Maybe it was the fresh air of the vineyard or maybe it was being so far away from anything that remotely smacked of danger, but I found myself relaxing more than I should around Ben. Not that I shouldn’t have relaxed around Ben, but I certainly shouldn’t have been relaxing while there was still a threat to Ben and Georgie’s safety.

I spotted Cain already holding the lodge door open for us. There was a knowing glint in his eye, which told me the situation Ben and I had found ourselves in this morning was already widely known among my co-workers at the vineyard.

If I was supposed to be embarrassed by that, the joke was on them. I felt like a damned stallion. Every time I looked at the sexy young man next to me, my chest puffed up with pride. He’d picked me. He’d given himself to me.

How was it possible I’d gotten so lucky?

By my count, there were approximately thirteen million gay men on the vineyard property between Ronan’s men and the seemingly endless supply of Marian men and their spouses.

And Ben Bassett had picked me.

It was a night I would hold in my heart and treasure as long as I lived, no matter what happened between the two of us.

“I guess the date turned out well,” Cain said with a grin.

“Wait until I tell that fiancé of yours that his badass husband-to-be couldn’t stop three grannies from getting past him,” I shot back. Cain discreetly flipped me the bird, but it didn’t mean much since he was still grinning like an idiot. I supposed that was what falling in love had done to the man, because I’d met the guy just before he and Ethan had gotten together and there hadn’t been one humorous bone in Cain’s body at that time.

I stepped into the lobby in time to see Georgie race away from Ronan and launch herself at Ben.

“Mr. Kitty!” she said to me as Ben grabbed her up and snuggled her to him. “I had waffles in the shape of Mickey Mouse.”

“Hey, ladybug. We missed you so much,” I said, leaning in to tousle her hair. “We heard you had so much fun with Jamie you fell asleep in your mashed potatoes.”

“I did not! We didn’t have mashed potatoes. We had spaghetti.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “But don’t tell Jamie’s daddy I liked the Mickey Mouse waffles better than his spaghetti.”

As if a child alive wouldn’t have the same preference.

“Do you think your brother wants Mickey Mouse waffles?” I asked Georgie, rubbing big circles onto Ben’s back and leaning in to kiss the top of his head.

“No, silly. He like eggs and toast with cinnamon on it,” she said. “He only makes waffles for me and Daddy.”

Ben’s entire body went rigid in my arms. It was the first time Georgie had mentioned Kirk since we’d gotten to the vineyard. Dr. Dash had told us not to shy away from talking about Kirk, and together Ben and the doctor had told her a version of the truth: that Kirk had gone away for a little while to handle some business and we weren’t sure when he was coming back.

“Okay, why don’t I go get his breakfast ready while you show him where we can sit and eat?” I asked, stepping away from them after kissing her cheek. She giggled and squirmed from the tickle of my beard scruff, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect sound.

“Reese,” Ben said. “I don’t want to stay for breakfast. This is bound to become a hostile environment as soon as—”

“There he is.” The trio of old ladies marched straight for us from their spot at a table in the back of the lobby.

Ben looked up at me. “See? Let’s go.”

“No way, we have a right to be here, and I’m not about to let those ladies scare us off.”

“Smart man,” one of the women said with a nod as they stepped close enough to hear us. “Besides, we’re only here to talk some sense into this one.”

“Save it,” Ben said to the ringleader. I remembered someone calling her Tilly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Griff raced over to intervene. “Tilly, leave him alone or I swear to god, I’m going to call the senator to muzzle you. Ben deserves to eat his breakfast in peace.”

She looked down her nose at him. “I assure you, Griffin Marian, between myself and the senator, I am certainly not the one who wears the accoutrements in the bedroom.”

“Told you,” the tiniest old lady muttered to the tall, skinny one. “Total dom.”

“Mm, I wouldn’t mind seeing that in action,” the tall one replied under her breath. “I like leather goods.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” the littlest one said before pinching the tall woman’s butt and making her yelp.

I held up my hands to forestall any additional dirty talk from the elderly trio. “In case anyone failed to notice, there is a four-year-old right here, not to mention Blue and Tristan’s little ones at that table.”

Tilly rolled her eyes and huffed before narrowing her gaze at Ben and pointing her index and middle fingers at him. “This isn’t over, young man. Not by a long shot. You need to hear what we have to say about that sweet man who shares your sperm.”

