Wanting a Family Man (Raven’s Cove #3)

Epilogue

Five years later…

“T hey’re here! Biyen, look!” Storm’s high-pitched voice resounded from the top of the ramp as Trystan helped Cloe and their daughter from the water taxi.

They exchanged a laughing glance while they shouldered their backpacks. He picked up the baby carrier and followed Cloe, who had hold of Shanny’s hand, up the ramp.

Storm was nearly coming out of her flip-flops. At six, she was agile and curious and highly predisposed to exuberance. She hugged Cloe, then Shanny, who was three and thought Storm was the cat’s pajamas.

When the girls let go, Trystan set the baby carrier on the grass and snatched Storm up, making her wiggle and giggle as he smothered her face with kisses.

“Let me take your bag, Auntie Cloe.” Biyen was a lanky adolescent who set her bag in the back of the Gator before he said, “Are you riding with me, Shanny?”

She nodded with shy excitement.

“What about you, little guy?” Biyen crouched in front of the carrier to grin at Franklin. “You don’t have a clue what you’ve signed on for, choosing this family, do you?”

“Can he sleep in the tent with us?” Storm asked Trystan, still in his arms where she felt like she was all arms and legs, especially after cuddling his two-month-old son so much lately.

“He still nurses every couple of hours so…” Trystan turned a look on his wife. “Clo? You want to sleep in the tent with us?” Trystan asked her.

“I don’t know. Do the rest of you want to get any sleep?”

“Do you honestly think we will regardless?” Trystan asked as he dropped his own bag onto the cargo space on the Gator.

“Wait, Biyen,” Cloe said. “I’ll take Frankie. You can take the carrier, too. Shanny, you stay on your bum. No standing up.”

“I got her,” Biyen said with a wink that came straight from the Logan Fraser arsenal of charm.

While Biyen drove away toward the lane, Trystan and Cloe walked with Storm skipping between them, telling them about the school she would start in September.

Reid and Emma were settled in Calgary, where Reid’s consulting business was more successful than ever. Emma had become an early childhood educator while they’d been in Vancouver, but a real estate boom in Calgary had enticed her to get her license and she was really enjoying the return to her first career.

After bouncing around a little and taking time off to sail to a few exotic places, Sophie and Logan had settled in Nanaimo, where Sophie taught part-time in the same marine mechanic program she had graduated from. Logan had a staff of five supporting his design business and flew out to meet clients a few times a year. Biyen was about to start high school and their son, Artie, was starting pre-K.

Trystan and Cloe had also been rootless wanderers for the first two years of their marriage, first traveling the world to film Trystan’s very successful docuseries All Is Not Lost .

Shanny had been a surprise, but very much a happy one. Shortly before her birth, they found a house in Bella Coola, where they were very happy. Cloe still did some bookkeeping online and Trystan was helping a young Indigenous filmmaker with a commercial project that everyone seemed to think would be a sleeper hit.

As they passed the bottom of his old driveway, Trystan glanced up.

“Regrets?” Cloe asked him.

“None,” he said truthfully.

After much debate, he and his brothers had decided it was better to sell the house than try to keep it up for the next twenty years. What would Storm do with it? Move into it? They didn’t own the land so it was a building that would eat money for the rest of time.

Instead, they sold it to a local couple, dropped the profit into Storm’s education fund, then threw some money into Logan’s redesign for Sophie’s place. It was now a bed-and-breakfast that Quinley ran through the tourist season except for this two-week stretch when the Frasers converged and Quinley left to visit her sister.

As they walked down the driveway, they saw Shanny ahead of them, leaping from the parked Gator to hug Ray. He was quiet and curious, always a little more reserved than the rest of the pack. Reid and Emma had adopted him two years ago, after fostering him for a year. He was nine now, studious and preferring one-on-one interactions, but man, if you got a chuckle out of that kid, you felt like you’d won an Olympic medal.

Ray was starting to get used to the chaos that ensued when they all got together, which they did at least three or four times a year. Christmas was a big one that they took turns hosting. Then there was this two-week stint in the summer here in Raven’s Cove. Spring break was usually a destination somewhere warm, and last autumn, they’d all gone to New Zealand because it was the first time Emma had been home since leaving five years ago. They had all wanted to support her while she reacquainted with her family.

It was challenging, bringing this many people together so often, but they made it happen because they all agreed that family was their priority.

Biyen left their luggage on the stoop and came to gather Franklin from Cloe’s arms, well practiced in protecting an infant’s neck.

He took the baby just in time because Artie had realized they were here and came barreling at Cloe. Those two had a mutual crush going that was pretty magnificent, but he was a stocky four-year-old who damned near knocked Cloe over when she crouched to catch him.

“You guys are here!” Sophie came off the freshly painted veranda to hug them both. She wore cycling shorts and a T-shirt that draped loosely over her pregnant belly. “Perfect timing, Trys. Logan ordered a high-efficiency stove, so he and Reid are switching it out with the old one.”

“You’re not doing it?” Cloe teased.

“Oh, believe me, I offered. I was told to keep an eye on the children. Like I’m a mere woman. Do you have any idea where they are, by the way?” She glanced around.

“Why do we keep thinking it’s a good idea to renovate while we’re staying in the house?” Trystan asked.

“You say that like you care if you eat a hot meal. Emma has everything organized for a barbecue, anyway.” Sophie waved a hand. “It’ll be like camping except the adults get to sleep in real beds.”

“Not me and Logan. We have to sleep in the tents with the kids.”

“That’s what I said. The adults get the beds. Does he still have pregnancy brain or something?” Sophie asked Cloe, but she was still scanning the area. “Seriously, where is my baby?” She pointed accusingly at their empty carrier.

“Your first baby has him.” Cloe nodded at where Biyen had wandered toward the garden and was pointing at things, talking to Frankie.

“Oh, look at him. He loves babies,” Sophie said wistfully. “I just know he’s going to knock up some poor girl before either of them finishes high school.” Sophie’s tone was equal parts resignation and yearning.

“I like babies,” Storm said.

“I know you do, honeybunch,” Sophie said to her.

“I’m starting to think we all do,” Cloe said wryly.

“Bit of an addiction,” Sophie agreed. “We might need an intervention.”

“I’m going to ask if we can have another one,” Storm said, running into the house. “Mooom. Dad?”

“Because they’re like Popsicles in the freezer,” Sophie said.

“Good for sharing?” Biyen asked as he brought Franklin to Cloe. “I think he’s hungry. He tried to eat my face.”

“I’m hungry,” Artie said. “I want a Popsicle.”

“All right, champ.” Trystan picked up the sturdy little guy. “Let’s all have a Popsicle.”

He held the door for the women to walk in ahead of him and dropped a kiss on his wife as she went by, thinking, It’s good to be home .

The End

Need more Raven’s Cove? If you haven’t read the bonus epilogue to Marrying the Nanny , you can get it here:

danicollins.com/marrying-the-nanny-epilogue