Page 144 of The Last Call Home
“It looked like abstract trauma,” she mutters, but her mouth twitches as though she’s trying not to laugh.
I round the counter and come up behind her, hands resting lightly on her hips.She’s warm and soft and always in motion, even when she claims she’s resting.I press a kiss to the back of her neck.
“This is sexual harassment,” she murmurs.
Cass glances over, one brow raised.“File a complaint.”
She laughs—soft and exhausted, the kind of laugh that suggests she doesn’t really want help, but she’s glad we’re here.
And me?
God, I could cry.
Because there were nights when we didn’t know if we’d survive this town.And I felt like a man broken into pieces and mailed to a town that didn’t want him.
But now?
Now Cass tucks sandwiches into a paper bag with a note that says, “Baby needs food.Love, C.”Because we know she’s probably going to forget to eat on time—unless she has something to eat.
Delilah leans back into my chest, her fingers laced with mine, and murmurs, “You two are going to be absolute disasters when I go into labor.”
Now Hopper texts us pictures of the greenhouse they just finished and Nysa drops off eggs with hand-drawn smiley faces on them.
It’s strange that now we’re trying to figure out how to raise a baby that’s coming in two months without losing our minds.
We’re home.
Now I get why when CQS called, I had to come.That was my last call home—and here I am.
Delilah’s Epilogue
“She’s so small.”
I keep saying it, like it’s not already written on every inch of this room—as if Malerick doesn’t have silent tears slipping down the side of his face and into my hair, or like Cassian isn’t sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on my knee.The other cradling the back of her impossibly perfect head like he’s afraid the world might knock too loud and wake her.
I didn’t know my heart could hold this much.
Not after everything.Not after fire and ash and too many nights where all I wanted was silence and maybe just one more minute to feel like myself again.I didn’t know love could fit in so many shapes—that it could look like one man holding my hand during the contractions and another whispering nonsense at my side just to distract me, both of them crying before I did when she took her first breath.
Amaris.
She’s only been here an hour and already it feels like she’s always been ours—this quiet, blinking little soul pressed to my chest like she knows the rhythm of my heart because she’s been listening to it all along.She hasn’t cried in a while.She’s warm.Breathing.I trace one tiny finger from her curled fist to the softest skin I’ve ever touched and I can’t stop crying because how is she real?
And somehow in the middle of it—this hospital bed too small for three adults and a new life, the IV still taped to my arm, Malerick kissing the crown of her head while Cassian hums under his breath like the room is a lullaby—everything falls into place.
Later today, everyone will be here: Mal’s brothers, my sisters-in-law, and the little ones.Mom and Dad, who I’ve finally been able to let in after almost two years, well, we’re still a work in progress.He’s a good guy who was born into the wrong family.Everything he did was to protect us, and he reminds me of Mal, who did so much to protect his brothers.
Mal gently brushes his fingers down Amaris’s tiny back and kisses the top of her head like he can’t help himself, like she’s a miracle he’s still afraid will disappear.
“Thank you,” he whispers, voice thick.“For giving us this precious little girl.”
Cass doesn’t speak right away.He nods once, jaw tight, chest rising like he’s holding back something too big for words.Then he looks down at her—his daughter—and everything softens.Slowly, his gaze lifts to mine.
“She’s everything,” he says hoarsely.“And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving I was meant to be her dad.You gave us her ...and somehow, you’re all mine.”
It’s almost as if he finally understands what it means to have something to lose—and to love anyway.
A home.A family.A life that is neither borrowed nor temporary, nor tied to a mission brief.