“Ew, gross,” Blue muttered. “Tilly, Jesus.”

“I mean it. Griff is a lover, not a hater. There’s no reason whatsoever for you to—”

Maverick stepped up out of nowhere and put a hand over Tilly’s mouth before pulling her backwards away from the table. “Carry on,” he said in a friendly tone to the rest of us.

“Whatever,” Ben sighed before taking a seat at the table with Blue and Tristan. “No offense, guys, but your grandmothers are off their rockers.”

“You don’t say?” Blue said with a laugh. “Have a seat, Ben. Tristan is very adept at putting those three in their place.”

He was right; within moments, Tristan had stood to offer the ladies mimosas, which just so happened to be on the far side of the sunroom area the breakfast was in.

“See?” Blue asked with a grin. “Safe for now. Although I make no promises of the hijinks they’ll get up to once loaded with alcohol. The best way to counteract it is to fight fire with fire. Can I get you a screwdriver with an extra side of screw?”

Ben shared a reluctant chuckle with Blue, and I said a mental prayer of thanks that the kind vineyard owners seemed to know how to handle him delicately.

As I walked away, I overheard Ben tell Blue he never turned down a good screw.

I made my way over to where the food buffet was set up and proceeded to fix plates for Ben and myself before returning to the table. Georgie sat in Ben’s lap and busied herself whispering who-knew-what into his ear. No doubt she was telling him everything he missed of her time with little Jamie the night before.

As we ate, Blue gave his baby a bottle and Tristan seemed to be in charge of helping their daughter, Ella, with her snack. He was wearing more of the bite-sized pieces of strawberries than his daughter was eating. I heard someone approach behind me and noticed Blue’s eyes widen in recognition.

“Jude!”

I turned to see a guy with long, dark hair entering the breakfast sunroom as if he wasn’t a mega celebrity. I’d had a chance to look over the file Ronan had put together for me on the large Marian family, so I knew the famous country singer was one of the Marian brothers, but I hadn’t dared tell that to Ben. If he didn’t already know it, the knowledge that Jude was yet another of Griff’s beautiful, successful brothers was going to crush him.

Jude was accompanied by a very large man who reminded me of several of my co-workers. I knew Jude’s husband, Derek, to be a former bodyguard, although now that I saw him with one proprietary arm around his smaller husband and another one holding a baby, I realized he most likely still thought of himself as a protector.

Despite everyone in the room wanting to greet Jude and Derek, Jude made a beeline for Blue.

“Hey, big brother,” Jude said in a soft voice. Blue stood and thrust the baby in Tristan’s arms before engulfing Jude in a huge hug.

“I missed you so much,” Blue said into Jude’s long hair. “God, it seemed like you guys were gone forever.”

Derek looked at the rest of us and winked. “We were gone ten days.”

“Ten days too many,” Blue teased. “Now gimme that big fat baby.”

Derek handed over the chunky little thing in his arms and made a big production of shaking out his arms. “He’s still not walking. I need that kid to shake a leg and get a move on before I develop back problems. Poor Jude is already the smallest of the three of us.”

“My husband, the comedian,” Jude said without taking his eyes off Blue and Tristan’s two kids. “How are Ella and Mattie?”

“They’re all fine,” Blue said. “This is Ben and his sister, Georgie, and this is Reese.”

Jude’s eyes widened in recognition when he saw me but he knew exactly how to handle it. “Nice to meet you all. Thank you for putting up with my crazy family.”

With that, Ben turned back to Georgie, offering her a few leftover grapes and whispering in her ear too low for me to hear. The smile on her face and periodic giggles out of her reassured me she, at least, was okay.

Jude seemed to take stock of the situation and politely excused himself to find his parents and greet his other family members. Throughout the past two weeks, I’d noticed more and more Marians turning up at every corner. They never got in Ben’s face… well, with the exception of that morning, but they were simply there. Maybe they offered Griff moral support or maybe it was a natural curiosity to try to get a glimpse of Ben. For whatever reason, the vineyard lodge seemed positively overrun with them this morning.

"Of course he has a rock-star brother,” Ben muttered under his breath. “Because that’s my f…freaking life.”

He leaned over to place Georgie in her own chair so he could get up to refill his coffee at the side table. When he returned, Georgie looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Can we look for some crickets for Princess Kitty to play with?”

