PART 2 — “MY FIVE SONS ALREADY LOVE YOU”
June eased herself into the wooden chair near the stove, one hand braced at the small of her back. The cottage smelled of yeast and rosemary. Outside, the wind worried at the shutters like an impatient child.
“You’re not too busy?” June asked.
“I’m never too busy for a restless baby,” Brynna replied, reaching for dried chamomile and lemon balm from the top shelf—yes, still the top one.
She measured carefully, explaining each step the way Martha Quinlan once had for her. June listened with the solemn intensity of someone about to cross into a country she’d only seen on maps.
“Do you think it hurts?” June asked suddenly. “The having?”
“Yes,” Brynna said honestly. “And it’s also the bravest thing some women ever do.”
June nodded, satisfied with that answer. Then she glanced around the cottage, at the single chair opposite hers, the second cup that was never used, the quiet that pressed gently against the walls.
“You’d have been such a good mama,” she said, softly, as if offering a compliment.
The words struck harder than cruelty ever had.
Brynna’s smile did not falter. “Drink your tea before it cools.”
The giant arrived three days later.
No one in Havelock Cove saw him come ashore, but everyone saw him when he walked up from the docks—because a man like that could not slip quietly into any place.
He was broad-shouldered, towering well over six feet, his dark coat stretched across a chest that looked carved from oak. A thick beard framed his face, shot through with early gray. A scar ran from his temple into his hairline, pale and unapologetic.
Five boys trailed behind him like mismatched shadows.
The oldest carried himself stiffly, trying on manhood too soon. The youngest clutched a wooden boat missing one oar.
“Who’s that?” someone whispered outside the general store.
“Name’s Rowan Mercer,” came the answer from old Hal Brewer, who claimed to know everything before it happened. “Veteran. Came down from Anchorage. Wife passed last winter.”
Five boys. No mother.
The arithmetic of the village began immediately.
Brynna first saw him when he ducked beneath the doorframe of Martha’s old cottage—now Brynna’s responsibility since the midwife’s passing.
He stood awkwardly inside, hat in his hands.
“I was told you’re the one who helps,” he said, voice deep as distant thunder.
“One of them,” Brynna replied.
He stepped aside, revealing the second-youngest boy, whose arm was wrapped in a dirty cloth.
“Fishing hook,” Rowan explained. “He said he could handle it.”
The boy lifted his chin stubbornly. “I did handle it.”
“Of course you did,” Brynna said, kneeling to his level. “But we’ll clean it anyway.”
She worked gently, steady hands and softer words. The boy never cried.
Rowan watched her the way men watch a shoreline in fog—careful, searching for danger or safe harbor.
“You’re good with them,” he said.
“I’ve had practice,” she answered.
She did not elaborate.
The boys came back the next week. And the week after.
Sometimes for scrapes. Sometimes because one of them had eaten too many green berries. Once because the youngest had a nightmare and refused to sleep unless “the lady who smells like plants” said the monsters couldn’t swim.
Rowan always paid. In cash at first. Then in fish. Once, awkwardly, in a neatly split stack of firewood that appeared by her door before dawn.
Havelock Cove noticed.
It was Mrs. Tolland who finally cornered Brynna outside the church steps.
“He’s a decent man,” she said, lowering her voice. “Strong. Provides. And those boys—Lord help them—they need a woman’s guidance.”
Brynna stiffened. “They need their father.”
“And he needs a wife.”
The whisper returned, that old, poisonous one: You’re not enough.
“I cannot give him what he truly needs,” Brynna said evenly.
Mrs. Tolland frowned. “Men remarry for many reasons.”
“Not the ones that matter here.”
The older woman’s expression shifted. Understanding, then pity.
Pity was worse than gossip.
It happened on an evening when the tide pulled low and left the rocks glistening like wet glass.
Rowan stood at her door again, but this time without the boys.
“They’re at Hal’s,” he said. “I told them I had business.”
“Do you?” Brynna asked, though her pulse had already begun its uneven rhythm.
He hesitated only a second.
“Yes.”
Inside, the fire cracked softly. Shadows climbed the walls. Rowan remained standing, as if unsure whether sitting might mean staying too long.
“I’m not a delicate man,” he began. “And I won’t pretend at poetry.”
“That’s a relief,” she murmured.
A corner of his mouth lifted.
“I see the way you look at my boys,” he continued. “Like they’re not trouble to be managed, but people to be known.”
“They are people to be known.”
“They love you.”
Her breath caught.
“You cannot possibly know that.”
“My youngest asked if you could come watch him carve tomorrow,” Rowan said. “The older two argued over who’d sit closer to you at supper if you ever came.”
Supper.
The word felt enormous.
She stepped back, putting the table between them.
“You shouldn’t,” she said quietly.
His brow furrowed. “Shouldn’t what?”
“Think this way. About me.”
“And how is that?”
She forced herself to meet his eyes.
“I cannot bear children.”
The sentence landed heavy and familiar, like setting down a stone she’d carried for years.
Silence followed.
The fire snapped.
Outside, a gull cried.
Rowan stared at her for a long moment. Then—unexpectedly—he grinned.
Not mockery. Not dismissal. Something warmer. Almost incredulous.
“Brynna Hale,” he said slowly, “I have five sons.”
She blinked.
“I’m not in the market for more,” he went on. “I’m in the market for someone who won’t flinch when Eli skins his knees or when Marcus pretends he’s not afraid of storms.”
Her throat tightened.
“I cannot give you more children,” she repeated, because the wound had taught her to defend itself.
He stepped closer—not crowding, just steady.
“My five sons already love you,” he said. “What they don’t have is someone to love back who chooses them.”
Tears came then, hot and humiliating.
“You deserve—” she began.
“Don’t,” he interrupted gently. “Don’t tell me what I deserve as if I haven’t already counted the cost of my own life.”
She searched his face and found no pity there.
Only certainty.
“I am not asking for a womb,” Rowan said. “I am asking for you.”
The whisper faltered.
Not enough.
Not enough.
It sounded smaller now.
“What if I fail them?” she asked.
He exhaled softly. “You will. So will I. That’s called being a parent.”
A broken laugh escaped her.
For the first time in years, the cottage did not feel like a monument to what she’d lost. It felt like a threshold.
“I am afraid,” she admitted.
“Good,” Rowan replied. “So am I.”
He extended his hand—not commanding, not pleading.
Just open.
Outside, the tide began to turn.
And for the first time since the fever stole her dream, Brynna let herself imagine a different one—not of bearing life, but of building it.
Slowly, she placed her hand in his.
