Page 87 of Her Intense Protector

Epilogue

“He’s going to propose,” Toni said as she took a sip of her sparkling water.

“Only if that’s what’s right for them,” Eden said as she twirled the wine in her glass.

Samantha smiled at her two friends. They had shown up unannounced at her door, or Ezio’s door, an hour ago. The men were on the tail-end of a week-long training operation in California; Samantha was just thankful that A.J. and Carys hadn’t shown up as well.

“Ladies, I’m content the way things stand,” Samantha said.

“How can you be?” Toni wanted to know. “It’s been a month since you’ve gotten out of the hospital, and your arm’s been fine for a week now. How can you be fine just living together?”

“Toni, leave it be,” Eden admonished.

“Yeah Toni, I want to hear about Phil,” Samantha said. “What’s the latest?”

“Phil is in rehab again. This is the fourth time. Sharon has filed for divorce.”

“Oh no.” Sam cringed. “Isn’t she like five months pregnant?”

“Seven,” Toni answered. “And this is a good thing. I will always love my brother, but he can’t be depended on, not like this. Sharon’s parents are going to help her out. So are David and I.”

“And Phil?”

“He needs to figure things out on his own. David said I can’t be a crutch anymore, and he’s right.”

Eden laughed. “You’re listening to David?”

“He had some creative ways of convincing me. Plus, there’s the fact he’s right.”

Sam sighed. She hated seeing a marriage dissolve, but she understood.

“Hey, I have scoopage,” Eden said.

“Let’s hear it. Make it better than Toni’s news.” Samantha pleaded.

“My brother Pete got that big contract he was after when he came to Virginia. He’s probably going to move out here and open a branch of Force-Tactical and leave his partner to manage the one in Vegas.”

“That is good news. All the boys will have somebody else to have playdates with,” Samantha giggled.

“You’re bad,” Eden laughed. “Playdates, I like that. Playdates with guns you mean.”

“I don’t care the age, they all end up playing hide-n-seek,” Samantha laughed harder.

“David will want in on this. He likes hide-n-seek.”

“How would you know? You’ve only played peek-a-boo with him.” Eden was laughing so hard she had to put down her wineglass or end up spilling it on the couch.

By the time Eden and Toni left they had finished off a large Sicilian pizza and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. Samantha was just glad that Toni had ended up dropping the whole thing about Ezio proposing. She’d been proposed to once in her life. Was she ready to do the whole big wedding thing again? Probably not.

She grinned as she started cleaning up the mess.

But a big Italian family?

Heck yeah.

Chiara for a girl and Lorenzo for a boy.

He better hurry up and propose.