Page 166 of The Wild Card

“Hush.” She pats my cheek with alarming affection. “You’re family. Family gets pie.”

The word lands somewhere in my chest and stays there. Family.

Dinner is chaos. The good kind—the kind I’ve only ever witnessed from the outside. Dishes being passed in every direction. Three conversations happening at once.

Robert sits at the head of the table, presiding over the madness with quiet amusement. Gavin is across from me, his expression hovering somewhere between suspicious and resigned. Linda is next to Emmie, asking approximately forty-seven questions per minute.

“So you’re back together,” Gavin says during a lull. It’s not quite a question.

“We are,” I confirm.

“For how long this time?”

“Gavin,” Emmie warns.

“What? I’m just asking. You broke up. Now you’re not broken up. I want to make sure this is—” He gestures vaguely. “Stable.”

“It’s stable,” I say.

“How do I know that?”

“Because I love her.” The words come out easier than I expected. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

The table goes quiet.

Linda’s hand flies to her chest. “Oh Emmie.”

“Mom—”

“Robert, did you hear that? He said he loves her. He said it right here at the dinner table, in front of the roast beef and everything.”

“I heard, Linda.”

“This is the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in this house.”

Robert lifts one eyebrow but doesn’t disagree.

Linda is fanning herself with her napkin. “Well, I think it’s wonderful. Just wonderful.” Linda beams at me with the intensity of a thousand suns. “You know, I always knew you two would work it out. I said to Robert, I said, ‘That boy looks at our daughter like she hung the moon. They’ll figure it out.’ Didn’t I say that, Robert?”

“You said that.”

“I did. I said exactly that.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “Welcome back to the family, Crew. Not that you ever really left.”

My throat is tight. I manage a nod.

Under the table, Emmie’s hand finds my knee and squeezes.

Robert asks about work, and I give him the sanitized version—no active cases discussed, just general updates. Gavin interrogates me about the cabin after Emmie mentions the place I bought in Broken Bow; he wants to know if I installed the plumbing myself and seems grudgingly impressed when I say yes.

And then Linda goes in for the kill. “So.” She sets down her fork with an air of determination. “When are you giving me grandbabies?”

“Mom!” Emmie chokes on her wine.

“What? It’s a reasonable question. You’re twenty-seven, you’re in love, you have a man who can do plumbing—”

“That’s not a qualification for fatherhood.”

“It’s a qualification for homeownership, which is step one.” Linda ticks off on her fingers. “Step two is marriage. Step three is babies. I’m just asking about the timeline.”