Ben met my eye and mimed the action of putting something in his mouth. Meaning, Georgie thought the crickets were her spider’s playmates, when in reality they were her food.

I gagged a little on the spoonful of yogurt I was eating.

Ben glanced at me again with a twinkle in his eye. “Sure, Georgie. We’ll need to look for really hoppy ones. You know how Princess Kitty likes her friends very playful.”

My hand clapped over my mouth as my spoon clattered to the table. Georgie giggled as if my antics were all in fun.

They were not.

But, finally, the light was back in Ben’s eyes, even if it was only temporary.

And temporary it was because a few minutes later, all hell broke loose.

Sam walked into the big open lobby space with yet another chubby baby on his hip, and a bevy of Marians squealed “Benji!” at them in greeting. Several things happened at once. Ben jumped and dropped his fork, making a loud clattering noise on the plate. Griff gasped and hissed at Sam for having brought the baby into the lodge. And Georgie jumped into my lap with a fearful shriek when someone bumped her chair on their way to get to the baby.

I held a terrified Georgie while I watched the blood drain from Ben’s face. Blue put two and two together right away.

“Oh god, you didn’t know,” he breathed.

Tristan reached over and took their six-month-old out of Blue’s lap before taking both the baby and little Ella out of the fray. Once he was gone, Blue jumped up and raced over to squat down next to Ben’s chair.

“That’s your nephew, Benji. He’s named after you.” I could see the desperation in Blue’s face for Ben to take the news well.

He didn’t.

“How nice for him,” Ben said through closed teeth.

“Benji?” Georgie asked her brother from where she huddled against my chest.

Ben faked a smile for her. “It’s okay, baby girl. Apparently someone else here has the same name I do. Isn’t that strange? I’ll bet no one else here is called Georgia, though, are they?”

She shook her head before laying it back down on my shoulder.

Instead of going back to his breakfast, Ben pushed away from the table and stood up. “Let’s go.”

I looked up at him. “Ben…”

His nostrils flared and he reached out to take Georgie from me. “Reese, give me Georgie and let me go.”

Griff approached. “Ben, I’m sorry. I told Sam not to bring him around you.”

Just then, a heavily tattooed guy I hadn’t seen before stepped in front of Griff, blocking him from Ben as if Ben would ever pose a physical threat to Griff.

“No, Griff. Stop apologizing to him. He doesn’t deserve one more minute of your company.”

I remembered Cain mentioning something to me about adding another visitor to the approved list for the vineyard. A friend of Griff’s who’d come for a visit from out of town.

Nico something or other.

He defended Griff the same way Sam did, but with much, much more emotion.

“I never asked for his company!” Ben bit out. “And I never asked for his damned apologies. All I want is for him to stay away from me!” Ben was practically vibrating with anger, but I could see in his eyes that there was something else there too.

Just then, I spied Georgie’s therapist enter the lobby with a smile on his face. Within seconds, he seemed to feel the tension in the air and hurried over to us.

“Who’s ready to go visit the kitties today?” he asked Georgie. “I think they might have their eyes open finally.”

Thankfully, Georgie’s natural curiosity crushed her need to stay close to me or Ben.

“Really?” she asked. “Can we take a picture with your phone so I can show Benji and Mr. Kitty later?”

“Absolutely,” Dash said, winking at me. I took a moment to add him to the list of attractive gay men at the vineyard who hadn’t been able to draw Ben’s attention away from me for whatever insane reason.

“Thank you,” I said when I set Georgie down so she could take his hand. “We should be back at the cabin before you’re ready to leave.”

Dash looked from me to Ben to Griff and back to me again. “Take all the time you need. I’m sure we can spend some time visiting the princess until you get back.”

The reference to Georgie’s spider was enough to bring her even more out of her shell. As the two of them made their way out of the lodge, I heard her reminding Dr. Dash that Princess Kitty was a Mexican redknee tarantula. “But her legs kinda look pink instead of red so I always say she’s pink,” she explained. I’d noticed whenever she talked about nature and science, her confidence grew. The therapist and Ronan’s guys had done an amazing job engaging with her in a way that showcased her intelligence and made her feel smart and brave. They really were the best of men.

I looked over to Ben after Georgie was gone. He looked like he was about to explode.

