Tears fill my eyes so fast I can’t stop them, and my Alphas just gather me in closer while I laugh through the happy crying, because these three devastating men decided to say the one thing that could wreck me most.
“Oh, no,” Ace murmurs, smiling when he sees my face. “She’s gone.”
“She was gone ages ago,” Luca says.
North kisses the corner of my eye and wipes away a tear with his thumb.
I stare at all three of them, at the men holding me up in the water like I’m precious, and my throat is too tight for a second before I finally manage, “I love you too.”
And when they close around me after that, and are somehow even more careful with me than before, I know I’m never forgetting the way this feels.
EPILOGUE
ADELAIDE
Two Weeks Later
“You three are hiding your nerves really well,” I say as we climb out of the hired car.
Luca snorts. “Who says we’re nervous?”
“Ace, you’ve smoothed your shirt down four times in the last thirty seconds, and North, your jaw has been tight since we left the airport.”
“You’re imagining things,” North says.”
I laugh and wave them to follow me down the path to the front door, then I knock. It opens in about seconds.
“Addi.” Chris fills the doorway, all six-two of him, in a dark grey Henley and jeans, a dish towel slung over one shoulder, moss-green eyes smiling at the corners the second he sees me. His hair is the same as always, short on the sides, longer on top so a piece of it falls over his brow in the breeze, and he clearly hasn’t shaved since yesterday morning.
I launch and crash against him hard, his arms coming up around me. He lifts me off the porch and holds me there for asecond with my face pressed into his shoulder. “I missed you,” I mumble into the Henley.
“Been waiting all morning.” He sets me down and holds me out by the shoulders and looks at my face. His eyes soften, then hgrins and pulls me into one more quick squeeze and then finally lets me go.
“Right. Chris. This is Luca. Ace. North. My Alphas, scent matches, my everything.” I point to each of them in turn. “Guys. My brother, Chris.”
Chris steps out onto the porch. He offers his hand to each of them, then calls us inside. “Amazing to meet you all. Now let’s get inside where it’s warmer.”
He turns to North last, and there’s a second where they stare at each other. Chris doesn’t have the background my three do, but he’s an ex-biker who runs bounty hunters now, and there’s a common dialect there. Chris steps back and waves us in.
“Come on. Coffee’s almost done. Everyone else is out until later, so it’s just me for now. Hannah’s gone to town with the pack for a grocery run, she’ll kill me if we don’t save her some pastry.”
“Good thing we brought pastries,” Ace adds, smirking proudly because it was his idea.
Chris grins. “She’ll like you.”
Inside, the house smells like wood smoke and coffee, the fireplace in the living room is crackling low. Chris waves the guys toward the couches facing the flames.
“Sit. Warm up. Coffee in a minute.”
North takes an armchair. Ace lowers himself onto the long couch and stretches his arm along the back. Luca wanders the living room, checking out the photographs.
Chris tips his head toward the kitchen. “Come give me a hand.”
I follow him in. The kitchen’s exactly the way I remember it from over Christmas. Huge and every cook’s dream, but my attention is my brother who’s pulling down five mugs.
I hop up onto the counter the way I used to when I was younger and used to sit like this watching him make coffee. He hands me my full mug and pushes the carton of half and half, because he knows how I like my coffee.
“So,” he says. “You take a trip to Hawaii and return with three Alphas.”
