No one was better at getting information out of her kids than his mother. Among her specialties were questions that subtly pinned you in place, then forced you to spill your guts when you’d sworn to keep your silence on a subject forever.

“We’re not actually together right now.” It wasn’t hot out but he was sweating. “I blew it.”

His mother watched him carefully before her mouth curved up into a smile. “I’ve hoped for this for so many years, waited for someone to come along whom you could finally love more than your family, someone who would turn you inside-out and toss you off your path.” His mother looked positively gleeful in the face of his misery. “Someone just like Nicola for you to blow it with.”

Dumbfounded, Marcus could only watch his mother walk away with a smile on her face as Lori yelled out, “Marcus, you’re here!”

Finally, he got his feet working again and headed toward the group out in the middle of the backyard.

A half-dozen voices came at him, but all Marcus could see was that Gabe was sitting way too close to Nicola. He knew his youngest brother’s type. Nicola was exactly the kind of woman Gabe and the other guys at the fire station liked to take home for the night.

“Gabe,” he said, “you’re needed in the kitchen.”

His brother looked doubtful. Gabe was notorious for leaving the kitchen looking like a tornado had hit it. Fortunately, he shifted his seat back and started to get up, but before he did, he leaned over to say something in Nicola’s ear. She laughed and Marcus’s hands started to curl into fists.

Hell, he’d practically raised Gabe from a baby. He shouldn’t want to kill him now just because he’d made Nicola laugh, and looked at her a little too long, with a little too much interest.

Fortunately, before Marcus could leap across the yard to flatten his youngest brother, Chloe walked over to say hello with a hug. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Chase was a step behind his fiancée. “We’re thinking about coming up to the winery for a visit sometime soon,” Chase told him, pulling Chloe close.

The two of them had fallen in love at his winery and Marcus had been amazed to watch his brother fall head over heels for a woman he’d just met. He hadn’t been able to understand how something so big could happen so fast.

But now he understood perfectly.

“Come anytime. The guest house is always yours. It’s been too long.”

He meant what he said, but he could hear how stilted his words were even to his own ears.

Zach was on his cell phone on the other side of the yard, Ryan was at the grill flipping burgers, and Sophie and Lori were on opposite sides of the table again. They’d been at odds with each other for months.

Marcus had always been the one to break up the twins’ fights, to force the two of them to sit down and actually talk to each other. If this were a normal Sunday brunch, he would have dragged them off by their ponytails and done just that.

But he couldn’t focus on anything but Nicola today, could barely remember how to put one foot in front of the other or speak without sounding like a complete fool. Now that he’d let himself look at her, he couldn’t pull his gaze away. She looked so beautiful, so right, sitting in the backyard he’d grown up in.

“Hi."

She blinked at him, clearly wary. “Hi, Marcus. It’s nice to see you again.”

God, he hated the way she sounded so distant. Just the way she had when she’d told him she was glad to have met him, then walked out of his life.

Not picking up on the strained atmosphere between them at all, Lori cheerfully explained, “Marcus came by to visit our rehearsal a couple of days ago.” She patted Gabe’s open seat. “Come sit down.”

Marcus didn’t know how he’d manage to sit that close to her without touching her, without pulling her onto his lap where she belonged. But he couldn’t just keep standing there with his entire family looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

He felt as if he were moving in slow motion as he came around the table. Nicola’s eyes widened as he approached and he couldn’t look away from her. He sat down and when his thigh brushed against her, she jumped out of her seat.

“I’m going to go see if your mother needs help with anything in the kitchen.”

Lori beamed after her as Nicola hurried off. “Isn’t she sweet? I think she and Gabe are really hitting it off.”

Smith shook his head. “I don’t think so, Lori."

Lori frowned. “What do you mean? They were totally flirting earlier and now she’s using Mom as an excuse to go spend more time with him in the kitchen.”

“Marcus, you got any theories on why she left in such a hurry?”

He took a long swig from his beer. It was either that or tackle Smith across the table. Or go inside and pound the hell out of Gabe for flirting with his woman.

Hell, he’d happily take on every last one of his brothers right now if it meant he could work through some of the frustration coursing through him at being this close to Nicola but not actually being in any position to tell her how he felt, how sorry he was for ruining everything.

Clearly, Smith had put two and two together. And it didn’t seem that he liked the idea of Marcus hooking up with Nicola much at all.

Smith could go screw himself.

Fortunately, Lori was still clueless. He didn’t think Chase and Chloe had linked him with Nicola yet, but they still looked worried about him.