Everyone had fun with it and people apologized for doubting him. Well, everyone except for David, who never apologized for a thing, including ratting out Lucy.

It was just as well that he didn’t apologize. Marty would never forgive him anyway.

With his new remote position, Marty decided to stay on Orcas Island for a while and help Claire and Chip with the hotel. He revamped the website, uploaded new pictures, and taught Chip how to run promotions online.

On top of that, he designed a program that analyzed room rates of nearby hotels. It worked constantly to suggest rate changes and predict times of lower occupancy. The program was easy for Marty to make, and ended up being a huge tool for Chip and Claire.

Not that they needed a ton of tools to run the hotel. Together, Chip and Claire were an unstoppable team. They spent all of their time together, talking about the hotel, dreaming up new promotions, working on improvements, and generally being overwhelmingly perfect together.

Marty was happy for them. It seemed like Claire had really induced a change in Chip. He was much friendlier, and he hardly scared Marty at all anymore.

Heck, he even made Marty feel like part of The Grand Madrona Team. Marty felt like he belonged, and he was starting to process the anger and hurt he’d sustained from the shock of finding out about his adoption.

After he was cleared by the FBI, he’d called his parents and had a long conversation about what had happened. His mom was horrified that she hadn’t known. She said they would’ve flown back at once. Marty knew that was true, which was probably why he didn’t tell them anything. He had been too upset with them then.

Now, though, he could acknowledge the fact that his parents loved him, even if they’d made a mistake in withholding his adoption. Marty was learning to accept that they were human, too. They couldn’t wait to visit him on Orcas, though he told them to wait until the weather was better so they could enjoy the sites.

He’d been a bit worried that his mom might be jealous of Claire, too. That worry was unfounded. His mom couldn’t wait to meet her. She started calling her every few weeks just to chat.

It made Marty feel happy. There was something wonderful about piecing his life back together and getting a bonus family.

Everything seemed to be getting better. By the time their first event rolled around for Easter, the hotel was running at full capacity every weekend and near eighty percent capacity during the week. Chip said it was the best he’d seen it in years.