The Family They've Longed For

by Robin Gianna

  He stared at both women, his chest expanding with emotion. Adrenaline surged through his veins, because they were both right. What he and Rory had before Adam died, before it all got away from them, was worth the risk to his heart.

  It was worth everything.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BEYOND GLAD TO have finally finished packing the last of her things, Rory kneeled to tape shut a box of books. Was she nervous about the decision she’d made? That was an understatement. But she was done hiding. Done running. She had hidden and run for so long she hadn’t even realized she was still doing it until she’d gone back home.

  Until she’d fallen in love with Jake all over again.

  Not exactly accurate. That love had always been there. She’d just refused to let herself feel it anymore, and staying away from him had let her stuff it so far down it had lain dormant until being with him again had brought it all to the surface.

  Maybe he’d never trust her...maybe he’d never let her be in his life again the way she wanted. Maybe the love he’d had for her was gone in a way hers never would be. But hiding in LA wasn’t going to help her have the life she wanted.

  It had taken nine long years of hiding, but she finally felt like herself again. The woman who went for what she wanted.

  Jake would shake his head if he heard her say that, but once in a while her stubbornness just might be her best asset. Because she’d decided she wasn’t taking Jake’s rejection lying down. Until she’d done everything she possibly could to convince him she loved him, that they belonged together and that she’d never, ever leave him and Mika and Eudemonia, she wouldn’t accept that it was over for good.

  The doorbell rang and she figured it was the moving guys, ready to get all her things on the truck to take to Alaska. She squared her shoulders. This was it. The first step toward her new life. A better life. A life where she could see her mom whenever she wanted. A life in the town she loved.

  A life with Jake and Mika, if all went as she planned.

  And if it didn’t she’d accept that pain. Because even trying to have a life with the two of them would be worth every second of the heartache that would follow Jake’s rejection of her love, if that’s how it turned out.

  She wiped her sweaty hands down her jeans and went to answer the door.

  When she opened it her mouth fell open and her heart dove straight to her stomach.

  “Jake. What...? Why...? How...?”

  “Lots of questions there, Rory.” He gave her a crooked smile, but she could see the tension in his eyes. “Can I come in?”

  She swung open the door, unable to find her voice. They stood in the small foyer of her apartment—the place she was leaving behind for good—and stared at one another for long seconds before Jake finally spoke.

  “It’s been a month since you showed up at my door to tell me you love me.” He reached for her hands, tightened his fingers on hers. “Every day and every night of that month I’ve thought of you. Missed you. Wished things could be different between us. But I was too scared to let myself be with you again. Too cowardly to risk my heart again.”

  “I know,” she whispered, hardly believing that he was here, that he was talking about what had happened the last time she’d seen him. That he’d missed her and thought of her. “I understand. I was cowardly, too.”

  “I planned to stay being that coward, wrapping myself in a self-protective blanket of mistrust, convinced it was what I wanted and needed to do. Until two women named Beth and Wendy came to my office.”

  He drew her closer, and her heart pounded so hard in her ears she feared she wouldn’t be able to hear what was coming next. “And what did those two women say to you?”

  “They pointed out that hiding away in Eudemonia, refusing to see what could be between us again, was no way to find my future happiness. I’d convinced myself I was plenty happy until you came back. But that was when I knew there was a big piece of happiness missing from my life, and that piece is you.”

  “Oh, Jake.” She swallowed down the emotion filling her chest and stepped toward him. “All I want is a chance. A chance to prove to you how much I love you and that I’ll never, ever leave you again. That’s all I want.”

  “Me, too.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and her heart shook hard at the sweetness, the love she saw so clearly in his eyes.

  “Which is why I’m moving to LA to be with you. Me and Mika. I’m going to take a job here, and we’ll see where being together again takes us. We’ll be away from the bad and the good memories of Eudemonia that might cloud things up and confuse the issue. It’ll just be you and me, finding out what’s still between us. A new beginning. What do you say?”

  She sniffed back the tears that threatened and flung her arms around him. “I’d say I love that idea almost as much as I love you. Except there’s one thing—I didn’t take the job. I packed all my stuff and it’s going to be trucked to Eudemonia today.”

  “What?” He stared down at her. “You didn’t take the job? You’re planning to move back to Eudemonia?”

  “Yep. When I came back here I wallowed in misery because you didn’t trust me and didn’t want to be with me—didn’t want to love me, and let me love you and Mika. But then I realized I’d wallowed for nine long years and I was done with it. I decided to be the stubborn Aurora Anderson you teased me for being over more years than I can remember. I decided to come back to Eudemonia and pound on that heart of yours until you let me inside again. I love you too much to quit now. And if you never love me back, I will know that at least I tried.”

  He pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. They stood for long minutes, just soaking one another in, until he finally lifted his head.

