“It’s all good stuff,” Cole said, elated that she was in such good spirits. She usually was, was an optimist at heart, but there’d been a couple of days lately when frustration and impatience with the slow healing process had gotten her down. “All the bad stuff was me.” He kept his tone light, even though truer words had never been spoken. “Where’s Drake?” he asked to the room in general.

“Who ever knows?” Mason said.

“He said he’d be here,” Gabe said as he pulled down a tall stack of plates and set them on the edge of the counter. It appeared dinner was buffet-style tonight, catered in, which made sense and smelled damn good—and was no doubt making his mom twitchy.

Within a few minutes, Geraldine, Gabe, Liz, and Logan had everything ready, and all twelve of them—including Drake, who’d sauntered in, unhurried, claiming his afternoon shift at the gym had run late—filled their plates and squeezed around the table and at the breakfast bar to enjoy a typical loud North family dinner. Except it wasn’t quite typical because, for once, Cole realized he was starting to feel like he belonged here. And that, in turn, made him wonder when the other shoe would drop.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A couple of hours later, the food was devoured, the few leftovers stored in the fridge. Liz kept the beverages coming, whether refilling wineglasses or distributing bottles of beer or brewing a pot of decaf coffee.

Most of the group had migrated to the connected family room, though Sierra was still camped out at the breakfast bar with Lexie and Miranda, deep into a conversation about Keith Urban’s music. Cole sat across the living room in an oversized armchair, one of two that flanked the fireplace, half listening to Logan, who was the VP of technology at North Brothers, go on to him and Gabe about the virtual reality rig he’d recently bought and keeping an eye on Sierra, wishing she were closer, near enough to touch.

That was a new experience for him, the wanting her close even while they were in the middle of a group of people. He wasn’t going to think too hard about the significance; in fact, he told himself it was just the result of being out of town for a few nights, being away from her, anticipating taking her to bed later.

“Cake time,” Geraldine called from the kitchen. “Cole, get your butt in here and look at this thing.”

He narrowed his eyes at his brother and cousin closest to him.

“You know this family doesn’t celebrate without cake,” Gabe said.

He did know that, but from here, it looked like someone had gone all out and ordered a professional one, because he could see layers. Tall layers. Multiple layers. Like a damn wedding cake.