Augie was lying. Of course he was stressed about his family, but there was something else going on with him too. When the two of us were alone at his house, things were easy and perfect. But for some reason when we were in public, his insecurity came screaming in at breakneck speed. I had to assume it was because he wasn’t fully out yet, but he’d told me he was out in Hobie. Was this moodiness just a symptom of his trying to get used to being out? Or did he have another reason to get uncomfortable around me?

I’d tried hard to reassure him of my feelings for him. We’d even talked about the trouble I was in if Lanny found out the two of us were sleeping together. I’d explained Lanny was a good man who would be able to understand this wasn’t the same thing as a quick fuck with a personal security client. Augie meant something to me, and Lanny wouldn’t have a problem with me finding someone special, even if it was a client. Augie seemed to relax a little bit about it, but I knew he still had insecurities about my feelings for him. I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t like I had a history of commitment to relationships. Unfortunately, before Charlie realized Augie meant something to me, he’d told Augie I had a history of sleeping around. It would take time to prove myself to him. I hoped to start by proving myself to his family whether they knew we were an item or not.

I left Augie at the shop with a promise to pick him up later that afternoon for the drive to Dallas. I headed back to the ranch to shower and change in order to help Doc and Grandpa prep for the chili dinner the following night. When I pulled in to the drive, I recognized MJ’s car, which surprised me. She’d been spending almost all her time at Neckie’s house since the baby was born three days before. I entered the big house and heard chatter coming from the direction of the kitchen as usual.

A pack of three dogs had greeted me noisily at the front door and accompanied me with bouncing yips to the back of the house.

“Who’s that?” Doc called out.

“Saint,” I said, almost tripping over Grump the coonhound.

When I entered the big open space, I saw Doc at the island dumping muffins out of a tin and onto a cooling rack. MJ and Neckie were both snuggled on one of the sofas under a blanket, and a fire was going in the stone fireplace. Neckie looked pale and tired, but she had a soft smile on her face when she looked toward my sister.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, making my way over to give each of the women a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Like I gave birth to a fat Wilde,” Neckie teased. “You people have big heads. Be glad you’re not a woman. When I have my own kids, my wife is going to have to do the hard part while I watch from a safe distance.”

She shot a wink at MJ, which caused my normally nonplussed sister to blush and look down at her lap.

Neckie leaned over and pressed a kiss on MJ’s jaw, murmuring she was just teasing. MJ glanced up at me with the most contented look on her face. It opened something inside of me that made me feel like I could suddenly breathe more deeply for the first time in my life. MJ was in love. She was being adored. My twin would be okay.

“How’d the kickboxing go?” Doc asked. “Neckie told us the rumor is you’re getting better at it.”

“Yeah, actually I really like that one. And I did a spin class earlier this morning too. A few of the guys from the firehouse stopped by to ask me if you offered some of the CrossFit-type classes. I said I’d ask you about it,” I said, turning to Neckie.

“God, Saint,” Neckie said. “It would be a dream come true if you’d come in halfs with me and run the hard-core stuff while I did the yoga and stretching part. Twist has grown so much, it’s hard to manage with just one person now.”

I tilted my head and studied her, wondering if she truly did want a business partner.

MJ cut in. “She means it, Saint. She never intended to work around the clock like this. She does classes at five in the morning and eight at night some days.”

“I already have a job,” I told them. “But I can certainly ask around. I know a ton of former SEALs who’d be great at it.”

The idea of someone else in there taking my place at Twist kind of didn’t feel right. I’d enjoyed joking around with the clients before kicking their asses. When the guys from the station had asked about tougher workouts, I’d already started thinking about putting together some of the stuff my team had done as part of our routine daily PT. Building lung capacity and endurance was just as important for a firefighter as it was for a SEAL. I could talk about that stuff for hours.

“He’s thinking about it,” Grandpa said quietly to Neckie. I looked up in time to catch him shooting her a wink.

“I… well, I can’t say I’d mind living back here in Hobie,” I admitted.

The room went quiet.

“I feel the same way,” MJ admitted.

Our eyes met across the room. “Are you thinking about making a big move, sis?”

