The music didn’t stop. The talking didn’t stop.
But attention tilted toward the drive anyway.
The car door opened.
Caitlin stepped out.
She didn’t see the barn first.
She saw the lights.
The glow spilling out into the dark.
She slowed.
“What…” she said softly.
Burke stepped out from the shadows near the path.
“Hey.”
She looked at him, confusion already mixing with something else.
“What is this?”
“Come on,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Come see.”
He walked her toward the barn.
Each step closer, the music got clearer.
The voices.
The warmth.
Caitlin crossed the threshold?—
And stopped.
Her eyes swept the space—the table, the lights, the people. Scout and Tessa. Sara and Luke. Reid and Eleanor. A barn full of faces that had become her life.
Her heart stuttered.
“What…?” she whispered.
Burke stayed beside her.
“Happy birthday.”
She turned to him, already overwhelmed.
“You did this?”
“Not all of it.”
And then?—
She saw her.
