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Summer takes my hand, slipping from the car with an easy smile, and I tuck her hand into the crook of my arm to walk her to the front door of the house.
Dad reaches for the handle as we catch up to him and Jesse, only for the double doors to spring open.
“Surprise!”
A small blonde blur sprints across the threshold and launches herself right at her “Summer-hero!”
“Curly-Sue!” Summer kneels and wraps her arms around my baby girl, holding her tight against her chest. Jesse drops down behind his mother, his hand resting on Bella’s sea of curls.
My little girl’s exuberance, and easy acceptance of Summer back into her life, makes my face split clean in half with a cheesy as fuck grin.
Their relationship took flight right from the very first day, but this reunion right here makes me certain—as if I was ever in doubt—that Summer was always meant to be in Bug’s life.
Bella looks up, and her smile is nothing short of blinding when she spots her big brother.
“Hey, Bug! How was Disney?”
“It was okay. I wasn’t big enough for the fun stuff.” She huffs unhappily, and Jesse clucks her under the chin with an exaggerated pout of disappointment. Bella rallies in that way only four-year-olds can as a mischievous smile erupts on her bow lips. “So Mimi said we could come here instead!”
Mum steps out onto the porch as Bella continues. “Andthen, Mimi said we better call in the…call in the…” She pulls out of Summer’s embrace to glance back at her grandmother with a questioning look on her pretty little face.
“What did you call all the people, Mimi?”
Mum shakes her head, a hint of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “I said it was time to call in the troops, Bella.”
Bella laughs, looking back at Summer, then at Jesse, and finally, her eyes land on me. “Daddy! Oh, you’re never going to believe what fun we’re going to have.” She closes the distance between us, wrapping her arms around my legs. “Everyoneis here!”
I look from my daughter’s face as all eyes shift to my mum. Her smile is broad and entirely Cheshire-Cat-esque. She winks, grabs hold of Dad’s hand, and steers him around to go back inside the house as she calls over her shoulder, “Come on, everyone. You’ll see.”
We file inside, following my mum just as Ford’s SUV pulls up in the driveway. He salutes us with a nod before rounding the vehicle to unload our luggage.
Mum leads us through the house, but before we’ve reached the back doors, I can hear it. The inimitable sounds of a North family get-together.
As Mum throws open the back doors, my suspicions are confirmed when we’re greeted with a loud cheer. My four sisters, their significant others, and all eight of my nieces are in attendance, alongside the Holloways, my bandmates, and a handful of friends from the industry.
Henry and Liv, alongside Nate and Mila, are stood a little further to the back with great big smiles on all four faces.
“Mum?” The incredulity in my voice earns me a smile from my mother, the master manipulator, when she turns back to face me.
“We wanted to introduce Jesse—and Summer, of course—” She stops, smiling softly while placing a motherly hand on Summer’s upper arm. “To all our nearest and dearest.”
Dad speaks first, throwing his arms around his wife and pressing a kiss to her upturned lips. “You’re one of a damn kind, Clare-Bear. I’m the luckiest man alive.”
She nudges him slightly with a roguish wink. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
I’m once again reminded of why my parents’ love story is a love story for the ages, and the one I aspire to attain someday, when he presses a kiss to her forehead, whispering, “Never.”
Then, turning to the waiting guests, he booms across the patio. “Now, who wants to meet my grandson?”
Jesse is engulfed in a swarm of bodies—mostly female, all family—the moment he exits the house. Similarly, Summer is rapidly stolen from my arms by a chin-wagging Bree, steering her in the direction of her husband, Drew, who’s manning the barbecue with a grin on his face and a beer in his free hand.
Ford comes up behind me so silently that I almost jump when he speaks. “My guy in New York called me in the SUV.”
Turning around with hope flaring to life in the pit of my stomach, I instantly slump at the beat-down look on his face.
Ford shakes his head sadly. “He’s got absolutely nothing on Spellman. I’m sorry, Cade. What do you want to do now?”
I swear softly but shrug, knowing the chips will need to fall where they may at this point. “I’ve already quit, Ford. I don’t have leverage, but I don’t care anymore. I wantout. I’ll pay any price.”