“Baby,” I said quietly, reaching out to grab his hand. He shook me off and glared at me.

“No. Not right now, Reese. You’ve known me for all of ten minutes. Don’t pretend to know how I feel.” His voice broke in several places and my heart broke right along with it.

“Ben,” Griff tried.

Ben whipped his head around. “Are you kidding me right now? Don’t you ever know when to stop?”

At this point, all of the Marians had stopped pretending not to listen. They sat or stood around watching this play out, knowing it was bound to happen at some point. The way Ben had been avoiding Griff, and the way Griff had been tiptoeing around Ben… well, there was no way it was going to end without a confrontation.

Griff tightened his jaw and reached backward for his husband’s hand without looking. Sam put his hand in Griff’s automatically and kept quiet despite the anger clear on his face. If I felt protective of Ben’s heart, I could only imagine how Sam felt about his husband’s.

Something shifted in Griff and instead of walking away this time, he leaned in.

“Yes! In fact, I do know when to stop. You know when I’m going to stop trying to get through to you? Exactly never. I’m never going to stop trying to have you in my life. I’ve been waiting twenty-two years to see you again, and I will never, never give up now that you’re here.”

Tears streamed down his face, and I noticed Rebecca and Thomas Marian, Griff’s adoptive parents, stand up and walk closer to him. I could tell by the looks on their faces their hearts were breaking too.

Nico was the only one who looked like he wanted to murder someone. I automatically moved so I was standing between him and Ben.

Ben’s anguish split the room. “Liar! Where were you when I needed you? Where were you when my parents died and left me all alone? The social worker told me the truth, Griffin. You knew where I was but you didn’t want me. You never wanted me!” Ben’s voice cracked, but when I reached for him, he stepped away. He did that thing he always did when he was feeling really helpless—he wrapped his arms around his body.

“I kept hoping you’d change your mind and come get me. I waited for years! I even told my foster parents that it was all some big mistake and you’d come get me because you were my big brother and you loved me.” Ben let out an ugly laugh. “Kirk used to laugh in my face every time I said that. He even started making a joke out of it… used to ask me every day if my brother had shown up yet. When the state stopped sending checks because I was aging out of the system, Kirk told me I had to leave the house. I had nowhere to go… I wasn’t even done with school. But he wanted me out when I turned eighteen. I had no one! No friends, no family. So I thought…”

Ben sucked in a lungful of air as he dashed at his face. I could see that Griff was absolutely horrified by everything Ben had said, and he was hanging onto his husband’s hand so hard his knuckles had gone bloodless.

“So I thought maybe I could convince you to change your mind or maybe… maybe there was some reason you couldn’t come get me. I thought maybe if I came to you, you’d get to know me and you might like me. But that social worker was right. You didn’t want me. You never wanted me. I know because I came to find you, and I saw you! You had your perfect life with your perfect fucking family and everything you could ever ask for while I had nothing! I had no one and you had all of this!” His arms spread out to encompass the large space that was filled to the brim with Griff’s family, the giant, warm, loving group of people who were the exact opposite of what Ben had these past twelve years.

Ben took several steps back from all of us. “You don’t get to play big brother now, Griff. I don’t need you and I don’t want you. So you and your perfect family can all go to hell!” Tears streaked down Ben’s face as he shifted his eyes to Griff’s parents. My heart ached at the raw want I saw in his gaze as he stared at the older couple who, despite his cruel words, looked like all they wanted to do was hug him. “You can all go to hell,” Ben whispered brokenly, his brittle voice tinged with only hurt now.

Suddenly, he took off running. Cain was quick to follow him, since he was shadowing Ben for the day. The rest of the people in the lobby stared after him in shock. Griff’s knees buckled and Sam had to catch him.

As soon as I took a breath, I ran too. I followed him and Cain back to the cabin and let him slam himself into the bedroom and have a minute alone.

But a minute was all I could spare. When I tried the bedroom door, I found that it was locked. After picking the lock, I found him curled into a tiny ball on the floor, completely hidden by the blanket I’d used all those nights I’d slept on the floor with him.

The sounds coming from under the blanket tore my heart in two. I silently scooped him up and laid him on the bed, curling myself around him and holding him until he cried himself to sleep.

There would be time for words later. All he needed now was to not be alone. To know that, if I had anything at all to do with it, he would never, ever be alone again.