Neckie looked down where her fingers were tangled with MJ’s over the blanket. The corner of her lip was turned up, but she stayed quiet.

MJ raised both eyebrows. “Seth told me Honovi Baptiste is looking for a law partner now that the real estate side of his firm has exploded. He wants to hand off litigation.”

“Hon is a good man,” I said with a nod. “I could see you thriving in that situation.”

The room crackled with change.

“I’m not sure how I feel about living in a different city from my other half,” MJ said. Everyone in the room knew she meant me. “It sure would be amazing if you were here too.”

I thought about going back to Dallas and away from Augie. My brain couldn’t even wrap around moving forward without him.

Not to mention being sent back on the road to protect someone else like Gemma. Or being sent to northern Africa again to protect wealthy oil executives. Neither job sounded nearly as fun as teaching people how to be healthy and fit and then seeing my family every day.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “I hadn’t ever really thought living in Hobie was an option, but then again, I never thought I’d actually make it through BUD/S training either.”

Doc and Grandpa chuckled. “You were the only one, then,” Grandpa explained. “The rest of us knew you were stubborn enough to make it happen.”

“He means determined,” Doc said.

“Sure he does,” I said, walking past Grandpa and squeezing his shoulder. “Now, I came over here to help cut onions for the chili. Who’s ready to cry like a baby?”

We began prepping for the two types of chili Grandpa planned to make and were halfway through burning our eyeballs out with onion vapors when the doorbell rang. The three dogs declared Armageddon and took off scorched earth style to bring down the insurgents.

When I got to the door, I could see the outline of a man about my age through the windows in the door. He twisted around looking behind himself before facing the door again. His arm came out like he was going to ring the bell a second time, but then he dropped his arm and shook his head.

“May I help you?” I asked once I got the dogs under control and pulled the door open.

The man’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened. He was cute, but I definitely hadn’t ever seen him before.

“Oh, ah… sorry, I… I’m looking for Weston Marian. Does he live here?”

The guy was plenty nervous and actually wrung his hands in front of himself while he waited for me to answer. Grandpa’s first name was Weston, but he’d been a Wilde for decades.

“May I tell him who’s asking?”

I rubbed the tears away from my eyes, which seemed to get his attention.

“Oh god, oh no. I’m so sorry. This must be a bad time. I didn’t mean to—”

“Saint, who is it?” Grandpa asked, coming up behind me to see who was at the door. His eyes were even redder than mine were, and he’d removed his glasses to rub at them.

“He’s asking for you,” I told him before turning back to the stranger. “Why don’t you come in.”

The poor guy looked horrified, glancing back and forth between Grandpa and me and clearly getting the wrong idea.

“I’ve clearly interrupted something,” he stammered. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ll come back.”

He turned and began hurrying to his car, which I could see was a rental.

“Wait,” I called to him with a laugh. “We were cutting onions. Come back.”

The man spun around, but now he was the one with red eyes. “I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry.”

I turned to look at Grandpa, who seemed just as confused as I was. “He asked for Weston Marian,” I murmured. “Not Wilde.”

Grandpa’s entire body stiffened. “Get Doc,” he said quietly before taking a step off the porch. “Tell him I need him.”

I didn’t second-guess him. Instead, I raced into the house and quickly explained what was going on to Doc.

“Shit,” he muttered, wiping his hands off with a kitchen towel. “I knew this was coming. Your grandfather would live in denial if given half a chance. Stubborn bastard.”

“What’s going on?”

“Old chickens coming home to roost. Stay here with your sister.”

I finished prepping the chili fixings before cleaning up our mess. By the time I was done, Doc and Grandpa came back in, looking emotional.

“Grandpa?” MJ asked, unfolding herself from the sofa. “Who was that?”

“Sit down, sweetheart. I’ll tell you everything. Doc already called in the troops so I only need to tell it once.”

While we waited for my siblings, I put on another pot of coffee and set Doc’s muffins on a tray. There was fruit cut up in tubs in the fridge, so I set that out too. My aunt Gina arrived first, still wearing pajamas and her bathrobe. She kissed her dads on their cheeks before heading straight to the coffee.

“Carmen’s coming. She wanted to take a shower first.”

