Page 106 of Once upon a Summer Night

Ellie didn’t check her tears as they fell. Of course Colin didn’t know any of this. Her aunt, in her very misguided way, sealed Ellie’s fate before it even had a chance.

“Oh, Eleanor, he’ll come around. Just give him time.”

Time. The one thing that would forever keep them apart. She nearly choked on the irony.

Chapter 18

Evelyn O’Rourke looked at her sons, her heart pained.

James mindlessly flicked through the channels on her television. From the time he’d been a child, when he was unhappy or distressed, he would do activities that made him appear interested while his mind stayed a million miles away.

His soon-to-be ex-wife had done a number on him. Evelyn spared a few unkind thoughts for the woman, but the thought that overrode it all was,I hope he’s only bent, not broken.

Her gaze went to her other son, who sat at her table, deeply involved in his work. Colin was the polar opposite of James. Whereas James had had natural people skills from the time he was born, Colin had to work hard to cultivate his. Looking at the man he was now, Evelyn was proud of him. He’d worked tirelessly for the better part of a decade to prove himself worthy of the Herculean task Brianagh had left for him. To take a successful company and make it his own was exactly what Colin needed to give his life purpose and direction. Brianagh had always been perceptive of others’ needs, and Evelyn was grateful Bri had enough foresight to know that Colin would need to step outside of his comfortzone to flourish. Maybe she knew that he needed to prove to himself that he was capable of great things.

Evelyn knew what was troubling James, and she also knew enough that he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Colin’s source of trouble smelled of relationship issues, and while James’s was relatively straightforward, Colin’s had an entirely different set of problems that came with it.

“Colin, could you help me weed the garden?” she asked, holding up a spare pair of gloves. “It’s so overrun, and with the back spasms your father’s been experiencing, I really don’t want to ask him.”

Colin looked up from his screen. “Can James help this time, Mom? I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get these e-mails out…”

“James is a bit involved in his troubles,” she said softly, letting her gaze stray to the couch.

Colin sighed, then closed his laptop. “Of course.”

He dutifully followed her out to the backyard, where her vegetables grew in haphazard beds. He dropped to his knees and immediately began pulling the weeds.

“Thanks, love. This can become an overwhelming task when it’s just me doing all the work.”

He grunted.

“How was your trip to Ireland? Reilly all right?”

“He’s great. The trip was pretty uneventful.”

“No extra side trips?” she asked meaningfully.

He glanced up, his dark eyes unreadable. “A bit of one, sure. There usually is.”

Evelyn nodded, though her heart contracted. She hated that her youngest child was a chosen one of the family tree. When she’d married Connor O’Rourke years before, her mother-in-law got her rip-roaring drunk and told her everything. Evelyn had thought her crazy, but she knew now that she’d been giving her a warning. The duty of being a Protector skipped at least one, but sometimes moregenerations, depending on how many Protectors were still alive at the time of a candidate’s birth. At least, that was what Reilly had explained to her when he’d shown up out of the blue one morning, a tiny, dark-haired child in tow.

Being entrusted with the care and raising of her family’s most important member was a joy. Evelyn loved every moment of being Brianagh’s surrogate mother, but when the time came to let her go, she’d nearly broken from the grief. The only thing that helped her through it was Colin…and his ability to take her and James back with him for the birth of each of Brianagh’s beautiful children.

Evelyn was a blessed mother, indeed.

She nonchalantly threw more weeds into the growing pile. “Oh, that must’ve been difficult to explain to Ellie. The poor girl. I wonder what she made of it when you disappeared. Did you have enough warning to hand her off to Candice?”

“It worked out,” was all he said. He plucked a weed a bit too enthusiastically, and a large mound of dirt came up with it. Muttering, he shook it free and tossed it into the pile.

Evelyn nodded, and allowed a moment of silence to pass. “I miss doing this with Dad. I hope that back surgery of his leads to a full recovery.”

“James says it will. Don’t worry so much, Mom.”

“It’s in my nature,” she replied mildly. “Love is like this pumpkin I’ve got growing here.”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard love compared to a pumpkin before.”

“Well, think about it. A pumpkin takes much more work to thrive than your average fruit.”

---