one ever invited her over for pot roast unless Hugo was cooking.
“You okay there, Luna?” Dylan asked.
“Sure. Sorry, I was miles away.”
“No worries. I just wanted to thank you for being there for my sister when I wasn’t.”
Others came to join them then. But Dylan’s words stayed with her. Who did she have a bond with? Hugo, yes, and her siblings, but not really. She talked to them all the time, and went home every year, but what did she really know about them?
Looking around the room, she could feel the companionship in it. These people were tight. All talking over the top of each other. Well, maybe not all of them, Luna thought, looking at the GHG. He looked as isolated as she felt, but most of them were happy and relaxed in each other’s company, and that told her they were close.
The stab of pain in her chest reinforced that Luna needed to make changes or she’d be old, lonely, and living with her cats… if she had any, that was.