“You could have waited for your wife, Gina,” Grandpa chastised. “It’s hardly worth leaving the house looking like a slumber party runaway.”

We all stared at Grandpa. He was the least judgmental man of our acquaintance. He winced and looked at Doc.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. Then to Gina, “Forgive me, sweetheart.”

Gina’s forehead creased with worry, but she didn’t say anything.

Hudson and Charlie got here next, followed by West. Nico, Pippa, and baby Reenie were conspicuously absent, which I decided was probably for the best since Neckie was there. Otto and Seth appeared with Sassy in tow. That was about as good as we were going to get from my side. King was somewhere off doing secret squirrel stuff for his secret squirrel job. Hallie and Winnie were in Dallas. My parents were in Singapore, and Cal was on a boat somewhere in the Caribbean getting his captain’s license.

My cousin Katie turned up with her brother Web, which surprised me since neither of them lived in Hobie. But then I saw my aunt Brenda come in behind them already spewing out guilt trips about how their one trip to the family lake house in six months was already being interrupted by family drama.

“Shut your piehole, Brenda,” Doc snapped. “You can turn right around and go back to the lake house if you don’t want to be here. No one said it was mandatory.”

Brenda’s eyes widened in surprise, and she sat down in the nearest chair. “No. I want to be here. Sorry, Dad.”

“I’m here!” Carmen came flying in, long wet hair in a messy bun on top of her head. “Sorry. I smelled like manure after gardening this morning.”

She tossed a quick kiss on Gina’s cheek. “Sorry, babe. I brought you some clothes if you want to change later.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay,” Doc said. “Sit down, everyone.” He glanced at Grandpa for some kind of married-person silent communication.

Once we all settled down, Doc opened his mouth, but Grandpa cut him off.

“I’ve got it, hon. Thank you.” He reached out his hand for Doc’s and pulled him down in the big chair beside him before turning to the rest of us. “The short version is, my family kicked me out when I was a teen after my dad caught me with another boy. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I lied my way into the army where I eventually met Doc. After that, Doc and all of you guys were my family. I put my biological family behind me and tried not to spend time thinking about the past.”

He took a deep breath. “Two years ago, someone related to my biological family showed up in Hobie. It was a complete coincidence, but we realized Nico’s best friend Griff’s father is actually my nephew. Griff’s grandfather was my brother, William Marian, but he passed away years ago.”

We all stared at him. West was as confused as the rest of us. “Griff is related to you? That’s not possible. Nico never said a word to me. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“He doesn’t know. I asked Griff’s mother, Rebecca, not to tell anyone until I knew how I wanted to handle it. And then I chickened out and pretended like it had never happened. That was two years ago.”

Aunt Brenda leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “Who’s the guy who came to the door today? Someone from that family?”

Doc chuckled. “Fate. Fate came to the door and told him to get his head out of his ass.”

Grandpa pretended to elbow him. “No, that was someone I didn’t know existed. His name is Miller Hobbs. He did one of those ancestry DNA kits and discovered he’s a close match to me and a closer match to a Matilda Marian in San Francisco. My sister. Since I’ve never had biological children, I explained it either had to be through my brother, William, or my sister, Matilda. It looks more like a match to Tilly.”

Doc cut in. “There are no records of Tilly ever marrying or changing her name. Miller’s mother was born to an anonymous unwed mother in a home in California. Tilly would have been eighteen at the time.”

“Has Miller met her yet?” I asked.

Grandpa sat up straight. “She refuses to meet him or acknowledge him. He came here in hopes I could help get through to her.” He paused for a moment. “His mother is dying. She wants to meet her biological mother if possible before she goes. Miller wants to do this for her.”

Silence descended again.

“Well, shit,” MJ said. “What are you going to do?”

“Go to California to see my sister,” Grandpa said. “And try and figure out how the hell to say ‘sorry I disappeared, hey can you do this kid a favor’ when I get there.”

“Wow,” West said. “You know Nico and I will come with you to help any way we can.”

Grandpa nodded at him. “I think that would be great. We’ll need all the help we can get. If Tilly is anything like she was as a girl…” He sighed and then smiled fondly to himself. “I might need to wear a suit of armor and bring a fire hose.”