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“ Best friends !” Finn yelled. “And a best friend would come to his best friend’s funeral. I know Dad would have gone to his.”

Somehow, the thought of Alek dying made her chest ache even more than it already did. She’d barely survived him breaking her heart years before. Yet knowing he was no longer walking on this earth would be even more unbearable, she realized.

“Finn,” she said, wondering how best to reason with the boy whose world was already turned upside down.

“I’ll be there,” Alek announced loud enough for her nephew to hear.

She’d forgotten for a moment that he was on the other end of the phone.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Sheridan was hanging on by a thread as it was. Seeing Alek again would likely unravel the shred of equilibrium keeping her sane right now.

“The service is tomorrow afternoon.” She tried to dissuade him. “I—I doubt you’ll be able to get a flight.”

“I said I’ll be there, Sheridan. And I will.”

The line went dead. Finn jerked his chin up and down once, then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. Hattie gave her a pitying look before trotting after him.

Sheridan’s knees gave out, and she plopped down on the bed, mystified by what had just transpired.

How had Finn known to call Alek? Were he and Jamie communicating again?

Was that the reason for the recent strain in Jamie’s marriage?

Surely, Alek wasn’t trying to resurrect his relationship with Madison?

But why not?

He’d loved Madison first. He’d planned to propose to her.

Sheridan had even seen the ring. And the fact that he remained single all these years could mean he was still in love with her late sister-in-law.

For all she knew, Madison could have remained in contact with Alek all this time.

The very thought had her doubling over on the bed.

“Oh, honey.” Her aunt swooped into the room and was suddenly beside her, wrapping Sheridan in her arms.

“You’ll get through this,” Aunt Eileen reassured her. “You have to do what you’ve always done. Take things one day at a time.”

She rested her cheek on the older woman’s shoulder. “Yeah, but I always had Jamie to hold me up.”

“The way I remember it, it was always you holding him up. And your dad, too,” her aunt said with an exasperated huff.

Sheridan sighed. “Thank goodness for you and Uncle Alan riding to the rescue.”

Shortly after Sheridan’s mom passed away from a long battle with leukemia, her father’s cousin and her husband relocated from New York to help Ed Cobert raise his young children and run his popular bar.

It took her father more than a year to recover from the loss of his wife.

His son’s prowess on the hockey rink was the bright spot that eventually got him out of bed in the mornings.

It didn’t take long for a young Sheridan to realize she needed to do everything she could to make Jamie’s life as easy as possible so he could continue his success on the ice.

It was the only way she knew how to patch her broken little family back together.

“I think Finn hates me,” Sheridan whispered.

“Don’t be silly. He doesn’t hate you. He hates the situation.

You, of all people should be able to relate.

It’s easier for him to take it out on you because, deep down, he knows you’ll always be there for him.

” She chuckled softly. “At least that’s what the therapist used to say to me about your brother. ”

Sheridan sat up and swiped at her eyes. “Jamie was a beast that first year, wasn’t he? I guess I know what I’ll have to look forward to then.”

“Then you’re going to raise him?”

She turned to her aunt, dumbfounded. “Was there ever any question?”

Aunt Eileen sighed heavily. “You’ve spent nearly all your life caring for one Cobert male or another while giving up so much of your dreams.”

It hadn’t been that bad. Sure, when most young girls were at sleepovers or cheer camp, she’d been shadowing her brother from hockey rink to hockey rink, making sure he had whatever he needed to play well. But she never thought of it as “giving up” anything. She’d loved feeling useful.

Necessary.

By the time she got to high school, her brother was playing college hockey nineteen miles away at Dartmouth.

Sheridan visited campus almost daily to drop off some home cooking or Jamie’s laundry.

There wasn’t time for Friday night pizza dates or dance parties.

Not that she cared. She had already found the guy for her: her brother’s roommate, Alek Bergeron.

She’d been a goner the first time he’d smiled his seductive grin at her.

It was hard to believe that Jamie and Alek had become instant friends.

Their personalities couldn’t have been more opposite.

