Liam shook his head. “Keep arguing, Luke. Argue yourself right out of getting your family back. You want them? Earn it. You have a child together and that’s a bond that will never break. That’s your way back to her. You all need each other and that boy needs a father. A good father. That’s something neither of us ever had. This is your chance. Don’t waste it.”

Liam was right. If I had doubts and let them show, it would only hurt us all. For all these years, I could have had my family. Terrified of physically hurting her again, I cut off all contact. I’d allowed myself to succumb to my fears and remained alone. I’d ended up hurting her far worse than my hands ever could have done. I’d abandoned her when she needed me the most, violating a lifetime of trust we had effortlessly built between us over the years. I hoped like hell I could find a way to repair it. She didn’t need me; she had her family. I was the one in need. I needed her to forgive me for tearing us apart. I needed her back in my life, and I needed that love that only she could give me. It was the only way I would ever be whole again.

3

Lily

I groaned as I drove up my parents’ long brick driveway. I spotted all the cars parked neatly along the side and realized that I was the last one to show up. The house I’d grown up in since birth had changed a lot through the years. It started out as an average two-story, three-bedroom and two-bathroom ranch house, white clapboard with dark blue trim, set on fifty acres of land backed by forest and foothills. It was still white with blue trim, but now it was a sprawling eight-bedroom, five-bathroom monstrosity with a huge pool, a pool house, an apartment over the garage that my grandma Rosemary had just moved into, and an office retreat in the backyard for my mom to write her books.

Mom was a novelist, otherwise known as Dahlia Lake. She wrote romance; she believed in true love, and she was an unapologetic, nosy matchmaker. Mom was slightly nuts but her heart was in the right place. She loved kids—there were eight of us after all—and she was always pressuring us for more grandchildren.

Instead of moving every time my mother popped out another baby, Dad would just add on to the house. In addition to his job as Sweetbriar’s chief of police, my dad was the ultimate do-it-yourselfer. He had just finished adding a massive great room to the house so we could all fit for Sunday dinner. This would be my first required Sunday dinner with the family, and I was already off to a bad start, seeing as I was late.