Page 70 of The Doctor's Surprise Family

I frowned. This was news to me. “Sam? In the park?”

Blake looked embarrassed. “I was sulking, I guess. After our fight. And Sam came and found me, and he set me straight on some things.”

I gulped water, my throat gone dry. “Set you straight on what?”

Blake stood, then sat down again. He took a deep breath. “All my life, I’ve had this idea—” He stopped talking abruptly and scrubbed at his face. I’d never seen him look small before, but he did in that moment, his shoulders bunched up, drawn in on himself.

“Blake? You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He thrust his chest out, as though in defiance. “I didn’t want my parents to go, the night they died. I’d just got this new tricycle, and I wanted to ride it. But I wasn’t allowed, if they weren’t home. So I screamed and screamed, and my mom got mad, and the last thing she said to me was ‘that’s it. No TV.’ Then she told the sitter to put me to bed, and she walked out, and I never saw her again.”

I felt my heart break for him. “Oh, God. That’s awful.”

Blake stared at his hands like he hadn’t heard me. “I don’t remember much of them, of Mom and Dad. But I remember I screamed at them, and they never came back. I know it wasn’t their fault. They went off the road. But then my grandpa came, and I couldn’t stop crying, and I thought that was why — I know now, it wasn’t. He was old. Sick. He couldn’t take on a kid. But I thought it was my crying, why he wouldn’t take me. And every time after that, when I’d get in a home, it felt like the rule was, one strike, you’re out.”

“You don’t still think that, do you?”

Blake looked down, shamefaced. “Kind of, I do. But Sam came and told me, that’s not how it works. Or it’s not how it’s meant to work, one fight and done. We’re supposed to be able to get mad at each other. To be wrong, as long as we’re willing to fix it.”

I held my breath, half-hopeful, half-terrified. Was this the part where he offered to stay? Or was he about to admit he was broken, too stuck in his past to give me a future?

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “Or I am, for a while. I have to go back to Munich to wrap things up there. But I interviewed two daysago for that fellowship, and I heard this morning, they want me. I’m in.”

I shook my head, unsure I’d heard right. “You’re in, so… you’re taking it? You’re moving home?”

“Yes. I accepted it. I’m coming home.” Blake rounded the table in two quick, jerky steps. He dropped down to one knee and took both my hands. “I know I’ve messed up with you, and I’ve messed up with Oli. I’ve run off twice now, when I should’ve fought. But I’m not running now. Whether you’ll have me or not, you and Oli are family, and I need to be here for you however I can.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was hearing. It sounded like all my dreams were coming true, but I’d thought that before, only to have the rug ripped out. “What are you saying?”

Blake hitched a ragged breath and squeezed my hands tighter. “I’ve missed so much, running off like I did. Cutting off everyone from my old life. I could’ve transferred back sooner, seen Oli’s first step. Been there for his birthdays. Been his dad. But those years are gone, and I want… I want…” Blake’s eyes were burning, bright with passion. “When I’m with you and Oli, I feel like I’m home. I feel like we’re family. I’ve never had that before. I don’t know if you’ll ever trust me again, but I’ll never stop trying, if it takes the rest of my life, to prove how I love you, and I love Oli.”

I bit my lip. Was I dreaming? Asleep at the wheel? Was this how I died, caught up in a dream?

“I understand if you don’t want to make any big changes. We can take it at your pace, figure out?—”

“Will you be home for Christmas?”

Blake’s smile widened. “Yes. I’m flying out early on Christmas Eve. If you need help stuffing stockings?—”

“Yes. Yes. Come here.” I pulled Blake up toward me and flung my arms around him, and buried my face in his broad shoulder. He still smelled of baking, of warm apple pie. “I’m really not dreaming? You’re coming home?”

“Yeah, home for Christmas.”

“I love you too.”

Blake crushed me to him till my ribs creaked. Till I had to pull free so I could breathe.

“This was all I wanted,” I said, when I’d caught my breath. “For you to fight for us. To know you would.”

“I always will.” Blake rested his head on our joined hands. “Whatever it takes, I’ll show you every day, nothing matters to me more than our family.”

I hooked two fingers under his chin, tilted his head up, and kissed him long and deep. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid I’d had, Blake’s hair in my face, his lips cracked from the cold. He tasted of cinnamon, warm and sweet.

“I love you.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ll never let you doubt it. Never again.”

EPILOGUE

TWO YEARS LATER: BLAKE

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