Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
"You can sit with us if the mountain man starts issuing decrees," Riley says.
"He already has. I ignore selected ones."
"Good girl," Crewe murmurs, and Colt makes a warning sound from behind me that isn’t very threatening.
Mack arrives in a shirt that costs more than my old apartment and still looks ready to fight a parking meter. Indigo is on his arm, tall and magazine pretty, and she’s also the first person who asks what lens I used on the dock shots. I like her immediately. Models who care about glass are my people.
Sin hangs back a half second longer than the others, then Rowan tugs him forward. She's small next to him and not even a little bit cowed. She takes one look at the fading marks on my wrists and her mouth flattens.
"If you need a quiet room," Rowan says, "say so. This family is a lot the first time."
"I want the lot," I tell her. "I've been waiting for the lot."
Banks introduces Anniston with the same precision he uses on files. Anniston has a sharp kindness. Jace has Sadie, sun in her hair, a laugh that makes the porch feel rented for joy. Anniston and Sadie stand close enough that I catch the sister thing before anyone says it. Same eyes. Same tilt when they look at their men.
"Sisters," Sadie confirms, catching me looking. "We come as a set. Sorry about the Hawthorne volume. We're the upgrade."
Anniston bumps her shoulder. "Speak for yourself. I like the volume."
Billy watches all of it with Mama Hawthorne under his arm. He looks older in the good way. Present. When he catches me looking he tips his chin, the same nod he gave me in a warehouse when I still had rope on my skin. I tip mine back.
Colt's mouth finds my temple. "You good?"
"I'm excellent. Don't start a check in front of your mother."
"It's always a check."
Food happens in waves. Somebody puts a plate in my hands. Rowe sent a tin of cranberry orange muffins that survived the drive from Woodbridge, and I almost cry into the first one, which Colt pretends not to see. Alden and Marin FaceTimed earlier and hung up before anyone could make it a briefing. The mountain is quiet without us in it. The harbor is not quiet at all.
Late light turns the water gold. Nash clears his throat in that eldest way that makes seven brothers go still by reflex. Delaney is holding a glass she forgets she has.
"I've done missions," Nash says. "I've done worse tables than this. The one thing I haven’t done this…" He looks only at her. "Delaney. I want your mornings. I want your arguments. I want my last name on the forms that matter. Will you marry me?"
The porch holds its breath. Then Delaney says yes so fast she laughs through it, and Nash has a ring on her hand before anyone can clap. The clap happens anyway. Jace whoops. Mack toasts with whatever is in his cup. Sin kisses Rowan's hair. Banks actually smiles with his whole face. Crewe pulls Riley in. Mama Hawthorne covers her mouth and Billy kisses her hair and for a second the missing years sit down and behave.
I find Colt's hand without looking. He’s already watching me, not the ring.
"Don't get ideas," I tell him.
"Too late." His thumb strokes the place my rope used to live. "Not today. Today you meet them. One of these days I'm going to ask you on a porch that faces the mountain instead of the water. You can practice your yes until then."
"Cocky."
"Yours."
The party swells around the new yes. I drift through it on Colt's arm and let myself be claimed by brothers who are suddenly mine by proximity and choice. Indigo teaches me a ridiculous toast. Sadie and Anniston pull me into a corner and inform me I have standing invitations to both coasts. Riley refills my glass. Rowan checks my wrists one more time and nods, satisfied. Delaney hugs me with the ring cold against my shoulder blade and whispers that the Hawthorne men look terrifying until they look at you, and then they're obvious.
"I noticed," I say.
Dusk comes in off the harbor. Lights go on along the porch. Billy tells a story that is only a little cleaned up, and Mama Hawthorne slaps his chest and doesn't let him stop. Nash can't stop looking at Delaney's hand. The sisters argue about cake. Mack pretends he isn't taking a photo. He is.
Colt walks me to the far rail where the water does its endless work and the house noise turns soft behind us. He puts his coat around my shoulders even though I'm not cold. He does it because he wants his coat on me, and I let him because I want that too.
"This is the family," he says.