Page 70 of Skylar

Skylar could only shake her head as she opened her gift to reveal another Hermes bag. It was beautiful, but really unnecessary. None of the bags Cole had bought her had been necessary.

“This is lovely, Cole,” her mom said as she lifted her bag from the box. “It’s so soft.”

While her mom’s was a more basic black, Skylar’s was a deep burgundy.

“Yes, this is beautiful,” Skylar agreed. “Thank you.”

“This is incredible,” her dad said, drawing Skylar’s attention to the watch his box had contained.

“I thought it would be useful,” Cole said, leaning close to his dad to show him all the features of the watch.

Skylar set her bag back in the soft covering it had come in and then into the box. Lifting her mug, she took a sip of the coffee her mom had prepared for her.

She was still trying to figure out Cole’s real reason for showing up. It was possible that he really had come just to give blood for the test. Skylar wasn’t convinced of that, however.

Was he that excited about the fact that Shiloh was her and Aiden’s daughter?

Everyone else had just taken the news in stride, with no one making a big deal about learning who Shiloh’s birth parents were. The only difference between Cole and the rest of her siblings was that Cole was super close to Aiden. So maybe it was possible.

“How long are you here for?” Skylar asked.

“Not sure. Probably through to the weekend.”

“Really? Wow.”

“We need to have a family dinner while you’re here.”

“Could we have something on Friday or Saturday and include Aiden and his mom and Willow?”

“Sure, we could do that,” her mom said with a nod. “I’ll see if Charli thinks Shiloh would be up for joining us so that they could meet her.”

Just one big happy family, Skylar mused. The way they had once imagined their future would be.

Sure enough, the plan came together for them all to get together on Friday evening. And from what Cole had said, it sounded like Aiden and his mom and niece were actually going to spend the weekend at their house in Serenity.

“I’m going to talk to Jay and see if he can get the high school gym for a couple hours for us to play some basketball or volleyball.”

It was like Cole was rewinding time to his teen years when he’d gone to the high school gym with Jay whenever he could. He’d put in hours and hours of practice to become the best that he could be. And it had paid off.

“I’d say you could come be a cheerleader for us,” Cole said. “But you went and hurt your ankle. So now you’ll have to cheer from the bleachers.”

“If I decide to go,” Skylar told him.

“You’ll go,” Cole replied with a grin.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because there’s not much else to do in this town on a Friday night.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. There hadn’t been much to do on Friday nights back in the day, especially in the summer, when there hadn’t even been church youth group meetings. She doubted that it had changed much in the past several years.

“I think we’ll just do a barbecue,” her dad said. “That works well when we’re all together.”

“Sounds like a plan,” her mom agreed. “I’ll post it in the group chat and see if we can get this all arranged.”

“And you’ll set up for me to get the blood test?” Cole asked.

“Yep. I’ll give Gareth a call,” her dad said. “He’ll set it up for you.”

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