Can't Fight the Moonlight (Whisper Lake #3) - Barbara Freethy Page 0,1

the angel stories. Plus, I want to take care of Aunt Carly's house. She's the one who gave me my first set of paints. She told me stories that made me love art and history. I'm really going to miss her. We had a special bond."

"I'm going to miss her, too, not that she and I were as close as the two of you were, but she was always fun when she came to visit."

"Usually on her way back from a trip somewhere."

"Crazy Aunt Carly," Annie said with a smile. "She and Mom might have been sisters, but they were as different as night and day."

Mia nodded. Her mother was a hard-working nurse who'd married a firefighter and raised six kids. Her Aunt Carly had never married, although she'd had numerous lovers, as she liked to call them, and she'd traveled all around the world.

Carly had died a few weeks earlier when she was on a boat that capsized in the Indian Ocean. It was difficult to believe she would not come home with yet another great story to tell. But at least she had died having the time of her life. What more could anyone ask?

"We should go inside," Mia said.

Before they could move, Sara, Chloe, and Emma came down the sidewalk with bags of presents in their hands.

Emma, a petite blonde with bright blue eyes, was a fire investigator and another one of her cousins.

Sara, a dark-eyed brunette, was married to Emma's brother Aiden. With Sara was her adorable, almost two-year-old toddler Chloe, who had a mass of brown curls to match her mother and a rebellious personality that was all Aiden. Even now, Chloe was tugging at her mother's hand, eager to get to the party.

"One minute, Chloe," Sara said firmly, as she and Emma exchanged hugs with Mia and Annie. "How are you doing, Mia? I heard you might be looking for a new job."

"News travels fast in this family."

"I have a friend who works at the Palace of Fine Arts. Let me know if you want me to make a call," Sara said.

"Thanks. I'm going to take a few weeks off before I decide my next move."

"Lucky you," Emma said. "I can't remember the last time I had weeks off in the summer."

"That's because you adore your job and never want to leave it," Sara teased Emma.

Emma grinned. "Actually, my adoration is now more focused on my husband, but between him and my job, I get even less time to myself."

Mia knew that Emma wasn't really complaining, not with the glowing smile on her face.

"Go now," Chloe demanded with another tug on Sara's hand.

"She saw the balloons and got excited," Sara said with an apologetic smile.

"I'm excited, too," Mia said. "Let's go to the party."

When they stepped onto the porch, Nicole threw open the door to greet them.

Like her sister Emma, Nicole had blonde hair and blue eyes, but she was also enormously pregnant, carrying all her baby weight in the front of her slender frame.

"Welcome," Nicole said, giving them each a hug.

"How are you, Nic?" Mia asked, lingering behind as the others made their way into the house.

"As big as a house and happy as can be, but I must admit that I am a little tired." Nicole rubbed her baby bump with an affectionate hand. "My miracle child has been kicking a lot lately. I think she's eager to meet everyone."

"We're eager to meet her, too. Where's her older brother Brandon?"

"Ryan and Sean took Brandon and Kyle to the park," Nicole explained, referring to her husband Ryan and her brother Sean, and the twin boys who were now eight years old.

"How is Brandon handling the idea of a new sibling?" she asked. Brandon had been diagnosed with autism when he was two, but he had recently improved in some areas of language and communication, which was not only due to intensive therapy, but also the reunion with his twin brother—another miracle that had been bestowed on Nicole.

"I don't think Brandon gets it yet, but Kyle is over the moon. And whenever Kyle is happy, Brandon is happy. That's the way with twins, I guess. You would know that better than me."

"Kate and I were never quite as tightly linked as Kyle and Brandon, but we do sense when one of us is in trouble and needs a call, a hug, or a kick in the ass."

"I have a feeling Kate would usually be the one to deliver that kick," Nicole said with a