“Let’s think back to the heartbeat of the brave little frog,” Debbie went on, “who decided to be the first to venture out of the slime of the past and bravely leaped onto the shores of today.”

Her father snorted.

Jess turned to look at him. He cut her a guilty smile, then looked at Davey. “I love cowbell,” he said. “I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.”

Well, well. Her father had a sense of humor. Same sense of humor she had, apparently, since she loved that old Saturday Night Live skit.

“Are you sick, Dad?” Davey asked. “Do you have a fever?”

“No, no, Davey. Just joking around.”

“Tanner,” Debbie said with a disapproving frown at Jess and her father, “will you lay down a rhythm for us, the rhythm of that brave little frog’s heartbeat?”

There was another small snort, and Jess almost smiled herself.

Weird, the idea of laughing with Keith Dunn.

Tanner started with a basic rhythm, which the drum circle picked up. Even Jess could follow it, so long as she didn’t think too hard. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. It was when people started getting fancy that she screwed up. Taptap. Tap... Tap. Okay, time to fake it.

Her father wasn’t much better, pinging away at a triangle at irregular moments. Davey was pretty good, though, and Miranda kept whacking out the, er, heartbeat, steady and loud. There were two actual drummers in the group who made them all sound pretty fantastic, adding beats and riffs and whatever else they were called.

After ten minutes or so, Jess put her block back in the center and grabbed finger cymbals. She took a seat across the circle so she could watch her father and Davey.

Davey smiled nonstop. He saw her watching and smiled even bigger. She waved, feeling a smile herself.

Her father looked happier than Jess could ever remember. Not secretive, not sly, not falsely innocent. He kept looking at Davey, pinging away on the triangle, happiness and sorrow mingling in his expression.

Years of crushed expectations had taught Jessica better than to get her hopes up. But being Davey’s sister...well, he had some wisdom to impart, too, and Jessica knew it. Be in the moment. Try not to worry. Stop and watch the clouds drift past.

So maybe, just for this hour, she’d stop gnawing herself to pieces inside and take in the sight of her father and brother having fun.

A hand pressed on her shoulder. Ned, who’d played drums in the high school band. “What’s our theme this week?” he whispered.

“Primordial frog heartbeats,” she said, and the two of them dissolved into wheezing laughter. Then Ned took her cymbals and actually made them sound cool, a swish-swish-swish that, Jess imagined, sounded just like brave little Froggy’s ventricles, pushing the blood through his heart so he could make his great leap of faith.

* * *

AT THE END of drum circle, Davey towed their father over to Jess’s side of the circle. “Can Dad sleep over?” he asked.

“I can’t, son,” Keith said.

“Dude, there’s no room,” Ned reminded Davey. “I live with you now, remember?”

“Oh,” Keith said. “Are you, uh... Never mind.”

“No,” Jessica said. “We’re not. He’s practically a child.”

“Still holding out for you to go cougar, Jess,” Ned said, checking his phone. “Oh, missed a call from Sarah. See you guys at home.”

“Well, I’ll... I’ll be on my way,” Keith said. “Great to see you both.”

Davey looked crestfallen. “Can’t you stay?” he asked. “Please?”

“I actually have to work,” Keith said. “But I’ll see you soon, I hope.”

“Why don’t you come for dinner one day this week?” she said, and holy crap, that hadn’t been planned.

“Yes!” Davey said. “Yes, that’s a great idea, Jess! Okay! Bye, Dad! See you at dinner one day this week!” He charged over to Miranda, whose mother was chatting with Debbie Meering.

“Are you sure?” Keith asked her.

“No. But come on Thursday. Five-thirty. He likes to eat early.” She turned and went to corral Davey before she said anything else she might regret.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SO FAR, COLLEEN was batting .000 in the matchmaking department. She’d said, quite convincingly, that she really thought he and Marcy would hit it off. “I mean it, Con! You’re the silent, grouchy type. She’s all sunshine and marigolds, and very outgoing. Someone has to drag you out of your cave. Give her another try.”

He’d refused.

Then came Gwen, who met him at O’Rourke’s. She seemed nice enough. Worked as a fourth-grade teacher. She was pretty. They made it through the crab cake appetizer without incident, until Connor asked one of Colleen’s required questions.

“So, tell me a fun fact about yourself, Gwen.” He winced at the words fun fact and reminded himself that Colleen had fixed up dozens of couples.

“Hmm.” Gwen leaned back in her seat. “Well, I like to target shoot.”

“Oh, yeah? You any good?”

“Hell, yeah! Once, I shot a baby raccoon at about two hundred yards. I’m that good.” She winked. “So. Would you rather burn to death, or be buried alive?”

And now, Bailey, who hadn’t killed any baby animals. At least there was that. Otherwise, not so much to recommend her.

“This is my first choice for my dream bouquet. See these ribbons? A perfect color match to my maid of honor’s dress. See? Beautiful, isn’t it?” The woman looked up at Connor, a religious glow in her eyes. “And then, wait for it...my dream shoes. Aren’t they beautiful?” She spun her iPad around for Connor to see.

He was going to kill Colleen the second her baby was born. Then he would take his little niece and raise her himself, though Lucas would probably have an issue with that. He glared at his twin from across the floor, where she was very ungracefully maneuvering behind the bar. She gave him an innocent look. What? Wipe that look off your face.

This cannot be a serious date.

Free your mind, idiot.

Free his mind, please. It was hard enough not to just bolt from the restaurant. Here he’d had a perfectly nice day off, going for a run with Jeremy Lyon, then heading up to Tim’s garage, smelling hops and tasting their latest batch and scrubbing out the fermenting tanks. Then Colleen had to go and ruin it.

Bailey Something, his date for the night, was, according to his sister, everything he needed in a future wife. She was an attorney—brains—had been on her college swim team—health—and represented a women’s shelter pro bono—heart. She was attractive, he guessed. Brown hair, brown eyes. Medium height. The rest of her was hard to see, as she was hunched in front of her iPad, which showed some kind of online collage entitled Bailey’s Dream Wedding.

“Connor?” she asked. “You haven’t even said if you like the shoes.”

“They’re nice,” he said, glancing longingly toward the kitchen. The restaurant was packed, and, regrettably, it was his night off. Hannah and Monica were racing orders in and out; Jordan was doing okay behind the bar, though she wasn’t as good as Colleen. Rafe had a nice thing going on with the salmon special, though Connor might’ve used a little more dill and the Black Sea salt rather than the truffle salt. The regulars were all lined up at the bar: Gerard and Ned, Victor and Lorena, Mel Stoakes and the nice lesbian couple whose names he couldn’t remember.