“I don’t think I do,” Scarlett said.“But that doesn’t stop me from trying.”
“If the rest of our crew gets back in town,” Callum explained, “they’ll head over.”
Grace wondered if that would include Gage.She suspected that even if Wes and Decker made it over, Gage might not if Vivian didn’t.Callum thought Grace was nuts, but she couldn’t help but notice the way those two meshed when they weren’t needling each other.
Everyone piled food on their plates.Callum made sure Grace had the burger with double cheese.
Callum and Hayden bantered and bullshitted like they’d done their entire lives.The Titan crew joked and ragged on each other just like Callum and Hayden.Scar and Alicia fell down a rabbit hole about late-19th-century authors who secretly encoded women’s suffrage messages into the male-dominated space of serialized mysteries.Dad doted on Mari, and Pickles, snubbed by Argos and Toto, returned to his empty bowl to lick where Callum had dropped bits of burger and hot dogs while grilling.
Grace ate her ginormous cheeseburger and thought about everything she’d always wanted and now had.
Granite Creek had enveloped Callum and her just as Titan had pulled them into its tight-knit family.
Pickles perked up and barked, scampering under the table and through everyone’s legs, until he reached the edge of the patio.The rest of the crew arrived—including Vivian and Gage, who didn’t walk near each other.
Maybe Callum was correct.
Introductions were made, and the fun began all over again.Food.Laughter.The occasional dog barked, mostly from Pickles.
Vivian pulled Callum aside, and Grace watched out of the corner of her eye.She didn’t want him to be called out on an assignment, but she’d become used to the ebb and flow of his job.Sometimes he had to leave in the middle of the night.Other times, he was gone for days without contact.No matter whether Callum was gone for an hour or a week, he returned just as in love with her as when he’d left.Maybe more so.This was the life she didn’t know she could have.All she had to do was let go of her past and grow.
Callum and Vivian finished up their conversation.
“Everything okay?”
“Rhys’ past is coming back to haunt him.But we don’t have to deal with that right now.”He wrapped an arm around her waist and kept her close.
If the younger Grace could see this Grace now, she would trip over herself.Not just because her husband was as in love with her as she was with him, but because she had embraced her life and let Callum be part of the future she’d only dreamed of.
Promises made.Promises kept.
