Thanks to the titanium rod in his leg, Jack didn’t need to use his crutches. Despite the doctor’s orders to only walk in the cast when absolutely necessary, though, he paced the office floor, the sealed white envelope in his hand.
“There is no way you’re going to put your shit behind you if you don’t read it,” he said aloud. Then he laughed because he was alone. Talking to himself. Afraid of a stupid piece of paper.
He paused mid-pace when he heard a dog’s bark. Then he lifted the shade to see Owen and Scully running past the side of the house toward the back. That meant Ava wasn’t far behind.
They were early, and there was no way he would be able to do what he planned to do without reading the goddamn letter first.
“Like a Band-Aid,” he said under his breath. “Just rip it off.”
So he did. He tore open the envelope and pulled from it a single piece of plain white paper.
The lines were crooked, and the handwriting a barely legible scrawl, but Jack could make out the words well enough to let Jack Senior have the last one and then be done with it.
He could have sat in the plush leather office chair. He probably should have, given his physical and mental state. But even if no one saw him, he had one thing left to prove to his father and himself: no matter what that letter said, and no matter what his father had done, he was still standing.
Well, shit. It took him ’til now to realize it? No matter what the letter said…
He didn’t need to know what was in the envelope. He’d already closed the door on that part of his past. Now it was time to think about his future.
He tore the letter in half without reading farther than his name on the first line. Then he tore it again and again until it was practically confetti and tossed it in the trash.
A soft knock sounded on the door.
Jack cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
“It’s me,” Ava said. “Owen’s out back with your brothers and Jenna. Can I come in?”
Jack’s eyes fell to the shreds of his father’s words in the garbage can.
“Door’s open,” he finally said.
“Jenna said you’ve been hiding out in here for almost a half hour,” she said, striding through the door. She stopped short when she saw him, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. “You are right next to a chair. You know you’re only supposed to put weight on your leg if you need to—” Her expression softened, and she took a few steps closer, resting her palm on his chest. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
He didn’t say anything, just pulled her to him and kissed her until he felt like he could breathe again.
“Hey,” she said again softly, her lips still moving against his. “Are you okay?”
His lips lingered on hers for several seconds more until he finally backed away. “I am now.”
She glanced at the trash can next to his feet. “Was that the letter?”
“Leave it to Jack Senior to have the last word even from the grave.”
“You read it?” she asked.
“Nope. I realized I don’t need to. I’ve already moved on.”
His leg started to throb, so he decided now was a good time to sit and collapsed into the chair.
She said nothing at first, then just climbed into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She hugged him tight and he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her, the woman who grounded him and brought him back to the present when he’d been stuck for so long in the past.
“I don’t know if I can ever forgive him,” he said. “But I can move on.”
She lifted her head and gave it a soft shake. “You don’t have to forgive him today. But maybe someday. With more time.”
His mom would like that. Wouldn’t she? Some sort of peace between them. Maybe. All he had was time, now.
“And I made the decision to stay because I can be a lawyer anywhere. But you and Owen are home.”
She swallowed and bit her lower lip, her green eyes shining.
“I can’t justify what my mother’s death did to him, but I get it.” He cradled her face in his hands. “If I lost you like that?” He couldn’t finish the thought, so he kissed her again.
“You won’t,” she told him, an unmistakable quaver in her voice. “Not if I have anything to say about it. But if you did?” She skimmed her fingers through his hair, her palm resting on his cheek. “If by some horrible twist of fate you did, you’d be strong enough for you and Owen to get through it, just like you were for your brothers.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pressed a soft kiss to her palm. Then he exhaled a shaky breath, and with it he let go of the fear that had kept him from this woman for ten long years.
“Come on,” he said, straightening in the chair. “I have something to show you.”
Ava glanced at Jack in the passenger seat of her Jeep and grinned.
“It’s killing you not to drive, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” His head thudded against the back of his seat, and Scully rewarded him with a sloppy kiss on his ear.
“Owen,” Ava said, swatting at the Lab and pushing him back toward her son. “You’re supposed to keep an eye on your dog when we’re in the car.”
Owen laughed. “I watched him slobber all over Dad. That’s keeping an eye on him, right?”
