Page 130 of Knot Her Beta

Emily’s hand touches my back, and Leif grips my shoulder, while Jared’s arm brushes mine.

“Yes, of course.” I swallow hard. “I’d love that, but why…”

When I turn my confusion on Caroline, she steps forward.

“I persuaded my father to let me establish and run a new Bennett Media branch,” she announces with a note of pride. “It will be my own, built from the ground up. He’s giving me the chance to prove I can outperform the East Coast publication on my own terms.”

She takes in the water taxi, the harbor, and the islands floating out on the water. “When Margaret told me of her plans to come here, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see the town that made Grady Garfield Finch abandon caution and chase love.”

The laugh escapes me, even as my ears go hot.

Beside me, Jared leans closer to croon. “You looooove me.”

“Shut up,” I mutter. “She’s not talking about you.”

Kyle clears his throat. “So, are you two getting on the boat or what? We have a schedule to keep.”

Dominic hisses at him to be quiet, but I catch the uncertain look my mom gives me.

I step back. “You booked a ride to the island. You might as well come see our home and meet everyone, since you came all this way.”

Relief sweeps across her face before she takes in the height of the boat’s side. “How do we…”

Kyle and Jared jump into motion, putting down the gangplank. Jared helps my mother onto the boat, and Kyle steps forward, reaching for Caroline’s carry-on bag.

Caroline hands it over without hesitation, but then she pauses for several heartbeats, her hand still on the strap as she meets Kyle’s pale green eyes. Slowly, she releases the strap.

He turns, sets it in the storage compartment beneath the bench seat, and looks back at her with a wink.

Jared nudges me with his elbow and waggles his eyebrows.

I elbow him back, harder.

There’s no way his cousin and my ex-would-be fiancée are making eyes at each other.

But as Jared returns to the pilot’s seat, and I settle back on the bench, this time with Leif and Emily on either side, and watch Dominic settle into conversation with my mother, I think anything is possible.

When I came here, I never expected the turn my life would take.

But now, I can’t imagine it turning out any other way, surrounded by the people I love.

My pack.

Epilogue

Emily

“Your office is overrun, Grady.” Chloe tucks a strand of pink hair behind her ear, her infant nestled against her chest beneath a soft nursing cover, while the burp cloth draped over her shoulder bears a faint milk stain. “I may have underestimated how much space you would need to write your novel.”

“It’s plenty of room when it’s not being invaded,” he murmurs, distracted.

I eye the chaos from my spot on the couch. The little office that was once Grady’s refuge has surrendered to the realities of pack life.

A bouncy seat claims the corner nearest the door, its vibrating mechanism humming at a frequency designed to put tiny humans to sleep and drive adults insane. A half-built pack-and-play sprawls across the open floor beyond the desk, its plastic parts scattered in a jigsaw puzzle that Jared told me not to touch.

Across from us, Grady sits behind the walnut desk I built him, a printed manuscript stacked beside his laptop and a single sheet of cream paper held carefully between his fingers. The publisher’s letterhead catches the afternoon light.

Chloe had brought it over when the mail arrived on the afternoon boat, and it had taken thirty minutes to convince him to open it.