"Then soon," he agreed, his gray eyes warm with promise, his voice dropping to something low and intimate. The word hung between us like a vow.
The morning light had strengthened while we talked, turning the cabin golden and warm. From outside, I heard Gumborumble—probably demanding breakfast, the overgrown house cat—and somewhere in the distance, a bird was singing.
"We should get up," Remy said reluctantly, though he made no move to leave the nest. "There's coffee to be made. Plans to be planned. Futures to be built."
"In a minute," I said, pulling him closer, reaching for Harper and Silas to pull them in too. "Just... give me one more minute. Like this."
They settled around me without argument, warm and solid and mine. My pack. My family. My forever. Whatever came next—the building, the bonding, the battles still to be fought—we'd face it together.
That was what pack meant.
That was what love meant.
For the first time in my life, I had both.
Chapter Forty-Six
Remy
Isat on the dock behind Artemis's cabin—our cabin now, I reminded myself—and stared at the phone in my hand like it was a live grenade. The number was still there. My father's private line. The one he'd given me when I turned eighteen, the one he'd said I could use if I ever needed anything.
I hadn't called it in two years. Not since I walked out of the hospital after his remission news, got in my truck, and drove straight to the houseboat without looking back. Maman had called for months after that. Jean-Pierre too. Eventually they'd stopped, and the silence had been a relief and a punishment all at once.
The bayou stretched out before me, golden in the late afternoon light, and somewhere in the water I could hear Gumbo's occasional rumble as he patrolled his territory. Behind me, through the cabin's open windows, I could hear Artemis laughing at something Harper said, could hear the low murmur of Silas's voice joining in.
My pack. My family. The people I'd do anything for.
Even this.
I took a deep breath and pressed the call button before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang twice. Three times. I was almost hoping it would go to voicemail?—
"Remy?" My father's voice hit me like a punch to the gut. Older than I remembered, rougher around the edges, but still unmistakably him. Still carrying that particular blend of authority and cautious hope that made my chest ache.
"Papa," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected, though my hand was shaking so hard I had to grip the phone with both hands to keep from dropping it. "It's me."
A long pause. I could hear him breathing, could almost see him sitting in his study with the leather chairs and the wall of law books, the portrait of Luc hanging over the fireplace.
"Two years," he said finally, his Cajun accent thicker than I remembered, emotion roughening the words. "Two years since you walked out of the hospital after I got my remission news and never came back."
The words hit like a slap, but I deserved them. I'd come back when Jean-Pierre called, when Papa was dying. I'd stayed through the chemo, the surgery, the long weeks of recovery. I'd sat by his hospital bed and read him the fishing reports and pretended everything was fine. But once he was in remission—once the crisis was over—I couldn't handle it anymore. Couldn't sit in that house with Luc's portrait on the wall and pretend everything was fine. So I'd retreated to my houseboat and stopped answering calls.
"I know," I said, my voice rough, scraping over the words like sandpaper. I pressed my free hand to my eyes, trying to stop the tears that were already starting to fall. "I know, Papa. I'm sorry."
"Your mother cries every time she passes your room." His voice cracked on the words, the bitterness giving way tosomething rawer, more broken, and I could picture him in his study, the phone pressed to his ear, his free hand gripping the arm of his chair until his knuckles went white. "She keeps it exactly how you left it. Won't let anyone touch anything. She lights a candle for you every Sunday at mass, Remy. Every Sunday. Like you're dead too."
The words carved into my chest like a knife. I pressed my free hand against my sternum, trying to hold myself together.
"And Jean-Pierre—" Papa's voice broke, and I heard him take a shuddering breath. "He blames himself. Says he should have tried harder to find you. Should have driven to that houseboat and dragged you home. He sits in the study some nights, looking at the old photos of you and Luc, and I can hear him crying through the wall."
"Papa, stop—" I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The guilt was crushing me, pressing down on my chest until I thought my ribs would crack. I bent forward, phone pressed to my ear, my free hand clutching the edge of the dock so hard the weathered wood bit into my palm.
"No." His voice hardened, fierce and broken all at once, and I could hear him pushing through his own tears to say what needed to be said. "You need to hear this. You need to know what your running has cost us. Not to punish you—" His voice cracked again, splintering like old wood. "But because I need you to understand that we never stopped loving you. Not for one single day. Even when you wouldn't answer our calls. Even when you disappeared. We never stopped."
I was crying now, tears streaming down my face, my whole body shaking with sobs I couldn't control. "I didn't know how to come back," I whispered, the words scraped raw from somewhere deep inside me, pulled up from a place I'd kept locked for over a decade. "Every time I thought about it, I sawLuc's face. I saw the way you looked at me at the funeral. I thought—I thought you'd never forgive me."
"The way I looked at you?" Papa sounded confused, wounded, his voice catching on the question. I could hear him shift in his chair, could picture the furrow between his brows. "Remy, what are you talking about?"
