The Tycoon's Proposal. Shirley Jump

      Mac covered his mother’s hand with his own. He’d missed her simple touch, her ever-present love for her sons. Despite everything that had happened in the past between Bobby and Mac, Della couldn’t hold a grudge if it was glued to her palm. He loved that about his mother. “Good to be back, Mama.”

      Jack gestured toward one of the seats at the table. “So, you gonna stay awhile or what?”

      Mac’s gaze went to his father. Even now, even at thirty, Mac wanted that nod of approval. Ridiculous. He should be well past that need.

      “Of course he’s staying,” Mama said. She pulled out a chair and practically shoved Mac into it. “Plus it’s Maddy’s birthday—”

      “Who’s Maddy?”

      “Stay home for more than five minutes and you’ll get caught up,” Jack said.

      “Maddy is Luke’s daughter. With Susannah Reynolds,” his mother explained. “It’s a long story, one that I’ll share after dinner. And now, Luke is marrying Peyton, Susannah’s sister. So they’re going to be a family very soon.”

      Mac glanced around and saw a little girl shyly holding hands with Peyton. To their right stood Meri Prescott, the former beauty queen now engaged to Jack. He remembered both Peyton and Meri from when they were kids, especially Peyton, who had vacationed sometimes at the same lake as the Barlows. And there were his two brothers, smiling like loons. “Is there some kind of marriage plague going on here that I missed?” Mac said.

      His mother smiled. “You came home just in time for all the celebration.”

      “Wasn’t sure you would,” his father muttered. “Haven’t heard hide nor hair from you in years.”

      Mac ignored the barb. Unlike his brothers, he’d never really gotten along with his father. Maybe it was something about being the oldest, the one who set the pace, laid out all the expectations. No matter how far Mac climbed or how well he did, his father rarely had an attaboy or so much as a nod for the achievement. And when Mac had announced he was leaving home the day after he graduated high school, it had turned into a fight about Mac abandoning his responsibilities and his family.

      The final torch to the feeble bridge between father and son had been one of Mac’s first business purchases, a small family-owned used car lot that Mac had turned around and sold to an investor up north, who’d taken the inventory and left the lot vacant for years, a barren spot in downtown Stone Gap. It wasn’t until a few years later that the lot was taken under new ownership and management, and saw life again. Bobby had blamed Mac for ruining the town, ruining his friend’s life and ruining pretty much the entire world. In the years since, Mac had spent as little time at home as possible.

      But now he had a whole other reason for not wanting to talk to his father. A secret that could not only destroy what little relationship Mac and Bobby had left, but dismantle the entire Barlow family.

      Besides, with his brothers looking so damned happy they might just burst, and the mouthwatering aromas of his mother’s home cooking filling the air, Mac wasn’t about to retread old ground or unearth buried bones. “You know I wouldn’t miss seeing Jack’s last gasp as a single man, Mama,” he said. “I even wore black for the occasion.”

      “You are incorrigible,” his mother said. “But I love you anyway.”

      “She’s just saying that.” Jack, in the seat beside him, clapped Mac on the shoulder. The three boys all had the same dark hair and blue eyes, but Jack was the leanest and tallest of the three by about a half an inch. “You know she likes me best.”

      Mac looked around the assembled group, joined by the two women and Maddy. The whole world seemed to have changed in the years since Mac had lived in Stone Gap. His younger brothers were all grown up, getting married, settling down. “Well, damn. You’re all here at once.”

      “So where’s your date?” Luke asked.

      “What date? I didn’t bring anyone with me.”

      “That’s because no one wants to put up with his workaholic self,” Jack laughed.

      The familiar argument, back again. From the day he’d gotten his first job at eleven, his brothers had teased him about working too much, playing too little. Mac just hadn’t seen the need for video games or skateboarding on sidewalks. Not when there were things that could be accomplished, goals to be met. “I’m not a workaholic.”

      Jack arched a brow. “So you came to town just for my wedding? Not for anything work related?”

      “Well—”

      “Exactly.” Jack shook his head. “One of these days, big brother, you’ll slow down long enough to live your life.”

      “Mac’s living his life. Up there in the city far from all of us. Doesn’t slow down long enough to call and say how-do-you-do,” Bobby said.

      “Dad, I’ve just been busy.”

      “Living the big corporate life. Sucking up the little guys and slapping them down like ants.”

      And that right there was the crux of everything wrong between his father and him. Bobby didn’t understand Mac’s approach to business, didn’t see that sometimes buying a company and shutting it down was a good thing. “Dad, we’ve been over—”

      His mother popped to her feet, cutting off the sentence. “Let me get you a plate and dish you up some food. That way your brothers won’t eat your helping.”

      For a moment, Mac wanted to stay at this table, surrounded by the family he’d seen too little of since he’d left for college. But that itch to complete the To Do list, to move on to the next thing, the bigger thing, like some mountain just out of reach, nagged at him. He’d been chasing that feeling for years and had yet to find anything that tamed the quest for more.

      He took one look at his father’s face, still impassable and cold, and got to his feet.

      If Mac stayed a second longer he was bound to say something he shouldn’t. Something such as, Where do you get off judging me for how I run my business, Dad, when you were screwing up your own life? Yeah, probably not appropriate Sunday-dinner talk. “Sorry, Mama, but I can’t stay. Just popped in to say hello. I have a meeting to get to.”

      “On a Sunday?” His mother shook her head. “Why are you working on the Lord’s day? Even He took a break, you know.”

      “That’s because His work was done, Mama. Mine never is.” Mac pressed a quick kiss to his mother’s cheek, then grabbed his helmet off the sideboard, swung it back onto his head and buckled the chin strap. “I’ll be around, staying at the Stone Gap Hotel, and here through Saturday for Jack’s wedding.”

      “Then gone again.” The cold statement from his father wasn’t even a question.

      “My life is back in Boston, Dad. Not here.”

      “Your life is where you make it, son.” Bobby shook his head. Clearly disappointed. “And there’s nothing wrong with making a life right here. You don’t have to conquer the world and trample the little people to have a life.”

      Mac bit back his frustration. No matter how far he rose in his career, how many milestones he achieved, his father never looked at him the way he looked at his other two boys. Maybe Bobby couldn’t understand why Mac would leave Stone Gap, why he’d want something more than what this tiny little speck of a town had to offer. Mac had long ago given up trying to argue the point. His father was never going to see him as anything other than the one who’d let him down, let the town down. One business deal and Bobby refused to forgive or understand.

      And now Mac had his own reasons for not forgiving or understanding his father, who came across as the great family man, the pillar of Stone Gap. When the truth was something else entirely.

      “I’ll be back,” Mac promised. Then he headed out the door, got on his bike and