Ava’s breath hitched at how easily Owen had transitioned from calling Jack by his name to calling him Dad. It had only been a week since the accident. But they’d spent every day visiting Jack in the hospital after school. Some nights they brought him dinner, while others Jack took Owen to the hospital cafeteria for junk food and some one-on-one bonding time. She wasn’t sure what the two of them did while she waited patiently in Jack’s room. All she knew was that the two of them always came back smiling, and Jack brought her back something chocolate each time.
“Anyway,” she said, cutting off her own thoughts before she got all teary-eyed, “this is supposed to be your welcome home family dinner.” She glanced at Jack in her peripheral vision. “What do you need to show me at the vineyard that can’t wait until daylight?”
Jack turned toward the back seat. “What do you think, Shortstop? Should we tell her?”
Owen giggled. “Not yet.”
Jack turned his gaze to her as she pulled to a stop alongside the rows of grapevines. “Sorry, Red.” He leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “Not yet.”
She rolled her eyes, put the car in park, and hopped out of the vehicle so she could speed to Jack’s side of the car. But he was already standing on the road by the time she got there, Owen and Scully at his side.
“Did you even bring your crutches?” she asked, angry that she hadn’t checked before they left.
Jack shook his head. “We’re not going far.”
“I hope not,” she said. “It’s getting dark.” She tilted her head toward the sky. “At least it’s a clear night.”
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Shortstop, you got the supplies?”
Owen nodded and opened the back door of the Jeep. “Scully and I are right behind you.”
“Supplies?” Ava said as Jack pulled her onto the grass toward the first row of vines. She tugged at the hem of her UCLA LAW sweatshirt—because yes, it was hers now—and her hand fidgeted in Jack’s grasp. “What’s going on?”
Jack stopped at the first plant in the row, the one they’d started on together that first day she’d come to Crossroads. Seconds later Owen was there with a plaid blanket over one arm and an excited Labrador by his side.
“Supplies,” he said with a knowing grin.
Jack helped their son lay the blanket down flat—and then redo it after Scully ran back and forth across it.
“Sit, Scully,” Owen said, and the dog obeyed, tail wagging and tongue dangling out of his open mouth.
“You too,” Jack said to her. “Please.”
She sat, but her heart raced. She was already teetering on an emotional edge listening to Jack and Owen talk like they’d been father and son for Owen’s whole life. Jack was so good with him already, and her heart threatened to burst each time she saw him simply ruffle Owen’s hair. She wasn’t sure she could take much more.
Jack gingerly lowered himself beside her, but not completely. He stopped at his knees. No. Scratch that. He stopped at one knee while his good foot stayed planted on the ground.
“What—what are you doing?” she asked, but Owen answered instead of Jack.
“He wants to ask you something,” he said.
Jack grinned. “It’s kind of a question for all three of you.”
Ava’s eyes burned, and she let out something between a laugh and a sob.
“You know I never even noticed the sky—how you can see the stars out here at night—until you showed me.” He almost lost his balance, and she rose on her knees to grab those strong shoulders that carried so much weight for all those years, and steadied him. He laughed. “You showed me that there is something good where I couldn’t find it before.”
He grabbed Owen’s hand and patted his knee, and Scully moved to his side.
“This place doesn’t haunt me anymore,” he said. “Not if it’s the place where you are. Both of you.”
Scully barked, and Jack laughed. “I meant all three of you.” He scratched behind Scully’s ear. “Hey, Red? You think you can fix Scully’s collar before he knocks me over?”
Ava’s brows drew together, and she squinted in the waning light to try and figure out what was wrong with the dog’s collar, when something sparkled and caught her eye.
She gasped as her hand flew to her mouth. “How did you—? You just got released this morning.”
He smiled, then got to work unbuckling the dog’s collar so he could remove the ring she was too stunned to touch.
“Actually,” he said, pinching the silver band between his thumb and forefinger, “your father called in a favor to a jeweler friend of his.”
Her eyes widened. “You talked to my father?”
Jack nodded. “He stopped by after you left to pick Owen up from school last Monday.”
She wanted to ask more questions. She wanted him to tell her everything she’d missed when she wasn’t at his bedside. But he was kneeling in front of her—on a broken leg, no less—with a diamond ring in his hand and their son standing beside them, grinning.
“And you were in on this?” she asked.
Owen laughed and shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Ava,” Jack said, and she tried to focus, but her head was swimming.
“Yeah?” Her voice shook.
