“Meet Rafe and Brooke,” Dylan said as Mason crawled over to his feet and lifted his arms. Without pause, Dylan picked him up. “I’d like you guys to meet Grace and Mason.”
When Brooke waved at the baby, he gleefully waved right back. “Isn’t he sweet?” Mia said as Ford helped her up to stand in what looked to Grace like impossibly high heels.
“So sweet,” Brooke and Tatiana both agreed.
The way everyone immediately fell in love with her son helped Grace regain a little of her composure. Of course, that was right when one more brother walked in, saw Mason with his sleepy little head resting on Dylan’s shoulder, and asked, “Whoa, did you adopt a kid on your last sailing expedition?”
“Grace, this is Adam. I’m sure you’re going to be really surprised to hear that he’s still single.”
That was when Adam turned and saw her. “The baby’s yours?” When she nodded, he gave her a really flirtatious grin. “No wonder the kid is so cute.”
By then, what else could she do but laugh? Dylan had talked during their interview about learning to walk on the deck of a sailboat during a storm without being tossed off. Now she thought she knew exactly what that felt like simply from having met his entire family in the past five minutes.
Or nearly the entire Sullivan clan, because when a handsome man with gray hair came in and every person in the room beamed at him, she now knew exactly how handsome Dylan would be in thirty years—and also how much the children he’d have would adore him. And when Dylan’s father took Claudia into his arms and kissed her, Grace couldn’t hold back her sigh at how sweet it was to see two people so much in love after so many years.
No wonder there was so much love in the house.
Normally, Mason would be tired and cranky by now, but he was completely in his element with all the women cooing over him and all the men saying he was probably going to be a pro ball player with an arm like his.
Of the two of them, she was the one overwhelmed, not only with her feelings for the subject of her magazine story, but also by his magnificent family. So when Claudia asked if Grace could help her put together the salad, she was thrilled to be able to step out of the big group. Their mother, Grace had already figured out, was the calm eye at the center of the storm.
“Thank you, again, for watching Mason while I interviewed Dylan.”
“Anytime you need someone to watch your son, you know who to call. He’s all changed and clean, by the way. Did your interview go well?”
“Listening to Dylan talk, I felt almost as if I were out there in a sailboat with him. Your son is a fascinating man.”
Grace looked up from the cucumber she was slicing to sneak a glance at him. Only to find that he was already looking at her. Flustered again, she had to steady her hands before she resumed work with the knife.
“Mason reminds me of the way Dylan was as a child,” Claudia told her. “Sweet. Always ready to laugh.” He was laughing right then in Brooke’s arms as she bounced him. “Happy to spend hours building things. In fact, he was so easygoing that we realized it would be really easy to leave him be, especially when his brothers and Mia all seemed to need us more. So when Max saw that he was fascinated by sailboats, we both decided we would learn how to sail with him. It was, truly, one of the best things we’ve ever done, because that’s when we really got to know our son…and he got to know us, too.”
“In the cockpit confessional,” Grace said with a smile, referencing one of the things Dylan had said to her during their interview. “So do you also believe that you can’t keep a secret when you’re out on a boat?”
“You’ll find out for yourself the first time you go sailing with him.”
Just then, Mason let out a little wail, and she hurried over to take him from Brooke. “I think he misses his mommy,” Brooke said.
Grace pressed a kiss to his forehead. “It’s been a big day for him, meeting so many new people.” For both of them. “He’s probably hungry and thirsty, too.” She reached into his bag nearby for a bottle. He cuddled into her chest and started drinking like he’d just crossed the Sahara Desert.
Dylan brought them over to the dining table, where he pulled out a chair next to his. She’d intended to put Mason in his portable high chair, but after he had his bottle he crawled into Dylan’s arms and immediately dozed off.
It was, Grace thought, the cutest, sweetest thing she’d ever seen—a big, strong man holding a sleeping baby so gently. One who obviously felt so safe that Mason wasn’t the least bit disturbed by everyone else coming into the dining room, laughing and teasing each other in the way only a truly close family could. Grace noted that she wasn’t the only one who thought Dylan and Mason painted a beautiful picture—she was pretty sure Claudia’s eyes got a little glossy, too.
Heaping platters of food were passed around, and with Dylan’s hands full, Grace filled both their plates with some of everything. She thought she’d be too nervous to eat in a group of famous strangers, but the minute she took her first bite of his mother’s delicious food, she realized she was starving.
Sitting down with everyone at dinner finally gave Grace a chance to study his family a bit. Still a little star struck, at the same time she was amazed by how normal they seemed. They joked, they teased, they flirted—especially Adam. From what Dylan had told her, they all got together on a regular basis.
Tatiana, who was sitting on her left, said, “I’d love to know more about the story you’re writing, Grace. Especially since Dylan is usually so reluctant to be interviewed.”