Page 108 of The Pilot

They shared another look, and the desire that had seemed to temporarily dry up due to her concern about her son flashed back with full force. She couldn’t say what she wanted at the moment, not with Kash and his friends in the back seat, but she could let her fiancé know in no uncertain terms how much she wanted him.

Licking her lips, and lowering her gaze to his crotch, then back up to his face, Harper smiled.

“Fucking hell,” Linc said under his breath as he squirmed in his seat.

This time when she looked down, she saw the bulge in his pants.

Satisfied that she’d made her intentions known, Harper smiled and said, “I’m thinking I know another way to make me tired.”

“Count on it,” Linc told her in a husky voice.

“You can let us out and go park,” Kash instructed, breaking the mood.

“Got it, Bud,” Linc told him.

After they’d dropped off the boys and parked, Linc turned to her. “For the record, that was mean,” he said.

Harper giggled. “Have to be creative with kids around.”

“I can’t wait to make love to my fiancée tonight,” he said, as he leaned toward her.

“Same,” she agreed.

Their kiss was long, deep, and it had Harper so primed and ready, she considered jumping him right there in the parking lot. But they had a niece to meet.

Harper smiled all the way into the hospital. The excitement and joy from everyone in the waiting area was contagious, and thankfully there wasn’t anyone else in there who might be disturbed by all their happiness.

Today was a good day, and she had high hopes that life would continue along the same path. There would be bumps in the road, but she and Linc, and his family, would make it through whatever life sent their way . . . together.

Epilogue

Knox stood at the periphery of his family with a smile on his face. He loved them all like crazy, wouldn’t have moved back to Maine if he didn’t. But there were times, especially now, when he felt like an outsider.

He didn’t have any big traumas in his background, like his brothers. He’d gotten out of the Coast Guard because he realized he could make more money pursuing basically the same career as a contractor. Thankfully, he’d been able to seamlessly transition from his job in Florida to one here, doing the same thing.

He lived in town, not far from Zach and Marit, in a two-bedroom, one-bath place in a house that had been remodeled to include several apartments. He worked hard, checked in on his mom, and went home. Now he had a niece to spoil. And an almost-teenage nephew as well. Soon, his other niece or nephew would be born.

It was a lot of new beginnings for the Young family . . . and Knox felt a little like he was being left behind.

Despite that, he had no desire to date anyone, himself. To marry or start a family. He was only thirty-three. He had lots of time for that kind of thing if he changed his mind, but right now, he enjoyed living a bachelor’s life. TV, microwave dinners, and doing what he wanted, when he wanted, without having to check in with anyone. He made good money he didn’t have to share and was investing like crazy, so he could one day buy his own waterfront home.

He had no time for a woman in his life.

When his phone rang after he’d been at the hospital for a couple of hours, and after he’d peeked in on Carleigh, his new niece, through the window of the nursery, where he’d oohed and aahed and said how beautiful she was—even though she was a tiny, wrinkled raisin at the moment and couldn’t possibly be considered beautiful, or even pretty—he answered. Wondering vaguely who it could be, since pretty much everyone who called him regularly was with him at the moment.

“Young here.”

“Knox?”

He frowned. Knox had no idea who was on the other end of the line. “Who is this?”

There was silence for a beat, then the woman began to speak quickly. “I’m so sorry to have called you like this. I didn’t know who else to call. It’s Jordan.”

Knox racked his brain to try to place the name, without luck. “Jordan who?”

This time when the woman spoke, she sounded embarrassed, and for some reason knowing he’d made her feel that way, even inadvertently, didn’t sit well with Knox.

“Jordan Ward. I work with you.”