When A Man Loves A Woman(4)

His new family. The words sounded odd to his ears. He was going to Cape Cod to live with the Donahue family. And he would have foster brothers according to Mrs. Worther. The best part was that his new foster family might be able to help him find Callie. If they were as good and honest as Mrs. Worther said they would want to reunite him with his sister.

Bliss! He wasn’t looking for that. His heart was set on coming face to face with his little sister, the only person he truly loved in this entire world. Until that time he would just be counting the days until they were together again.





“You never know when wonderful is going to come your way. That’s the beauty of falling in love. It sneaks up on you. Then, before you know it, you’re a goner.”

Ryder Donahue





Chapter One



Nothing in the world kicked off summer better than a Donahue family barbecue. Ever since he could remember it had been a Donahue family tradition. Mac inhaled deeply, allowing the scent of succulent ribs to assault his senses. He had to hand it to his brother Brandon. Even though he was a self-made millionaire many times over, he could roll up his sleeves any day of the week and throw down at the grill. There was so much food here today. Chicken. Corn on the cob. Baked beans. Watermelon. His mother’s amazing potato salad. Mac rubbed his stomach as he realized that his eyes had been much bigger than his stomach. As a man who loved to eat, he knew he had indulged way too much. Going back for the third helping hadn’t been wise. His stomach was practically groaning with all the food he’d shoveled down.

“Good huh?” Brandon asked with a nod of his head as he came to sit down next to him at the large picnic table.

“It was amazing,” Mac said. “Fall off the bone amazing.”

Brandon’s wife, Rose, winked at Mac. “You know that I married him for his cooking, right?”

Mac laughed even though he knew Rose had fallen head over heels in love with Brandon and that they had married for love and love alone. Rose Maddock had been Brandon’s long-standing secretary when business had suddenly turned to pleasure after his brother had relocated his company to their hometown of Breeze Point, Cape Cod. Thankfully, after his father’s stroke, all of his brothers who hadn’t been living locally had moved back home in order to support Alec Donahue’s recovery. So now they all resided in their Cape Cod hometown—Blue, Ryder, Remy, Nick, Wyatt, Brandon. And himself.

He’d never expressed his feelings on the subject, but having the whole family back together again meant the world to him. It was the closest to whole he had ever been in his entire life. There was only one thing that might make his soul complete. Callie. He needed to get closure on something that had plagued him for almost two decades. What had happened to his birth sister?

Where was Callie? And how on earth was he going to track down someone that the world had tried to convince him didn’t exist? Ever since he had been separated from his sister, he’d been told she was a figment of his imagination. It wasn’t his adoptive parents’ fault. All the files from the foster care agency had indicated he was an only child. All records pertaining to Callie Monahan had been extinguished from the foster care agency. And now, his attempts to locate Mrs. Worther at the agency in Boston had turned up dead ends. She might have been able to help him get some answers, but with a phone number in New Hampshire that had been disconnected, he worried that he might never find her.

All of a sudden Mac felt crowded in. There were too many people in the backyard. And way too much noise. He felt like grabbing a pair of headphones from his truck and putting them on. There was no way in the world he would ever do it though. His family would never let him live it down. His mother might even march right over to him and snatch them off his head. The image played out in his head, causing him to laugh out loud. Despite her ongoing struggle with vascular dementia, Maggie Donahue was a force of nature.

He let out a sigh. His current situation was highlighting the hazards of being an introvert in an extroverted world.

Mac Donahue liked peace and quiet. Conversely, he hated mayhem and madness. And he avoided it like the plague. That tended to be somewhat of a problem when you were one of seven brothers. It tended to be awkward when you were part of the large, bustling Donahue clan. There was so much noise and laughter and interaction. There was always a buzz of activity. He was the only one who ever seemed to want peace and quiet. They actually enjoyed their pandemonium. They seemed to thrive on it. He’d managed to deal with it over the years because he loved his family more than life itself. Without them, he wouldn’t be alive today. If it came down to it, he would take a bullet for each and every one of them. But he wished they would be a little bit quieter.