Page 122 of Sucker For You

Wes’s left sandal snagged on a curb. He stumbled across Yacht Road. “What the—”

“Over here!”

Coming toward them along the waterfront Golden Gate Promenade was a boisterous, waving clan of four Monaghans with zipped fleeces, hiking boots, and smiles, plus Ethan Meyer with a Frisbee and his golden retriever. Wes barely had time to set Isabel down before they were surrounded.

“You didn’t tell us you’d be back in San Francisco today!” Erin tackled her brother.

“Ooof!” He returned her enthusiastic embrace, rubbing his knuckles through her hair until she yelped. “Yeah, but that clearly didn’t stop any of you from showing up—”

“Only because I’ve been watching your boat.” Adrian flipped his aviators onto his head. “You can track registered seacraft, just like jets.”

“Are you starting an espionage side hustle?” Wes released Erin to slap his brother’s shoulder.

“Darling, it’s wonderful to see you. But your sunscreen. . .” Glasses glinting on a beaded chain, Lori Monaghan assessed Wes’s Mediterranean tan for evidence of burning, even while she moved Adrian aside to enfold her eldest son in her own hug.

“Don’t worry, Isabel kept reminding me and slathering me up, Mom.”

“And Isabel!” Lori turned. She swished a hand through her blonde-graying ponytail instead of grabbing Isabel for an embrace, and twinkled a greeting. “Welcome back to California, dear. We’re so happy to finally meet you in person. Of course, you two wanted your honeymoon to yourselves, but I’m very pleased that you’ve—”

“Wereyou honeymooning while you skipped out on so many of our Monday calls, though?” Erin hooked her elbow through Wes’s arm. Grinning over her shoulder at Isabel, she motioned for her to join them, then tugged her brother toward a picnic green overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Ethan and his retriever had already decamped there under the fog-fringed sunset to spread a blanket and open a cooler large enough to fit a giant Pacific octopus. Ethan tossed Erin a lemonade, which shethunkedinto Wes’s chest before offering Isabel a second bottle. “Or were you actually working for MORI and the wildlife magazines?”

Wes rolled his eyes and dropped onto the blanket. He settled Isabel into a nook between his knees. “Well, we—”

“I tracked your route, remember?” Adrian popped his cap with a carbonated fizz. “You were sailing around Greece’s marine preserves. It’s not hard to put the pieces together.”

“Exactly.” Erin continued the attack. “If I peek at your film, will I see you two sipping wine in seaside stucco bars and lounging on Elafonisi Beach? Or will I get a thousand shots of barracudas and algae blooms?”

“Some of both. You can’t avoid either in the Aegean Islands. My roll’s mostly octopuses right now, though—thanks to Isabel.” Wes’s thumb teased the vertebrae at the nape of her neck, where her cropped pixie cut exposed the strong, delicate bones. Setting aside his lemonade, he plucked a clover blossom from the grass and tucked it behind her ear. “Buttercup, want to tell them about those new cephalopod camouflage patterns that you identified at the Chania reefs?”

Yes.

Her stomach swooped again with excitement, with discovery. Before she could catch her breath, however, the Monaghan group’s focus shifted away from her and Wes with lightning speed: Lori was unpacking vegetable-and-hummus sandwiches from the cooler, plus pasta salad with feta, snap peas and peanut butter, a massive bunch of grapes, and chocolate-covered strawberries—and Ethan’s retriever had lunged for a rogue cube of cheese.

“Bunsen,no!” Snorting with apologetic laughter, he wrestled his dog away.

Lori palmed the feta to Bunsen anyhow. “I hope you tooksometime off from your work. Salad? I wasn’t sure what you liked, Isabel, so I got a variety of things.”

“Cleaned out the deli,” from Robert Monaghan, helping his wife to crack lids off the multiplying containers, nodding at Wes. “Special day.”

“Thank you, but you didn’t need to—”

“Yes.” Lori smiled at Isabel, kissed her husband’s cheek, then fixed a stern gaze on her son. “I did. And didyouthink you could avoid a celebration by rushing off to sea, darling?”

“Now you have to man up and deal with Mom stage-managing a huge engagement, rehearsal, and wedding party over the holidays this year.” Adrian’s smirk was unsympathetic around a grape. “Is that brave or stupid?”

Wes chucked a snap pea at him. “Don’t talk to me aboutbraveorstupid. Not when I’d bet this entire jar of peanut butter that you still haven’t called Mart—”

But Adrian yanked the picnic blanket out from under his brother before he could finish. Wes and Isabel topped together onto the grass. Bunsen howled with excitement as the pasta salad wobbled in his direction. Both Ethan and Erin dove to grab the golden retriever’s collar, and missed when they collided with each other. A sandwich went flying, spewing chickpeas, spinach, and mustard. The commotion attracted a flock of seagulls wheeling in over the bay. Wes reached for a handful of projectile grapes. For the gulls or his brother? Maybe both. From the corner of his mouth, he whispered, “Run for it, Buttercup.”

She did.

Not far, though, and not beyond the range of the Monaghans’ laughter. Breathless behind a smile, she paused her flight by a rock-walled promenade that footed the park’s picnic slope, where the Golden Gate Bridge directed ships and dreamers out to sea, where Alcatraz blinked its warning lights. . . and where the St. Francis Yacht Club overlooked the same stretch of water and sky.

Just over three months ago, she’d gazed out at this vista and wished to be anywhere else.

Now she had been—anywhere and everywhere.

And while she’d been to hereverywhere,everythinghad also happened.