Page 88 of Only a Chance

“Hey, buddy!” I’d last seen Finn almost a year ago, the last time we’d stopped through between trips. He’d put on size since then. “How are things?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Everything in my old room is pink.”

The nursery was now home to Finn’s sister Lola, and while he was tremendously protective of her, he pretended to hate girl stuff. “Pink can be nice,” I told him.

He blew a raspberry to demonstrate his lack of agreement with that idea. “Hey, I gotta go, Uncle Archie. I’m meeting Mags and Teague. We’re hunting treasure out back.”

I suppressed a laugh. “Oh yeah?”

“Treasure, huh?” Emily smiled.

Finn bolted out the back doors of the resort, and we all watched him go for a moment.

“This place is nuts now, even when we don’t have guests,” Wiley said. “Between that one, the big kids, and all the babies, it’s like summer camp all year long.”

Mateo’s daughter Lily was nearly ready to graduate high school now, and her brothers Alex and Scott were a handful, according to Monroe, who swore she was never having kids. In typical Monroe fashion, she figured she’d go big or go home and had twins. Lucy and Will had welcomed a daughter, Piper, soon after Finn had arrived. Sasquatch and CeeCee had a tiny baby girl, who they’d named Rose, who I was looking forward to meeting. Brainiac and Penny had their hands full with Maggie, who was seven, and their son Michael, who was three.

Antonio was right. Kasper Ridge was crawling with kids, and honestly? Nothing could make me happier.

Emily and I spent our afternoon on the patio, enjoying the mild summer air and the view, and the surprise of our friends who wandered past now and then in the course of their daily activities. By the time we sat down at dinner in the restaurant, we figured everyone knew we were back, but Aubrey proved me wrong.

“How could you?” she cried, storming into the restaurant with Lola in her arms. “How could you not even tell me you were coming home?” Her tone was... well, loud, because she was Aubrey, but she wasn’t angry. Instead, she was smiling brightly and just about matched Finn for speed as she ran into my arms. Lola smiled up at me with wide blue eyes.

“Hey, sis,” I said, hugging my sister tight. “Hi little Lola.”

Lola was just a year old, and possibly the cutest human being I’d ever seen. She had Wiley’s dark hair and giant wide eyes, and I’d honestly never seen her cry, though that could have been because I traveled so much. We’d been here just after she’d been born, but I’d had to keep up with her growth by video call since then.

For several minutes, no one sat. The restaurant’s back room echoed with our voices, all raised in happy tones. It felt like a reunion. Hell, it was a reunion.

The kids—those old enough to feed themselves—sat at the end of the table, while Lily purposely claimed a spot with the adults.

Once we’d all managed to order and everyone had a drink in front of them, I stood.

“Thanks, guys, for letting us crash in here unannounced.”

“Again,” Aubrey called out, earning a laugh.

“We’ve been wanting to come home for a while,” I told them, reaching for Emily’s hand and pulling her to stand at my side. “And this seemed like the perfect time because we have a bit of news.”

Sasquatch let out an inappropriately timed hoot, demonstrating that fatherhood hadn’t changed him at all. It made me happy.

“Emily’s agreed to marry me!” I announced, turning to kiss Emily quickly on the cheek.

“Only took you five years to convince her,” Aubrey pointed out.

“Funny,” I said.

“We were busy,” Emily told the table. “Running around the world, having adventures.”

We’d had many. And we’d gone a long way toward filling up our map. But it was time for a break.

“The thing is, we wondered if there might still be a place for us here, if we came back for a bit,” I said, gazing into the faces of the people I loved most in the world.

“We might even want to build one of those fancy houses down there where you all live,” Emily said.

I nodded. “We’ll need a little more room than we have in the suite upstairs...”

My sister’s eyes rounded as her mouth dropped open. “You’re preggo!”

Emily nodded and the table erupted into happy sounds of congratulation. “We are, and we want to raise him or her up here, with family.” We’d called Emily’s parents from Atlanta to tell them the news, and it turned out they had news of their own. They’d visited Kasper Ridge once before, and thought they might like to look at moving to Colorado. They weren’t all in for the elevation of the resort, but told us they’d been looking for a place near the Springs. It was perfect. Everything was.

I sat back down, jet lag and the endorphins of all the happy reunions finally wearing me down. Looking around, I let the fulfillment and gratitude I felt sink in. I was home, and I had everything I’d ever wanted. When Emily retook her seat at my side, I sighed with happiness as she leaned into me and whispered, “I love you so much, Archie Kasper.”

The world brightened and shone, and so did my heart. I knew that no matter where we roamed, Kasper Ridge would always be our home.

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