Dallas nudged his brother. “Don’t sound so surprised when you add that part.”

“You look as fit as he does,” Tia said to Emery. “Do you climb, too?”

“I go out with him sometimes, but not professionally. I’m nowhere near as good as he is and don’t even attempt the really hard stuff.”

“You’ve come a long way in only a year,” Dallas said.

Tia couldn’t put it off any longer: she had to unwrap her scarf to take her first bite. But once she did, no one seemed to pay her any additional attention, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as she’d feared. Aiyana must’ve warned them about the damage to her face when she’d prepped them for her visit because they took her scars in stride, just as they did her presence, and that helped. “You’ve only been climbing for a year?” she asked Emery.

All eyes turned her way, but again, no one acted as though they saw anything too shocking. Emery merely used her fork to gesture at her husband. “Only since I hooked up with this guy last Christmas. Before that, I was a news anchor in LA—”

“I thought you looked familiar!” Tia broke in, starting to feel more and more comfortable in this group. “I admit I don’t watch much TV, but I must’ve seen you at some point.”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back to reporting the news?” Gavin asked his sister-in-law.

“I enjoyed my job, so I would never say never.” She turned her attention to Tia to explain. “I write a travel blog these days, from a climber’s perspective, and post some of the crazy pictures we get with the GoPro.”

“And she’s wildly successful,” Aiyana added.

The pride Aiyana felt at Emery’s accomplishments was evident in her voice, and based on Emery’s smile, she heard it, too. “Thanks, Mom,” she said. “I’m surprised by how big my following has become, so that’s fun,” she added for Tia’s sake. “I love interacting with the community I’m creating. I might even enjoy what I’m doing now more than what I was doing before, which surprises me. I was so set on that career path.”

“You can do this job in your pajamas,” Dallas pointed out.

She grinned at him. “You just like that it leaves me free to traipse around the world with you.”

“Damn right,” he said, and everyone laughed.

The conversation moved to Gavin, the new tennis courts he was helping build at the school and the fact that his wife, Savanna, was overseeing a homeschool program for kids in the area. She was going to stop by the brunch, but she’d got caught up.