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Prologue
“Well, now, lass. Those cookies look just fine.” Patrick Collins smiled at his young granddaughter, amused by her impatient expression.
Sunday “Sunnie” Young was no one’s fool. She recognized his cookie-baking ploy for exactly what it was. “Can I go play with the boys now?” she pleaded for the eighteenth time in the last hour.
Patrick was hoping the lure of cookies would distract her. “They’re playing their video game, sweetheart, and there are only two controllers.”
“We can take turns.”
Riley had warned him about this. Apparently, Sunnie had become the quintessential annoying little sister in the past few months, constantly begging to play with her older brother, Finn, whenever his best friend, Landon, was around. Riley said they’d been attempting to please both Sunnie, who was desperate to be included, and Finn, who deserved some alone guy time, as much as possible.
Today fell into the “guy time” category.
Riley and Aaron typically managed their schedules so that one of them was available to babysit. And when they couldn’t, Aunt Bubbles was usually able to step in. However, this afternoon, the stars had not aligned. Which meant he was on duty, taking care of the two boys—the Landon sleepover had been planned before Aaron had been called unexpectedly to work at the precinct—as well as Sunnie and baby Darcy.
So far, Darcy had proved to be the easiest of his charges, arriving and remaining asleep throughout the past hour.
He’d been pleased when Aaron had brought Finn’s video game console from home and hooked it up before leaving. Aaron had assured Patrick that the game would ensure a relatively easy go of it. And that might have held true if Sunnie hadn’t insisted that she wanted to play as well.
They’d already tried the “taking turns” route, and it had ended in a physical struggle as Finn and Sunnie fought over the controller. In order to make peace, he’d suggested the cookie-baking venture. What he hadn’t considered was that, of course, the kids would want to eat said cookies. Finn and Landon had already polished off three each with half a gallon of milk.
As the sugar began to kick in, so did the noise level from the living room.
Even that would have been fine.
But that still left him with Sunnie, his precocious, adorable five-year-old granddaughter. Keira had mused only yesterday that perhaps too many members of the family had whammied Riley with that old “I hope you have a daughter just like you someday,” and the result had been Sunnie.
She was a whirling dervish of constant motion and chatter and questions and demands. Patrick suspected if there were a way to channel her limitless energy, she could provide enough power in Baltimore for a century.
When she wanted something, she dug in her heels. And right now, she wanted to play with the boys.
Patrick had offered to read her a book, but Sunnie responded to that as if he’d suggested they drown some newborn kitten. Neither sitting still nor listening were her strong suits.
Sunnie gazed longingly toward the boys, her eyes going wide with delight. A glance over the island to the living room proved the increased volume had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the wrestling match that had started. One Sunnie clearly had every intention of joining.
He raised his hand and said “no” when she started to dart toward the melee.
She stopped, but pouted.
“Boys,” Patrick said loudly, in a stern voice. He’d raised four rambunctious boys of his own. Wrestling matches were nothing new to him.
He was pleased when Finn and Landon both looked alarmed, then settled down, quickly apologizing, taking one last swing at each other’s arms before starting the video game again.
He turned back to Sunnie, who had somehow snuck out of the kitchen when he’d looked away.
Walking down the hall, he discovered her in his bedroom, jumping on the bed.
“Sit down, Sunnie,” he said. “I have an idea.” He reached for a photo album he kept on his bookshelf. Opening up the book, he sat on the bed and flipped through a few pages before finding the photo he was looking for.
“That’s my mommy,” she said, pointing to Riley.
He nodded. “That it is.”
“And that’s you. You have a lot more hair here. And it’s brown, not gray.”
Patrick chuckled. “Count how many kids are in that picture, then blame them for all the gray hairs.”
“Did Mommy make your hair go gray?”
Patrick chuckled, certain at least ninety percent of his gray hairs had Riley’s name on them, but he merely shrugged. “I worry about all my kids…so, gray hair.”
Sunnie glanced back at the photo. “That’s Grandma Sunday, the one I’m named after.”
Patrick looked at his beloved wife. Sunday would have adored this spitfire—and would have had the patience to figure out how to entertain her namesake.
Riley had always been an active little thing as well. He suspected that’s why she now served as chef for their family restaurant. Every time Riley acted up, Sunday would pull her into the kitchen and put her to work, patiently answering every single one of her daughter’s seventy-two million questions as they cooked. Riley had listened to every word and remembered. Which meant all of Sunday’s recipes and baking secrets still lived on.
Sometimes he wondered if Sunday had had a sixth sense about how short her life would be. If she’d somehow known she had to make every moment count. He’d found himself adopting that idea more and more these days, as each year passed and he grew a bit older, slower, and as more grandchildren entered his world. He wanted to pass on pieces of himself—his history and his stories—to all of them.
“Do you know how Grandma Sunday got her name?” Patrick asked.
Sunnie shook her head, her curiosity piqued. “No. Mommy never told me.”
Patrick considered that. “I’m not sure your mommy even knows.”
“So it’s a secret? One only you and me will know?”
He could see she loved the intrigue of that, so he nodded. “It is. Our own secret. Because your name is important and it has a very special meaning.”
Her eyes widened and she didn’t move. Patrick realized this was the longest he’d even seen her sit still. Even in sleep, Sunnie was a wiggle worm, constantly shifting and shuffling and kicking her covers off.
“You see, it took your grandma a long time to be born, a whole week.”
“How long does it usually take?”
Patrick had known there would be countless questions, and he suddenly regretted where he’d started the story. “Well, that depends. It’s different for every baby. It took Teagan three days to be born, but your mommy was born in just a couple of hours. That’s not the point of this story,” he added quickly. “Let’s just say it took her a very long time to be born and it made her mother very tired.”
“Mommy was in the hospital with Darcy for two days, but Darcy wasn’t in her belly the whole time. Bubbles took me and Finn to McDonald’s and ice skating and when we went to the hospital, Darcy was there.”
Patrick nodded, grateful Sunnie had a frame of reference that helped her understanding. After all, Darcy was only a few months old, so that memory was a strong one for her big sister. “The whole time your grandma was trying to be born, it rained. Lots and lots of storms. The sky was gray and dreary and everything was wet.”
Sunnie crinkled her nose. “I don’t like storms.”
“Grandma Sunday never liked them either.”
“What happened next?”
