Sean

Our family was gathered around the bed. Everyone was oohing and aahing over Nash. Margie and her husband Chuck volunteered to stay with the kids at our house. That way, everyone else could be here. Big badass Undertaker, aka Mark, kept hogging Nash. This behavior earned him threats from all sides. Gabe and Griff told him they’d slit his throat in his sleep if he didn’t give the rest of them their turns. Sloan said they’d have to stand in line to do it because she was about to cut him herself.

He grumbled and bitched, and as each one held Nash, he’d try to hurry them along so it was his turn again. Cassidy was glowing and laughing, watching all their crazy antics. It was incredible to think that I almost never got this. I was so thankful that Cassidy forced the issue nearly five years ago. One of my remaining regrets was the fact I’d held onto my stupid ideas of not being worthy of her or that living with her as her man would lose me the family I gained in the SEALs. Someone should’ve beat sense into me.

We’d hit some bumps along the way. A big one was when she found out Mark was still alive and that Griff, Gabe, and I had known for four of the five years he was gone. I’d been worried it was too much to ask her to forgive. She hadn’t been happy, and I prayed a lot that she’d forgive me. I knew we’d have to confess we knew about it one day, but with Mark being out of the picture for so long, I didn’t dwell on it.

Reintegrating him back into our lives and Dark Patriots had been another significant adjustment. The Mark we knew wasn’t the one who returned to us. He’d become Undertaker for too long in order to survive, for it not to leave lasting changes in his personality. They weren’t changes we couldn’t live with. We just had to get used to them. He was a more complicated man than he had been. His time as a biker had made him even more protective of others, especially his family. I was damn happy that not only had he returned to us, but he found Sloan and had started his own family. He deserved it.

When Gabe went undercover to take down the remains of a Mafia family, we had no idea he’d end up meeting someone and bringing her into the fold. Gemma was softer than Sloan but no less strong. She hadn’t known him from Adam. In fact, Gemma believed Gabe was a bad guy, yet when she learned the truth, she never doubted him, and she insisted on staying and helping him rather than escaping to safety. She was perfect for him.

Griffin had always been the one I pictured as settling down and having a family. Everyone saw him as the peacemaker, but there was a hidden side to him. He didn’t know what hit him when he ended up in the middle of Hadley’s situation. It had been barely six months since he met her and her dad. I didn’t know what else life had in store for us, but I knew it would likely never be dull.

“He’s a handsome devil. Takes after his Uncle Mark,” her brother said as he smiled at my son. He’d gotten his hands on him again.

“He is handsome, but it has nothing to do with you. He got all that from his dad,” I informed him.

“Like hell he did. Those are pure O’Rourke genes there. They overpower your puny Walterson ones.”

“Oh God, here we go. He said the same thing after he saw Noah for the first time. He loves to pick a fight with my husband,” Cassidy moaned.

“It’s not fighting. I merely like to state the truth,” Mark protested.

“You don’t think that chin and his face don’t look just like Noah did?” Cassidy asked.

“They do,” he admitted.

“Since Noah is the image of Sean, case closed,” she swiftly added with a grin.

Mark scowled. “You need glasses, sis. Noah looks like me, and therefore, Nash does. This guy might show up in their toes,” he insisted.

As I mock argued with one of my best friends and watched my family makeover our latest addition, my mind flashed back to that trip to Florida and how Cassidy and I ended our time there before I brought Cassidy back home to Virginia. None of us had seen that coming.