The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero: The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero

Craig propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, you survived,” he said to his brother.

“Barely.” Gage tipped the bottle to his lips again. “Don’t they drive you insane?”

“Every day.” His brother grinned. “And I couldn’t imagine my life without them.”

Gage knew it was true, but still, he wondered. “Did you ever worry—when Tess got pregnant, I mean—did you ever worry that you might not be able to stick it out?”

“Every day,” Craig said again. “I guess that’s not surprising, considering what we went through with Charlene.”

Gage nodded, acknowledging the complete lack of maternal instincts possessed by the woman who had given birth to them.

“And then, the very first time I held Gracie in my arms, I stopped worrying. Because I knew that nothing could ever matter more to me than my family, and nothing could ever make me leave them.”

“Like Dad,” Gage said. “He stuck with us even when she made his life hell.”

“Do you remember that? You were hardly more than a baby.”

“I don’t remember a lot,” he admitted. “But I’ve heard enough stories through the years to put the rest of the pieces together.”

“Why are we talking about this now?”

“I guess I was just wondering if it’s some kind of genetic defect that made Charlene incapable of really loving someone.”

“And wondering if you inherited that genetic defect,” his brother guessed.

“I’m thirty-two years old and I’ve never been in love,” Gage admitted.

“What about Beth?”

He scowled at the reference to his ex or maybe he was scowling at his own naïveté in ever believing that he’d been in love with her. “Beth was a leech masquerading as a human being.”

“That’s a pretty harsh assessment.”

“But not untrue.”

“No,” his brother agreed. “But you loved her, anyway, didn’t you?”

“I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love,” Gage admitted. “You and Tess had recently married, and I thought—for a while anyway—that I wanted what you had with her.”