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“Don’t look at me,” Ella said. “I’d never throw my cousins under the matchmaking bus.”
“Oh, please,” his aunt said, waving her hand. “You watch me like a hawk. It’s as much fun for you to catch me as it is for me to set someone up, Ella.” His aunt turned to him. “Your brother is married, your cousin Liam engaged. Lots of babies everywhere. What is your hold up, Ivan? You’re not getting any younger.”
“Did you just call me old?” he asked his aunt.
“I did. If you don’t get a move on, your little swimmers might dry up and then how are you going to give your mother and father a child to carry on the name?”
Ella burst out laughing. “You’re in rare form today, Mom. What’s the matter? Did Devin and Hope not give you the answer you wanted on when they were having a baby and now you need to pick on Ivan?”
He appreciated Ella going to bat for him. “I’m going to tell you what Devin did. Probably what everyone has said to you, Aunt Jolene. I’m onto you.”
His aunt laughed. “You all think you are, but you fall for it anyway. Just ask my girl here. The one with the second baby in her belly.”
“Dad set me up, not you,” Ella said.
His aunt scrunched her nose. Ivan knew it was a sore subject that his uncle started this all years ago without his aunt knowing. No one got anything past Aunt Jolene...except her husband.
Sometimes her kids.
He was going to make sure his name was added to that group and that was why he hadn’t made a move toward Kendra yet.
He’d bet anything his aunt had it all figured out and he’d be damned if he was going to let someone else call all the shots in his life.
Boring or not, it was his.
* * *
“Seriously, Mom,”Ella said. “How is it you know when Ivan is here all the time?”
Jolene walked to the door to look around and make sure that Ivan was gone, then shut her daughter’s door. “It’s my sixth sense.”
“Bullcrap,” Ella said with a massive grin on her face. Her hand dropped to her belly to rub.
“Is my grandson active?” she asked. “He hears my voice.”
“Yeah and he’s learning to run in the other direction like everyone else does,” Ella said.
“Wiseass.”
“You didn’t answer me on how you knew Ivan was here. For all you know he could have been at his other job.”
Jolene didn’t want to give away all her secrets, but she’d learned a long time ago if she gave a little it got her daughter off her back.
“I was talking to Shay earlier today. It just so happened that she mentioned Ivan was coming to dinner tonight.”
“And that made you think he’d be here?” Ella asked.
“No. He works late. He’s never out on time to go to dinner. Not unless he isn’t at work. Following the logic, I decided to come to the pub and get lunch and check in on things. Imagine my surprise when I heard his voice upstairs.”
Ella snorted. “Yeah. Imagine that.”
“You’ve got him working on numbers for Mason and his bourbons?”
“I do,” Ella said. “You know all the business that is going on here. There isn’t much that gets by you nor would we keep those things from you and Dad.”
“You five have done a wonderful job running and expanding this business for years. We trust you.”
“We know you do. But you still like to stick your finger into the pie and pull it out for a taste.”