“I know it’s only been three weeks…” He smiled. “Well, ten years and three weeks, but I was wondering if you all wanted to marry me.”
Scully barked. His mind was made up.
Owen stifled another laugh.
And Jack just looked at her expectantly, his blue eyes no longer the storm they’d been all those years ago when they’d met, or when he’d forced her off a country road a few short weeks ago.
“Just to clarify,” he said, when she hadn’t yet been able to formulate a coherent sound, “in case you need convincing, I love you, Ava. Pretty sure I have since the first day I met you in the school office, even though falling for someone was the furthest thing from my mind.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “You are so strong.”
She smiled.
“And stubborn.”
She narrowed her eyes at this.
“In a good way,” he said. “I was convinced that there was nothing good in my life other than my brothers and Jenna. But then you pushed past every wall I tried to put up. You made me feel like I was worthy of someone else’s love.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her. “I’m not done yet.”
She bit her lip and waited.
“I love the girl you were when I met you and the amazing woman and mother you’ve become. I’m a better man for knowing you. For loving you.”
Tears fell from her eyes and she shook her head. “I hate that you ever thought you weren’t good enough. That I made you believe that when I pushed you away,” she said with a sniffle. “You were always a good man. And you’re already an amazing father.”
They both looked at Owen, who beamed back at them.
“I’m just following your lead,” Jack said. “You were a single mom raising this spectacular kid. I couldn’t ask for more but to learn from the best.”
“Mom,” Owen said. “Are you gonna answer him?”
Ava laughed. And cried. And nodded. Because he wasn’t simply staying. After everything, he wanted her—them—all of it.
“Yes!” He slid the ring onto her finger. “Yes,” she said again, placing her palms on his cheeks. “I love you.” She kissed him. “I have only ever loved you.”
“Yes!” Owen yelped, and he and Scully ran up and down the aisle of vines.
“I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” Jack said softly as he lowered himself to the ground and pulled her into his lap. “I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”
“Which part? Yes, I’ll marry you?” She laughed. Then she kissed him for breaking his heart all those years ago, for all the time they’d missed, and for all the years ahead. And in his kiss she felt the long-empty corners of her heart fill.
“I like that part,” he said. “But I was kind of referring to what came after.”
She smiled and let her forehead fall against his. “I love you, Jack Everett.”
“That’s the part I’m talking about.” He kissed her one more time. “And I love you, Red.”
They entered the ranch to whistles and hollers from Luke and Walker and a teary-eyed Jenna, who pulled Ava into a warm hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” Ava asked.
Jenna backed up to meet her with a watery gaze. “For helping bring him back from a place none of us could grasp.” Ava opened her mouth to speak, but Jenna kept going. “I don’t mean San Diego or New York,” she said. “From the moment I found him in that hospital a decade ago, he was beyond my reach.”
“And then I pushed him away,” Ava said shakily.
Jenna shook her head. “He needed to leave in order to realize that one day he could come home again. I’m just sorry it took him so long to get here.”
The two women embraced again, and Ava could feel the shared pain lift from where it had been hovering in the air. She looked at Owen and Luke wrestling with Scully, at Walker sipping a beer, shaking his head at his nephew and brother, and at Jack leaning against the kitchen counter, grinning and taking it all in.
She went to him, pressed her palms to his chest and her lips to his.
“You look happy,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m not sure if you heard, but I asked this amazing woman to marry me, and she said yes.”
She bit back a smile. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to ask her one more thing.”
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “You sure do ask a lot of questions.”
He laughed. “I know Owen has school tomorrow,” he said, “and that you’ll have to head home after dinner.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, brows raised.
“Well, it being my first night home from the hospital, I was thinking I probably shouldn’t sleep alone.”
“Luke or Walker didn’t volunteer for the job?” she asked. “I bet Walker is a closet spooner.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back, giving her a pointed look. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she stifled a laugh.
“I was wondering if maybe you’d take me home with you tonight. But if you think one of my brothers could better care for a man just home from the hospital…”
She swatted him on the shoulder, but all at once the joke was over. She bit her lip, not sure if the tears would start again once she tried to speak.
“No,” she said, head shaking. “I don’t think they could do a better job. I almost lost you last week,” she added. “If you think I’m letting you out of my sight now that you’re home—”
He kissed her before the reality of what she’d said had a chance to sink in any further.
“Good,” he said softly against her. “A sleepover it is.”