“It was very nice of her.”

Yes, his mother could buy her a pie. She could wine and dine her like she was the one in a relationship with Regan. But he now understood that pie was so much more than dessert to Regan. It was family time and family dinners. It was her father wanting her brother to succeed. It was a hug from little girl who missed her daddy. It was the excitement everyone shared when you came home with news that you’d succeeded. Pie was what he wanted with Regan—every piece and every crumb.

He let his eyes wander from his plate to her. “I assume you bake pie like this too, then?”

“I’d say we all have some very profound pie-making experience.”

“You could say that again.” Arianna laughed at her sister’s comment.

“We all had our share of working in Mom’s bakery. Her parents started it when she was little and she inherited it. So yes, I certainly can turn out any baked good you might need.”

“Tiramisu?”

“Or a tiramisu.” She laughed.

“Lucky me.”

Arianna watched them. “So, how long have you two been together?”

“Since about two o’clock yesterday,” Zach answered and Regan jabbed him in the ribs.

“I work for Zach,” Regan said, her voice very serious and her tone threatening.

“You both will have to make a trip to New York to see me. You know, on Broadway,” she sang the word and wiggled in her seat like an anxious child waiting for a gift. “I guess you get to keep the house a bit longer. Unless Carlos has kicked you out completely.” She broke off the crust to her pie and popped it into her mouth.

Regan grinned. “He told you he’s been staying?”

“Clara.” They both laughed. “C’mon, Mama wants to open that wine you brought.” She nodded toward the house.

They opened the wine and all sat down in the living room with their glasses.

At eight thirty, the doorbell rang and Carlos moved for the door with Clara close in tow. Soon Eduardo and Christian gathered their belongings and left the room. Regan patted Zach on the knee. “I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later Regan sat back down and Carlos sauntered back to the room, alone. “I’m gonna head out. Mama, thanks for dinner.”

Emily rose to kiss him. “I love you, Son.”

Regan and Arianna kissed him as well, and Zach shook his hand. “It was nice to meet you and your children.”

“I’ll see ya on the site.” He waved to them all and left the house.

Arianna sipped her wine. “He’ll get over it soon enough.”

“It’s been two years. It’s time,” Alan said pragmatically, still focused on the television.

“I suppose we should go.” Regan stood and took Zach’s wine glass to the kitchen. Emily followed.

Zach stood, meaning to follow too, but he heard Emily questioning Regan. He stopped just outside the door, unsure whether he would be intruding. “You’re careful?”

“Mama, I’m fine. Nothing like that has happened. Besides, I’m thirty-three years old. I’m not a teenager.”

“I know. I don’t want your heart broken again… or anything to happen to you.”

“Neither do I.”

Zach backed away from the door. They were all watching out for her, and it was his job to make sure they were satisfied that she was happy and safe. Eventually she’d need to tell him what had happened. It wasn’t just a relationship that had ended badly. There was obviously much more.

She was quiet on the way home, but he took solace in the fact that her fingers remained laced with his.

“So, while you were around”—he smiled—“I was looking at the pictures on the wall. Is Carlos adopted?”

She laughed and turned her head to look at him. “Huh, what would give you that idea?”

“Curtis is the only one who looks like either one of your parents. You and your sister look exactly alike, only she’s about two inches taller than you even without those shoes on.” He looked at her, and her eyes were smiling from behind the curtain of dark lashes. Even when he spoke of her family, it made her happy. “Then there’s a picture of just you and your sister when you’re really little, and other family pictures of the two of you and your parents. Then another where Arianna is holding Curtis as a baby. Then there is a family picture of you all, and Carlos is right in the middle. I don’t know, maybe he was six or seven. Spill the story.”

“Mama and Papa were married fifteen years before they had children. What they got was me and Arianna. She was two and I was three months old when we came to live with them.”

“You’re adopted?” She nodded with a smile. He shook his head and let out a quick laugh. “I should have guessed that. You are all so wonderfully different.”

“They were our foster parents. We were born to a young couple and the state took us away. They placed us with the Kellers and we never left.” She smiled. “Mama was told she couldn’t have any children, but the day our adoption went through—I was already two—was the day she found out she was pregnant with Curtis. She was forty.”

The reality that he was almost forty hit him. Family. It was something he’d always thought he’d wanted, and after dinner with her family, he was sure of it.

“So what about Carlos?”

“Ah, Carlos became my brother when we were seven. He’s two months older than I am.”

Zach couldn’t even begin to imagine sharing everything with others. He had no cousins or siblings. No one was ever in his space, and he never had to vie for his parent’s attention. Even at school he’d had his own room. “How does that work when your family is already established?”

“You adapt,” she said. “He just blended. His parents had brought him here from Puerto Rico when he was four. They belonged to our church, and we were friends. His family was very poor and the church helped them a lot. Mama helped too by giving Carlos’s mother work in the bakery and around the house. His father worked odd jobs fixing things.” She adjusted in her seat and looked out the window.

“They were in a car accident going home one night. The roads were slick.” She took a deep breath. “Carlos was the only survivor. Mama stayed with him at the hospital for days while he cried for his mother. When he was ready, they released him to my parents. They were still foster parents and they took him in. And just like me and my sister, Carlos never left.”