Free The Mighty Quinns: Malcolm by Kate Hoffmann Page B

us during the day, but she’d go home with Dana at night. She didn’t like sleeping in a tent.”
    “That must have been fun, to spend time with just your dad and brothers,” Amy said.
    She was awed by how quickly he’d opened up to her, how easy it had become between them. She thought back to the moment they’d met, to all her worries, all the scenarios that could have played out between them. This was the last thing she could have predicted. Her working vacation had turned into a romantic getaway. And yet the story was still in the back of her mind. She could tell he was considering it.
    “You know, I’ve talked more about my dad in the past week than I have in the twenty years since he died,” Mal murmured. “It feels good.”
    Though Mal had talked about his father, he still refused to address the choices that faced him and his family in regards to Max’s body. Amy could understand his reluctance to comment on the media speculation. But his silence would only prolong the interest. She’d make the best of the story if he gave it to her. After all, she was called “The Fixer” around the office, the copy editor who could polish the most uninteresting story into a gleaming gem of adventure writing.
    “He must have been a fun guy to be around.”
    “Sure. When he was around,” Mal said. “There are some things I remember so clearly. Things we did together. And though I know he was gone a lot, I don’t remember the absences. Our lives just went into a holding pattern, waiting for him to return. And then he’d come home and we’d start living again.”
    “My father was always gone, too. I thought it was business, but I later found out he had a mistress. He and my mother should have never gotten married.”
    “Why would you say that?” Mal said. “Then they never would have made you. I can testify to the fact that at least one good thing came from their marriage.”
    She smiled but it quickly faded. “Do you wonder if we’ll ever stop trying to live up to our parents’ expectations? Look at me. My father still controls my life—at least my professional life.”
    “And I’m trying to please a ghost,” Mal said, nodding. “I wonder what I might have done with my life if my father had been a postman or a schoolteacher. Would I have followed in his footsteps then? Would I have considered that life exciting and fulfilling?”
    “We don’t have to be defined by our parents’ pasts. I think we all have our own destinies,” Amy said. “And we do what we’re meant to do.” She rested her chin on his shoulder. “For example, you live in New Zealand and I live in New York, and yet we still met. Destiny.”
    “I can’t imagine you living in the city.”
    “After spending time here, I’m beginning to wonder why I do. I can’t imagine you in New York. All that steel and concrete.”
    Mal poked at the fire with a long stick. “And here I was considering spending a little more time in New York.”
    Amy sat down beside him in the sand and tried to make out his features in the flicker of light from the flames. He’d been caught up in his thoughts all evening long, not his usual witty self.
    “You said we all have our own destinies. But do you ever wonder whether you might have taken the wrong road in life? Whether there might be something else you’re meant to do?”
    “All the time,” Amy said.
    He turned to meet her gaze. “Yeah?”
    “I didn’t set out to be the best copy editor in the world. I wanted to run one of my father’s magazines. In truth, I wanted to run his whole magazine group. But now I realize that sitting in an office correcting someone else’s work isn’t really the life I want.” She drew a deep breath. “This is my kind of life. Staring at the stars, sitting by the fire.”
    “See? You’re hooked already.”
    She bumped against his shoulder. “I think I am. So have we covered everything that I need to know before we leave?”
    “There is one rule that we haven’t