He’d been the only family member who had been there for her. Always.
When everyone in the room gasped and turned their eyes towards her, she realized she hadn’t been paying attention to anything anyone had said.
“What?” she asked, frowning at all the glares.
Jon cleared his throat and repeated his last sentence.
“Candlewood Inn and all my holdings in their entirety go solely to my granddaughter, Evelyn Candlewood.” Jon continued reading, but Eve’s ears started to ring, and her vision grayed as her lungs burned from the lack of breathing.
3
Enlightened
“Daddy!” Dylan caught his flying daughter, Palmer, as she jumped from his father’s arms to his own.
“There’s my girl.” Dylan held onto her as he moved in circles. His greatest joy, his five-year-old daughter, squealed with delight.
“Thanks for taking her, Dad,” he said when he was done spinning in circles.
“Sure, thing, son.” His father slapped him on the shoulder. “What kind of project have you got going now?” His father glanced at the saw and the pile of wood.
“I’m adding a pergola over the end of the deck.” He shrugged.
“Need any help?” His father was always eager to lend a hand, even if it was just picking up Palmer from reading class or time at the library.
Moving to the small island where his father had retired years earlier had been the best decision Dylan had made. Especially after his wife Kendra’s death hours after Palmer’s birth, leaving him a single father.
“Papa, you promised,” Palmer said, with a little pout.
“Oh.” His father snapped his fingers. “Right, I almost forgot.” He leaned closer to her and kissed her on the forehead. “Dylan, Palmer and I would like to know if we could go for ice cream and pizza. In that order,” he added with a smile.
Dylan laughed and decided he could use a break. He’d worked through lunch and felt his stomach growl with the thought of a slice or two.
“That sounds wonderful. How about I head in and hit the shower and change, and we can all go together?”
“Yippee!” Palmer laughed and clapped.
“How about you come in and show me that new painting you did?” His dad took Palmer from his arms easily. “So, your dad can go shower and stop stinking,” he added as they walked into the house.
As he stood under the cold spray, Dylan’s mind wandered to the pretty brunette he’d spotted driving up to the inn. She’d about missed the turn, which he was glad of. He would have missed her if she hadn’t.
He’d looked up in time to see her back up and turn around and had gotten a good glimpse of her.
Caramel eyes and soft brown hair pushed to the side of her head in a sharp angled bob that held soft curls. He could only make out her face, but his mind filled in the rest of her.
It had been those eyes of hers. They had locked with his and, in that instant, they’d heated him up from his core.
The last time that had happened, it had been with Kendra. His heart skipped as it always did when he thought of his wife. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t miss her.
Every time Palmer made a new steppingstone, he wanted to call Kendra and fill her in on their daughter’s growth. He often just wanted to call her and talk to her about his projects or what he’d done for the day. He didn’t think of himself as lonely, not really. He had his father and Palmer. But seeing those sexy eyes today, with their promise of a good hot time, he realized he’d gone too long without.
Almost six years was a long time. He had promised himself over Kendra’s grave that he would never love again, but he’d known instantly upon taking Palmer home three months later it had been a lie.
They hadn’t planned for the baby to arrive that early. They’d had three more months to go, plenty of time to pick out a name. When Kendra went into labor, Dylan had been thrust into a whole new world.
A world where something that quite literally fit in the palm of his hand relied on him. For everything. So, he’d spent as much time at the hospital as he could, by his daughter’s side, sitting next to the incubator, making friends with all the NICU nurses whom his daughter’s life relied on.
When he was asked to pick a name, he glanced down at the small baby girl in his palm and decided right there.
Months later, he was allowed to take Palmer Kendra Steele home to the nursery he and his wife had yet to finish. The house just north of Seattle hadn’t felt like home anymore. So he’d called his dad and, along with some of his buddies, he’d packed up everything he could and donated most of Kendra’s basics items to a woman’s shelter, keeping some of the important things he believed Palmer would want when she grew up. He’d purchased the log cabin on Orcas Island thanks to the lawsuit he’d won over the doctor’s negligence in Kendra’s death and stashed the rest of the money away for Palmer’s education and life.
He hadn’t looked back, not until last year, when he’d grown restless and started doing a few odd construction jobs around the island. Starting his own business, Steele Home Repair, had been easy enough now that Palmer attended preschool four days a week in town. He had plenty of time to stay busy. Besides, there was a dire need on the island. It appeared he was the only one living there that knew anything about construction.
He’d been working for a major architecture business in Seattle shortly after getting out of the Navy, when he’d met Kendra, an interior designer who worked for the same company. Less than two years later they’d been married. They’d lost a son, prior to Palmer, and the stillbirth had caused Dylan such heartbreak, he hadn’t believed he could heal. Then Kendra had surprised him with a second pregnancy. He hadn’t wanted to try again, and instead had been looking at adoption.
Now, as he sat across from his daughter as she carefully ate the cut-up pieces of cheese pizza, he couldn’t imagine life without her. She was his everything.
When the bell above the pizza parlor’s door chimed, he glanced up, as did everyone else in the place.
Hope Harbor was a small enough town that everyone knew everyone. Seeing the Candlewood family shuffle in, he rolled his eyes in his father’s direction. Everyone in town knew about the Candlewoods. Then he remembered Reggie Candlewood had passed away last night. The older man was the only Candlewood Dylan could tolerate. Dylan had considered the old man a friend. He’d done a few small jobs up at the inn when the old man had called him for help.
Then Dylan spotted the pretty brunette. Yup, the rest of the package was as sexy as those caramel eyes. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a long flowing cream sweatshirt and holding a jacket around her like she had just stepped into a freezer. Her eyes were glazed over as if she’d just been given some bad news. They were dry and not red, so Dylan didn’t think that she had been crying, but she looked almost like she was in shock.
He watched Grace Candlewood push the woman into a booth and, after talking to her, moved to the counter to order a pizza with the rest of the group.
He realized, looking between the two women, that this woman was Grace’s daughter, Evelyn. He’d heard about the woman, about her job in the city and her recent divorce. He didn’t know all the details, since he tuned out most of the gossip that spread around the island.