  “I do love you, Rory Anderson. I love your stubbornness and preparedness and adorableness. I love your adventurous spirit and toughness and sweetness. I love everything about you. Even when you hurt me I loved you. And what I’ve accepted this past month, let myself appreciate and be happy about, is that I will always love you, no matter what.”

  His mouth lowered to hers in the most beautiful kiss of her life, which slowly moved from tender to hot until they finally broke apart.

  She looked up into the brown eyes she loved so much and tightened her hold on him. “If you want to move to LA I’ll stay. But what I really want is to move back to the place I belong. The place we both belong. With you.”

  “Other than hearing that you still love me, those words are the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  He kissed her again, and when they came up for air his smile was so dazzling her heart squeezed tight with the overwhelming love she’d felt for him forever.

  “Come on. Eudemonia and Mika are waiting for us to come home.”

  EPILOGUE

  Three years later...

  WENDY ANDERSON’S SMALL house was filled to overflowing for her annual Christmas party. She and Rory and the others had spent weeks making biscuits and seed sculptures for the animals, and everyone had enjoyed hanging the treats on the trees outside.

  “Time for our own goodies now!” Twinkie called to everyone, clapping her hands and grinning. “Come on inside.”

  Chatter and laughter moved from outside to inside as the guests took off their coats and hats and headed to the kitchen to grab food from the table.

  Rory looked at Mika’s adorable face, pink from the cold, and reached for his hat—because otherwise it would probably end up on the floor for Toby to chew on.

  “You hungry?” she asked the four-year-old.

  “Starving!”

  “I have something just for you,” Twinkie said. “Come with me to the kitchen.”

  Jake came in the front door, carrying Audrey, their Christmas baby. Their miracle baby, who’d be celebrating her first birthday in one week.

  “We need to get some
food in this child because she keeps trying to eat the animals’ biscuits,” Jake said. “I know it won’t hurt her, but—yuck!”

  “Yuck!” Audrey repeated as she beamed and waved her hat around.

  Rory wrapped her arms around her husband and their baby and laughed. “Don’t let Twinkle-Toes hear you say her biscuits are ‘yuck,’ Audrey,” she teased, kissing her daughter’s soft round cheek. “She’s said she has a special treat for your brother, so I’m betting she has something for you, too. Come on.”

  Jake reached for Rory’s hand and the three of them squeezed their way through the crowd and into the kitchen. Rory stopped next to Mika and laughed at what her mother had given their son.

  “You think there are enough marshmallows in that hot chocolate, Mika?” Jake asked. “Did you leave any for me?”

  “No. They’re all in here.”

  Mika pointed at his cup, which was overflowing with a teetering mound of small marshmallows. The top ones were tumbling onto the counter and the floor, where Toby was munching them down.

  “Our little marshmallow boy,” Twinkie said, an indulgent smile on her face. “I have another whole bag, so don’t worry. There’s plenty for Audrey. And for you, too, Aurora.”

  “Good thing. I’d hate to be left out of the marshmallow fun.”

  She looked up at Jake and their eyes met over their baby’s head. Her heart gave that familiar squeeze that happened every time she saw her husband. Her children. The beautiful family she’d been blessed with. The family she and Jake had come so close to never having together.

  She picked up a few marshmallows, poked one into Audrey’s mouth and another into Jake’s, then lifted onto her toes to press her lips to her handsome husband’s.

  “Now you taste sweet, like a marshmallow.”

  “And you taste sweet like Aurora Hunter.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers again and her heart expanded with an overwhelming joy at how incredibly lucky they all were.

  He moved his mouth to her ear. “You about ready to go home? Because I am. These two are going to be tired from all the excitement, which means...”

  “Which means you’ll want to go to bed early, too?” Rory asked in faux innocence.

  “Funny how you’ve been reading my mind for about twenty-five years now.” He grinned. “Not sure I can read yours, though. What are you thinking?”

  “That I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have the world’s most wonderful husband. And the other thing I’m thinking is for me to know and for you to find out.”

  He laughed. “You know I love a challenge, Dr. Hunter. Is it that you’re thinking about how much I love you?”

  “And how much I love you. And something else.”

  His eyes gleamed and he tugged her close to whisper in her ear. “Then hurry up and eat your marshmallows, so we can go home and I can get started on finding out what that something else is.”

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Robin Gianna

  Tempted by the Brooding Surgeon

  The Spanish Duke’s Holiday Proposal

  Baby Surprise for the Doctor Prince

  Reunited with His Runaway Bride

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby by Charlotte Hawkes.

  The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby

  by Charlotte Hawkes

  CHAPTER ONE

  WITH MOUNTING HORROR, Archie stared out of the open aeroplane doors and three thousand five hundred feet down to the ground below her. As the penultimate static line jumper prepared to take his step out of the back of the plane, terror pinned her to the hard deck of the aircraft.

  ‘You’re up next, Archie.’ Her instructor’s words were more seen than heard as he yelled over the roar of the engines and the rushing wind.

  ‘I can’t. I can’t do it,’ she muttered desperately, but the sound was whipped away, unheard. Thankfully.

