“It won’t explode,” he assured Krys. “It’ll only feel like it’s exploding.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You don’t have this comforting thing down pat yet, do you?” she asked him. Making her way to one of the side tables, she picked up a paper plate that resembled a plate made out of actual china. Holding it in her hand, she placed a couple of appetizers on it.
“I’m a work in progress,” Morgan confided in reference to her observation. He nodded at her plate. “And you do know that you can take more than that, right?” He assumed that she was being polite and trying not to deplete his uncle’s supply. “You wouldn’t believe how much food Uncle Andrew makes for one of these gatherings.”
She shook her head as he started to offer her another appetizer. “That’s okay. I’m not sure I can hold anything down yet.” When he looked at her in confusion, she explained, “My stomach’s been in a knot ever since you told me that we lost my likeliest stalker suspect when you found out that it was Claire’s former boyfriend who murdered her.”
Morgan moved in closer and lowered his voice. He felt fairly confident that Krys wouldn’t appreciate his sharing this piece of information with the people in the immediate area, at least, not until she felt comfortable with all the members of his family. He was well aware that as much as he loved them, they did take some getting use to.
“I promise I’m not going to leave you until we get this stalker and permanently lock him up in prison.” Morgan looked into her eyes, hoping to erase the anxiety he saw there. “Feel better?”
“Oddly enough, I do,” she told him. She was not the type to play the damsel in distress, nor the type to take solace in promises. Not usually. She was usually the type who insisted on tilting at her own windmills and fighting her own battles.
But something had changed for her since she had lost her mentor and, in a way, lost her sister as well, even though Nik had just gotten married and not left her permanently. But even so, it felt as if the parameters of her world had shifted, making her feel vulnerable. It wasn’t a feeling that she relished.
Vulnerable. The same could be said for the way she had responded to Morgan.
This certainly hadn’t been her first experience in making love. But somehow, this experience had been different. It had left her with a very different feeling. One she wasn’t used to.
“Earth to Krys.”
Krys blinked as Morgan’s voice penetrated her consciousness. She realized that for a moment, she had gotten lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard what he had said to her.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to zone out like that.”
“That’s okay. I just want to make sure you’re all right,” Morgan told her. He motioned toward a gazebo that was set apart from the tables scattered around the rather large backyard and patio area. “We can sit over there,” he told her, thinking she might want some time to get used to having all these family members around.
“No,” she said, turning down his offer. “If it’s all the same to you, I think it’s time I started meeting more of these people here,” she told him, indicating the various clusters of family members in the immediate area.
Morgan grinned, happy to act as a tour guide. “Sure, it’ll be my pleasure,” he told her, and she felt that he really meant that.
Krys approached the next few hours as if she were on assignment, or at least she did initially. When she was on assignment, she carefully put her own feelings and thoughts on the back burner and concentrated on learning about the people she was meeting for the first time and interacting with. That was her own way of making the people she was writing about come alive for her readers as well as for the editor who would eventually be reviewing her work.
But somewhere along the line in that first hour and a half, Krys unconsciously stopped being a reporter, stopped working the groups of people as if they were her assignment and started seeing them for what they were. Morgan’s family.
A family that, despite his teasing comments to the contrary, he was very much attached to—and, she discovered, with good reason. Because the love that radiated from these people and between these people was simply impossible to miss.
It made her realize how stark her own upbringing had been in comparison. And how much worse it would have been if it hadn’t been for her sister and her father, even though her father had to be absent from her life a great deal out of necessity.
Over the course of those few hours, Morgan saw the slow, subtle shift in Krys, saw the transformation in her demeanor as it was happening.
Even so, Morgan held his breath for a little bit, worried that she might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in the house. But gradually, he realized that he was worrying for no reason. Krys seemed every bit up to this challenge of holding her own in the company of his cousins and siblings.
Not that he felt they might run right over her, but he knew they expected and wanted the best for one of their own—just as he would if the tables had been turned and he was judging a companion who had come with one of his sisters.
Cavanaughs were nothing if not protective, he thought. But they were also fair and prone to giving someone another chance if they felt that person was deserving and had accidentally made a misstep they were eager to rectify.
Over the course of the day,
