“It’s good your bakery is hundreds of miles away,” Kendra rubbed her belly. “Otherwise, I’d be in trouble.”

“I still don’t like that you’re so far from us,” Jill grumbled, her brows furrowed.

“Mom, we’re less than three hours away,” Rowan returned, hand still on my thigh. He was eating his cake one handed, as he had with dinner too.

“Well, you could’ve just stayed here, taken over your father’s business so the man could retire,” she argued.

Rowan chuckled. “Mom, you know the day Dad retires is the day hell freezes over.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “Nonsense. Your father deserves to spend his twilight years doing whatever he wants.”

“What he wants is to continue working,” Rowan’s father cut in. “You know I’d drive you fucking mad if I was here full-time. You wouldn’t be ready for all that extra energy I’d have to direct elsewhere,” he waggled his brows.

Jill peered at him over her wineglass. “Oh, you think that, do you? Try me.”

Calliope groaned. “Can we not have Mom propositioning Dad in the middle of Christmas dinner? Just once?”

“Oh, be happy that your mother and father have a healthy sex life,” Jill told her.

“I am happy,” Calliope retorted. “I just don’t want to have to hear it all the fucking time.”

I swallowed my smile as they continued bickering good-naturedly.

Conversation flowed easily and in different directions. Sometimes the whole table was involved, sometimes it split off into sections. No subject seemed to be off-limits or awkward. This was a family that was comfortable with everything.

“Oh my god,” Calliope gasped with her mouth full of my lemon meringue pie. “If my brother doesn’t marry you, I will.”

I grinned at her, my cheeks warming at the praise that had also been uttered in similar ways by the rest of the family.

“Nora, you are supremely talented,” Jill gushed, her plate clear and helping herself to my hot chocolate cake. “Your bakery is just what we need here in our town.”

Rowan stiffened slightly beside me. “Mom,” he said, tone warm, but there was an edge of warning.

“What?” she asked innocently. “I’m just saying that there is potential for her business to do wonderfully here, and that would also mean you’d both be closer, so when you have kids, I’m right around the corner to help.”

The possibility of Rowan and I having kids was something we hadn’t spoken about since the birth control conversation, but a topic that I’d been thinking of more and more. Especially while seated around this table.

“When we have kids, you’ll be driving to Jupiter every damn weekend with or without my permission, and you know it,” Rowan replied, not at all perturbed about discussing our future family in front of his own.

His mother sighed. “But wouldn’t it be nice for them to grow up close to their cousins? You could move the business back here, merge it with your father’s. I know that what happened with Kip was tragic and heartbreaking, but he didn’t have to leave town…”