  Throughout her entire life, those had been the only words her beloved air force father had ever flatly refused to hear... I can’t. She glanced down at her colourful ‘Make Cancer Jump’ skydiving suit and felt a hot prickle in her eyes.

  Guilt and regret; they had made terrible companions these last five years.

  Whatever had happened to the bold, fun-loving, spirited Archana Coates of old? Even of six years ago? Back then she and her father would have jumped out of that door without a second thought. Now here she was, glued to the deck, unable to even inch her way forward.

  She didn’t dare look over her shoulder. She was the last of her group of static line jumpers but there was still half a planeload of tandem skydivers all ready to ascend to their required altitude of ten thousand feet. They were just waiting for her to go.

  He was waiting for her to go.

  Kaspar Athari.

  She’d tried to ignore him from the moment she’d spotted him that morning across the vast chasm of the training hangar. Just as she’d ignored the way something had kicked in her chest, and if she hadn’t already known it had died the same day her father had—almost five years ago to the day—she might have been fooled into believing it was her heart.

  Kaspar. The boy who had burst into her family’s life when she’d been six and he’d been almost eight, and had turned things upside down in the best way possible. For the seven years he hadn’t just been her brother Robbie’s best friend. He’d also been like a second brother to her, spending every school holiday from their boarding schools—thanks to Kaspar’s money and her own father’s career in the air force—with her family.

  Or at least...mostly like a second brother. Even now, even here, she could feel the hot flush creep into her cheeks at the memory of childish crush she’d had on him that last year. She’d been thirteen and it had been the first year she’d been acutely aware that Kaspar wasn’t a brother at all.

  The same year his narcissist Hollywood royalty mother had finally tired of her latest husband and dragged herself and her son back to the States in the hope of kick-starting both their careers. But, though having once been one of the most heartbreaker child actors in Hollywood, thanks to a combination of his stunning blonde British mother and his striking, dark-haired Persian father, somewhere along the line Kaspar had turned his back on the industry.

  Now he was a top surgeon who risked his life in former war zones and on the battlefield. Saving civilians and soldiers alike. Winning awards and medals at every turn, none of which he appeared to care a jot about. With the press hanging on his every choice.

  ‘The Surgeon Prince of Persia’, the press had dubbed him, as much for his bone-melting good looks as for his surgical skill.

  And even though she’d devoured every last article, had known he split his time between the US and the UK, had seen the Christmas card and US Army antique he’d sent her avid collector father every year without fail, she’d never seen Kaspar again in person. Until now.

  Not that he’d even recognised her after all these years.

  ‘Archie. Are you ready?’

  Snapping her gaze back up to her instructor, who was still smiling encouragingly, she shook her head, half-incredulous that, even now, even here, Kaspar Athari had managed to consume her thoughts so easily. Especially when she hadn’t thought of him very much at all over the intervening years.

  Yeah, a voice inside her scoffed. Right.

  But right now wasn’t the time to go there. This skydive wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about anyone. Just herself. Just the fact that she’d spent the last five years, ever since her beloved father’s death, ricocheting from one disaster to another, and today that all stopped. It was time. She just needed to make that leap. Literally.

  Edging forward she somehow, miraculously, managed to summon the strength to push herself off her seat onto the metal floo
r, closer to the open hatch, and peer nervously down again.

  The wind ripped at her, as though it could pull in even more different directions.

  ‘I ca...’ She began to mutter the refusal again but this time something stopped her from completing it.

  It was time to regain her dignity. The life she’d somehow put on hold for the past five years since her father’s death. In fact, almost five years to the day since her fearlessness had seeped out of her like a punctured rubber dinghy in the middle of a wide, empty ocean.

  ‘I can do this,’ she told herself fiercely. Out loud. Safe in the knowledge that no one could hear her over the roar.

  She wanted to make the jump. She needed to make it. Five years of mistakes and disappointments had to end today. From her marriage, which had been doomed from the start, to the baby daughter she had lost at eighteen weeks. Even the baby that her ex-husband and his new wife would bring into the world barely a month or so. It was time to stop being a victim. To erase this weak, pathetic shadow of a person that she’d somehow become and rediscover the fierce, happy woman she’d once been.

  Sitting on the cold, metal floor, paralysed with fear, wasn’t part of the plan. And she hated herself for it. She reached out her arms and tried to shuffle across the floor on her bottom, but despite her best efforts her body refused to comply.

  ‘I have to do this,’ she choked out, desperately willing herself to move.

  She was letting people down. She was letting herself down. She felt exposed, vulnerable, worthless.

  Her head snapped around at the movement in her peripheral vision to see Kaspar edging his way through the plane. As if he knew exactly what was going on. As if the last fifteen years were falling away and they were once again the teenagers they’d been when she’d last seen him. As if he was still every inch the superhero he’d always been to her, even when she’d been nothing more than the annoying kid sister.