“Hey,” Lanie said softly. “I’m the queen of messing up a good thing, but mistakes happen and they can be forgiven. Cora told me that and she was right.”

River looked at her pensively and slowly nodded.

Lanie pulled them up to the winery and helped River out of the car, turning back for the baby carrier. “I’ve got her,” she told River. “You’re not to lift anything more than a tissue for a week, remember?”

River bent over Delaney and kissed her little nose. “You’re in good hands with Aunt Lanie, baby.”

Aunt Lanie.

There were worse things . . . She found herself smiling with pride as they headed inside to find most of the family in the front reception room, where there were streamers and balloons and a huge banner that read WELCOME HOME, RIVER!

Cora, Mark, and the twins were there. No one else.

“I told everyone else to stay at work,” Cora said. “I figured you needed a quiet homecoming.” She walked up to River and hugged her tight. “Welcome home, honey.”

River burrowed in and wrapped her arms around Cora. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Lanie heard a sniffle and didn’t know if it came from River or Cora, but she suspected both.

Mark took the baby carrier from Lanie and set baby Delaney on a tabletop. Then he reached for Lanie’s hand. “Hey. You good?”

Lanie squeezed his hand and nodded.

“Lanie, Lanie, Lanie!” Sam yelled in greeting.

Lanie sank to one of the chairs so that Sierra could crawl into her lap. Lanie wrapped her arms around the girl and leaned over Mark to his other side where Samantha was sipping on red punch, complete with a red mustache. Lanie puckered up for a kiss and got a raspberry-flavored one. “Hi,” she whispered to the three most important people in her world.

“Hi!” the twins said in unison, with matching grins.

Lanie’s heart skipped a beat. She loved hearing Sierra talk.

Mark was only slightly more restrained than his girls. He wrapped an arm around her and gave her a slow, not-raspberry-flavored kiss that would have had her knees buckling if she hadn’t been sitting down. “Love you,” he said easily and then playfully tugged a wayward strand of hair.

“Love you back,” she said with equally shocking ease.

His smile said he could see her surprise and was amused by it.

“Our dance recital’s in two weeks,” Samantha said excitedly. “You’ll come?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lanie said.

“Good, ’cuz on the calendar in the office it says you’ll be gone. You won’t be gone?”

Lanie needed to change the calendar pronto. “I won’t be.”

“You’ll be here?” Samantha asked, apparently needing a two-step verification.

“There’s no place I’d rather be.”

“That’s good, ’cuz Daddy’s life doesn’t work without you in it.” Sierra smiled at her daddy. “Right, Daddy? That’s what you said to Grandma this morning when she asked.”

Mark, not looking embarrassed in the slightest, nodded as emphatically as Samantha had. “One hundred percent right, baby.”

Lanie leaned in past the girls’ faces. “Close your eyes,” she told them both. “I’m going to kiss your daddy real quick.” She did and then whispered against Mark’s mouth, “My life doesn’t work without you in it either.”

“I know.” He smiled that just-for-her smile, the one that never failed to warm her from the inside out. “But it’s nice to hear,” he said. “So . . . how do you feel about forever?”

Samantha bounced up and down in glee. “I love forever!”

Sierra nodded vigorously. She was back to talking, but clearly only when she felt it necessary.

Lanie stared at the three of them, her heart full to bursting. “I love forever too.”

“Then welcome home.”

Epilogue

One year later

It was lunchtime at the winery with all the usual pomp and circumstance. Lanie had Sam on one side and Sierra on the other, both of them digging into their cupcake dessert. Across from her sat River with Delaney in her lap, surrounded by Mia and Alyssa and the rest of the gang.

So much had changed in a year. For instance, it was Sierra who recounted the story of Great-Uncle Jack farting in the employee room and then yelling “Who stepped on a frog?”

Another change, Mia was texting someone who was making her smile softly. She was dating a woman who owned a horse ranch not too far from here, and while everyone was surprised at this change, no one had blinked an eye.

“You’re doing it again,” Lanie said.

Mia looked up, her eyes alight. “Grinning stupidly?”

“Well, maybe not stupidly . . .”

Mia shook her head and laughed. “I know. It’s crazy, right? Me being ridiculously happy?”

“It’s beautiful,” Alyssa chimed in with. “We’re all happy for you.”

Someone came through the gate and River’s head came up and froze in shock.

Lanie twisted around and saw it was Holden. Shorter hair, his body more leanly muscled than it’d been, but there was no mistaking the man who stepped onto the patio. He wore dark sunglasses, his face carefully blank, but Lanie knew his gaze went straight to River.

Cora, who’d been standing at the head of the table pouring wine, was the closest to him. She stepped in front of him, cupped his face, and said something softly, for his ears only. He nodded and she pulled him in for a warm hug.

Holden dropped his duffle bag and returned the hug. Then he pulled away and turned to River.

She’d dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter at the first sight of him and stood up. She had a napping Delaney strapped to her chest as she just stared at the man in front of her.

He took a step and then hesitated, clearly unsure of his welcome.

But River didn’t look unsure at all as she closed the distance between them and reached for him. She slid her hands up his chest and into his hair and pulled his head down for a kiss.

“That’ll make things pretty clear to him,” Mia said. “And if not, her tongue down his throat should do it.”

“It’s so romantic,” Alyssa said. “I talked to him last week and he didn’t mention he was coming home. I’m guessing by the tears streaming down River’s face that she didn’t know either.”

“They’ve talked on the phone and via e-mail a lot this past year,” Lanie said. “She knew he would be coming soon, but he kept it a surprise.” Lanie watched, a little choked up as Holden and River stopped kissing long enough to laugh and talk at the same time, soft words no one could catch.

“Damn,” Mia said. “The least they could do is speak up and let us in on it.”

River took Holden’s big hands in hers and set them on Delaney, clearly introducing them.

Holden lowered his head and brushed a kiss over Delaney’s cheek. Then he met River’s gaze again, his own serious until River smiled through shimmery eyes.

And then he pulled her in as close as he could with Delaney between them, pressing his jaw to the top of River’s head, closing his eyes, his arms tight around her like she was the most precious cargo he’d ever held.