Where Jamie was carefree and spontaneous, Alek was thoughtful and dependable.

He had to work twice as hard to be the player Jamie was.

In the beginning, he was the dark to Jamie’s light until they started to wear off on each other.

Thanks to Alek’s work ethic, Jamie focused more on honing his skills.

Alek, in turn, took himself less seriously, relaxing and enjoying life more.

They somehow made sharing a room work, too, despite Alek living by the rule that everything had its place.

And that place was usually out of sight.

On the other hand, Jamie’s side of the room looked like a nursery of raccoons lived there.

It was one area Alek refused to bend and the only source of tension in their relationship.

Well, until Jamie ran off and married Alek’s girlfriend.

“You’re finally living for you,” Aunt Eileen continued. “Helping others while traveling the world. You have the freedom to go wherever the wind takes you with nothing tying you down.”

Sheridan’s therapist saw things a little differently, claiming that Sheridan refused to commit to any one place or person because she hadn’t yet cut the apron strings with her brother. The good doctor pointed to her string of failed relationships as evidence.

She’s going to have a field day with this new plot twist.

“Finn is going to need some stability while he adjusts,” her aunt pointed out as if Sheridan didn’t already know that.

“You’re a traveling nurse. You can’t uproot him every time you take a new job.

And you’ve finally got your dream assignment in Spain.

You spent a year perfecting your Spanish.

Are you really going to turn that down?”

“If not me, then who? Madison’s mother was fifty-two—practically a senior citizen—when she adopted her. Even if she wasn’t suffering from the early stages of dementia, she’s in no shape to take on a little boy.”

“Of course not,” her aunt countered. “It wasn’t her I had in mind.”

Sheridan took in her aunt’s raised eyebrow and shook her head. “You’d take him? Don’t be silly. I doubt an eight-year-old boy would enjoy living at The Villages in Florida,” she argued.

Her aunt laughed. “Puh-lease. He’s his father’s son. He’d have all the ladies doting on him.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“Of course not.” Her aunt waved a hand around the room. “Uncle Alan and I would move back here. It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you were twenty years younger then.

You don’t really want to trade warm, sunny Florida for winters in New Hampshire any more than I do.

And for all your talk about living one’s life for themselves, you’re not practicing what you preach.

” Sheridan stood from the bed. “No. Like you said, I go where the wind blows. And that wind is blowing me home to take care of my brother’s little boy again.

Nurses are in great demand. And if by some chance I can’t find a job, it’s not like I don’t know how to run a bar. ”

“That’s a lot for a young woman to take on. Finn won’t be an adult for another ten years.”

Her aunt’s assertion that Sheridan would likely be doing it alone stung. “I can handle it,” she said with more gusto than she felt.

Aunt Eileen sighed. “Well, we will always be an airplane ride away whenever you need backup.”

“Promise you won’t run off anytime soon, though, okay?”

“You’re not getting rid of us that easily.” Aunt Eileen gave her a warm smile and linked her arm through Sheridan’s. “We are here as long as you need us.” They walked toward the door.

“Good. The funeral is going to be difficult enough, but coming face-to-face with Alek Bergeron again may send me into a deeper tailspin for a few days.”

Her aunt stopped in her tracks. “Alek? I didn’t realize you two were still in touch.”

“We aren’t. Or weren’t. I came in here to find Finn on the phone with him.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. But Finn was talking to him as if they were long-lost frat brothers or something.”

“That’s . . . an interesting development.” She gave Sheridan’s arm a gentle squeeze. “It will be good to see him, won’t it?”

For you, maybe.

Sheridan never shared with anyone what she’d overheard Alek saying that long ago night. It was too embarrassing. Nine years later, she still got the sweats thinking about her nearly spectacular gaffe. At least he never knew about her crush on him.

Well, she wasn’t a lovesick teenager any longer.

And there would be a buffer of nearly a hundred people at tomorrow’s service.

She could put on her big girl panties to handle a couple of minutes in Alek Bergeron’s orbit without giving anything away.

She had to. Because the secret she had been keeping from him all this time would likely cause him to think even less of her than he already did.